I do a series of blog posts that I refer to (and tag) as Behind the Books. This covers where I get my ideas, some of the research I’ve done, what inspired a particular plot. I’m not sure how many people read those posts but I believe that in some cases, people really do want to know how the sausage is made. I’m one of those people.
So it should come as no surprise that when the Tucson Botanical Gardens sent me an invitation to attend a Behind the Scenes tour of their newest exhibit, I signed up immediately. Now Roberto Burle Marx isn’t well known. I’d never heard of him. Even the curator admitted that when he was asked to design an exhibit for him, his reaction was, “Who?” But as far as I was concerned, it didn’t matter what the subject was, I wanted to learn how the gardens decided to do a special exhibit, how they gathered materials for it, and what obstacles they had to overcome.