Question 1,

In "Personal Dreams and Pagan Rituals", Robert L. Thayer, Jr. draws parallels between camping and the garden. Is this comparison apt? How is a garden like and unlike a campsite?

I do believe that this comparison is apt. I was able to envision what he was talking about very easily when I was reading his piece even though I've never personally looked at or built a garden to resemble a campsite. I have done a lot of camping and for people who find peace in an outdoor activity like that it would make sense to try to replicate that in a garden setting and have access to it anytime you like. It seemed to me that the most essential part of the camping experience to Thayer was the fire gazing and he was easily able to translate his feelings for camping to his personal garden space. His garden was about feeling and you could probably make a garden anything you want or compare it to anything you want, its how you feel and what inspires you that matters most. I think generally a garden is like a campsite in the fact that they are natural spaces that people seek out to enjoy nature, talk and visit with friends, maybe the opposite of that and find solitude and there is a strong connection to the earth. Thayer even says at the end of his piece that "Perhaps a garden is best considered as a precise point of connection between a human and the earth-a psychic umbilical to the earths spirit. I know mine is just that for me."


Question 2:

Mario Frascari's "technographies", quoted in James Corners "Eidetic Operations", separates images of the landscape into artifact, instrumental image, and symbolic image. D.W. Meinig makes further distinctions- a total of ten. Are these two frameworks at odds, or do they inform and support one another?

I think both authors were seeking to break down the idea of landscape into neater and easier ideas to help to understand why there is no clarity of definition about the landscape. It seems the approach of compartmentalizing into categories is a way to find clarity about the subject and understanding about why we do things a certain way in the profession (i.e. the act of representation as in Corners piece) or how we approach the profession emotionally (problem, historically etc..) in our own minds. Both pieces touch on the personal approach to landscape and how each individuals impressions and own ideas may skew or alter the reality of the landscape. I'm not sure I've completely digested everything that the James Corner piece has to offer so I am just throwing ideas out there of my interpretation of what I read. I do think the two pieces inform each other. Corner is talking about the "eidetic images" and that they "contain a broad range of ideas that lie at the core of human creativity. Consequently how one "images" the world literally conditions how reality is both conceptualized and shaped." Both authors are at times saying similar things and that is hard to separate the person and the personal interpretation of the landscape from what the actual reality is and that we may never know because every human will not be free from imparting their own past, present and future ideas and experiences on a space.