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Renowned environmental artist Alan Sonfist leads a community-centered initiative to plant native wildflowers on the front lawn of the Parrish Art Museum. (Photo credit: Vision Makers Productions, Inc.)

New York City-based artist Alan Sonfist has always been fascinated by the natural world.

Originally hailing from the South Bronx, Sonfist is now nearly synonymous with the Earth Art movement which started in the later half of the last century, gaining notoriety with his “Time Landscape,” a piece of landscape artwork found on the corner of La Guardia Place and West Houston Street in lower Manhattan.

The central theme of Sonfist’s piece was the planting of native grasses, saplings and trees, subsequently serving as a “public monument” to the community and ultimately offering artistic exploration through landscape, thus celebrating relationship between human beings and nature.

That was all in the mid 1960’s. Now, the renowned environmental artist is doing something similar, right here on the South Fork, at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

Dubbed “Celestial Meadow” — a two-year project commissioned by the museum and a grassroots initiative blending art, community and environmental stewardship — Sonfist’s latest effort includes the planting of native wildflowers in a 60-by-40-foot elliptical area on the Parrish’s front lawn.

According to Corinne Erni, the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman chief curator of art education at the Parrish, “the flowers will be arranged in a pattern and will be in specific colors that reflect the hues of the stars in the constellations above the museum’s grounds.”

The project kicked off just a few weeks ago, on Sept. 27, as Sonfist, with assistance from students attending the nearby Hayground School, took the pH of the soil as part of the initial steps in the ecological restoration. The patch of meadow was then covered with an eco-friendly tarp to protect and keep invasive species away until next spring. It is projected that the meadow will be in bloom by summer of 2026, boasting a vibrant, plant-based artistic design (mimicking what’s literally written in the stars) and featuring dozens of different species of native wildflowers dating back to ancient times.

“Seeing Alan Sonfist interact with the students at the Parrish, teaching them about ecological preservation and the creative process behind earth art, was inspiring,” Ernni says. “He found us. He approached us about a year ago about this. He really felt a connection to this place.”

Sonfist, a former Sag Harbor resident, considers the East End a truly magical place. “The Hamptons could be considered a pretty rural area, but still, one that people can engage in. It’s important for us as human beings to understand the root of where things begin. It’s ultimately up to the community to make that happen.”

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