Scope and Contents Amazon.com "It doesn't greatly matter to me whether I'm using plants or trees or stones or words or events," the artist, poet and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006) once told an interviewer; "the impulse is always to make a coherent order out of things." Through a carefully edited selection from a voluminous correspondence, A Model of Order tracks the unique arc of Finlay's development, from poet writing in Scots dialect, to Concrete poet, toymaker and deviser of poems and inscriptions in glass, wood and stone, installed in parks and gardens. The title derives from Finlay's famous definition of Concrete poetry as "a model of order, even if set in a space which is full of doubt," a definition conceived in correspondence with poet Pierre Garnier. Poet and editor Thomas A. Clark's selection of Finlay's letters-to Louis Zukofsky, Robert Creeley and Ernst Jandl among others-explicates a rigorous and moral vision of the act of making." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth...

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This is a preparatory drawing done by Keith Bailey under the supervision of Ian Hamilton Finlay for a slate sculpture. It depicts a fighter plane of World War II vintage with a trail of smoke during combat. Angels, Bandits and Saints refers to nicknames of fighter aircraft during that period. Contrails is the condensation trail emitted by jet aircraft exhaust. Contrails form when hot humid air from jet exhaust mixes with environmental air of low vapor pressure and low temperature. The mixing is a result of turbulence generated by the engine exhaust. A different version of this work in collaboration with Ron Costley was made into a medallion. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The bee symbol in this drawing suggests the sea (bee) and hive symbolizing the aircraft carriers. The text is written in old English characters. This drawing served as preparatory drawings for a subsequently realized print that is also held by the Sackner Archive. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This is a critical essay with illustrations of Finlay's work by Douglas Eadie. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Letter concerns setting up, transporting and caring for Furnival's work at the first Brighton Festival as well as asking for an indication of the arrangement of Furnival's panels and whether Houedard could associate with the project. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Letter discusses catalogue and guide for the Brighton Festival exhibition; asks whether Furnival is in possession of "Arc/Ark" piece and whether Furnival's "Ajar" piece is "still in an exhibition-worthy state." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Bann thanks Furnival for typographical material and requests use of two designs in the Alan Ross anthology. Bann asks that Furnival consider an outdoor rather than an indoor site for his installation at the Brighton Festival. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This is a request to Martin Fidler, the bookseller who sold the Sackners the Finlay Archive, for out-of-print books by Confucius and by the philosopher J-H. Newman. It gives an indication of the seriousness of Finlay's depth of intellectual reading. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This book provides an illustrated tour of Little Sparta. The photographs of the garden were taken by Andrew Lawson. The Sackners purchased this book from Finlay during a visit to the garden in 2004. This is the third impression. Sir Roy Strong calls Little Sparta 'the only really original garden made in this country since 1945'. Ian Hamilton Finlay's unique creation in the Pentland Hills south of Edinburgh is a garden composed as an artwork in itself. It incorporates concrete poetry, moral polemic, philosophical reflection and a sparkling sense of humour. While Finlay's works and installations throughout Europe and North America are well documented and justly famous, this is the first book devoted solely to the garden at Little Sparta, which has been at the heart of his life's work. It offers the reader a sense of the diversity and originality of the garden along with a text that unfolds the layers of meaning it contains. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Ian Hamilton Finlay is featured in this general catalogue with 16 picture poems and photographs of fleets of model boats in his garden "Little Sparta" in Scotland. This book is stored in the Finlay materia. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The pages consist of 29 black and white photographs taken by Hannappel of Finlay's garden, Little Sparta. One page has a poem by Hoderlin translated by Harry Gilonis, opposite a photograph of a contemplative Finlay, sitting on a bench in the garden just outside his house, The poem reads, "At peace the ploughman sits outside his cottage in the shade... A drawing on the inside cover of the book provides the sites in the garden. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The introductory section of the book consists of three pages of aphorisms dealing with gardening by Ian Hamilton Finlay. This is followed by 29 black and white photographs of Little Sparta by Gillanders. Then Alec Finlay writes a brief essay on the garden and its visual challenge to photography. Gillanders who photographed the garden for this book conducts an interview about the project with Ian Hamilton Finlay. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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Five prints were adapted by Hinks from drawings by Claude Lorrain (1640, 1642, 1643, 1649). The texts of the tree plaques for this proposal were taken from classical sources in Latin and Greek literature. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This essay is another copy of the manuscript with slightly different handwritten correctionss and appeared in ISIS No.1507, 1966, a periodical held by the Sackner Archive. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.