Viktor Shklovsky's 'Third Factory'

This morning I'm feasting in that place where representation meets abstraction, looking at the painting I've just made and then reading 'Third Factory' by Viktor Shklovsky.

Let me first say where it's not: it's not where I thought it was, nor is it expressed by the painter who places a small human figure on an unrecognizable biomorphic shape at the top of his painting and claims he's achieved the aforementioned meeting place.

My painting's different. It's a painting made of words that dry slowly after I've written them on the wall. The moment I put the words up on the wall I can see they'll need a second coat, and perhaps a third.

Sometimes it seems that all I read are translations–from the Russian, Greek, Swedish, Japanese, German, Italian, Spanish...

Good writing contains lots of antioxidants. Viktor Shklovsky's one of those writers you'd hope to meet early in your career, but didn't, and yet you're grateful to be ready for him now.

"I stay afloat, dog paddling–maybe my struggles will generate some whipped cream."