JANIS BOWLEY

 

Yanis Ertmanis' room

THE GREEN ROOM

Overview

The building is a tall rectangular pagoda with a fluted roof. It represents the best of all chinoiserie-style elements in vogue nearing the twentieth century, from the Tiepolo-style monochrome panel paintings to the tones of muted emerald, orange salmon, pistachio cream white, ochre gold, pink terracotta and cream grey marble. The room is essentially a stately rectangular pagoda/gazebo with a tent like roof that follows its tent like configuration into the ceiling. Inside the predominantly green room the corners of the walls have been chopped diagonally to create a hexagonal feature to house a very tall apse niche displaying statues.

Full Interior Architectural Pattern

The architectural pattern of interior design elements include:

Entrance door ED, Panel Wall PW. Niche N, Window W.

N-PW-W-PW-N-PW-W-PW-ED-PW-W-PW-N-PW-W-PW-N-PW-W-PW-ED-PW-W-PW then back to the beginning.

Proposed Image Architectural Pattern

From the left W-PW-N-PW-W--PW-N-PW-W-to the right

The Stool as Measurement Tool

The stool is a proportional device that is reflected throughout the room. Its height and depth is three quarters of its length. The floor plan is of similar proportions to the stool. The proposed view is visually cutting in half of two windows on either side of the room both leading to the feature wall. The feature wall is 11 stools lengths wide and 11 stool heights high etc. The niche is 2 stool widths deep, the panel wall is 2 stool widths wide.

The marble floor

The marble floor has an almost dusty rose and a grey/cream checkered pattern lain on a diagonal and appearing diamond shaped from this view. The niche creates a diagonal at each corner, the line of the niche is exactly parallel to the floor marble. To create the diagonal from the right angle corner the niche extends 2 stool widths in both directions. The panel wall next to the niche sticks out 1 stool depth. From the outside corner of the panel walls you would draw a diagonal line this will create a hexagonal feature.

The marble border design

There is a grey/cream border that is exactly 1 stool depth deep, the border travels all the way around the room and into the half round base of the niche cavity. The grey/cream border is delineated with a dusty rose border which is created by replacing the last cream checkered tiles with rose marble.

The ceiling

The ceiling is an octagonal shape, it is peaked tent like, it is stark white with a substantial green border and an equally substantial white border that rims the green walls.

The niche

The niche creates a diagonal at each corner, the line of the niche is exactly parallel to the floor marble. To create the diagonal from the right angle corner the niche must extend 2 stool widths in both directions. The niches are are elongated apses with a domed tops, they are open at the bottom allowing the grey cream marble to fill its space, the niche interior is painted in green shades and bold marbleization. At the arched top of the niche is a panel that continues up to the ceiling. The panel is 1 stool height high at its peak

The Statues

The statues are figures in black robed tunics that reach mid calf. They are three stool heights high.

The figure on the left has a rich red tunic that peeks just below the skirting of the black tunic. The red tunic almost reaches the base creating a shadow in fact the lower half of the niche is in so much shadow that the black tunic almost disappears it is a deep rich red that brightens the corner subtly, with a band of gold edging it. The black tunic has two white bands from the mandarin collar down the front , along the bottom and up the side vents. The edging rims the drooping sleeves, the figure has its hands outstretched palms up as in offering, the hands and face are stark white, his black hair is pulled tight to the head in a bun, samurai like. The shoulders and head are silhouetted by the green marbleized background.

The figure on the right has an all black tunic with a green square with an insignia on his chest. Below the black tunic is a rich blue under-tunic that reaches his feet. Just like the other statue the hands are outstretched the face is also white. There is an almost floppy black box hat with a black feather plume perking up at the back like a perky fuzzy cat tail.

The bases

The bases are mottled green blocks exactly the same size as the stools with a bevel at the top exactly as deep as the stool’s platform. On top of the base and set in slightly is a golden coloured stone slab the same height as the green leather pad seat.

The Top Panel

The top panel encloses the dome of the niche. It is flat at the top and arched at the bottom. It is one stool deep at the peak of the arch. It has a substantial green border and a gold, wide, inner frame, an organically shaped, rim of foliage delineates the cream white panel. The white inner panel is devoid of imagery except at the centre of the panel, the green foliage is clumped into a ball giving the panel the appearance of an eye.

The painted panel wall with wainscoting:

The wainscoting

The green wainscoting is two stool widths wide and and two stool heights high. A stool is placed on the floor right in the centre of this wainscoting. There is always a triple gold border in this case there is a gold line just below the panel then another line directly underneath then there is an gold rimed beveled, green inner panel.

