The work will wait while you show the child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work

I have done nothing much but sleep over the past two days. But our son is now here and our daughter is enjoying the self-imposed mystery of a sleepover over at a friend's house. As I write, I can hear the artist gently urge our son to sleep. When not sleeping I have been loosely reassembling my thoughts - old and stiff playing cards drifting down a fast-moving mountain stream come to mind - while leafing through my notes and cards in my hardback notebook. It frustrates me that the artist had not been in touch with the gallery when they were making their various attempts to contact her, only because I had made provisions for that. But this is also her unique strength. She is so seeped in art itself she has no time to fathom its curricular business. However, we must now wait for the woman who came round to return from her holiday and this will not happen for over a week. When I sleep I am like a runway, across and upon which are landed planes of every hue. I have been back to the war zone. There is the plane of reason, the one of visuals, the jet of fury, the hot air balloon of comic self-indulgence. I will be returning to the war zone - the first trip was just a taster - and already I feel in touch with a different world. War, I hate to say it, can also bring out the best in people. The artist looked well when I collected her and the children from the station. She looked rested - from all the hard work and successful but tiring mothering. I sat facing them in the back of the taxi as the city became our backdrop and the road our good route back home. Strange without a close protection team. In our children's eyes are many corridors and I love each one. Now, as three candles burn without grief in the fireplace, and my fingers pound the keyboard, I am aware of the work I must now do in order to make good things happen. I am aware of the broken hearts and minds. The artist is best at making good things happen through hard work. She just doesn't like reading emails from prospective galleries. It is an intrinsic and undeserved and very beautiful fear of failure.

Short interview with the Artist

The Artist sits on the bright red sofa. She has finished her last piece and has not started a new one yet. She may be thinking about the mural she has volunteered to do at the local school. Or she may already be thinking about the nights slowly getting darker.
What got you started?
I just always liked drawing people.
What was your big breakthrough?
I don't know if I had a breakthrough. I don't know if I've found it yet. I'm still waiting for it. Actually, realising that drawing was just as important as painting.
Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?
It's not really a sacrifice.
Have you done anything cultural lately?
I popped into an arts centre yesterday. But I only had time to look at the books. I've just read a really good book, though. Patrick Gale's 'Notes on an Exhibition'.
Are you fashionable?
I know what I like wearing. I know what suits me.
Do you suffer for your art?
Some days. Sometimes I just wish I could switch off for a minute.
What's your favourite film?
'Fanny and Alexander' by Bergman.
What's the greatest threat to art today?
Fashion.
What advice would you give a young artist just starting out?
Keep your vision.
The Artist flicks some dust from her skirt.

A grace of sense

A better day for the artist. The large piece is beginning to shine and take shape. The artist as a result is more cheerful and a sense of relief as well as progress has seized the day. Indeed, the artist’s son is replicating this new work on a large piece of white paper taken from his drawing book, and the artist’s daughter is staring at it with a kind of settled admiration. Also, the sun has been shining most of the day and this of course makes a huge difference, especially after so much sobbing rain. It has burned a hole, you could say, through our negativity. It is something of a cliché that when people look at where an artist works they ask about or mention the light, as if artists are the only true custodians of such a phenomena, but the same applies to us all when it comes to natural sunlight. It is our emotional photosynthesis. 'It shouldn't actually be pale,' interjects the artist's son to the artist's daughter. Hang on, the artist's daughter is now replicating the artist’s latest work, too. Fresh from her bath she has returned to the grime of artistic endeavour. The artist’s son already has a large dark mark across his face and now the daughter has dirty hands again. ‘I’m not going to finish mine,’ the artist’s son says. ‘Ever.’ In fact there are three people now all around me doing exactly the same piece, and I suppose by writing down this, I am too. We are the four quartets.

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.

You do not know what you are missing

So this is it: the moment I commit to words my attempt to reveal something I consider special. Please don't get me wrong, it is not my art. It is someone else's. In fact they do not even know I am writing about them or their art. And it will not be easy, this journey. But I know it is important. Because it is important for me and the artist. It is what binds us together. This is what it is like, I am beginning to learn, being the husband or wife or partner of the artist. We watch from the sidelines and feel all the anguish. We feel the blows of perceived failure as if delivered to our very selves. And yet we must remain positive. We of all people. We, the friends of the artist. When lucky enough to find it we must defend the greatness from the insecurity. So, dear reader, there I suppose we have it. Some of the work I will show you one fine day is done, but much of it still being done. On the artist's behalf I am only warming you up. She is sleeping right now, the artist, her head deep into the pillow. As the room grows quiet, I peer through the dim lighting at the wall and see it. There. Her work. Intricate. True. Brave. You do not know what you are missing.