Can Art Preserve Our Landscape?

If you ask Dick Brickman why he’s so passionate about protecting the natural landscape be prepared to listen and believe. “When my wife and I came to Vero in 1987 a friend got me interested in McKee Botanical Garden and that’s where I learned about the Indian River Land Trust. The energy and spirit that was being built was magnetic and I saw the opportunity to help preserve the Indian River as it is for posterity. That’s what really caught me.”

Brickman was also caught by the work of artist John Phillip Osborne. “His early paintings of the Jungle Trail are a perfect example of what can happen over time. When we can see what the Trail looked like before as compared to what it is today, it shows how this whole place can go the way of development. That’s why I think that in one sense art is static. It’s like a snapshot, providing a history of the past. As a landscape architect the compelling effort for me has always been to preserve as much as we can while we can. It’s really a race against time.”

Read the entire article in the January 2013 issue