Students create ‘greeter’ at Cornell Plantations

Eight students in the Art of Horticulture (HORT 2010) fashioned a 7-foot-tall ‘greeter’ outside the Nevin Welcome Center at Cornell Plantations. They wove and lashed the sculpture out of grapevines and contorted willow and dogwood branches.

“The students were inspired by the location and the challenge of making a human form,” says Bryan Emmett, MS/PhD student in the Department of Horticulture and the teaching assistant for the course. “They were truly collaborative, with the form developing as they progressed. The contorted willow — which forms the skirt — really spoke to them, and provided a foundation from which they crafted the form.”

“You have to see it to appreciate it,” says Marcia Eames-Sheavly, senior lecturer in the Department of Horticulture and the course’s instructor. “It’s towering. And when you’re not looking at it straight on, it seems to be dancing and bowing to greet the visitors.”

Materials were collected from the winter garden at Cornell Plantations and from the Cornell Grounds Department. “Special thanks go to Mary Hirshfeld, Irene Lekstutis, and Teddy Bucien at Cornell Plantations and Kevin McGraw at Cornell Grounds for providing the commission and facilitating our collection of materials,” says Emmett.

View more images of the classes activities on the Art of Horticulture’s Picasa site.