SHED
There are rafters holding it up. Aligned with a procession of trusses it is as exalted and serene as any cathedral. Sheets of ply on top to seal. Where the scaffold stabilises, the insulation of the torched felt - the 4x2 studding and the concrete floor protect and insulates against Donegal wind. Gaston Bachelard’s consideration of how we experience intimate spaces:
‘We “understand” the slant of a roof. Even a dreamer dreams rationally; for him a pointed roof averts rain clouds. Up near the roof all our thoughts are clear...it is a pleasure to see the bare rafters of the strong framework. Here we participate in the carpenter’s strong geometry.’
The construct is 8x14 feet - walls of shiplap tongue and groove, red deal because wood is warm and where else would a practitioner of carpentry locate himself if not in the enclave of his own material? Built to spec, foundation dug, concrete poured. Permanency and retreat on the side of the mountain after the escape from the valley of the squinting windows and all it in.
‘A shed has to be interesting’ he says, ‘different but authentic,’ referring to the hand-built bench running the length of the wall. Made from planks (9x2s) and supported by roughly hewn legs (4x4s). The bench is a wonder. A cacophony of off-cuts, lanterns, resins and oils. Blocks of cedar and fir piled high. Pale fibrous yew, and dark red Scots pine. Sapwood/Hardwood. There are Dutch clogs, buckets, tins for varnish - brushes. Bits, braces, bit roll, African masks, a dozen or so hammers. Jars of masonry nails, screws and tacks. And everywhere sawdust - a fine haze of wooden sugar that sits on the head of every screw and in the pits of the bench where, occasionally the hammer missed its mark. Memories of a masking taped and bandaged thumb, ‘I hit the wrong nail’ and laughter.
Attached to the bench is an antique joiners vice. J. Parkinson & Son of Canal Iron Works, Shipley, Yorkshire. ‘Our Perfect Vises’ - MADE IN ENGLAND, patented and casting that will last an eternity. Its companions are the fire tongs and water pump which came from the well on Dan’s farm in South Derry. On top there is an Anglepoise. Gold marbled, working hinges - a curious lamp-head rolled at the edge atop two movable arms and a tiered base. The placing of air vents at the apex of a watchful tulip shade. ‘Herbert Terry & Sons’ cast into the fork denotes provenance. This model is a 1227, from the 1940s. A revolution in its day, a posable lamp for the home:
‘On the day that the Second World War is declared, the Anglepoise is advertised in the Telegraph as the 'ideal blackout lamp'. Lamps were later produced for the navigator’s chart table in WW2 and with post war material shortages, manufactures substituted aluminium for steel. A team searching for the Loch Ness Monster in 1986 found a WW2 Wellington Bomber plane. It was raised from the water and fitted with a new battery the Anglepoise navigator’s light still worked!’
We have fun placing and re-placing it, bending the arms, swivelling the head and investing it with Pixar-like anthropomorphism. It comes alive when we press the switch. ‘Tout ce qui brille voit (all that glows sees). The lamp keeps vigil, therefore it is vigilant...the lamp in the window is the house’s eye.’
There is another shed. This is worth noting. It came with the house. A ramshackle, falling down standard composite to store fuel. This is where the turf lives. The spiders. The blocks for burning - this is a space of function and this function serves the home. The carpenter’s shed on the other hand, this construct has handmade windows. Three in total and one on the door. Sixteen glass panels were cut to size and inserted. Wood before glass. The door is mahogany, chosen because it let in lots of light. Half the charm lay in the fact it was damaged and could be fixed - a nostalgic return to boyhood apprenticeship. Bachelard likens these forms of activity to early, organic memory. Gesture and the functions of habit lead to modes of tenancy. We are ‘the diagrams of the functions of inhabiting.’ Organic memories and the ‘firsts’ in every childhood space are exemplified by ‘the feel of the tiniest latch’ which has remained forever in our hands.
From apprenticeship to mastery; the decades of working, joining, sawing and hammering with measurements in their thousands. As many pencil marks as the finest draughtsman and a career as full of making as any artist. An exchange of the knowledge of generations in the edging tools and rulers, chisels, bow-saws, brawdels. The cast steel double iron Jack Plane in the tool-box under the bench attests to this. A smooth rectangular block of 17 inch long beechwood. This too is stamped; ‘William Marples & Sons, Ltd. Sheffield’ trademarked ‘Hibernia ~ Shamrock Brand Tools.’ It is an old plane. The open handle and the nocks at the corners show it originates in the late 1800s. It looks like it could have shaped the ark. An O. McDonald etched his name on one end alongside Marples.
