On the Garden Path
Niblack Artist Charlotte Frieze shares her artistic journey through conservation biology, photography, and outdoor spaces
Charlotte Frieze, our final Niblack Arts Lecture Series artist for the year, is an accomplished landscape architect and published author of garden and gardening books, as well as a former garden editor for House & Garden magazine. She has traveled the world curating innovative, traditional, and unusual gardens for the magazine and her books. She has designed outdoor spaces for everything from large commercial projects like Disney’s Boardwalk and the Columbia Regional Hospital to Bruce Springsteen’s half-mile long, daffodil-bedecked driveway. And yet, when Frieze was preparing to apply to colleges, her high school headmistress advised her that she was not “four-year college material,” and that if she applied to Smith College -- her first and only choice for college -- she would be taking the place of “a more deserving student.”
Charlotte Frieze, our final Niblack Arts Lecture Series artist for the year, is an accomplished landscape architect and published author of garden and gardening books, as well as a former garden editor for House & Garden magazine. She has traveled the world curating innovative, traditional, and unusual gardens for the magazine and her books. She has designed outdoor spaces for everything from large commercial projects like Disney’s Boardwalk and the Columbia Regional Hospital to Bruce Springsteen’s half-mile long, daffodil-bedecked driveway. And yet, when Frieze was preparing to apply to colleges, her high school headmistress advised her that she was not “four-year college material,” and that if she applied to Smith College -- her first and only choice for college -- she would be taking the place of “a more deserving student.”
Comparing herself to the red steam engine in The Little Engine That Could, Frieze told how she not only applied to, but was accepted at Smith, then designed her own undergraduate program that included horticulture, geology, art, history, photography, and landscape architecture. She had been drawn to outdoor spaces as a little girl working with her mother to plant bulbs in the garden and later when the family built a new house and she witnessed the transformation of mounds of earth into hills and a sunken garden by landscape architect Alice Ireys. While she had a long-range plan for her career from an early age, she also was open to opportunities that presented themselves along the way.
Back
The first of these was taking a semester abroad where she worked for the Caribbean Conservation Association and Island Resources Foundation. There, she documented historic buildings in Nevis and St. Kitts with her photography skills – photographs that proved invaluable several years later when an earthquake devastated the area and they were in need of extensive repair. She also tried her hand at conservation biology, raising and releasing green turtles and studying the effects of hurricanes on closed ecosystems.
Then, she seemingly moved a little further away from her career plan when she accepted a job with a PR firm as a staff photographer for the Jamaican Tourist Board and later, a travel guide for Ghana. She traveled extensively, photographed many events and famous people, and initiated some of the first travel tours to Ghana. As Frieze explains, “While many would think of these experiences as veering away from my goals, they gave me the self-confidence to travel alone, to be comfortable in other cultures, and to work with clients. My photography taught me how to see and communicate visually.”
When she returned to New York at age 30, she was finally ready to become a landscape architect. She worked as an art dealer while she got a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at City College. Upon graduation, she began working for Robert A M Stern, a large firm in New York. Her first project was Disney’s Boardwalk, working with many others. Frieze worked on all types of landscapes, from large-scale commercial to residential backyards. She also wrote several gardening manuals before moving to House & Garden magazine as their only garden editor who was also a landscape architect.
House & Garden was the place where, when she looked back at her jobs and experiences over the years, it all added up for Frieze. She continued to use her photography skills, thinking of her photos as sketches; she traveled the world to document and share the unusual and the beautiful; she wrote articles and used her background in landscape architecture daily. It was the perfect culmination of her career arc. Now, after 37 years in New York, she has moved to California and is working in her own garden, writing, and now branching out into filmmaking.
Her advice to students echoes the advice from our other Niblack artists … whether or not you’ve got a career goal in mind, say “yes” to opportunities that present themselves, even if they appear to pull you away from your ultimate goal.
Frieze spent the day at Foxcroft, giving three additional short talks, including one that gave the girls an opportunity to do a little hands-on work with positive and negative space on landscape plans. She also wandered through Miss Charlotte’s Garden, snapping pictures with her digital sketchbook, and was completely charmed by the outdoor spaces that we get to enjoy everyday.
The Helen Cudahy Niblack ’42 Arts Lecture Series was established by Austi Brown ’73 in memory of her mother. Since it began in 2007, the series has brought a variety of literary, performing, and fine artists to Foxcroft to share their work, stories, and perspective on the nature of the creative process with both students and the larger community. One of the goals of the Niblack series is to provide an artist with the opportunity to share her artistic journey in a comfortable and familiar setting, creating space for an exchange of ideas that just might inspire a Foxcroft girl or two to chase her own artistic dreams.
This website uses cookies to ensure the best experience for visitors to our website.
By continuing to use this website, you consent to our use of these cookies.
See our Privacy Policy for additional information.
By continuing to use this website, you consent to our use of these cookies.
See our Privacy Policy for additional information.
An all-girls boarding and day school in Northern Virginia, Foxcroft prepares young women in grades 9-12 for success in college and in life. Our outstanding academic program offers challenging courses, including Advanced Placement classes and an innovative STEM program. Our premiere equestrian program is nationally recognized, and our athletic teams have won conference and state championships. Experience the best in girls' boarding schools: visit Foxcroft.
