Cirrus@Austlit

'Sometimes when you're invited to speak about something, you own work, and you haven't thought in advance what you're going to say, the mild terror can work in you favour, and you find yourself figuring out in front of all those people what you hadn't quite understood before.' (Introduction)

'Yesterday, I left Lisbon on a Bus. The terminal smelt like piss. I saw pink apartments on the edge of the city, white cemeteries and dying palm trees, a junkyard, cranes everywhere. I was on my way to Fatima. I was sitting next to a nun. She was a small woman with dark eyes and wild black hairs on her chin. I studied the rest of the bus. Americans, couples mostly. Matching beige shorts and sandals. Little gold crucifixes hanging around their necks. Big, dumb grins. Pilgrims, all of us.' (Introduction)

'Begin with ultramarine, the blue that means beyond the sea. A hunk of lapis lazuli cleaved from a winter cave and ground to a brilliant powder. Or the lead white cured in vinegar-and-manure vapours, or the melting of mercury and sulphur to make vermillion. By the time he daubs those first pigments onto the canvas, a dozen excavations and combustions leave his badger brush.' (Introduction)