When they were married the carpenter promised his bride a dresser. However the excavation and construction of the valley home took time. From foundation to beam they mixed mortar and wheeled wheelbarrows, always together and always in sync. The children played with coving adhesive and sticks getting marvellous satisfaction from stirring and slopping. 'Helping.' They dug in the sand piles used for mixing concrete. They slept in the same room until each space was finished and everybody was awarded their nook. When the time came to leave the valley home the carpenter remembered the dresser. ‘I’ll make it on the mountain instead.’ He sourced the wood (reclaimed for the most part) and started his work. The new beginning made the creation an exercise in being. Bachelard’s theory - ‘art is an increase in life’ or Lescare’s - ‘An artist does not create the way he lives, he lives the way he creates.’ He used the shed. He used the bench. He used the vice. He used the lamp. He used the plane. The pump and the tongs watched on and kept him company.
Reclaimed greenheart; a hardwood used to build piers, it came from the River Foyle. Men called it Ironwood because it sinks - it lasts forever and ruins every saw it comes in contact with. Old pine - the same as the beams in the valley attic. When the saw runs through the cambium, the sweetness of the sap would floor you. Aroma from 100 years ago. ‘…smell breaks boundaries. It reaches across time, and opens (t)here: where there is no need to think, but a place to be. An intimacy with something thought gone. Touching.’
Pitch and red and white deal - at least seven types of timber shaped, measured, planed and put together. Japanese larch. We did not know that wood could be iridescent. A vessel for delph - it houses the Denby and Belleek that the carpenter’s wife received as a wedding present. She proudly polishes the surfaces, nourishing the wood with oil as she has nurtured all. He gives her the dresser and we think of D.H. Lawrence:
‘Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely, warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.’
Bachelard says that all Life begins in the bosom of the house. When we are cast into the world we seek to recreate the comfort and nourishment of our originary home. Without these spaces man would be a dispersed being, without the ability to ‘dream in peace.’ He goes so far as to say ‘it maintains him through the storms of the heavens and this of life. It is body and soul.’ The carpenter created a space that was not a house but a Shed. He tamed the weald and shaped a sanctuary where timber tempers and sustains him. ‘In the utmost depths of reverie, we participate in this original warmth, in this well-tempered matter of the material paradise. This is the environment in which the protective beings live.’
Wood is warm.
‘We “understand” the slant of a roof. Even a dreamer dreams rationally; for him a pointed roof averts rain clouds. Up near the roof all our thoughts are clear...it is a pleasure to see the bare rafters of the strong framework. Here we participate in the carpenter’s strong geometry.’
The construct is 8x14 feet - walls of shiplap tongue and groove, red deal because wood is warm and where else would a practitioner of carpentry locate himself if not in the enclave of his own material? Built to spec, foundation dug, concrete poured. Permanency and retreat on the side of the mountain after the escape from the valley of the squinting windows and all it in.
‘A shed has to be interesting’ he says, ‘different but authentic,’ referring to the hand-built bench running the length of the wall. Made from planks (9x2s) and supported by roughly hewn legs (4x4s). The bench is a wonder. A cacophony of off-cuts, lanterns, resins and oils. Blocks of cedar and fir piled high. Pale fibrous yew, and dark red Scots pine. Sapwood/Hardwood. There are Dutch clogs, buckets, tins for varnish - brushes. Bits, braces, bit roll, African masks, a dozen or so hammers. Jars of masonry nails, screws and tacks. And everywhere sawdust - a fine haze of wooden sugar that sits on the head of every screw and in the pits of the bench where, occasionally the hammer missed its mark. Memories of a masking taped and bandaged thumb, ‘I hit the wrong nail’ and laughter.
Attached to the bench is an antique joiners vice. J. Parkinson & Son of Canal Iron Works, Shipley, Yorkshire. ‘Our Perfect Vises’ - MADE IN ENGLAND, patented and casting that will last an eternity. Its companions are the fire tongs and water pump which came from the well on Dan’s farm in South Derry. On top there is an Anglepoise. Gold marbled, working hinges - a curious lamp-head rolled at the edge atop two movable arms and a tiered base. The placing of air vents at the apex of a watchful tulip shade. ‘Herbert Terry & Sons’ cast into the fork denotes provenance. This model is a 1227, from the 1940s. A revolution in its day, a posable lamp for the home:
‘On the day that the Second World War is declared, the Anglepoise is advertised in the Telegraph as the 'ideal blackout lamp'. Lamps were later produced for the navigator’s chart table in WW2 and with post war material shortages, manufactures substituted aluminium for steel. A team searching for the Loch Ness Monster in 1986 found a WW2 Wellington Bomber plane. It was raised from the water and fitted with a new battery the Anglepoise navigator’s light still worked!’
