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USA
Southwest
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Phoenix, AZ
Oriental Rock Garden - Mr. Louis Foo Lee
1913-2006
Environment with rocks
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Information:
Built: 1958-2006
Mr. Lee was a retired grocer and restauranteur who began to build his garden, much to the chagrin of his wife, Esther (Molly). Molly never liked the garden and the yard was divvied up, Mr. Lee’s garden in the front and Mrs. Lee’s domain in the backyard and interiors.
Beginning in 1958, Mr. Lee terraced the hillside property with traditional materials(perhaps in remembrance of his birthplace of Canton, China.) He incorporated found objects such as bottles, tiles, toilets, auto parts, refrigerators. His intentions were to never mow the lawn, leading him to cover the the ground with thousands of pavers and bricks.
Mr. Lee loved the thousands of visitors he had over the 48 years of "gardening." It was "something to do, something to keep him from being bored and something to share."
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Bibliography:
On DVD - Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, "Cali-Zona, Here We Come," KCPT, Kansas City Public Television, 2007.
"Self-Made Worlds: Visionary Environments" by Roger Manley and Mark Sloan, Aperture, New York, 1997.
"Phoenix Outsider Art Environments" text and photos by Ron Gasowski, Folk Art Messenger, Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall/Winter 2006.
"Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations Coast to Coast Travel-o-Pedia" by Randy Mason, et. al., Kansas City Star Books, 2009. |
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