Welcome back to the Year of the Lads, in which we focus on one Glasgow Lads book each month through next July. September’s book is Book 1, Playing for Keeps (Fergus and John novel).
One of our main characters, Fergus Taylor, is an architect with an intriguing hobby: salvage art, in which discarded items are recycled into beautiful, one-of-a-kind works.
This excerpt shows John exploring Fergus’s works (not a euphemism):
F.T. 07-2013 F.T. 07-2013
Standing on a chair in Fergus’s kitchen, John gave a low whistle of awe at the initials etched upon the artwork’s metal mounting board. Then he rehung it among its three companions on the wall above the cupboards.
In a striking series of quirky metallic pieces, four trees represented the year’s seasons. The summer tree he’d just been examining featured branches made of strips of green copper that reminded John of his mum’s antique flower pots. Rusted springs comprised the autumn tree’s branches, and the winter tree was made of sterling-silver fork tines.
The spring tree, which must have taken days to assemble, consisted of tiny brown and green glass shards forming the bark and buds. In the glint of the ceiling light, it looked freshly rain-drenched.
Judging by the initials, Fergus had made all these with his own hands.
John found more examples of Fergus’s salvage art in the living room. On the three-level corner shelf—which was itself formed from pieces of driftwood and old piping—sat a menagerie of animals made of scrap wood, metal, and glass. On the wall was a tarnished-silver art deco clock that seemed originally designed to sit on a shelf. And then there was the coffee table made from a refurbished wooden door, with the knob still attached, shined to brass perfection.
Fergus had looked past the surface of all this rubbish and seen something beautiful. What does he see when he looks at me? John wondered. Am I the opposite—rubbish beneath an illusory surface?
This is one of my favorite things about Fergus, and it became part of the book by sheer serendipity: I learned about salvage art via a random magazine picked up in a hospital waiting room. Like most people, I usually spend those interminable moments scrolling on my phone, but for some reason that day I decided instead to open my mind to new things. And the muses rewarded me greatly! ✨
I found an interesting old Scrivener comment in the scene of their first date:
In school, Fergus had enjoyed studying history until he’d discovered that every “fact” was open to interpretation.
My 2015 thoughts, mostly verbatim apart from typos:
He’s an artist, but even his art is a way of imposing order on the universe. Because if you think about it, art isn’t just freedom and wild creativity. It’s also about structure and balance and making order from chaos. Think of his color wheel, or his 4 Seasons trees. They’re systematic, they’re a set of things. And that’s part of their beauty.
My Salvage Art Pinterest board includes a piece or two that inspired Fergus’s art, but most of them I made up in my head then found art to show you that sort of matched it. Then I added several more that I just thought were pure cool. 😎
To be entered into this week’s giveaway and the monthly giveaway, leave a comment on this post with a description or picture of your favorite work of art, salvage or not. If you’re stumped, go to the Salvage Art link above, fall down a Pinterest rabbit hole, and show me your favorite find!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
- Comments from all weekly posts will be automatically entered to win the monthly prize.
- THIS WEEK’S PRIZE: autographed bookplate plus your choice of one other swag item (collection coming pronto). Open through Wednesday, October 1. (August weekly winners will be drawn once I get the swag together to choose from in the next week or so. Finishing Playing By Ear took longer than I thought! 😬)
- THIS MONTH’S PRIZE: An autographed copy of the Playing For Keeps paperback. Open through Tuesday, 30 September.
- Pool of entrants will consist of comments on this post and on the blog version.
- One entry per person per weekly drawing.
- International entries welcome.