Anna's Failed Garden

This sculpture, which is now in the collection of The New Britain Museum of American Art, is based on the fact that Anna Weir, J. Alden Weir’s first wife, planted a flower garden in 1886 in which not one single flower grew. At the same time J. Alden Weir planted a vegetable garden that thrived. I think the fact that the history of Weir Farm mentions a garden that didn’t amount to anything is humorous. My sculpture is a mummy shape covered with rows of painted, steel vegetables. It doesn’t have one flower just as Anna’s didn’t. There are rods that run from the top of the head downwards, looking like both branches and hair. At the end of each rod is an apple, which could represent the Weir Farm orchards or hair ornaments.

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