The painted panel

The painted panels show three egg-shaped wreaths that join like figure eights. The lowest wreath is the most egg-shaped, the middle wreath is more long oval shaped and the top wreath is almost skull shaped. The wreaths are of thin green leaves that droop in arches the first two wreaths have clumps of foliage at the bottom (imagine holding up an egg and only at the very bottom is there imagery the rest of the egg is creamy sky), while the very top wreaths have foliage that drops right where the cheekbones on a skull would be while inside is a flying bird or two. The lowest wreath has a vague image of buildings or shrines nestled amongst the leaves, while the middle of the egg-shaped foliage vine has some fronds of leaves have arched their way inward. The middle wreaths each have figures submitting something to a shrine, they have robes on and hair in high peaked bun the image is small and at the bottom of the egg while near the middle of the egg some fronds of leaves have arched their way in. All the paintings are on a cream background while the figure and leaves a rendered in varying shades of green and orange salmon. Around the outside of the wreath and contained by a green outer border is a salmon crosshatch trellis design.

The box window with wainscoting:

The wainscoting

The green wainscoting is three stool widths wide and and two stool heights high. Two stools are placed on the floor right in the centre of this wainscoting with a space one third chair widths between them. There is always a triple gold border in this case there is a gold line just below the panel then another line directly underneath then there is an gold rimed beveled, green inner panel.

The window

The window is three stools wide, on either side of the window is a painted panel wall two stools wide and on both ends are niches that are two stools wide. The nook instep of the window is one stool depth deep while the wainscoting area sticks out one third of a stools depth. The window is eight glass panels high and five panels wide and is topped by a subtle wooden arch. The side panels of the nook start as two gold square frames just above the sill that are sitting under a long rectangular gold frame that goes the full length of the window. Above the window there is a rectangular frame that follows the arch.

The top panel

The arched panel that also occurs over the niche is one stool heights down, the panel has gilded molding that surrounds white panels that contain leaf wreaths with a clump in the centre - when you squint they look like eyeballs above both niches while the panel above the window is virtually blank white.

The chandelier

Dropping down from the white ceiling as a crystal chandelier. To visualize its shape imagine the front view of an ant its roundish head merges with its roundish chest, now imagine it is on the ground and all its feet are brought in close, where the calf area is is all crystal while the bent legs are of gold. Now imagine that the ant has raised its thorax high up, the tip of the thorax is attached to a gold chain reaching the ceiling. 

 

YANIS ERTMANIS

Janis Bowley's room

I chose this room because it is unique, and this quality begins even before you enter it. The unique room is in a special place - in fact the room is also a building, but we won't go there, we'll go inside with an alice-in-wonderland key.

The view, for our purposes, includes the entrance door and at least five windows (there are more). If you leave the door open sunlight streams in through it and the window beside it, which are on the right-hand of your view. The door and windows on this wall are south-facing. There were glass gallon jugs of apples turning into cyder on the windowsill – beautiful amber light in the sun. The window is two-sectioned and wood framed. Unusually, one section is designed to slide in front of the other so it could be open by half its width and its full height. A person could then easily climb through. Each window section is divided into five glass panes of a nice 'landscape' format.

The slightly larger left-hand window only lets bright north sky light in, but it's only a few paces opposite the door so usually your view is full of light in the day. This window is also designed to slide open and also has ten glass panes of similar format. All the sliding windows in the room are rotten and do not open now – some panes are missing and covered in stapled-on clear polythene.

At night there have been oil lamps and candles on the sills and a warming coal fire in the grate. From the outside peering in the cheerful light, people singing and playing instruments, makes your heat soar. The fireplace is on the left-hand wall in the view.

Central to your view is three small windows in the far end wall – two tall narrow ones side-by-side and one small one (that the owl used to come in by) above in the roof apex. The narrow windows have four glass panes each of a pleasing, roughly square format. The charming upper window, tucked deep into the wall, has three small panes each about the size of a CD case. Sky, hedge and trees are seen through these east-facing windows.

If you look carefully you'll see all of the windows are skewed slightly in walls sagging over time. The room appears like a hand-made upside-down boat – timber roof ridge beam and ribs, but with foot-thick stone walls!

Recently about fifty people squeezed into the room to listen to a young woman singing. She sat in a chair central in your view of the room and facing you. She sang her own words in a deep rich voice that stirred souls.

Oddly, furniture keeps appearing in the room. There were about a dozen tidy, very old wood school chairs, two long school benches and a few wood folding chairs. Then a small comfy sofa arrived – a faded cotton rose colour. Then a fat armchair appeared – too hideous to describe! And finally two puffy two-seaters, very comfortable but hideous design and sick-making pink fabric. The sofas are now covered in a variety of disguising throws. As all the furniture gets moved around, only a bit of it will be in your view.

