Grey Light, Good Light

Around The Studio

The long table is covered in the same eleven samples it has been covered in since spring, in a different order each week. Nobody rearranges them deliberately. They migrate.

The heater is on, which it should not need to be, and the window is open, which it should not need to be either. Both are true at once and neither is going to be solved this year.

There is a box in the corner holding every rejected version of everything, and it is now heavy enough that moving it requires two people. Nobody has suggested throwing any of it away.

Current Inspiration

A book of bookbinding plates from the 1930s, opened flat on the shelf at the same page for two weeks. The page shows a spine that has been repaired badly and then repaired well, side by side.

The badly repaired one is more interesting. It shows the decision, and the well-repaired one hides it.

Small Observation

Direct sun makes every surface look more expensive and every colour look less like itself. Under grey light the material has nowhere to hide — the finish either holds or it does not, and the difference between the fifth and sixth sample becomes obvious from across the room.

Every photograph that has ever caused a complaint was taken in beautiful light.