By Shahna Lax.
Come, be inspired, experience and celebrate what can be grown in the unique environments of Crestone and the Baca. Artists join the gardeners to enhance the beauty of the growing season, on August 11.
Ginny Ducale will be joining us this year at the community garden at the Little Shepherd in the Hills Episcopal Chapel in downtown Crestone.
This garden is not only a food forest, but an experimental space for such medicinal herbs as ashwagandha, baikal skullcap and clary sage, among many others. During the tour Ginny will be in the community center across from the garden, where you can pick up a map of the garden layout.
Ginny will also have herbal remedies available for purchase.
Josefina Gordh, who lives in the Grants, is a new addition to the tour. Josefina has a small garden oasis with fruit trees, vegetables, flowers and a small pond attracting birds and dragonflies.
She will be exhibiting her own artwork in her adjacent studio where you will find luminous hand-printed silks for wearable art, home decor and wallhangings, inspired by the essence of nature. www.josefinagordh.com.
Paul Kemnitzer has an expansive outdoor garden space in the Grants with an orchard, greenhouse and a kind of outdoor amphitheater where last year there were many artists, live music, great food and a belly dancer. Paul is also a photographer and will be displaying his fine art hand-colored photographs. www.pabloteebs.com.
Shahna Lax is in Chalet 1. Her garden focuses on perennial vegetables, fruit bushes and trees, medicinal and culinary herbs and her own root roses. Shahna works in copper, creating etched and engraved illuminations, many of which have intricate Islamic cutwork. Her work will be hung throughout her garden and on an extraordinary garden gate. www.studiomoresca.art.
Directions to each participating garden will be available a week prior to the tour by emailing moresca.copper@gmail.com.
Printed directions will be available for pickup on Saturday, Aug. 10 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Crestone Consignment across from Our Food is Art in downtown Crestone, and on the day of the tour from Shahna at 725 Rendezvous Way in the Baca.