The wood floor boards, only inches above the earth, are covered now in mid-blue industrial carpeting stained in places from where the owl shit fell from the roof rafters. There are other objects in the room – two large tables, a china cabinet and a bookcase full of books but they are behind you in your view. You can see two old oil lamps on the sill of the central narrow windows, and there's now a glass vase full of daffodils on your left-hand windowsill. On the wall above the fireplace is a small framed drawing I did of this room's south-facing wall from the outside. When I stood on a ladder to remove cobwebs from the ceiling rafters, I could reach the uppermost mid-rib with a broom. Currently the room is strung zig-zag above us with bunting (we made) in rich colours.

Alone in the room I hear hedgerow birds nearby, and stillness. And in the quiet I hear a babbling brook of time – laughter, someone instructing, dogs playing, general conversation, children, Odo The Arblaster tramping around his land – centuries of voices held in this room that sits still.

Optional info:

-colours: white-wash white, stained wood, mid-blues and jewel colours.

RICHARD SNYDER

Janet Passehl's room

"One room is for eating, sleeping, singing, sex and accounting.
There is a desk,"

Dear Richard,
I am outside looking in this room through glass. I am inside this room. More will be revealed and concealed as light and temperature change, as I age, as air enters and leaves, as people move through, assisted or opposed by stillness.
Janet


Janet,
Your description is very generic! Could you give some other hints like the kind of light that is in the room, the color of sound of the singing. I understand sleeping, but what is the nature of the accounting. The phrase "The house is as clear as the panes in their steel frames" refers to a house, and not the specific room. I am ready to draw!
I have landed in my room. A complete description is forthcoming that will surely beguile you as it has done me.

Richard


Hi Richard,
That was only the beginning. There is more to come. Sorry to confuse you. It was just something for you to begin thinking about. I would argue that the "The house is as clear as the panes in their steel frames" does in fact indicate something about a room in that house.
Everything essential about the room is in the tone of this text, and I would like for you to interpret and imagine this room.
If, however, after you read it, you would like more guidance, I will provide it.
I am ready to draw, too!
J

"The house is as clear as the panes in their steel frames.
One room is for eating, sleeping, singing, sex and accounting.
There is a desk, a music stand, a thin brown mattress and a white rug across which to navigate
spillage and regret.
A child, bowl and fork.
Yellow dishes, hair-dye, old newspapers, and crayon drawings of the moon.
A sinuous pot-bound tree mimics the form of antlers on a young buck, pregnant red tips so tender
this is no room for a human."

JANET PASSEHL

Richard Snyder's room

Hello Janet,

I have been selected to make a voyage to the distant Orion Nebula, code named M42. They said I would I ride in a previously untested vehicle that travels three times the speed of light. They assured me that dark matter would not be a problem, but I have my doubts. They brought in jesters to make jokes about ionized hydrogen.

They told me that you are my primary contact to report my findings. But they are fudging details on the exact location where I will land. I don't hesitate to tell you that I am a little scared. I think they are taking advantage of me because I am unemployed and expendable.

They assured me that I would be invisible. I hope they are not lying.

Over to you, Richard


Dear Richard,

Be aware that although you may be invisible, you may be detectable in other ways. In fact, invisible may be irrelevant where you are going, as whoever/whatever populates that place may not be gifted with the sense of sight, but could possess other means of apprehension the likes of which we are unfamiliar, and against which you may have no defenses. So please be careful.

I have emptied my mind all preconceived notions of space (both inner- and outer-) and am ready to receive and record the data that you send. If you should fail to return, I will do my utmost to make sure that your mission has not been in vain.

Over to you,
Janet


Hello Janet,

I have arrived at my coordinates at Orion Nebula, code named M42. The ride was rough, and my vehicle lost all video, so I can only verbally describe the room. It is large by earth standards. It appears that it is not a domicile. I am invisible to the inhabitants of this planet. I have been able to learn their language, it is a rudimentary system of grunts and whistles. There is a "person" who appears from time to time in the room. He seems to be engaged in a practice that I don't understand. He has a machine that spins, for what reason, I do not know.

I found a measuring device that appears to be in "inches and feet". So I have chosen said device to describe the dimensions of the various objects around the room.

The room is approximately 40 "feet" wide and 100 "feet" long. The ceiling is 20 "feet" high. I am going to describe only a portion of the room where most of the activity takes place.

I would like to call your attention to some objects in three dimensions that are very beautiful. They are "cylinders ", open on the top and closed on the bottom. There are two of them there. The biggest and most beautiful is black in colour with white, dried drips on the outside like a waterfall, and measures 50 "inches" high and 52 "inches" wide. The other cylinder is blue with similar drips of dried liquid on the outside. This cylinder 36 "inches" high and 41 "inches" wide, also open on top.

The second cylinder is being used by an apparatus which I do not know the purpose as yet. The apparatus measures 82 "inches" high, 20 "inches" wide, and 59 "inches" long. When activated, it sounds like this:

R Snyder- Hockmeyer 01

There is also a vehicle nearby, which is yellow that is 70 "inches" long, 7 "feet' high and 37 "inches" "inches" wide. There are also stacks of white colour stacked against the back wall almost up to the ceiling.
Let me know if you need any more information.

