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We arrive early for the family get-together at Barbara's mum's and, as it's such a pleasant afternoon - warm but fresh; sunny but with enough cloud to stop it becoming oppressive - I head down the garden, settle in my canvas chair by the old ash stump and decide that this corner is just the subject that I will enjoy drawing; simple repeated shapes, but with sufficient complexity to make them satisfying to draw. Barbara's dad, Bill, was an improvisational kind of do-it-yourself man. He called it 'knackling', a verb that doesn't appear in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary but which I guess derives from 'knack' in the sense of; 'the ability to deal with or do something in the best way'. So the broken paving slabs, recycled pallets and floorboards, that these days you would normally see thrown into a skip to end up in some landfill site, are here used to line the drainage ditch and construct a garden fence. It's not as posh as larch-lap fencing panels or concrete patio blocks but it certainly is a whole lot more interesting to draw. The improvisational nature of the project gives a subtle modulation within
the repeated shapes. The patina of use gives each plank an individual
character. There's a relaxed, friendly feel; acknowledging that gardens
are sometimes touched by human hand and don't have to be immaculate designer
concoctions.
Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk |
