Artist Carly Glovinski brings the spirit of the New England garden to Boston’s Seaport with her public artwork, Opelske — a three-story mosaic installation that transforms the West Stair at Commonwealth Pier into a vibrant passage of color, nature, and reflection.
 
Glovinski has long explored the intersections amongst art, nature, and caretaking. With Opelske, she captures the ephemeral beauty of the garden with imagery of her larger-than-life pressed flower paintings rendered in luminous tile. Three, large mosaiced planters are incorporated into the work, filled with native plants, creating a terraced garden that benefits all, including our trusted pollinators.
 
The commissioned work is part of a Pembroke initiative to incorporate contemporary art into thoughtful placemaking at Commonwealth Pier that can be enjoyed by all—the people who live and work in the Seaport and travelers from near and far..
 
The piece draws inspiration from the writings of Celia Thaxter (An Island Garden, 1894) and May Sarton (The House by the Sea, 1977), two fellow New Englanders who similarly kept the tending of a cherished garden central to their creative work and life.
 
“Opelske brings together my long-held interests in materiality and process, and the parallels I see between studio practice and tending a garden. For the first time in a work, I had the chance to wear both hats—artist and gardener. The title is borrowed from Celia Thaxter’s An Island Garden, where she describes the Norwegian word ‘Opelske,’ meaning ‘to love up’—to cherish something into health and vigor. This idea of nurturing and laboring with care resonates with me deeply, said Carly Glovinski.  “It was another writer May Sarton, whose book The House by the Sea inspired my ongoing garden project on the site of her former home. That living work, Wild Knoll Foundation Garden, became the source material for the pressed flowers now translated into glass tile in Opelske.”
 
Partnering with the Boston-based mosaic design and fabrication studio, Artaic, Glovinski worked together with designers using their proprietary software and production processes to digitally translate her pressed flower paintings into a cascading mosaic design.
In Boston’s Seaport, Glovinski has cultivated another garden by the sea. Connecting Westport Park above to the Harbor below, the urban garden passage brings the color and joy of summer year-round, encouraging a mindful community that cares for each other and nature.

Commonwealth Pier Project Page

Image: Julia Featheringill

Image: Julia Featheringill