As a five year old I had been sent to live with my grandparents after my mother left.

One day my grandmother and I sat quietly at her small wooden kitchen table. The clock ticked. Tearing out a few pages from a small lined book she drew outlines of Little Ted, the only toy I had been able to bring with me. Across from each other she bent forward and watched as I carefully gave him greasily wax crayoned red shorts and a bright blue jumper to wear.

“Well then”, she said, “let’s make those for him now ”.

After his tiny knitted shorts and top were speedily finished, and just like a thunderbolt bird launching sputtering feathers and noise into that neat quiet room, I suddenly understood that the making of things from thoughts was a secret super power.

Drawing, painting, printing and constructing

I am seldom not

Thinking of

Dreaming of

Or doing of

The makings