RANDOM ECHOES - ITALY 20/10/05

Heavy rain storms overnight, sounding off on the tile roof. Here in the small single storey house it is possible that we might get washed away, afloat like a boat.

Waking and the clouds are thick but broken over Monte Amiato – they move fast and acute, almost falling over each other, chasing tomorrow.

Up on ladders and scaffolds, fingers covered white with fresh stucco – a prepared board with tools and paints, brushes and rags. Outside the arched windows a view across to Chiusi and Montepulciano that changes from hour to hour with differing light and weather conditions. Sometimes the hills and towns are closer but less defined; at others they are crystal clear, almost seemingly within reach. The artist is aching between his shoulder blades from bending his head and neck hours at a stretch to complete the commission, face and hair covered with fine dust, gesso, drops of pale paint in his beard. While the view beyond now turns silver, lit from within, where he would rather be sat on his bony arse with his paints and a tin-nibbed pen in the lee of a cypress tree.