François Matarasso

‘If not pure, then at least useful.’

With each visit, each workshop, each conversation we had earned some trust and proved our hearts, if not pure, then at least useful. The Club at the Edge of Town, p. 72 Looking again at Alan Lane’s book about art and people during the pandemic, I realised that what I wrote about it disappeared when…

‘This is the chief relevance of our practice for the world beyond art’

‘Those of us who gravitate toward improvisational music do so because we enjoy relating to other human beings as equals. That is the core of the experience for me. That is the chief relevance of our practice for the world beyond art. Our work, at its most genuine, can bring us into a living model…

Compañeros y compañeras

We spend two days meeting at the theatre, and share dinner in the evenings. It’s my first work since last summer and it is a joy. This project we’re planning might come to nothing but the time together is its own reward. Whatever the outcome, imagining it is a commitment to an idea of art…

Life writing

On a dark road, I seek out the company of books by people who’ve traced similar journeys. Each story is unique, particular to its teller, yet there’s common experience too: pain is inescapably human. What I read is largely the result of serendipity, though I’m mapping a territory on which I hope A Selfless Art will…

‘Well, my heart’s in the Highlands…’

Being freelance means never knowing what you might be doing, or where. It’s one of the things I like most about it. Responding to a commission, or a call for tenders, is a process of discovery, akin to my idea of co-creation. It starts with someone else’s need or interest: my task is then to…

Living in negative capability

New year. Sun, dazzling on frosted grass. The view from my windows is scenery in a toy theatre, flat bare trees Indian ink on cut-out mountains, receding in paler shades to the bright horizon. Blue remembered hills. I’ve never been quite sure what Keats meant by ‘negative capability’, but perhaps he wasn’t sure either. It’s…