The Artist and her Daughter

You seem to like wearing clogs when you work.
They have such a history behind them ... (stepping up to work) ... good working shoes too.
Tell me about your day out yesterday, just you and our daughter.
It was lovely, lovely to spend time with her ... just the two of us. She's only eight but she's so receptive to things. (stepping back from work) We went to see a show.
Did she enjoy it?
Well, yes ... (working again) ... In the first room were all these paintings with female bodies trapped by houses. Also, a huge cage-like box or cell with a replica of the artist's childhood home in it ... (light chuckle) ... I was laughing with her. Explaining how it's not good to feel trapped at home with no way out. That it's good to find something you really want to do in life. Something you care about. And not spend all day cleaning ... (a smile) ... unless it gives you a huge amount of satisfaction ... (stepping through mess) ... No, home, I said, is a good place but that for some people it can be a trap.
How are you getting on with the new piece?
Very good. I've just removed something from it which helps it greatly ... (angling head; working away at surface) ... but I want to talk more about the show we saw.
Go on.
The rooms were like dreams, bad dreams, and memories ... (stifled sneeze) ... I talked to her about how memories aren't always truthful. One room had all these chairs ... a torture chair, little chairs. And it was all about the artist's background, her father's job, and something that had happened in her childhood, which she was very angry about. Which I think is extraordinary, because she's in her nineties, this artist. And to be still making work about it? It's incredible.
What effect does a show like this have on an 8-year old, do you think?
A good effect, it's good ... (sitting down) ... She was fascinated by the fact the artist used so many different materials. (standing up) And that you could literally walk into these imaginary worlds. I think it was also very significant that it was a woman artist we were seeing. No, she was very sweet. (a beat) Inquisitive. Just really enjoying it. We had a really good time. (looking intently at work) And because she's been exposed to art from such an early age, she never wonders what it's for. (working hard) The other thing I loved ... is the fact it was also about motherhood.

The Barber and the Tramp

After awaiting more kind words from the war zone, something I suspect I will have to cease talking about shortly, I left the artist by the wall in the living room working on her latest piece. I then walked with a kind of studious but uncomfortable gait under what I call the city's biggest sky - it is across a vast and urban stretch of grass pocked only with crows and history - before dipping through the shops and houses by the station and having a haircut. Only the first woman who began cutting my hair cut her finger so badly she couldn't continue and another woman eventually had to take over. Beforehand, blood kept pouring from this poor woman's index finger, and as I was the only person in the shop with her at the time, I felt especially responsible. With one of those ridiculous hairdresser's sheets still across me, I quickly turned on the tap and asked the poor woman - by now threatening to faint - to sit down and place her finger under the tap, which I now had running with lots of cold water. As she sat there as pale as a ghost, diluted blood spun its bright red and irritably cheerful way down the plughole. I gave her lots of paper toweling to shore up the blood. But when her colleague eventually arrived back - from the bank apparently - there wasn't a great deal of love lost, I noticed, and even less sympathy. I did what I could to patch up the enmity, as well as the wound, and proceeded to have my hair, as well as my faith, 'repaired'. An auspicious start to the day, I thought. It didn't end there, either. I caught a train into the centre. As it drawled into its final destination, I saw a woman at the end of the platform. She was standing there perfectly still with a large hand-painted sign emblazoned in red with the word 'FORGIVE' . I disembarked, baffled and bemused, and walked silently through the crowds. I was almost ready for anything now. As it happened, there was a film premier being set up and large banners with the faces of the stars staring down. Now, it just so happened that I knew one of the people in the film before they were famous and I think I half-expected to bump into them, given the sort of strange day I was having. Added to which was the fact the film was set many years ago in the war zone when indeed I was briefly there, too. Just as I was looking up at this person's giant reproduced face, I slammed into someone by mistake. It was like a thump. It couldn't be, could it? No. Instead of it being one of the biggest movie stars of recent times, it was in fact a friendly-faced tramp in a worn and patched tweed jacket with an ancient rucksack on his back. 'I do apologise,' he said, most courteously. 'No,' I said. 'I apologise.' And with that we bowed and bade each other good day. Now, I doubt they'll have had courtesy like that at the premier. Not when the paps are out and the scrums are ripe and the glitz is big and vulgar. Anyway, the artist was still working when I returned. 'How was it?' she asked, trying to get used to the haircut. 'Fine,' I said. 'I got your materials.'