The Key and the Walnut
Cordelia Von Den Steinen
Switzerland 1996
Today the box arrived in the morning. What will I put in? Hopefully everything, or even better: The best. Before I start working I’ll make an extra walk through the garden, maybe I’ll be able to think of a more concise way of what I want to do because ‘the best’ is a kind of program, a wish, not an image. In any case, I’ll take the box with me, just like the little key for the upper garden. This garden begins behind the very romantic door that we once discovered hidden under a thick layer of ivy. Then we also discovered cannonballs made out of stone, old fashioned roses, wild orchids and rare lilies. All of which we probably owe to the nuns who had owned this garden. There also is an old, old walnut tree. I think of the history of the garden first owned by knights and later by the nuns. Since when do gardens exist in general? Looking at this carefully it seems that the history of gardens is very old as the history of mankind. Opening the door, I am thinking of PARADISE, but my small, ordinary key brings me back into reality. It cannot be compared to the masterpieces that we usually see on old pictures in the hands of St. Peter. I feel a little sorry looking down at my machine-made product. But, on the other hand, it is important to know what a key can do, not what it looks like.