From Orchard Trees to Pencil Lines

How Childhood Memories Shape My Designs

When I was a small child, we moved from Australia to South Africa, and one of the first places we landed was a vast, timeworn farm. It was no longer producing, but to me, it was a wonderland. We shared the property with an elderly farmer and his dog. His wife, who had passed long before, had once been the teacher of the farm school, now silent, keeping a tight hold on its secrets. He lived alone, quietly tending to the ghosts of his memories.

That was until our mischievous behaviour disrupted his peace and quiet. This usually took the form of climbing on the roofs of the buildings, running along the rooftops, then jumping to the ground and bolting into the fields before he could catch us with the sjambok. What is a sjambok? It’s a long, sword-like leather whip. Not to worry though, we never got caught.

One rainy night, a little black Labrador appeared at our doorstep.An image etched into the core of my childhood reflections. I’m still not sure how it came about, or if it was an intended surprise, but my parents opened the door and there he was, sitting on the mat like he belonged. I knelt down, wrapped my arms around his soaking, sticky little body, and that was that. I named him Puggles, and from then on, he was my constant companion. Wherever I went, he followed - through dusty fields, fruit-filled orchards, and the hidden corners of that magical and sometimes eerie place.

Most of my days were spent beneath or in the trees, with soil-covered knees, using my bike to get around. Two great orchards sprawled across the farm. I climbed their trees, ate fruit warm from the sun, sometimes nibbled on by worms and felt entirely free. The abandoned chicken run, dirt-filled and dusty, was home to our beloved mulberry trees. I raised silkworms in shoeboxes in my bedroom, and my fingers were forever purple from plucking berries. I don’t really recall ever eating lunch formally at a table - I’m sure that after a full breakfast, most of my nutrition came from grazing on food grown on the farm, free to pick and eat as needed.

Next door, the pig house was no longer home to pigs, but to us children, it was a grand café. A mud kitchen with every imaginable dish made from wet earth, sticky clay, pebbles, twigs, and whatever else we could find. I remember even creating a telephone with cups and a long piece of string.

I built fairy houses beneath tall trees while Puggles sniffed the earth, his beautiful black fur glinting with dust and daydreams. There was an owl house, long abandoned, that looked as though it held many forgotten tales. Prickly pears and pomegranates grew in wild defiance of the years, and the neighbours’ cows would visit to steal vegetables from the garden. Our job as kids was to direct the cows back to their home - which was also where we got our fresh milk, covered in a thick layer of decadent cream. Granadilla vines climbed fences, and beehives buzzed with a life I never disturbed.

One wall, created entirely by rebellious ivy, became our secret sanctuary. We cleared a little tunnel into it, creating a hidden rabbit warren where we could disappear from the world and our parents. And always - always - there was that school. The old school with its heavy door and its beckoning keyhole. I used to stand at the windows and the door, fingers grazing the rusted latch, wondering what stories it kept inside and desperate to get in. Any key I found, I would wonder if it was the one. Still to this day, that school holds my intrigue.

These memories don’t just sit in the past - they shape my art today. They drift in like whispers when I begin to feel the next creation take hold in my imagination. My patterns begin not with trend forecasts or market analysis, but with mulberry-stained fingers, the smell of apricot in the sun, and the warmth of a wet dog in my arms. They begin with stories.

Each pencil line is a tether to those moments of curiosity, mischief, and a wild-hearted childhood. And in those lines, I try to hold space for that feeling of wonder, innocence, and the little girl I once was. I draw not just what I see, but what I remember. What I felt, and to some extent, what I wish I could give to my children.

That’s why my designs often carry a soft sense of nostalgia. They’re fragments of a life once lived among ivy walls and fairy gardens, passed through the quiet filter of time. And perhaps, just perhaps, they’ll awaken a few memories of your own.

So if you ever find yourself staring at one of my patterns and feeling something vaguely familiar, like the echo of laughter down a long-forgotten hallway, don’t be surprised. You may have had your own orchard once. Your own silkworms and mud café. Your own Puggles.

And if you did - then you’re right at home here.

….. a story from the world of Dianne Stark