Beautiful fountains to admire in Marin
It’s on hot days such as these that the importance of water features, such as pools, ponds and water fountains, is easy to appreciate, but fountains on any day are a true treasure for our psyches.
In these times of considerable drama and angst around water in the West, it’s easy to forget to celebrate our beautiful life-supporting and life-affirming water.
Fortunately, Marin County didn’t. The theme of this year’s Marin County Fair, “make a splash,” provides a much-needed counterbalance to the water woes that weigh so heavy on all of us.
“The theme this year was chosen for a few reasons, the splash of water connotes summer and fun, which is something we always strive for at the fair,” says spokesperson Libby Garrison.
“In Marin County, water also has other impacts on our lives from sea level rise in coastal Marin to king tides to drought and drought-tolerant landscaping,” she adds. “It’s something we all think about all the time.”
The fair features water conservation education and drought-resistant gardening tips, as well as competitive exhibits, such as driftwood art, decorated birdbaths, watercolor works, water poetry, sea-themed murals and water-themed fine arts and photography.
A virtual reality “deep-sea dive” allows fair patrons to explore the waters under the Cordell Bank off of the Point Reyes National Seashore and, for those who like mysteries, there’s Water Quest, a game that lets players decipher clues in a dystopian wasteland — that’s devoid of water — to locate a lost source of water on Mount Tamalpais and save a parched Marin.
A water fountain, installed inside the Exhibit Hall, showcases the theme of the fair.
“The fair management team thought that fountains on the fairgrounds would be a great physical representation of the theme,” Garrison says.
The fountain display on the fairgrounds may be temporary but the permanent fountains — the one outside the Civic Center cafeteria and the one in the Civic Center Lagoon — have pleased thousands of people over the years.
They “were all part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision for the campus,” she says. “He often prioritized water elements in his architecture, like Fallingwater, for example.”
Fallingwater is a Pennsylvania home — designed by Wright in 1935 and partly built over a waterfall on Bear Run River — which is now an historical landmark.
“The pool and garden area (of Marin’s Civic Center) reflect Wright’s belief that work environments should be places of beauty that contribute to a high quality of life,” she says.
And it doesn’t have to stop at work environments. Fountains and pools, which mimic nature’s own waterfalls and ponds, bring that sense of nature closer to our suburban lives and, like art, blur the lines between functional and nonfunctional purposes.
They revive the spirit, invite us to slow down and breathe, cool the immediate microclimate and provide respite from heat, minimize surrounding noise, remind us of play, relieve us in stressful situations, offer moments to reflect, artfully aerate bodies of water and beckon bees, birds and butterflies that also rely on water.
Sausalito sure understands that. Its treasured fountain in Viña del Mar Park, flanked by stunning life-sized African gray elephant statues, cement replicas of the originals designed by the late Sausalito resident William B. Faville for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, is both a destination and photo op for locals and visitors alike.
There are other fountains in Marin that are such sensual gifts to all of us — the ones by the clubhouse at Cape Marin behind Bon Air shopping center; the playful dog in the spouts of a fountain that is regarded by a watchful cat at that same shopping center; the ones at Point Tiburon Plaza across the street from the smaller one at the intersection of Main Street and Tiburon Boulevard in Tiburon; the one at Hamilton Marketplace in Novato; and the waterfall display on the drive uphill to the Four Points by Sheraton in Terra Linda.
Fountains can also be part of a personal landscape at your own home, if you want to incorporate beauty and sustain biodiversity.
According to John Llaverias, water conservation specialist for Marin Water, “any fountain in Marin County has to use recirculated water, which has minimal impact of water use.”
On this weekend, when we are grateful for so much, we can also be thankful for the charm and vitality and refreshment that fountains offer us every day, and for those who share them with all of us so generously.
• Details: The Marin County Fair is from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. through Sunday at the fairgrounds at 10 Avenue of the Flags in San Rafael. Fireworks begin nightly at 9:30 p.m. Admission is $25 to $65. Tickets are available online only. More information at MarinFair.org.
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PJ Bremier writes on home, garden, design and entertaining topics every Saturday. She may be contacted at P.O. Box 412, Kentfield 94914, or at pj@pjbremier.com. Submit story ideas and events via email or mail.