Orion Nebula, code named M42

Earth to Richard,
Data received. Am now attempting to translate.
Over,
Janet
P.S. What is "blue"?

LISA NEIGHBOUR

Euan Macdonald's room

Chungking Mansions, 36/44 Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

A Small Room:

Chung King Mansions is one of the cheapest place to stay in Kowloon. Each of its 17 floors is packed with guesthouses, restaurants, hotels and small businesses- they say that over 4,000 people, mostly from south Asia and Africa live there. Each of the five blocks has two tiny elevators able to fit about 4 people depending on the weight of each passenger. If the elevator is too full, or if the weight is not distributed evenly, it stops and a faint buzzer goes off.

Finding the guesthouse in the mansions of isn't too hard - in block B on the 9th floor. Surrounded by four small, old Indian women dressed in saris, the hot elevator halts, the buzzer goes off and each of the women impatiently directs me to the right spot, so the buzzer stops, and the B block elevator rattles and slowly continues up.

The owner of the guesthouse signals to follow him to the room. Ducking down under the narrow door, the owner points to the bed, and then to an air conditioner which he turns on with a remote control. The owner leaves and I lie on the bed - my head touching on wall and my feet touching the other. This humid, fluorescent room is tiled everywhere except the ceiling. It has no window and is no bigger than a closet - about five by six feet. From my bed I can reach all the controls on the air conditioner easily with out using the remote. I lay in the small room for hours, waiting to cool down, listening to a strange combination of muffled languages, scanning all the corners, ceiling and walls- feeling engulfed on all sides by an impossibly dense, complex and noisy maze of corridors, stairways, elevator shafts, and rooms.

I go out for food and decide to take the stairs instead of the elevator. The stairway is far wider than the room - it almost seems grand with deep carpeted steps and wooden hand rails. I go down and around and around taking two steps at a time, losing count of how many floors I pass, noticing how the stairs occasionally branch off in other directions. The staircase leads me down and down until it ends somewhere between the third and sixth floor - at a large open window. The window looks out into a deep open brick shaft. The shaft is filled with garbage.

EUAN MACDONALD

Lisa Neighbour's room 

John's Office

John's office is a small space located in a corner of the woodshop at Sheridan College. John is the woodshop technologist, and he's worked at Sheridan for over 20 years. The reason I chose this room is because I find it fascinating and it tells a vivid story about John, the students, and our program - the Art and Art History Joint Program with UTM.

The room is about 10 feet along each wall, with a high ceiling, about 14 feet up. There's a door on one side of the room, a little closer to one wall than the other. When I stand in the middle of the room, I can reach out and touch a lot of the furniture and shelving.

If I turn slowly in a circle, clockwise, this is what I see: First the door, which opens inward and is usually flush to the wall, outside you can see the students at work in the shop. Then a small section of John's personal photographs; his wife Ann, the student monitors, past meals and ceremonial events, John as a student, his dad in the army etc, then floor to ceiling shelves that are all different sizes and extend all around the room. In the first corner is a small triangular 
desk that cuts across the space, with a battered stool in front of it. On the desk is a laptop, and above that a stereo that is always playing music through the speaker system into the woodshop. Under the desk is a printer.

The next wall consists of numerous open shelves full of tools, loaner cameras in bags, video equipment, small boxes of hardware, and labeled boxes stacked to the ceiling. The ceiling has metal i-beams, and above that shiny galvanized metal.

In the middle of the back wall is a 4m high set of mechanic's drawers full of tools and hardware. Each drawer is hand-labeled with black marker - such things as: 'pliers', 'screwdrivers' etc. Above and to the left of the drawers are more shelves filled to the rafters with equipment such as grinders, laptops, heat guns and digital projectors in bags labeled 'A&AH'. To the right of the drawers is the extension cord depot. Several dozen extension cords hang neatly on hooks, and 
they fill the corner around onto the next wall. They are mostly bright orange.

The last wall before we're back at the door is dominated by a large green filing cabinet with 4 drawers. Above it are more shelves full of equipment and tools, On the floor are often backpacks and water bottles - the students store some of their stuff in the office when they are helping out in the woodshop.

The invisible aura of this space is a humming consciousness, almost like the wizard of oz, only more reliable and less bombastic. Anything you ask for can be found, loaned out, explained, in a welcoming and humourous way. John is one of those people that the entire universe pivots around, and he makes it seem effortless.

 

LUCY EDKINS

Anne Ooms' room
  
A room in Timor

From the kitchen area you look over to the living room, open, colourful, a sense of space and muted, dappled light. Two walls mostly window, long wooden framed windows held open at the bottom by sticks. Two archways, one corridor width, the other wide, separate the two living areas.

