YORK, Maine — When Carly Glovinski showed up for a stint at the nonprofit artists residency Surf Point in 2021, she saw the foundation of an old house on the grounds. “This whole area was just a blank slab,” Glovinski said, “but it was a slab with feeling.”
Writer May Sarton (1912-95) lived alone in that house for 22 years. Her 1977 book “The House by the Sea” is her journal about writing, gardening, and entertaining artist friends there. The house, called Wild Knoll, had been torn down in 2020.
“On day two of the residency I’m calling the director, saying, ‘I have an idea. What if we put the house back as a garden?’” Glovinski said. “To make this a place again a sanctuary for artists, for creatives, for the residents.”
Never before much of a green thumb, the artist made an art project of planting a garden on the house’s footprint. She still tends it, calling the plants her “living work.” Wild Knoll has been a springboard for ambitious new artworks, including a giant flower mural, “Almanac,” now at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
In July, Glovinski installed “Opelske,” a three-story glass mosaic commissioned by the developer Pembroke at Seaport West office building in Boston. Images of daffodils, pansies, dahlias, and more cascade down a stairway dotted with large planters.
“Opelske” is Glovinski’s first piece blending art with live greenery. “The two are so intertwined to me at this point,” she said. “The artist and the gardener.”
Where to find her: www.carlyglovinski.com
Age: 44
Originally from: Berwick, Maine
Lives in: South Berwick, Maine.
Making a living: She works full-time as a tech marketer.
Studio: Glovinski has a studio in a South Berwick mill building, maintained “in a chaotic mess that only I understand,” she said.
How she started: “I didn’t come from a family of artists. My dad was a union telephone company guy, and my mom was a social worker,” Glovinski said. “But they built their world. They built their house. I come from that background of resourcefulness and making and craft.”
What she makes: For Wild Knoll, “I didn’t want to use any chemicals. I didn’t want a fence,” she said. “I had to find plants that were drought resistant, deer resistant. bulletproof.” Among the dozens of blooms: Butterfly weed,Heliopsis, and a Mango Tango Hyssop frothier than cotton candy.
And always, there’s the artist’s eye. Sarton’s floor plan now boasts a different color theme in each room. “It’s such a painterly process,” Glovinski said. “All these different ways of making marks. All of these different ways of putting down color. All the textures.”
What May Sarton would think: “On any given day she could probably find some fault with the flowers themselves,” the artist said. “But overall, the idea of making a house of flowers, I think she would love.”
Advice for artists: “Just keep falling forward. There’s a point where if you keep doing, you can trust the doing. If you keep making, you can trust the making. It will start to lead you.”
Wild Knoll is open by appointment. For more information, email info@surfpoint.me
