Here's how it happened.  Sterman had the two interconnecting circles--one patio/one carex meadow--theme that forms the basis of the garden worked out already.  And Nan knew she needed some kind of architecture to complete the whole space.  But she hadn't come up with a design yet she was totally pleased with.

Then one day her husband Curt called her from one of the big box stores and said there was a set of oxblood ceramic bowls there at a very good price she might want for some future project.  Nan saw the bowls, brought them home, and when she saw them in her own garden, decided she needed to find a way to use them herself.

So Nan put three of her favorite brains to work.  Her brother-in-law, Jan Wittenberg, a fine woodworker, came up with the idea for the wall -- two opposing curves, one of which would be a seating bench, the other the fountain.  Her step-son, Gabriel Evaristo, a contractor, figured out how to incorporate the bowls into the wall--ledges built into the design hold them in place.  And her husband, Curt Wittenberg--a molecular biologist at Scripps when he's not problem solving for Nan--came up with a solution for how to cascade water from one bowl to the next.  Notch grooves into the bowls and add copper spouts, he suggested. And trialed the idea on another pot first to make sure it worked.

And that's how Sterman got her wall.  She is delighted with it, the men in her life are all proud of their problem-solving prowess, and Nan, I think, is one smart cookie.  Tom Sawyer, I think, couldn't have done it better.

Here's how the wall looks at night and a closer look at how the fountain works.

 

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