Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Confessions of a Shed-Dweller

One of the best articles written about shedworking over the last decade was by journalist David Aaronovitch (pictured above), a piece inspired by the publication of the groundbreaking Men and Sheds called Confessions of a Shed-Dweller in which he asks if the shed is a creative powerhouse, or just somewhere for blokes to hide from the family? Here's an excerpt:
"My enshedded time is an essential component of my creative life. I don't just want to alone, I need – for the sake, ultimately, of my whole family – to be alone. What is in my interest is, naturally, also in everyone's interest...I'm in the shed now, writing an article about sheds. If I gaze through the honeysuckle and across the lawn, I can see the movement in the kitchen and, just above it, the back bathroom, as those in the house go about their chores and activities. Here I am simultaneously part of the family and apart from it, as though I was a teenager rather than a parent."
Well worth a browse.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:27 PM

    Brothers under the shed!
    Thanks for the reefer to David Aaronovitch's column. That pretty well says it all. More importantly, the piece led me to a bit of self-discovery. At home, I have two storage buildings enclosing garden tools, old furniture, stuff too big to store in the house, etc. But they are not truly sheds because I don't work in them. My shed is my office at the university -- and it fully meets all of David's five criteria. That's also why I find myself on the weekends coming down and spending two or three hours puttering around, doing odd jobs, etc. in my office.

    Judging from the offices of many of my university colleagues, I'd say those are their sheds too. Nowhere but at a university (certainly not in the corporate world) would people be allowed to keep their office space in such disarray.

    Bill D

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  2. Exactly. Though your office may not technically be a 'shed', it's certainly a shedworking atmosphere and that's what counts.

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