The right one has been painted shut since before I took the lease, eleven years now, and I have never once asked the landlord to fix it. There is a reason and it is not a good one. The left window faces the courtyard, where the neighbours hang their washing and someone two floors down plays the same three Satie pieces badly all summer. The right one faces the street. Traffic, the tram, the skip that has been full of plasterboard on Ranstädter since April.

So I work in half-light by choice, basically, and I have started to think this is not a preference but a superstition. The canvases I have made in this room were all made facing away from that window. If I open it I will find out something about the work that I do not want to know yet.

Naja. It is also just laziness. Both things can be true.

Who else has a thing in the studio that is load-bearing and has no business being load-bearing.