Understorey
'A beautiful, quiet, achingly tender book' Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places
In Understorey, artist and writer Anna Chapman Parker records in prose and stunning original line drawings a year spent looking closely at weeds, our most ubiquitous and accessible plants. In gardens, on verges or clustered around municipal lampposts, weeds offer a year-round spectacle of wildlife. The benefits to us of being among greenery are well known, but what exactly are these vaguely familiar shapes that accompany our every step, yet pass beneath our notice? How and when do they emerge, bloom and subside, and what would it mean to notice them?
Meditating too on how they appear in other artists’ work, from a bramble framing a sixth-century Byzantine manuscript to a kudzu vine installation in contemporary Berlin, Chapman Parker explores the art of paying attention even to the smallest things.
Book details
- Format
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9780715655689
- Published
- 1 May 2025
- Pages
- 288
- Duration
- Dimensions
- 129 x 198 mm
- Genre
- Memoir and Biography
- Imprint
- Duckworth
Reviews
'A beautiful, quiet, achingly tender book. A year spent with weeds; giving voice to the exquisite and the everyday alike... It’s a reminder that the circle always turns; the light always comes back'
'Anna Chapman Parker weaves together art history, botany, ecosystems, and the routines of everyday life in this gracefully illuminating account of a year drawing weeds. Through the shifting seasons, Chapman Parker’s drawings and prose reveal the extraordinary value of plants that are generally taken for granted, ignored, or obliterated, and the power of stopping to look carefully, pen in hand'
'A delicately written study of the joys and difficulties of paying attention'
'What a brilliant idea, to fit into the interstices of days full of work and two children, the very plants that are themselves so good at filling the interstices of our daily lives. The attention that Anna Chapman Parker has given to the ordinary weeds surrounding her, both in drawings and words, gives them a heightened glamour, presence and worth'
'Anna Chapman Parker approaches the struggle to find creative fulfilment in a world full of distraction with the same generosity she extends to some of our most overlooked and downtrodden urban flora. This book is as clear-eyed as it is beautiful'
'This tranquil, meditative book is all about the quiet pleasure of examining something closely in order to truly appreciate it'
'This thoughtful and beautifully written book is a balm to the soul. Structured as a calendar year spent looking at wildflowers in the author's neighbourhood, and sketching them as part of an attempt to slow down and observe more carefully, this book is part illustrated artist's diary, and part meditation on the process of drawing: what it means to look, take time to observe, and to attempt to record what we see on the page. It's hard to overstate how thoughtful and well written this book is, or the impact it had on my too-busy, somewhat frazzled mind. I drank it in and it has changed me forever'
'Sketches by Anna are found throughout the book, while the odd black-and-white photo of weeds also helps to illustrate the subject matter, so this is certainly a book for those who like art as well as weeds!'
'This is a thoughtful book, beautifully illustrated with Anna's pen drawings, that draws us in and makes us pay more attention to our surroundings'
