Lupines in spring in New Brunswick

Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson just turned 75 and I had the privilege to attend his 50 year career retrospective in Oakville last Saturday night. He is the person who first taught me about visual design and seeing.

Patterson is world renowned as a photographer and workshop leader. He teaches near his beautiful home at Shamper’s Bluff, New Brunswick, where he has a huge garden on his 25 acre property. New Brunswick is known for its wild lupine blooms every spring. I attended his workshops, co-taught with Andre Gallant in New Brunswick, in October of 2001 and then to see the lupines blooming in June of 2005. Freeman also teaches in his spiritual home of Namaqualand, South Africa, where wild flowers also cover the barren landscape every spring.

Patterson photographs more than flowers, but they are his love.

At the event, they played this 20 minute video, an episode of Recreating Eden (how gardens change our lives), about Freeman Patterson. It is a fascinating story and tells a lot about the man and what gardening means to him, physically and metaphorically. The emcee for the evening quoted the poem, What If by Samuel Coleridge, saying that it personified Freeman Patterson. I heartily agree.

“What if you slept 
And what if 
In your sleep 
You dreamed 
And what if 
In your dream 
You went to heaven 
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower 
And what if 
When you awoke 
You had that flower in your hand 
Ah, what then?”

Happy Birthday, Freeman. 

Link to  Freeman Patterson Books (paid link)