A pop-up fiber sculpture garden exhibit opens this weekend and runs throughout the month at the Harriet Beecher Stowe House. It's part of a larger planned restoration to the two acres of gardens and green space at the historic home and museum.
"Last year, we completed a beautiful dual era restoration of the house. Our goal is to expand that positive visitor experience by creating a welcoming space on the outside that is equally appealing and educational," Christina Hartlieb, executive director, tells WVXU.
Author and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in the Walnut Hills home in the years just before the release of her famous book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The book is based heavily on experiences she had there. The home is a museum that tells Stowe's story, along with a separate section dedicated to the home's time as the Edgemont Inn, one of the few local places listed in the Green Book as safe for Black travelers to stay and eat.
Interior renovations began in 2020 and were completed in 2024. Now, it's time to renovate the exterior grounds.
"Unfortunately, the grounds are still neglected, and there are lots of invasive species. It needs some work, and so we want to restore the landscape surrounding the house as a vibrant green space for the community and also as an experiential classroom for public humanities, art, horticulture, environmental studies, things like that," says Kate Sorrels, UC history professor.
Sorrels at her students plan to start work this fall on two historical gardens. One will feature medicinal herbs similar to what Stowe's sister and pioneer of home economics, Catharine Beecher, once grew. A second will highlight food crops introduced to the Americas by enslaved people and traditionally grown by African American farmers.
"Some of the plants that we would want to plant in the historic gardens that we're creating, some of the plants that Harriet Beecher Stowe loved, for example, are now considered invasive, and so the last thing we want to do is clear the whole landscape of invasive plants and then put in new ones," Sorrells says.
Nature as fiber art
The pop-up fiber art exhibit opening Friday was born of that predicament.
More UC students, this time students from UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), are creating outdoor fiber sculptures that represent invasive species as well as the history of the property. The artwork will be interspersed through parts of the landscape where volunteers have already begun restoring with native species.
There's a public reception from 5 - 7 p.m. Friday to open the exhibit. The sculptures will be on display through the end of August.
"The fiber sculpture garden is a step toward demonstrating what things are possible here and how we can collaborate with the community — in this case with a DAAP class. We foresee many partnerships as we make the enhanced garden experience a reality," Hartlieb says.
Work on the two planned gardens — plus additional future gardens and landscaping on the two-acre property — will continue for some time.
Sorrells says her goal is to introduce people to the idea of historic landscapes as an important part of the museum's interpretive mission.
"We want the landscape to be a living lab for students in the humanities and the arts to explore humanities and arts questions in a real-world context," she explains. "And to show how public history, artistic expression, design, environmental stewardship and community partnerships can all come together, and they can come together for education."
She says those aspects can come together to address community needs in Walnut Hills, too.
"Green space is a really important issue for health, for public health, and we need more of it," she says. "If this landscape can become a living lab where there are interesting creative and research projects going on, and if it can also serve the purpose of creating more green space in a neighborhood that needs more green space for children to play in, for community members to gather in, (then) I hope that people will get a glimpse of that vision that we're trying to create, and I hope people might want to join us."
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