Heavy and Light
Fleming says his garden does four things. “It talks about the
argument of modernism, it talks about other great gardens
that I’ve seen around the world — and I’ve seen a lot of
gardens, it talks about the garden that you’re in, and it talks
about Vietnam.”
“In some ways, doing a garden is a kind of therapy,” says
Fleming in that it allows you “to go into your soul, into the
depths.” He has just written a book scheduled to publish in
the fall that examines his experiences in Vietnam through
the lens of his garden. The installation most personal to him
on the property is a cascade called “Years of Living
Dangerously.” The sculpture represents the six times that
Fleming was almost killed. “You have two Volkswagens, a
flag, a Jag and two skulls,” he says. “All represent things that
have happened to me.” (Those near-death experiences
include three car accidents, three strokes and two close
encounters with the wrong end of a gun — once in the
Congo and once in Vietnam.)
In contrast to this heavy subject matter, there is plenty of
lightness as well, namely in the form of monkeys, of which
there are roughly 100 scattered around the property. Why
monkeys? “They are a commentary about us. They share
our foibles and the childlike nature of us.” They’ve also
proven valuable for another purpose: “They’re a very good
device to entertain the children,” he says.
“The idea of surprise is very much a part of my
garden,” Fleming says. “You’ll bump into things, you’ll
see new things, you have a series of experiences;
everything is not revealed to you at once.”
78 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JULY 2020