Cressida Campbell

Lynn Clark is one of my oldest friends and she's been a huge influence to me in interiors and gardens and the way she places things. She's also, even though she wouldn't tell you, she just happens to be Russell Drysdale's only daughter. She'll arrange plants amazingly, incredible gardener. She's just, she really has got the art of... It's a bit, I mean it's brilliant interior design really.

The first house she lived in, that I met her, was a house in Bon Accord Avenue in Bondi Junction and it was rebuilt, or a very good friend of mine, who's an architect, SB Dodds, did a lot of work on it, but it was a timber house and it felt like a Queenslander.

I think it was probably the first timber house I'd ever been in and it was magical. It had quite a long verandah and I wanted to do a drawing of a woodblock and she had interesting bits of fern. She was the sort of person who'd make washing & drying look fabulous. A bit like Italians putting washing out in Naples, all those sort of clichés, but she had all these interesting wooden racks that she'd dry towels on. She had a black cat, who would lie languidly on an old wicker settee and there was a big Bangalow Palm that was really beautiful with dates outside.