Issue 15: Natural

‘Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.’

This quote, by the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright, appears in the book Architecture by Hand, Inspired by Nature by Spencer Fung. In the new issue of Hole & Corner Fung elaborates on why nature is the ultimate inspiration for him – and it is a theme that runs throughout the magazine.

It is there in the work of Laura Ellen Bacon, the artist fashioning elaborate sculptures out of willow who was a finalist in this year’s Woman’s Hour Craft Prize. You can also see it in the beautiful retrospective portfolio that the landscape photographer Mark Mattock has put together exclusively for us.

This issue we also meet those who combine science with nature: such as the artist Tom Joyce, who uses iron as his raw material in his industrial scale sculptures; or Sebastian Cox, growing his own furniture using fungi.

Elsewhere, we talk seasonality and provenance with chefs Valentine Warner and the Portland’s Merlin Labron-Johnson as well as groundbreaking biodynamic farmers (and Skye Gyngell’s go-to suppliers) Fern Verrow.

We remember the life of F Percy Smith, the esoteric godfather of natural history filmmaking. We walk the ley lines and the chalk cliffs, we discuss the meaning of doing things ‘naturally’ and the importance of taking time out just to think.

Finally, we meet Shane Connolly, florist to royalty and expert on the language of flowers. The motto scribbled on his office when garden author Stephanie Donaldson paid him a visit could be a mantra for Hole & Corner: ‘seasonal, local, thoughtful sustainable’.

Order Hole & Corner Issue 15 here: It’s a natural thing…

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