Read more about ceramicist Kim Dickey in "Still Garden."

When the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver commissioned ceramicist and CU professor Kim Dickey to create a work for its upstairs cafe, Dickey set about making nine plant-like sculptures. She hoped her abstract terracotta plants would bridge the gap between the museum's collections and the cafe garden, while also encouraging visitors to rethink the lines between the real and the artificial. She shares her sculptures, officially part of the Museum as Theater as Garden exhibit, and artistic impressions in this revealing slideshow.

Museum as Theater as Garden "East Window"

Dickey created her terracotta sculptures, referencing different decorative and art history traditions, to reflect the "eclecticism" of a garden, where a plant may represent a specific place or culture, or even a culinary or pharmaceutical use.