We have fun placing and re-placing it, bending the arms, swivelling the head and investing it with Pixar-like anthropomorphism. It comes alive when we press the switch. ‘Tout ce qui brille voit (all that glows sees). The lamp keeps vigil, therefore it is vigilant...the lamp in the window is the house’s eye.’
There is another shed. This is worth noting. It came with the house. A ramshackle, falling down standard composite to store fuel. This is where the turf lives. The spiders. The blocks for burning - this is a space of function and this function serves the home. The carpenter’s shed on the other hand, this construct has handmade windows. Three in total and one on the door. Sixteen glass panels were cut to size and inserted. Wood before glass. The door is mahogany, chosen because it let in lots of light. Half the charm lay in the fact it was damaged and could be fixed - a nostalgic return to boyhood apprenticeship. Bachelard likens these forms of activity to early, organic memory. Gesture and the functions of habit lead to modes of tenancy. We are ‘the diagrams of the functions of inhabiting.’ Organic memories and the ‘firsts’ in every childhood space are exemplified by ‘the feel of the tiniest latch’ which has remained forever in our hands.
From apprenticeship to mastery; the decades of working, joining, sawing and hammering with measurements in their thousands. As many pencil marks as the finest draughtsman and a career as full of making as any artist. An exchange of the knowledge of generations in the edging tools and rulers, chisels, bow-saws, brawdels. The cast steel double iron Jack Plane in the tool-box under the bench attests to this. A smooth rectangular block of 17 inch long beechwood. This too is stamped; ‘William Marples & Sons, Ltd. Sheffield’ trademarked ‘Hibernia ~ Shamrock Brand Tools.’ It is an old plane. The open handle and the nocks at the corners show it originates in the late 1800s. It looks like it could have shaped the ark. An O. McDonald etched his name on one end alongside Marples.
When they were married the carpenter promised his bride a dresser. However the excavation and construction of the valley home took time. From foundation to beam they mixed mortar and wheeled wheelbarrows, always together and always in sync. The children played with coving adhesive and sticks getting marvellous satisfaction from stirring and slopping. 'Helping.' They dug in the sand piles used for mixing concrete. They slept in the same room until each space was finished and everybody was awarded their nook. When the time came to leave the valley home the carpenter remembered the dresser. ‘I’ll make it on the mountain instead.’ He sourced the wood (reclaimed for the most part) and started his work. The new beginning made the creation an exercise in being. Bachelard’s theory - ‘art is an increase in life’ or Lescare’s - ‘An artist does not create the way he lives, he lives the way he creates.’ He used the shed. He used the bench. He used the vice. He used the lamp. He used the plane. The pump and the tongs watched on and kept him company.
Reclaimed greenheart; a hardwood used to build piers, it came from the River Foyle. Men called it Ironwood because it sinks - it lasts forever and ruins every saw it comes in contact with. Old pine - the same as the beams in the valley attic. When the saw runs through the cambium, the sweetness of the sap would floor you. Aroma from 100 years ago. ‘…smell breaks boundaries. It reaches across time, and opens (t)here: where there is no need to think, but a place to be. An intimacy with something thought gone. Touching.’
Pitch and red and white deal - at least seven types of timber shaped, measured, planed and put together. Japanese larch. We did not know that wood could be iridescent. A vessel for delph - it houses the Denby and Belleek that the carpenter’s wife received as a wedding present. She proudly polishes the surfaces, nourishing the wood with oil as she has nurtured all. He gives her the dresser and we think of D.H. Lawrence:
‘Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely, warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.’
Bachelard says that all Life begins in the bosom of the house. When we are cast into the world we seek to recreate the comfort and nourishment of our originary home. Without these spaces man would be a dispersed being, without the ability to ‘dream in peace.’ He goes so far as to say ‘it maintains him through the storms of the heavens and this of life. It is body and soul.’ The carpenter created a space that was not a house but a Shed. He tamed the weald and shaped a sanctuary where timber tempers and sustains him. ‘In the utmost depths of reverie, we participate in this original warmth, in this well-tempered matter of the material paradise. This is the environment in which the protective beings live.’
Wood is warm.