Land Art: Creating Artworks in and with the Landscape

Landscape artist Brunt debuts with an arresting manual on making art from natural materials, showcasing his own work alongside advice on how readers can create their own. Expounding on his process, he explains that he designs his outdoor compositions around the elements (including leaves, roots, sticks, and stones) he finds in the landscapes where he makes his art. “Work with the weather,” he counsels, encouraging readers to incorporate the effects of wind, rain, and erosion in their work. Though Brunt includes a handful of projects for readers to take on, his open-ended instructions are better suited for sparking the imagination than step-by-step guidance. For example, he discusses incorporating spirals into his compositions, but his directions for how readers might go about making their own contain only such nebulous recommendations as “enjoy your walk and surroundings.” Other projects are similarly vague (making patterns out of leaves or pebbles; using natural boundaries, such as the roots of a tree, to frame one’s “canvas”), but the exhilarating images of Brunt’s pieces are the real treat, featuring simple yet elegant designs of pebbles arrayed in concentric circles next to a creek and a cluster of trees surrounded by curving lines of sticks that make it look as if the dirt were rippling outward. Readers will be inspired to follow their muse to the great outdoors. (June)