"A scrap of paper crumpled up and thrown on the studio floor amongst unstretched canvases, on which you stand, pails of pigment - some mixed with clay, the odd saucepan, broken sticks of charcoal, rags, discarded drawings, two empty cups. On the scrap of paper are written two words: FACE and PLACE.
The studio was once a bicycle factory, no? You work here in your painting shoes and clothes. The shirt and trousers were originally striped. Now, like the shoes, they are encrusted with pigment. So I picture you as two people: a man about to ride away on his bicycle and a convict.
However, the only thing which matters, when the day is done, is what lies painted on the floor or leaning against the walls, waiting to be seen the next day. What matters is what the changing night can never quite reveal - the thing to which one is nearest when one fears one has probably lost it."
John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket
. (p. 27)
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