Over two years ago, I enjoyed the full SBG by walking to every major point of interests without repeating my track, when Lily was on a business trip. Early in May, we decided to enjoy the full garden again, together, with a twist - to locate every sculptures in the Garden.
The Garden published the list of sculptures on its website, and suggested 2 trails to go to visit each of them. This made it easier for sculpture hunt. We completed the two trails in one 5 miles (8km) hike in 3 hours.
 |
| Sculpture trail at SBG |
We started from the famous iron Tanglin Gate,.
We are very familiar with the area - but had a hard time to locate the first Sculpture on the list - The Book Reader. In the search process we saw the usual wood sculptures but the not the Book Reader. We almost gave up before walking deeper into the Botany Center first floor hallway, the book reader is at a corner by the lift, on a stone bench, leaning to a column.
 |
| wood sculpture of an owl |
 |
| The Book Reader |
The next several sculptures, Swing me Mama, Flight of Swans, Gees, Chang Kuda, Joy, Sundial, Swiss Granite Fountain, Nurturing, Lady on a Hammock, Girl on a bicycle, Girl on a sing, are along the main paved trails, I remember exactly where they are, but did not know their exact names.
We noticed most of the sculptures the first time we walked around the area. Lady on a Hammock is an exception. We passed by it, which is in the shade of a couple of trees, and separated from the road by plants, many times, and did not see. We were surprised to "discover" it one day.
 |
| swing me mama |
 |
| Joy |
 |
| Lady on a hammock |
There are a couple of wire formed sculptures near the Sundial Garden - The passing of knowledge and Love in the Air. It is interesting to note that the latter is not on the SBG sculpture trail map, but on the SBG website sculpture list. In the Sundial garden, the sundial is listed as a sculpture, but the not the 4 white sculptures at the 4 corners of the garden - the sculptures are based on the same model. Not sure how the sculptures are counted on the list.
 |
| Passing of Knowledge |
l |
| Love in the Air - on SBG Sculpture list |
 |
| The sundial |
 |
| A white sculpture at 4 corners of the Sundial Garden 1 |
 |
A white sculpture at 4 corners of the Sundial Garden 2
|
 |
A white sculpture at 4 corners of the Sundial Garden 3
|
 |
A white sculpture at 4 corners of the Sundial Garden 4
|
The next group of sculptures are around Ginger garden/Orchid Garden/rainforest, which include Rainforest Mural, Clock towers, fifty wings, Chopin, Conversation from Nature, and A little Girl Swing on a tree at Ginger garden - which is not on the trail map, we saw before but did not take picture this time. I took a picture of it later, and added it to the post. We see all them regularly, but are more interested in some but not others - We actually read the signage for the conversation from nature, but never checked the other sculptures signages until this time.
 |
| The rainforest mural |
 |
| Fifty Wings |
 |
| conversation from nature |
 |
| A little Girl Swing on a tree at Ginger garden |
Next stop after the ginger garden and etc. is Nassim Gate which is the end of SBG trail1, and end of trail 2 as well. We basically walked trail 2 in reverse direction. There are two sculptures Gaboon Viper, Bull frog on the trail map, and the sculpture list. We saw them before, never realized those are sculptures - and had a hard time to locate them - we looked at wrong places! They are in the bushes and lay low on the ground.
Nature has its own art pieces as usual. On the way to evolution garden, a white fallen flower elegantly rested on the gate to the corner house. The sculptures at evolution garden are decorative, immersive to the environment and we did not regard them as sculptures - stone trees and Lepidodendron.
 |
| Nature made |
 |
| Stone Trees |
 |
| Lepidodendron |
The next cluster of Sculptures is located at the Seed Bank Garden - we checked them out before, and one more time this time for completeness. But we did not see the Tandok-Tandok Seeds in the seed bank garden. After some detective work, we figured that it was not in the seed bank garden, but at seed bank building's front entrance!
 |
| Tandok-Tandok Seeds |
The last batch of Sculptures is located in the Echo lake area - Ethnobotany Garden, and Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden.
In Ethnobotany Garden, the sculptures are mostly stone murals, and a few standalone sculptures in the trees, they might be decorative but not really artistic. We saw that one sculpture, the wooden spear in the hands fell off - due to aging and likely inadequate design.
 |
| stone mural |
 |
| hunter gatherer 1 |
 |
| Hunter Gatherer 2 - damaged due to age - spear on its hands were broken |
The last two pieces of sculptures are Native Wildlife and Mystree just outside the Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, which marks the start of sculpture trail 2, and the end of our Sculpture trail.
 |
| Native Wildlife |
 |
| Mystree |
We have been to the garden over 1500 times, almost daily visit there in the last 5 years, it is our backyard garden, we appreciate the flora, and enjoy the fauna, especially birds.
This hike was different, it was a unique, very interesting, informative and fun hiking for us.
Notes
1.We did not see every sculptures on the list due to mismatch between the trail map and the Sculpture list, we saw many more sculptures that are not on the list as well.
2. Sculptures at Gallop extension
 |
| "Contract" is a piece by British sculptor Antony Gormley |
 |
| seeds |
No comments:
Post a Comment