Working Space

The space where we live is small but adequate. It is a flat off a busy road, set back just far enough to create a kind of barrier between you and the traffic. (I can hear it now.) The artist works in the main room, an open-plan affair with one large red sofa, a round table, floorboards, books, a TV with news bleeding in from Iraq, and an atmosphere of industry, irritability, and hope. As I have said before, the artist gave up her studio some years ago in order to spend more time with the children. As a result, there is this extraordinary coexistence in the room between an artist's and child's sensibility, not so much an atelier as playground. As for the hours, they vary but can go on late, however much interspersed with child-caring tasks and general emotional wear and tear. As I am in the room frequently at present, though I am on standby to go abroad, I feel closer to the process than usual. Also, much discussion about the work can be had. We can try things out like http://www.resonancefm.com/. I can read out sections from a book I'm attempting to write. We can glory, no doubt prematurely, in the fact that despite my adventurism and nocturnal past, we are closer than before. All the while, the piece the artist is working on builds and builds. There is much layering, intense detail, and this develops slowly, like a well-honed argument ultimately delivered with warm conviction.