Walls painted bright blue, blue green, painted with a dry brush to give a scrubbed effect, ceiling fans, vinyl sofas, two black, one red, draped with the traditional woven cloths in Timor Leste, the thais. A small white coffee table in the middle of the sofas, on it a jug of flowers and foliage from the garden.

It's a tropical house and through the windows, walls of tropical foliage: flowering vines, hibiscus, coconut palm, bougainvillea, large flowering ginger.... beyond, vines cover the fence, bananas, lemongrass, teak, fig, a bed of basil. The house is clothed in green. Through one set of windows you can see the front, covered verandah with its row of pot plants on a ledge and cane chairs.

An orange painted ceiling fan, a white ceiling. A painting by a Timorese artist: a single tree in the centre, landscape of hills, sea, sand, sky. On another wall a collection of rusted objects scavenged from the beach. A small box on the floor filled with books and a pair of yellow thongs on top. White tiled floor.

On the right side wall, to the right of the windows, a wooden door opens onto the garden, beside it a red painted book shelf inset, mostly filled with books. Beneath, also inset into the wall a red desk covered in papers and odds and ends. A large woven mat, a sleeping mat, in front of the door.

There is always some noise: chickens, dogs, the vegetable cart man, the Baptist church, the motorbikes, the children playing in the street, lads, neighbourhood chatter and shouts, sometimes a karaoke weekend....

A woman lives here alone, it is usually hot. She often lies on the mat near a standing fan and reads. She will not live here too much longer, she thinks. She appreciates the space and beauty of the house. Sometimes she thinks, this is not my beautiful house......

ANNE OOMS

Lucy Edkins' room

A Room That I Know Well:

You walk in the door – paint chipping off but, covered in royal blue and a white sheet drying. Spiders hanging impressively sticky webs across the doorway.
Ahead, a sash window. Dead flowers pressed against the lower right panes. One of the top panes smashed, covered in a rectangular piece of Perspex. The left bottom corner chipped.
Below, a sky blue wooden chair. On it a yellow beach towel, with blue stripe and writing. Behind the chair a radiator.
On the right, a two drawer legless oak, the top drawer jammed, weighted down by the overhanging open wardrobe, its doors removed revealing a black cloth bag of children’s drawings & jottings, a painted wooden tray, a paper bag stuffed with wrapping paper.
Up above, the two wardrobe doors press down making a shelf run back to the door, stacked to the ceiling with framed pictures, rolls of paper, bubble wrap, packing materials, and, piled up to the right of the door, video cassettes and photo albums.
Under these bookshelves filled with children’s books, cookery books, health and psychology books.
In the middle shelves made of chopped up mahogany planks and picture frame wood supports.
Facing the bank of books, to the left of the door, a little pine cupboard with little bookshelves at the top – dual language, foreign language, travel and picture books.
Above this another shelf, made up of ‘For Sale’ signposts back across to the window wall, holding the large plastic plaid bags used by market stalls, filled with more framed illustrations.
Below, behind a large sheet of draught-proofing Perspex, blank canvasses, smaller sheets of bundled Perspex, bundles of thin board, backing board, cardboard stacked against the wall.
Taking up most of the floor space in front a loft bed, on it a duvet covered with 70’s superman patterns and a piranha wood bench as long as the room. Clothes dry on the safety rail. At the head near the window, a pale green Ikea light screwed to the wall.
Above, to the right, a hole in the brick leading to an iron grilled air shaft, a bunched up old linty sheet stuffed in to block the air flow.
Below the loft bed, a free standing boxed in bed. A checked blue and brown cover trailing to the floor; an orange and green rectangular cushion at its head. Between the loft bed support bars another Ikea light screwed to the wall.
Opposite, on the loft bed ladder rungs a deep pink blanket hangs, and a heavy coverlet striped with natural Indian dyes.
Between the makeshift shelves and the wardrobe, one Ikea mock wood 2-drawer unit atop another, stuffed with files, paperwork, correspondence, cassette tapes and stationery. The steel fingerprint dust hard to remove. Spiders scurrying behind drawers.
In the night the low hum of the radio upstairs interrupts the sleep of the body lying in the lower bed. Children and cat lying across like warm hills. The cat undisturbed. Sleep pulling down eyes.

PAUL EDWARDS

Graham Beck's room

Dear Paul

Well, here's a description (of sorts) regarding my room. Let me know if will be enough to work from.

