The Artist's Studio Garden

This garden is presented at the Gardener's World Autumn Fair at Audley End, August 2024.

Knot Works is an artist led arts organisation based on the high street in Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. We provide space for artists to make work, learn new skills and share their work via exhbitions and pop-up shops. Knot Works also hosts pottery, drawing and print-making classes for beginners to experienced artists.

Knot Works makes and sells Oak Gall Ink and this has inspired the planting selection of the garden - plants for natural inks.

The Artist’s Studio Garden provides a new outdoor studio for Knot Works’ artists to do pottery, drawing and print-making. The plants have been selected for their pigment yielding properties and can be used by the artists for making natural inks. The garden celebrates the incredible link between nature and the arts. Pigment yielding plants are often flowering species, ensuring the garden will be excellent for pollinators.  

The structure includes various height work benches that are sheltered from the rain while also providing rain-water harvesting, integral to the ink-making process.

The garden has been designed and constructed with sustainable practices in mind. All materials have been salvaged and reused and the garden will be installed in the Knot Works courtyard after the show to be used for years to come. Sustainable, plant-based art materials are increasingly important to artists and the garden fosters a minimal-impact approach to creative practice.

The garden was awarded a Gold Medal.

Designed by Samuel Wheeler
Sponsored by Hawkins \ Brown