At the beginning there is drawing. The scratching of pencil on paper and the stroking of a watery brush. The drawing is continuous. The drawing is essential. Without the paper the drawing does not stop but continues in reflections and day-dreams and driftings off.

The drawings are familiar. There are limbs and curves and mutterings of toes or a nose or a belly button. There is the slow rise and fall. There is the continual rhythm. The quiet throbbing. The pulsing that is almost silent but always there.

There is the less familiar. The strange. The obscuring. The restricting. But the colour is soft and the texture is warm. There is a desire to touch. To feel. To stroke. To really look and look closely. With fingers.

The figure is still and the person is calm. They are content. They are quiet. But they are a little uncomfortable and the need for a scratch starts to discomfort. There is an increasing ache and a niggle.

There is the time and there is the space. The space it inhabits and the space hidden within. Not much space within. Not much at all. But enough. Enough for the breathing. Enough for the itching to grow.

And throughout there are the words. Groupings of words. They come in and they go out. They follow each other and join together and rhyme or relate or frolic on the page. They tell the story. Not the whole story. But enough of the story. And the ending of the performance.

Our exhibition of works in progress during the AA2A Residency opens this evening but it certainly doesn't feel like an ending; much more like a mid-point. The slow start and delays to access were part of the reason for that but also familiarising myself with the place and people takes time.

Myself and the other artists at Plymouth Uni are just starting to understand each other's work a little more and it feels as though in just the last month the ideas and work have developed so much. The next couple of months could be very productive indeed.