The first time I tasted roasted beetroot was with fresh potatoes from my horticulturist friend’s allotment in central Leeds where I used to live and walk every day: I remember the taste – I also remember her generosity too. There was never too much of an exchange apart from the company and conversation and plans to make innocent people steal wine for us from the co-op: occasionally however drawings were made, given to her for her trade – as it were.
It is this form of exchange that we are currently exploring as we now live with the whole of Northern England stretched before us. The days of traversing from one end of Hyde Park to the other for my feed have gone. We have the odd phone call but that’s not enough. There was a moment where a gratin was made in my home town, we had wine and shared a few records of the Mac: but there was little fresh produce in use, just odd bits and bobs collected from my parents garage/larder/rubbish heap – and the scratch of the disused 12-inch.
She began to talk of another drawing she wanted. A commission for her friends’ engagement present: I mentioned money and she turned away her face.
We had just finished our meal and were on pudding – but all I could think of was the redness of her allotment grown beetroot. I said – just as Sarah had wound in to action on the greatest hits of Fleetwood Mac record – in exchange for a drawing she could send me packages of freshly grown produce through to my address in Scotland. Here face lit up – perhaps it was the wine but it reminded me of the beetroot again.
I’d have gratin and beetroot in my flat in Glasgow: fresh organic fair without the expense of the West End where I reside. A good steady flow of food to cook and enjoy – just like the drawing would pass through her hands and be send over in gratitude to her marrying friends. She’d bestow the best present at the party and I wouldn’t have to shop for a month!
This is not something that I consider a favour for a friend. It’s a serious embodiment of creative exchange – she uses her allotment like she sews and collages organic forms on the pictorial textiles she exhibits. The allotment is a private place in some ways. Sometimes you get invited to help burn wood and stroke the rosemary but deep underneath is where the red beetroot lies. Its as if she enters a world of her own to draw it out. When it is drawn its like the end product of a creative process, it enters the oven to roast like a drawing of mine would set itself within a frame.
I have now begun to frame the drawings with the measurement – size and intellectual visualisation of found architectural material. That’s Fleetingwood Mac for you.