The Room - measurements & general description:
Situated in the loft of my house, this room was converted into a studio space a couple of years ago. The dimensions (in good 'ole Imperial measurements) are approximately 161" wide x 212" in length. Due to the slope of the roof, the side walls only extend vertically for 36", & then angle inwards to the ceiling, leaving a 19" wide horizontal 'ceiling' (where two x3 bulb light fittings are secured). There's an overall height of 88" in the centre, which gives me about 60" walking across the width before I bang my head on the sloping sides! The stairs that lead up to the loft (from the landing area), take up a bit of effective floor space - about 91"  x 33" - which starts at the opposite 'full' vertical end wall (there is a traditional bannister round the stair area)........which in turn is opposite the other (dormer-windowed) end wall.  This window is central, & about 34" off the floor level (& it measures 48" wide x 40" high) - in white UPVC. The view looks out onto a main road into Hull, but beyond, I can see the start of the Yorkshire Wolds - very soothing & restful. The sloping side wall/ceiling (facing you when you get to the top of the stairs) houses x2 wooden Velux windows (both are 29" wide x 44" high), & they are 60" apart, & begin 37" from the wall by the stairs. The interior colour, for the walls/ceiling is a warm light grey, with a similar colour for the slightly ripple-patterned vinyl floor covering.

The Room - contents:
To add a bit of colour to the space, there is a tufted, multi-coloured wool rug at the top of the stairs, & a larger grey/dark grey & cream non-wool rug sits at the 'dormer window end'. Other colours are provided accidentally by the objects around. Ikea (unpainted) floor-standing shelf units adorn both end walls, & another smaller unit (housing hi-fi equipment - including a record deck) sits next to my laptop table, on which is also placed a mixing desk, for recording audio into the computer. There are six map drawers, on top of each other, over in the corner (tucked behind the stair bannister), which are A1-size. An A1-size drawing table at the other end, faces the dormer window, with old woven wicker chair (dusky pink) in front of it. The chair, from which I'm typing this description, is one of those contemporary-looking imitation leather & grey metal, high-backed office swivel chairs. If I stretched out my legs, & did a quick circular swivel, I would knock several things over - so I don't. Two record cabinets (full of LPs), sit against the walls, one of which has an old valve radio on it (a Marconi that still works!). Coming back to the shelf units, they contain a mixture of books, folders, kitsch ornaments, toys (Daleks, robots etc. - I love 'em!!) - boxes/small crates of musical equipment, tapes/cassettes, CDs & art materials - such as brushes, paints etc.
Dotted around, are various (musical) keyboards/ synths & FX units - some on 'X stands', some on low stools, & some stood vertically to give me a bit of room. Other keyboards sit in cases/bags in front of the map drawers (I physically can't walk round behind the bannister there, so I have to move everything out of the way to get to the paper/card stored in the map drawers. FINALLY, various leads, cables & PSU (power supply units) are spread about the loft space - some connected to equipment, some not. Excess cables are hung on a wire mannequin near the dormer window. Believe it or not, I can actually see out of the window, & move around in the loft fairly easily - unless I'm recording something, & then it's a bit touch 'n go!

The Room - final summing up:
Although it's a decent-sized space, & has areas of order/neatness as well as 'slightly untidy' bits, when you're tall like me, it has the disadvantage of the sloping ceiling. Thus, I have learned by trial-of-head-butting to avoid the outer reaches as much as possible. It's a very workable space, light & airy & nice, but not too cosy. It's my own fault that I play/collect keyboards. You always know what the weather's like up here. I could be more detailed, but I've got to stop somewhere. Now, in fact.

GRAHAM BECK

 

Paul Edwards' room

The Room

The room is painted a dull green almost to the ceiling, to picture rail height, though there is no picture rail. Above and onto the ceiling is painted an off-white. There is an Edwardian panel door opposite a small upvc window that overlooks the street and beyond that, the river. It’s a crisp, bright, weakly warm February day.

The room measures little more than two metres square, barely enough space to contain the large dark wood desk under the window, the velveteen easy chair next to the desk, the printer sitting on the low metal table against the wall to the right of the window, and the ‘Billy bookcase’ next to the door. This room – designated a bedroom, but always too small – is an office/studio, a collision between day job and vocation. It is organized and it is chaos. All surfaces are covered. Pages from a ‘New Yorker’ calendar, A4 typed pages, notebooks, a dictionary, laptop, keyboard and a coffee cup. Under the desk more papers in boxes and covering a footstool.

On the back of the easy chair there is a woven blanket – tassels and stripes – and on the chair three notebooks, two files, a shoulder bag and yet more papers - no place to sit.

Across the honey-coloured sanded floor to the bookcase - no room for more books. On shelves vertically and horizontally are books about writers and writing, about photography and the heart – there is a medical students plastic model of the heart on one of the shelves. There are photographs too – a framed photograph of three sisters in America and another photo of one of the sisters in Paris, with a new French haircut. On top of the bookcase there are two box brownies and a pinhole camera, two shelves down an SLR and a plastic ‘Diana’ next to two cartoon tourist American telephoto lenses. More papers, more files.

