Pearl Fryar
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Pearl Fryar (born December 4, 1939) is an American
topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...
artist living in
Bishopville, South Carolina Bishopville is a town in Lee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 3,471 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Lee County. Geography Bishopville is located at (34.219027, -80.248877) near Lee State Park. According t ...
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Biography

Pearl Fryar was born on December 4, 1939 in Clinton, North Carolina to a sharecropper family. In the late 1950s, he attended the North Carolina College in Durham. He served in the military and was in the Korean War. After leaving the military, he moved to Queens, New York. In 1975, he began work as a factory engineer at a Coca-Cola soda can factory in Bishopville until his retirement in 2006. Initially, Fryar wanted to move into Bishopville's city limits, however he was blocked from purchasing a home in the area due to white residents thinking he wouldn't maintain his property and instead built on the outskirts of town. He began working in his yard to prove his white neighbors wrong with "throwaway" plants rescued from the compost pile at local nurseries and received the 'Yard of the Month' in 1985. Around 1988, Fryar began trimming the
evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, whic ...
plants around his yard into unusual shapes. In addition to the
boxwood ''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South ...
and yew found there originally, he began transplanting holly, fir, loblolly pine and other plants as they became available. His living sculptures are astounding feats of artistry and
horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...
. Pearl Fryar and his garden are now internationally recognized and have been the subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, television shows. In 2006, the documentary ''A Man Named Pearl'' was produced by Scott Galloway and Brent Pierson about his work."A Man Named Pearl (2006)"
IMDb.


Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden

Fishbone tree, 389x389px Pearl's garden is a living testament to one man's firm belief in the results of positive thinking, hard work, and perseverance, and his dedication to spreading a message of "love, peace, and goodwill." and today, the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden draws visitors from around the globe. Visitors to the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden experience a place that is alternately beautiful, whimsical, educational, and inspiring. Pearl's garden contains over 400 individual plants and is integrated with "junk art" sculptures. The aesthetics of Fryar's work are a departure from traditional topiary work and are considered abstract, inventive, and free-form. In 2007, the Friends of Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden and the Garden Conservancy formed a partnership with Pearl Fryar to preserve and maintain the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden and to further Pearl's message of inspiration and hope. In 2008, a scholarship was created by Fryar and the Friends of Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden to provide for students with lower grades. During 2020-2022, a new nonprofit, The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Inc. was established (the previous one having been dissolved in 2018) and is working collaboratively to continue support and preservation of the artistic and horticultural legacy of Pearl Fryar. For more information or to donate, please visit http://pearlfryargarden.org/


Awards and accolades

* “The Heart Garden” collaboration with
Philip Simmons Philip Simmons (June 9, 1912 – June 22, 2009) was an American artisan and blacksmith specializing in the craft of ironwork. Simmons spent 78 years as a blacksmith, focusing on decorative iron work. When he began his career, blacksmiths in Cha ...
for Spoleto Festival USA’s “Human/Nature” installations (1997) * June 27 was recognized as Pearl Fryar Day by the South Carolina General Assembly for his “humanitarian ideals and artistic influence” (1998) * Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Governor’s Award for the Arts (2013) * Award of Excellence from National Garden Clubs Inc. (2017)


References


External links


The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden - official site
''A Man Named Pearl'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Fryar, Pearl American gardeners Artists from South Carolina Living people Outsider artists 1940 births People from Clinton, North Carolina People from Bishopville, South Carolina Artists from North Carolina 20th-century American artists 21st-century American artists 20th-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American artists