After a stroke in 2006 left him partially paralyzed, with limited vocabulary, Peter Wooster of Roxbury, Connecticut, the renown gardener and architect of homes for such high-profile clients as James Taylor and Stephen Sondheim, continues to pursue creative self-expression through vivid visual imagery. True, Wooster can no longer draw or write up or describe out loud what he has in mind. But images—photographs, in particular—speak to Wooster as they always have, and through them he continues to express himself as emphatically as ever in the role of collage artist. With pictures as the words he cuts and pastes into boldly punctuated metaphorical paragraphs, and several well-received gallery shows already to his credit, a new limited-edition book, Collage, is set to debut Sunday at a reception at Pergola Home in New Preston. “Peter was always known for his pithy plantings in the garden,” says Tovah Martin, the acclaimed garden author and fellow longtime Litchfield County resident. “Basically, he led the trendsetting movement toward marrying highbrow architectural kitsch with zany horticulture. Now, he takes that sharp wit into another art form, teaching us to see anew.”
Despite the success of gallery shows of his collages, Wooster wanted to get his work out to a wider audience than those who might pay $2000 for a framed original. With the help of friends – including Lindsay Law and Jane-Howard Hammerstein – and the support of his community, Wooster will see that desire come true this weekend from 2-5 p.m. at Pergola Home, which since 2005 has been a favorite spot for shoppers seeking distinctive garden artifacts, topiaries, weathered antiques and pots, and other goodies for home and garden. The Wooster works are not botanical or architectural, but “a real compendium of American culture of the last 80 years; almost like looking at history,” says Peter Stiglin of Pergola Home. Wooster didn't start as a gardener, explains Andrew Beckman, who worked as his gardener for years before serving as garden editor at Martha Stewart Living, and is now editorial director at garden-book publisher Timber Press. “He is an interior designer who brought the principles of design to the garden,” says Beckman. “He has always said that he doesn't know anything about horticulture but that is not true. He is a quick study and has taught himself all facets of it. Years ago Peter described his garden as a botanical zoo, and that is true in that it is a curated collection of plants, but it doesn't reflect the careful arrangement and combinations.”
Wooster with Ramona Bajema and Maria Nation
It’s that “careful arrangement and combination” thing—the one from his home designs, and from his precise and yet quirky garden—that make the collages pure Wooster, too, despite the shift in media and subject matter. "Peter hasn’t missed a beat," says Wooster's friend, screenwriter Maria Nation, who gardens at Good Dogs Farm in Berkshire County. "In his garden and now in his collages his use of colors and forms are, at first glance, familiar and easy to look at. It is only when you hang out with them for awhile that you realize his juxtapositions have broken the rules, and the result touches you on a level that is emotional rather than rational. Whether his canvas is dirt or paper his work is haunting, compelling, and uniquely Wooster." All proceeds from the sale of the very limited edition of Wooster’s lavishly printed, coffee-table-sized linen-and-vellum volumes, each $95, will go directly to their author, the gardener/architect-turned-collage artist. And starting at 2 p.m. on Sunday, with the one still-cooperative hand that he made the collages with, Wooster will be signing each of the 100 available books with a handwritten “PW,” the perfect finishing touch. A second such event, at a New York City gallery, is planned for September.
“When most artists work, they are creating art,” says Stiglin, co-owner with David Whitman of Pergola Home and a close friend to Wooster for 25 years. “But Peter Wooster is creating communication.” — Margaret Roach
Peter Wooster Book Signing & ReceptionSunday, August 26, 2 - 5 p.m. 7 East Shore Road, New Preston, CT 860.868.4769
