Kingsley Amis

This is part  of my studio.  It is the kitchen counter.  I like it because it is contiguous with the water and I always need water for spraying them or mixing colors into that little white jar you see in the back there.  It used to be for cooking.  I forget what those are called. And I need water to clean tubes of paint and to wash my hands too.

I appreciate it when I can let myself make really simple things.  I'm not quite sure what they can do but they give me more time to look and less time to have to paint.  And looking is probably the key to painting most of the time anyway.

I especially like it when I just use a little acrylic and some ink.  They are easy to do.  Just take a minute.  Done.  And really, every single thing I do I could be happy just doing it over and over.  A thousand identical paintings.  I would like that.

I suppose somewhere in this vast land, somebody has a job like that.  He's been doing it for forty years so far.  He checks to make sure the label is one it and puts his initials there.  That is the job for me.  At the end of the day he crosses the street and gets a cup of coffee.  Sits and reads whatever has been left there by other people.  

I have a friend who left an interesting Angela Carter book at one of those places.  Wouldn't that be fun to sit and read at the end of the day while it is still light outside.  You've put your signature on all those jars of paint or strawberry jam or labels on baseball bats.  Now your are done.  You go across the street and whadda know here is a copy of Nine Profane Pieces.  Sweet.

I went to this little fish and chips shop in Ann Arbor once run by what I thought was a very beautiful girl.  I was looking at the books lined up in the window, all Kingsley Amis books.  I told her sincerely that she should move the books because they were all signed first editions.  She said -Yes I know, I was married to him.

I didn't say anything else.  I just thought, gosh why would someone let a beautiful and pleasant girl go?  I was very young, about ten years younger than my actual age I think.   But they were superb fish and chips.