We have just returned from five days in the Low Country on the coast of South Carolina between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown. We spent much of three days at the magnificent Brookgreen Gardens, several hundred acres of trees, flowers, and sculptures laid out within an expanse of over 9,000 acres of sprawling forest and marsh. Live oaks dating back some three hundred years form avenues of overhanging limbs draped in Spanish moss and resurrection ferns. Beds of
carefully maintained flowers and shrubs form oases of contemplation within the winding paths of metal and stone sculptures that draw you into an itinerary of lavish beauty. Drawn from a collection of some 2700 pieces, they are almost all figurative pieces—the lithe naked beauty of women and men, sometimes linked with horses, birds, dogs, and otters. Some are massive presentations in ornamented ponds, others are tucked beside small pools or under shady flowering trees in quiet garden nooks.
Some are for children, enticing them to play and laugh. Others lure adults to meditate amid the testimonies of poetry inscribed on walls around them. Gracious guides are glad to unroll the story behind this welcoming place. They tell of how this land was bought in 1931 by the fabulously wealthy philanthropist and scholar Archer Huntington and his wife, Anna Hyatt Huntington, daughter of Bostonian intellectuals who had become a noted sculptor in her own right. A diagnosis of tuberculosis required that
Anna find a warmer clime than New England to nurse her back to health. Creation of a winter home in this lush edge of ocean enabled her to create not only studios for herself but gradually a place for other sculptors to gain skill and then a garden for display. As a result of her legacy, the Garden is committed to display an equal number of pieces by women as well as men. Many of them are her own creation, some of them magnificent oversize treatments of bucking and fighting horses. She continued developing her work and the garden until her death in 1973 at the age of 97.
As you walk around the expanse on a slight rise between the ocean’s edge and the inland marsh, you come across a bright figure of a woman striding with a long hoe. She is noticeably African, wearing farm clothing of an earlier time. And so the guide begins to unravel the story of this place, of what the soil would speak beneath the beauty now spread upon its sandy face. When Europeans wrested control of this land from the people who had fished and hunted in it for over ten thousand years, they brought enslaved Africans to grow indigo for the lucrative dye trade with England.
The indigo trade flourished throughout the second half of the 18th century, until the colonies’ break with England cut it off. However, people from the west coast of Africa had farmed rice in tidal lands for centuries. The enslaved Africans brought this valuable knowledge to these shores. With their knowledge and skills, the planters turned to rice. The clearing out of ancient cedar trees took years of backbreaking work with a high mortality rate. Canals and sluice gates had to be built so the Africans could regulate the flow of salt and fresh water to irrigate the crop according to their ancient ways. Every aspect of this forced labor was punishing, in spite of the slight leverage the enslaved workers had because of their knowledge of rice cultivation. The rice-based economy flourished for some sixty years before slavery’s end made it uneconomical. Their cabins and workplaces rotted back into the luxuriant undergrowth. The plantations became hunting grounds for northern tourists until the hunt clubs failed in the Great Depression and were bought by the Huntingtons.
So there are layers of history sedimented underneath these brilliant flowers and sculpted beauty. Beneath the cries of surprised delight are the screams of anguished mothers and fathers, crippled under slavery’s bonds. Beneath the calls of many birds lie the crack of the lash and the moan of the maimed. Underneath the wisdom of these ancient oaks lies the unrelenting hope for resurrection. And that is what the gardens became for me as I wandered their paths and looked upon the works of hand and eye. The beauty comes to redeem the land, create a resurrection of joy before a god of mercy. I hope more sculptures can be raised here that draw this painful history to our eyes and hearts, building paths of restoration both of memory and of promise, drawing out of human evil the garden of our beginning and our final end. As the Celtic sages say, this is a thin place where you can catch a glimpse of such a reconciliation.
Thank you for sharing this place with such luminous words and pictures….What a lovely break for peace
Yes, you can truly feel the spirit in many forms there. We were there in July and it was super hot at times, but the beach breeze is nearby. Also an enchanting place at night when we saw an exhibition of light art across the fields. Thanks for sharing your journey!
Exquisite. Thank you!
Thanks for this delightful treat, Bill! I feel like I’ve been there! Sammie and I have been in Maine for two and a half years now, where she has completed her second interim pastorate in Cape Porpoise, a village of Kennebunkport. We have decided to stay here, living in a U.M. clergy retirement village in Wells.
what a moving piece! Must see this!