Pea Bales
Pea Bales, Graphite on Canson, 30 x 21mm.
This drawing is based on the second knot from R.Farquharson from Adelaide. The original knot was used to tie pea bales. There is a little secret drawn in the straw.
The original knot:
An extract from R. Farquharson about the knot:
“Sustainability, by definition, is a necessity. Yet my desire to live sustainably is so difficult to achieve. Every aspect of our lives involves some sort of unsustainable practice. Even most things you eat aren’t sustainable. The way we get our food requires synthetic fertilisers, pesticides herbicides and fuel to plough, harvest, transport and process our food. It involves extracting water from river systems, displacing habitat and results in a lot of land degradation. One thing I’m trying to do is grow a lot of my own fruit and veggies. To do so requires fertile soil. One way to make the soil more fertile is to use green manure – composts or mulches made from plant matter. All plants require nitrogen and most nitrogen these days is made synthetically. It requires a heap of fossil fuel to make. Some farmers grow legumes which are able to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere in symbiosis with a soil bacteria called rhizobium – a relatively clean, green source of nitrogen. We use pea straw to boost the fertility of our soil. It comes in bales tethered by string. The string is synthetic. And therein lies my first knot. It’s so difficult to truly live sustainably. You try to grow your own and use a natural source of nutrients but you know that even then there are still aspects that aren’t truly sustainable.”
