The Back Woods Trail at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens was designed to lead guests from the Alfond Children’s Garden down to the shore of the Back River.

I was asked to collaborate with Brewster and Emma of Prospect Designs to create two sets of stone pillars to mark the path and guide the way.

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens had just completed their wildly popular giant troll installation, “Guardians of the Seeds,” with artist Thomas Dambo. The stone pillars were to be sited near the baby troll, Lilja. Prospect Design’s concept for the pillars was to imagine Lilja had been playing with granite blocks and stacked into columns. A little off kilter. Kind of funky.

To achieve this, I sourced some reclaimed granite blocks from a decommissioned bridge built in the 1800’s outside of Boston. We split the blocks into troll size chunks with feathers and wedges, then worked them to fit snugly together.

Luke Winne from Modern Edge Metal Fab fabricated the core-ten steel arches.

We really enjoyed working with Prospect Design (based in Portland, Maine). This was our first of four projects with them at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.