Hanging hidden, from a hook on the door there is a bag from an American writers conference in Chicago, and a small hand made shoulder bag from Cameroon.

The desk chair is a 1950’s Kitchen chair, cute but bad for posture and there is a small chrome pedal-bin – empty and never used.

On the wall to the right of the desk there is a small radiator and close to the desk, four post it notes. There is an illustration on the wall close to the left side of the window, of the pyg and miners tracks to the summit of Snowdon – 3559’.

Above 5’, the top half of the room to the ceiling is almost entirely devoid of clutter, making the occupied lower half resemble sediment or a tide-line. On the ceiling there is a hatch into the roof space – too small to be of much use – and a central light with a neat, tubular, translucent lampshade.

The sound is the click of fingers on a keyboard, forty words a minute. 

 

BRADLEY OLIVER-WHITE

Thomas Cuthbertson's room

The Lounge

Entrance
The lounge:a warm, family room; a cosy cube. The objects inside it define this room’s purpose and the architecture is very basic. The room is a square, and where the wall meets the ceiling there is a white painted wooden trim to smoothen the corners.

Floor to left wall
You are looking at the room from a central passage. On the floor is a large rectangular rug with a cream silhouette of a thin stem with branches deviating from it, budding with unrecognisable fruit at the ends. The pattern goes from bottom left (nearest to you) to top right. A couple of inches from the edge of the rug is the wrap-around couch shaped like an upside-down L. It is a fluffy gunmetal grey design that flanks the left hand side and around the left top corner into the centre-point of the rug, resting against a radiator (attached to the left wall), the top left corner of the room, and the far wall. The couch texture is ridged and soft, with pinstripes as if hundreds of pipe cleaners have been inserted under the fabric in a continuous vertical formation of lines. Where the couch extends in the centre of the rug is where you lay your feet because there are no arms on the sides. In the top right corner of the couch, seven metal chutes are fanning out from one point behind the couch. They are long and vary in heights, and look similar to pond reeds. They are long stick-like stems with cylindrical translucent tubes at the tops that house a small light bulb.

Far wall to right corner
Looking over the couch is a large print of Picasso’s ‘Head of a women’ (1946), in a thin silver frame. The top of the frame is level with the top of the window space and drops down to just slightly under the middle of the windows. Its width is half it’s height. Cast down to the couch below and right to meet the leg extension: a small black cat is sitting in the exact centre of the picture, facing you on a folded leopard print cat blanket. The leg extension comes to the start of the window space. The sill is slightly lower than the couch and a hands length indented in the wall. The window is tall and nearly reaches to the ceiling, short of a few inches. This space is occupied by the curtain rail with curly ends, with a pair of ring top curtains that drape down to the floor, drawn back. You can’t see the bottom of the curtains because they drape down behind the leg extension of the couch (on the left) and behind the TV monitor and unit (on the right).

Right corner
The TV unit is facing towards the centre of the room, so at an angle to the corner. It is glass with a circular plate on the bottom to allow for rotation. The height of the unit is within the height distance of the window ledge and leg extension of couch. The width is a couple of inches wider than the 42” TV set, but from the top level of the unit to the floor is about the same height as the TV. If the TV were sat on the floor in front of the unit it would cover the unit. The unit holds two boxes on the first shelf, and another two on the bottom shelf, which is attached to the rotating base. There is a gap of a couple of inches between the bottom shelf and floor. Sitting high above the entire TV set and unit is a light fitting which has passed its time. However, it remains as an ornamental feature. It sits, on the right wall a foot away from the corner and ceiling, arched out from the wall curling upwards to point to the ceiling like an outreaching cupped hand. It is silver and is holding the light in its ‘palm’. This light fitting is a pair, the other sits in the same spot on the opposing wall, above a black, framed photograph with a dark beach photograph on it.

Right wall
Cast your mind’s eye down from the light fitting on the right wall to the right of the TV unit. You have a low plant in a pot, with large waxy green leaves with a burgundy coloured underside. Quaintly, it matches the rug. The plant is mostly obstructed by a glass nest of tables (set of three),  so you can only see the large palm leaves stretching out from behind it. On the top of the nest is a gold cup trophy with a wooden bottom. Behind it is a number of photo frames leant against one another to the wall. Beside the nest is a foot stool that matches the couch, and from there we are at the periphery of the photograph. 

THOMAS CUTHBERTSON

Bradley Oliver-White's room

A Room

The room is relatively claustrophobic in its placement of furniture and objects, little walking room is left and most of what is described is in fairly close proximity to each other. It is within the roof space of a building, so hence that shape defines the area somewhat.

To the right of the room, the roof leans in at a 45 degree angle, in the middle – a medium square shaped skylight providing the sole source of illumination. In the centre of the flat ceiling a spherical white light shade hangs from the ceiling, only its bottom half in view.

