Whimsical art piece brings vibrant Harewood Plains flora to life
A trio of giant flowers awaits visitors at the Nanaimo Kinette Evergreen Park thanks to the artistic endeavours of artists Eliza Gardiner and Isaiah Kingdon.
Eliza, a VIU Theatre Professor, worked with Isaiah, an emerging artist and designer and a close family friend, to create the large-scale sculpture Forest Flowers. It celebrates the beauty of the violet purple blossom of the crown brodiaea flower, native to the Harewood Plains area. The piece was created as part of the City of Nanaimo’s Temporary Public Art Program and will remain on display in the park through 2031.
“We hope people will feel a sense of whimsy and joy when they round the corner on the trail at Kinette Evergreen Park and see the flowers popping up out of the ground. The petals reflect the sun, and the light shines through to throw a magical shimmer of purple shadow flowers on the ground,” says Eliza. “The colours shift depending on your perspective and we made the sculpture to last through the seasons – it will look amazing if we get a snow this winter.”
Learn more about the project and what’s next for Eliza:
Tell us a bit about your background as an artist.
I had big dreams of becoming a Hollywood costume designer and took courses at UCLA for summer sessions when I was a York University student back in Ontario. Once I moved out to BC, I designed and directed theatre productions, with costumes, props and sets featured in many children’s shows.
I’ve always liked working with larger-than-life proportions, and with mixed media, especially textiles. Managing the Bass Camp Art Gallery at Shambhala Music Festival taught me a lot about curation and different marketable arts styles, and having my Funbrellas (crocheted canopies with pom poms and tassels galore!) at the event in 2024 was a real honour. I used some of the same techniques in my recent installation Heads on Pikes at VIU’s VIEW Gallery Hair Exhibit in the fall of 2025. The installation was 10 unique heads representing the fallen princes in the opera Turandot.
What inspired you to apply for the public art program?
I’ve always wanted to apply to the City of Nanaimo’s temporary art program. There are so many amazing public artworks on display. I'm a strong proponent of visible and celebratory art in public spaces.
I couldn’t quite figure out how to accomplish my giant flowers idea because of my background in theatre. We use a lot of wood and fabric to build illusions but I knew those materials wouldn’t last outdoors for five years. That’s where Isaiah came in, with his knowledge of new design and fabrication technologies. He gained so much hands-on experience working with steel and acrylics and learned how to do all the digital design techniques while at Selkirk College.
How did you choose the design?
Isaiah and I planned the design, debating many different flowers and their symbolism. We knew we wanted to make this project meaningful to the residents and visitors of Nanaimo – but we needed to consider some practicalities too: safety, weight, the logistics of petal size and availability of materials. We decided on the crown brodiaea because of the beautiful long lines in combination with a local environmental angle. The purple acrylic was difficult to get, and we learned some good lessons about strength and durability. The sculpture is not a climbing toy, but it is very strong and weighted beneath the ground with a 2,000-pound concrete block. We had to put a lot of consideration into safe welds and pretty but practical connection points.
What’s next for flower art?
Isaiah and I applied to the City’s Luminous Paths event, which takes place in February. We had initially envisioned featuring lights in the Forest Flowers but there is no power to the location in the park so we’re planning to re-develop that aspect so that a new variation of a flower sculpture can illuminate a dark hollow. We’'re developing a plan for Red Columbine lanterns that would hang from tree branches at Swy-a-lana. We are researching other city art programs too because this type of light sculpture could be unique to so many towns and bring a sense of pride to many spaces - including university campuses.
What’s next for you?
Isaiah and I will continue to work together and pursue a couple of other projects. Isaiah really wants to find a job with a fabrication company, perhaps in Bristol, England, where there is a real culture for large-scale design projects.
I’ll be shifting gears in 2027 to embark on a VIU research project called Clytemnestra’s Relay Race of Fire: An Interactive Map of the Beacon Speech in Agamemnon, a scholarly project that features me tracking the hilltop locations where the great queen of Mycenae set up her signal flares so that she would know when her husband had captured Troy. It is an exciting project that will give photovoice to the strategic thinker, with the publication of a digital online map, a paper and a new revised script as part of my dream plan.
Greece is so inspiring, with so much public art everywhere, galleries, museums, iconography, and a deep appreciation for all forms of artistic expression. My goal is to take Greek language lessons right away so that I can communicate better and to take a course in tilework or mosaics. That’s another media I have been playing with. I did a whole mosaic wall of flowers in my downstairs den and I want to improve my self-taught technique in Greece where there is such history and skill.
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