Untangling The Garden of Broken Things with Freya Blackwood

“The ones I've made on my own are always a few years in the making,” says Orange-based children’s author and illustrator Freya Blackwood of her latest release, The Garden of Broken Things.

Since her first published work in 2003, Freya has illustrated dozens of books, working with acclaimed writers such as Libby Gleeson, Mem Fox and Nick Bland. In 2010 Freya was awarded the UK’s prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for "distinguished illustration in a book for children," and in 2015 she became the only person to have won three Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards in the one year.

The Garden of Broken Things, released in May, is Freya’s fourth solo work. The story explores the relationship between the curious Sadie and an old woman” bent with time and weariness”whom she meets after following a cat through tangled vines and undergrowth behind the lonely house at Number 9, Ardent Street.

“I just love old places that get forgotten,” says Freya, of her inspiration for the book.

“We had a neighbour next door who was elderly and eventually the whole backyard was just completely overgrown,” she continues.

“So that was a little bit of inspiration and also it's a little bit…. What I love with illustration is that you can tell stories that aren't remotely realistic, it can be a little bit magic. That's what I've ended up liking about my own books is that there's a little bit of magic. You can just stretch the boundaries a little bit.”

But the story also draws on Freya’s real life and family, and the playful interactions she observed between her daughter Ivy and her elderly grandmother. 

“My daughter, when she was young, we were lucky enough to have my grandmother, so her great-grandmother around,” says Freya.

“They used to play together and it was just really nice to see the way my grandmother came alive with a little kid around. It was like she couldn’t stop watching... they're just so exciting, little kids.”

Art has been part of Freya’s life from a young age. Her grandfather, Harold Greenhill was an award-winning painter whose work can be found in public galleries around Australia.

Her mother too was an artist, jewellery maker and art teacher, so creative pursuits were just a part of everyday life, says Freya.

But Freya’s path to the world of children’s books actually came about through the film industry. It was while working on special effects for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy in New Zealand that Freya had the chance to run shoulders with illustrators such as Alan Lee and John Howe.

“I was just doing production line prosthetics, mostly hobbit feet and orc makeup and things like that… but I met these amazing illustrators who were working on the film and I didn’t realise that people did that for a job. I didn't know that existed,” says Freya, who says that at the time it didn’t seem like a big stretch to just start drawing and give it a go.

“It took me about two years of doing samples and sending things off to publishers and I got a job and that was the start of it all,” she says.

“But I don't know whether you’d get into it as easily nowadays though… I think it was a good time to start — and a bit of luck!”

Even now, after 20 years as a working illustrator and more than 30 published works, Freya says it is still just as exciting when a newly published book arrives at her door.

“Yeah, it's pretty exciting… it never gets old. Often you've looked at it for a long, long time and then it goes away and you’ve moved on to the next one and when it comes back and you can hold it and feel it, it's a nice surprise!” she says.

“I reckon it's an amazing art form, picture books; I think it's kind of underrated. I love doing them and I just hope that a few will sell so I can do it again!”