There’s a really interesting concept in gardening called ‘forcing’. If you grow rhubarb you might be familiar with it. Basically it’s a way of speeding up growth so you can harvest an early crop.

I came across it in an old gardening book when I was a kid. I remember being fascinated by the idea that there’s a way to force something to grow more quickly than nature intended.

The article was accompanied by a black and white photo of the ‘forcer’. There it was, standing in an empty field: a bell-shaped terracotta dome with a shrunken lid. That didn’t seem too threatening to my 7-year-old imagination, but then I read on… imprisoned under that innocent looking thing was a confused and very pale rhubarb plant growing upward in the darkness, trying to reach the light. 

Now, rhubarb is a favourite of mine, so the merits or demerits of crop forcing is not my point here. I’m more interested in the underlying desire to hurry things up, to harvest ahead of time, and how this might apply to both visual art and the written word which are my two chosen disciplines.

While I do think it might be possible to accelerate artistic growth for quick results, is it really desirable? Turns out that forcing rhubarb can only be carried out on established, mature plants with the proviso that they’re given a year or two to recover. Try it on young plants and, as they don’t have the energy reserves, at best it permanently stunts their growth, and at worse it can kill them off entirely. What?!

So, with that slightly harsh lesson in mind, I’ve decided to continue along the slow track for now, pack for my regular Friday night art class and head to the train station.

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