Mission Statement

If you are reading this blog - a feat I cannot of course take for granted - and wondering what on earth it is all about, I suppose the best way to describe it would be to say it is a kind of diaristic homage, a series of sometimes practical dedications, and these to the artist, who happens also to be my wife. I should also state that I never quite expected this whole thing to come so thick and fast, and quite so regularly. (I haven't missed a day since it started.) Nor is it, by any stretch of the imagination, the only thing going on in our lives. In fact, I omit many things which I consider to be either too thorny or indeed sensitive to cover in such a public display of what is essentially affection and respect. What I will say in the blog's favour, however, is that it provides a welcome opportunity for me to drift in and out of various inter-related topics, rather like a tide still trying to find itself, and in-so-doing I get to regularly wash the beach of any distracting flotsam or jetsam. Another thing: it not only charts the very practical progress of an artist working towards, and trying to get, an exhibition, it also gives spine to the idea that it is a good thing for a man to enjoy the creative independence of the woman he is living with. I suppose, in other words, it is essentially feminist, not at all submissive, and, interestingly enough, not that possessive. What else do I choose not to cover in this blog? Well, the artist's husband, like the blogger's wife, remains anonymous. For one reason or another I have not always been so focused on the artist, though I have always been her fan. I don't like to be too literal about the work, enjoying instead the rumour of its greatness. (Ultimately it will be up to you to decide: perhaps the work will not be revealed until such a time as an exhibition is found, dates confirmed, and work perhaps already hung.) I do not find it appropriate to cover our sex life, musical though it is when expressed. I don't see any merit in recording petty squabbles: these may be a common denominator between reader and writer but, come on, who wants it? I don't like to go into any real kind of detail about the artist's relationship with her own family, good though these relationships are. (As for my own: am I saving up on them?) And I never like to be too literal about people or places, by which I mean that where we live for example I always refer to as the capital. Where for instance I spent much of my childhood, I often call the chilly north. The various embattled places on the globe I know fairly well, and to which I may be returning, I call only the war zone. Where our children's maternal grandparents live, I term with affection the foothills. A vast country I knew, loved, and lived in for five years, I describe only as being across the ocean. And the city where I mostly lived there, I will tend to describe as the city of scraped skies. As for where my paternal grandfather came from, I call it the flatland across the sea. And so forth. Anyway, welcome aboard if you have just joined us. Keep coming back. The artist worked on the new piece on the wall today - green, peaty, root-like, profoundly reassuring - and it shows all the signs of greatness. It would be a shame if you missed it.