Riders in the storm

The artist takes a rightful breather, burying her head inside a 600-page novel like a head of corn inside a giant balloon. The mood of the news is not good; it is local and dark, like the weather, and packed like (an) unexploded bomb(s). Soft and relentless rain on the windows creates the right sort of feel in a movie but in real life just makes you restless. The artist's daughter has the right idea - watching TV with the artist's son - though with too many angry voices for something so well meaning. I admit to the idea of the ideal taking a day off. I also admit to the reality that a creative environment is not always a flourishing one and that sticks in the mud cannot always be sidestepped. But there is reward to a creative household. This last piece the artist has been working on can thrill like a walk in the woods. There is a kind of paranormal light across it. It plays yet never deceives. There must be two thousand leaves in the image, one or two hundred broadleaved trees and shrubs. As I write, it remains screwed like a statement to the wall. The density of the medium means its presence has no doubt, but because all the scattered newspapers protecting the floor have been swept up and binned, and all signs of work temporarily removed, the piece sits within the domestic landscape like a cross-armed stalwart, a permanent member. It is a part of our lives - we are having a relationship - but soon it will be gone.