Mollie Starbuck, Avid Gardener and Ed Carpenter’s mother, spent several years as a volunteer at the Forest Grove City Library. When she died in 1998, the library received many donations in her memory.  At the request of the Library Director, Colleen Winters, Ed collaborated with FFA Architects to configure the space to receive this installation.

Working closely with Carpenter and following his designs, Greg Kriebel and Eric Canon embellished the four wooden columns and created light sconces under the skylight, bringing their own craftsmanship and special material sensitivities to “Mollie’s Garden.”
 
Ed Carpenter is an artist specializing in large-scale public installations ranging from architectural sculpture to infrastructure design. Since 1973 he has completed scores of projects for public, corporate, and ecclesiastical clients. Working internationally from his studio in Portland, Oregon, USA, Carpenter collaborates with a variety of expert consultants, sub-contractors, and studio assistants. He personally oversees every step of each commission, and installs them himself with a crew of long-time helpers, except in the case of the largest objects, such as bridges.
While an interest in light has been fundamental to virtually all of Carpenter’s work, he also embraces commissions that require new approaches and skills. This openness has led to increasing variety in his commissions and a wide range of sites and materials. Recent projects include interior and exterior sculptures, bridges, towers, and gateways. His use of glass in new configurations, programmed artificial lighting, and unusual tension structures have broken new ground in architectural art. He is known as an eager and open-minded collaborator as well as technical innovator.
Carpenter is grandson of a painter/sculptor, and step-son of an architect, in whose office he worked summers as a teenager. He studied architectural glass art under artists in England and Germany during the early 1970’s.