Celebrating gardens, photography and a creative life
It’s intriguing to see inside a tree. I’m fascinated by the uneven outline of this cross-section – how it has what could loosely be described as a star shape.
The worth of an artwork is not so much tied up in its monetary value for me, but is more connected to how long you can look at it, enjoy it or think about it. I could look at this slice of tree for a long while. Continue reading “Wall Art: Rustic Tree Slice With A Wiggly Outline”
My sweetheart recently shared a picture of a chair & flowers installation from the Hampton Court Flower Show on Facebook and got a flurry of comments from people who didn’t fancy a bonfire-sized pile of used and broken furniture in their garden. So I am opening with the caveat that I’m not expecting many of these to be ideas you might go on to use at home. Continue reading “Quirky Fences, Mostly”
Several people have reached out to find out why I’m quiet online – thanks so much for that. We are fine, but I’m in picture-gathering mode than writing and reading. We recently parted company with our internet provider after many days without service, and are waiting for the new service to be connected in a week or so. (Fingers crossed!)
The wonderfully shaped and richly coloured heartwood is from a stock of timber prepared for use by a woodcrafting company. It is not often we get to see what’s inside the trees around us. Continue reading “Cross-section of Mature Tree Showing Heartwood”
I’m glad I’m not alone in being enthused by weird snippets and that I can share a few of them here as food for the imagination.
I think that this was a quirky garden gate, made from recycled wood, although at the time I thought it was a section of fence. It may or may not be to your taste, but it’s certainly a one-off. Continue reading “Quirky, Hand-made Wooden Gate”
When wallpaper was the stuff people pasted and hung on walls, rather than the screen saver of a mobile phone or computer, I worked for a wallpaper company. We used the term ‘distressed textures’ to classify designs that did the role of a plain paper, but were more broken up and patchy. Some mimicked flaking plaster, rusted metal or grungy wood, others were abstract.
Designers took inspiration from all walks of life, and mood boards of patterned objects decorated the studio: inspiration for themed collections with titles such as Cairo and Great Plains.
I was reminded of those mood boards last month at the Ag Museum in Jackson, MS, where visual treats were everywhere, hidden in plain sight. Inspiration for Agricola, I imagined: a contemporary homage to farm implements. Continue reading “Finding Distressed Textures at an Agriculture Museum”
At first or even second sight, you might not see anything odd about the stile at Broomhill Sculpture Garden. Continue reading “Stile and Gate by Frank Triggs”
The longer we linger in gardens and green spaces, the more we value a place to sit. Over the last 18 months one of our most useful garden accessories, the bench, has been widely used and appreciated as never before.
I’m celebrating wooden benches that range in character from beautifully finished to rough-hewn and from classic to contemporary, by way of quirky and downright artsy. If your imagination works this way, try removing the bench from one pictures and replacing it with another. Garden furniture is more than just practical: the style of each bench alters the way we see its surroundings. Continue reading “Wooden Garden Benches: Smooth and Rough-Hewn, Traditional and Modern”
Susan Rushton 