Raul Brown

“Well — here we have a bench which was made this year from a tree which was recently cut from the rear garden.

The pieces were brought over, Iris asked for them and Iris told me: “I need for you to build me a bench.”

For the bench, I actually put a lot of thought into it.

I asked myself, ” how is this bench going to turn out?”

This was because the pieces were all different sizes.

I had many pieces. Some were long, others short, but they did not make a whole piece.

So the idea came to me to place them in this pattern, a pattern where you could sit on it, not quite comfortably, but it was a bench. This was possible with the help of others.

The idea came from Iris, but I am the one who built the bench.

Ideas are very important, with ideas we can always continue inventing things in this garden, things that are visual, things that are able to be seen.

I started at the age of nine when I was in Puerto Rico with my uncle. Every time I would see a shape on an object, I would envision what could come out of that shape. I would look at a certain shape on wooden furniture and I would think to myself, ” you can make a face out of it, or perhaps you can make two faces out of that”, so I began to envision ideas at a very early age.

Now I think to myself: there are many things I have not yet done.

This is a mixture of many people. According to my sister, all of this is African, but we are a race of many colors, and we are trying to create things which bring peace. We want everyone coming here to the garden to feel at peace. 

And it is in fact a very beautiful garden, we have everything here, plants, and what God has created.”