Imagemaker in a provincial town. Iconoclast empire. They check on you. A licence is necessary. What exists in secret and remains in secret, survives unshared. To the world outside his bolted door he’s an old grimey nose-picking boxmaker by trade. His studio, to prying eyes, a dim drab cluttered workshop overstocked with dusty boxes. Ceiling high, shapes and sizes stacked in crooked towers against the wall. Inspectors pounce at regular intervals. See nothing but the headache of these bloody boxes. Locked boxes. Duty orders some are opened. But never exhaustively. So far the decoys are always empty. Apparently empty. How the government would wish for a merciless inquisitiveness from their provincial employees, but only rarely can these dull functionaries show the necessary persistent zeal. They tire quickly of the theoretical hunt when big easy prey fails to stumble across their path. Better catch a minor scratching prohibited imagery into crumbling back alley plaster. A glorious furious repremand. Lift the skirt. Kick the pants. Clip the ear. Government issue punch. Self-cauterising.

An imagemaker’s fear dwells thus on the pending visit of a zealot. Investigator of every corner. Opener of every box. Scattered among the empty are those that cradle the precious drawings, attempted paintings. Others contain scraps of equipment and materials. Humble nondescript unattractive boxes from which in privacy efforts to create emerge struggle and return. His pupil at these moments, love’s lithe shadow. Anticipating actions, requirements. Pastels presented, colour correct, as needs arise into the old bugger’s fumbling mind. Such nectar this feeling of fluent coordination. The old boxmaker, scratching and twisted, feeling as ever unworthy of the dreamlike joke. Product of the little monkey’s sense of style.