On the importance of daydreaming.

The builders have gone home and I’m dragging myself up the stairs. I’m slouching through the rooms on the second floor to check on progress and to make notes for the following day’s work meeting. This part of the house is chilly with the fine mist of night coming in through timber-framed windows that are under repair. My mood is somewhere between fatigue, anxiety and denial. There are always numerous issues to give attention to and I just hope that I will have the spirit to tackle them all in the  morning. What am I going to do with a radiator supply pipe that has been fitted in the shower instead of next to it? Eager to escape from both the cold and the task at hand, my mind wanders off.

Here I am, welcoming visitors to my very own modern art gallery. As they ascend the staircase, they’re awed by the temporary rotunda scaffolding installation. Upstairs, the rest of the collection doesn’t disappoint. Everywhere are interesting layers of holes, scratches and marks. Assemblage, tape-art and light sculptures. One exhibition hall even has huge eyes that unsettlingly follow guests across the room. No soothing still lives or noble portraits here, this gallery offers a  more perplexing view on creativity. As a curator, I also seem to have a penchant for conceptual pieces and unusal materials. Foam insulation, anyone?

At the end of the gallery tour I no longer feel cold and tired, but fresh and invigorated. My brain, incubating new ideas, bubbles with unexpected solutions. Oh, the glory of a mind adrift!