It’s Thursday April 2nd 2020 and not a particularly auspicious day to launch my virtual conversation plan given the amount of grim news coming our way from just about everywhere but here goes starting with a few personal details. My name is Davida Macdonald, guess what my father’s name was, but the Davida has often been shortened to Vida – either is fine by me. I knew from a ridiculously early age that art must play an important part in my life and so it has and still is irrespective of the fact that I am now retired from a lifetime of working in that most satisfying subject for many years.These days I work either indoors if the work is textile based or from our car where there is a pleasing view but more often or not in my shed where my paints, pens, brushes and print stuff jostle for space on a floor to ceiling wall of storage. There is a two seat garden sofa for tea breaks behind which I hide portfolios of work and reference materials. There is rush matting now slightly spotted on the floor and multiple pinboards wherever they can be attached. I use them to pin up work in progress and countless pictures of our smiling grandchildren. I enjoy its wholesome look and name; It is my shed, studio is not me.
In all honesty my shed could be made redundant given the amount of space created in the house as family left home but it is the most delightful of spaces even though its south facing wall of glass creates a no go work period round about midday when glare can be a nuisance but fortunately hunger pangs usually call.
Someone close to us who knows the shed well described it the other day commenting that calling it a shed was like calling Mayfair a housing estate!!!!! Absolutely not so.
Shed Notes 