BARBRO RAEN THOMASSEN

Besides working as a visual artist, I write. I am also a keen vegetable gardener, which I have been since my impoverished student  days in Bergen when my husband and I were lent a small patch where we could grow our own vegetables and save money. We never stopped. Everywhere we have lived we have cultivated, finally settling in the forest in Birkenes. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world, says Wendell Berry, one of my heroes. This philosophy – and my art – is pivotal in my books. I carve seeds in stone and I sow seeds in my vegetable garden. The necessity of the seed is beyond doubt, its potential is overwhelming. Like love. Seeds and love, both may save us from perishing.