Everyone’s an artist

Posted On 29/05/2020

Jo writes: Last week my daughter’s art teacher asked them to create a piece of land or environmental art as their assignment for the week. Music to my ears!

It took a bit of persuasion to convince her that this was a fun thing to do. Like many of us, she is struggling to cope with the ‘new normal’ but finally, on a beautiful sunny day, she got started.

The very beautiful thing about art is that there is no right or wrong, despite what the purists might tell you. It is your creation, your vision and your interpretation. A bit like gardening. And even better, environmental art allows such a fluid, ever-changing work of art which will engross young and old alike.

The idea is to use whatever you have to hand in nature or the environment around you. Now that we can linger in some of our favourite green and wild spaces, a garden is no longer a requirement. My daughter was lucky because I had just cleared a patch of white cobbles and, as I’ve already confessed, I have a significant amount of dandelions and now beautiful creeping buttercups! So her inspiration was easy and thankfully she likes yellow! It’s important to remember though to try to use only things found on the ground or that are growing in abundance – like my buttercups.

What I thought might engage her for maybe 10-15 minutes, took about an hour of gathering, placing, musing and altering.

She was thoroughly lost in the moment.

And so was I. I loved watching her develop her idea and finally see it come to fruition and ofcourse, I couldn’t help but have a go myself. If you need a spot of inspiration, check out this short youtube video or find out more about Andy Goldsworthy, famous British land and environmental artist and sculptor. You can enjoy lots of his work at Jupiter Artland in West Lothian – well worth a visit when it is allowed to reopen.

For lots of other crafty gardening activities, check out our activity ideas and lucky bag page.

Happy gardening!

Jo