2013

M’s bedtime ritual. First let her bounce on her bed––a unicorn leaping in a folkloric forest. Then get her to lie down, tell her an adventure story about flying house-ships; or bubble gum balloons attached to little girl’s mouths as they float in space, or jelly planets made of revolting flavours, or witches who live in volcanoes making toys for cheeky children, or underwater caverns, mermaid’s dens that lead to other worlds. Then tell her about her day, its idiosyncrasies, but always start with how she sprung out of bed radiant and full of bounce, convey the more obscure musings, work in a moralistic strain, but don’t overstrain. Tickle her back, kiss her forehead, her cheeks, then close her face for sleep, a gentle whisper of fingers down her face, her eyes awash with the lull of an hypnotic ocean. Nimbly tap her chin, trace her lips, softly draw a finger down the bridge of her nose, feel the brail of her eyebrows, close her lids, delineate rosy spirals on her cheeks, pat her head. Perhaps, a butterfly kiss when you let your eyelashes flutter over hers, then that point just before sleep when she looks at you tenderly, says ‘Goodnight everybody, I love you all, good night world,’ and she’ll go under then, a diver with her diving bell, rigid chamber taking her down the airless spindle. She might resurface temporarily to disclose the fact of her opalescent eyes, their flash of duende, you’ll smile, say something like ‘Goodnight darling, I love you,’ and then in mock exasperation ‘Now go to sleep!’ If she surfaces again for a last gasp of wakefulness, she’ll really be testing you, wanting to know if she can get up for a midnight snack, to which you must always say yes.

Boundary Speak (Diaries 2013-2021) centrally focuses on reportage of my life’s happenings, notes on readings, phantasms or wild forays, thought fragments, riffs off music, and footnotes from poems that take me on a strange journey. My outsider artwork is focal on my Re-learn your Alphabet for the Twenty-First Century drawings (some of which are collaborations with my children), my robot series, as well as many other drawings undertaken over the period 2013-2021.