If ever a time and a place existed for civic reflection, a day (or week) spent serving jury duty provides just the opportunity. (And boy does Uncle Sam give you enough time!) Many of us have experienced the thrill of sitting in a courtroom for hours on end, racking our brains trying to come up with an acceptable excuse to flee... Waiting for long hours, having to put aside important deadlines and meetings, listening to "someone else's problems"-- these situations unfortunately conjure up images of boredom, rather than patriotism. And so, while climbing the steps of the county courtroom to fulfill mandatory jury duty, this LASN reporter found more pause for grumbling and moaning than reflection...

On the other hand, the relaxing comforts of summertime provide ample opportunity for enjoying the majesty of the American landscape. As the natural landscape stretches out before us, inviting us to partake in pastimes like vacations, Independence Day celebrations and warm-weather hobbies, we may reflect on the bountiful possibilities of freedom and opportunity before us. In turn, these diversions evoke historical references to Former President Thomas Jefferson, renowned for both his draft of the Declaration of Independence and his beautiful landscape designs, and further illustrate the constitution of balanced relationships between equilibrium art, natural landscape and the scales of justice. By its very nature public service on a jury yields one benefit for sure-- a captive, restrained audience with which jurists may admire the surrounding courtroom environment and mull over the integrity of the judicial process itself.

Between court sessions, this LASN writer held a series of fascinating conversations with an energetic landscape contractor currently working to repair the extensive, heartbreaking damage caused by the 1993 brush fires that ravaged Laguna Beach, California. Amidst revelries on the thrill he experiences from working with/crafting the natural environment, he humorously described his present co-worker, a Landscape Architect, as "artsy, free-spirited, and definitely of an unusual temperament!" Although his practical inclination sometimes makes it difficult to interact on day-to-day logistics, he spoke of her with the tremendous respect he considers "due to a genuine landscape artist."

Like the civic government process, public art selection is a community-based-- jury-based-- mechanism of discussion, participation, and involvement; like the face if civic government, the artistic process evolves with and reflects the local environment, cultural values and artistic vitality of the community it represents. Juries representing different aspects of the community-- their peers-- convene to discuss and designate the standards by which the community is designed. Perhaps for these reasons, artist Kate Trepanger-Myers chose to enhance jury rooms of the Orleans Parish Criminal Court Building in New Orleans with "Clouds, Pools of Land, [and] Pools of Water." or artist Emery Clark chose to watercolor "Coastal Waters (the Bayou Lafourche).

Participation in the jury system is encouraged-- and mandated-- by the legal system it represents. Like the trial by jury process, the operation of selecting a piece of sculpture to complement a landscape design, a site upon which to create a landscape masterpiece, or, for that matter, selecting a Landscape Architect itself... all find roots within the boundaries of group discussion and respect. And so perhaps when we find ourselves within a civic situation we will pause and reflect-- and respond -- with the same respect for artistic balance and professional integrity we expect for ourselves.