1. To create a weave on a loom, the warp yarns are set to open according to the weave or pattern allowing the weft shuttle to pass through; the shed is the opening created.
2. The shed is, of course, the man hut at the end of the garden. Where the garden tools are kept, all neat and tidy, an organised space. Or a potting shed, the smell of damp soil and compost, and hessian sacks, rows of earthenware pots and seed packets pinned to a board on the wall, or the back of the door – trowels and aprons, gloves and string, secateurs and kneelers, notebooks and jottings, and seed trays in various degrees of planting-out-readiness. Or a writing shed – with books and carpet, a comfortable chair and cushions and a bench seat for visitors and a log burning fire whose chimney extends to the roof, and on which coffee will stay warm. Leather and paper and tweed, somehow. Or the guest shed with honey coloured walls, a loose covered comfortable chair in faded linen, a down topper on the mattress, white linen for summer and brushed cotton for the winter, candles and wine, chocolates and cheeses.
The idea of shed conjures up a melee of instant images, all evocative all generic, and, for me, all borrowed, as our shed is just full of stuff. So I don’t actually know how it feels to be in, work in, a shed. But the point of all this is that we can imagine, write our own stories and narratives, to provide what we need, the inspiration, something from an old memory jostled into view that provokes another thought, and then another, until we know what we want.
The ideal of shed though is essentially simplicity, a rawness of material and practicality of function and limited means. Invention born of necessity, that sort of thing…