The leaning wall recedes by about two feet where the skylight is (we see only the flat plane of the receding wall surface illuminated by the skylight but not the skylight itself, this forms the front right edge of the picture) underneath it a two cushioned green sofa with a book placed on the cushions far side. In front of this, a basic dark mahogany coffee table with two small indoor green houseplants placed at either opposite ends and two books placed in and around the centre (the plants leaves are large and flat on the further distant one, and smaller/slim and longer on the nearer one). Below the table are three more books, placed haphazardly but close together.

To the far right end of the room, behind the end of the sofa and against the right wall underneath the leaning part, is a small bookcase full of books.

In the far right corner a rather large and leafy potted plant (about the same height as the bookcase itself) To its left side, another slightly larger bookcase against the wall again full of books but with one large erect leafless and branchless plant, possibly a cactus, and some small indiscernible objects also on top.

To the left of this a smaller in height set of draws (3 draws). On top, a collection of papers and books placed in a seemingly random fashion. A large A2 piece of paper sits on top of the pile bending downwards and towards us.

In the far left corner up against the left and back wall a high white table used for writing and computer work, a flat-screen desktop sits in the centre, at the back, two small black box shapes sit at either end of the desk (possibly speakers?). Other larger black boxes (possibly folders and such) lie around the desk. The underneath of the table is empty and unblocked by any aspects other than the legs of the desk. The desk is accompanied by a swivel black office chair, small backed and slightly pulled out.

Towards us and in front of the desk, another small dark wood table, on which a medium sized widely spread out leafy plant sits, reaching to just above the height of the white table behind it. Underneath are what appear to be 12” records, the flat surface of which one faces us making whatever sits behind – out of sight.

In the foreground of this picture (reaching from the start of the image to the white desk) on the left wall is a flat white radiator. On the same wall above it are several A4 printer copies of romantic era paintings (Turner etc) though due to the perspective none of them are properly visible.

A similar collection adorns the far end wall, in which these images are in more in sight. Several inches above the white desk is a medium sized cork board with one white piece of paper hung upon it, towards the right of its surface area. The A4 prints are placed thus on this wall: 3 above the corkboard, 1 immediately to the right of it, 2 more one on top of another are further right still and above the set of draws, several inches above them are two more placed side by side (landscape). One more hangs about a foot above the second book shelf directly at the end of the cactus’s length.

JUAN ISAAC SILVA

Sunshine Gray's room

The room

It's a white room with light grey floor boards, one pale apple green wall and a white bed.

Not a large room, it wants to be bigger than it is. It tries hard to maintain the spaces between the bed and the writing bureau and the chest of drawers and the chair.

The low bed is flanked by two small tables with tapered legs, their night time detritus kept to a minimum. The tables echo the style of all the furniture in the room: a hint of Scandinavian design, a whiff of charity shop, a suggestion of impoverished legacy.

At the single window, overlooking the usually quiet street, hangs a pale green Venetian blind, kept almost closed. This room is at the dark side of the house but, at night, the Venetian slats allow orange stripes from the streetlight onto the white walls. Sometimes, on a bright afternoon, the sun reflects on the windows of the house across the street and creates the same stripes in buttery yellow.

Where there was once a miniature Art Nouveau fireplace – when the house was built in 1900 - there's now a white radiator. Above it hangs a modified kitsch print of moonlight over the sea. If you lie in the white bed against the apple green wall you can let your eyes wander over the moonlit sea.

In the alcove that the chimney breast creates there are three white shelves above the chest of drawers. The lowest shelf houses a jumbled collection of primitive terracotta pots brought back from Brazil, Greece, Portugal. On the middle shelf is a non-functional vintage radio.

There's another vintage radio on the black writing bureau and two more occupy the shelf above its cupboard doors. One of these radios tells a story of wartime and fatherhood and pillage.

Sometimes, in this room, candles are lit, flowers bloom, a plant breathes, a black cat curls up on the white bed or a sheepskin by the radiator, a laptop hums.

SUNSHINE GRAY

Juan Isaac Silva's room

My room:

I measure one meter and eighty-three centimeters.

The corner of my room where I rest my dreams is lengthwise ninety centimeters longer than my height. The space gives the impression of being rectangular, therefore it's width is approximately my height. The ceiling reaches my head at two arm lengths distance.

In front of me there's a wall with two large windows, each window measures in width half my height and a height of an arm longer than half of the width. Each one of them has seven vertical bars and two horizontal ones, which divides in height into three cavities.

I go a step backwards and flop onto a navy-blue couch, where in front of me daylight is born and its light travels like a poet through all the corners of unpolluted white walls.

The couch has its back next to the wall where at my eyes height there's a hand deep cavity, fifteen hands long and seven hands high. In it, there are four paintings, two per two hands big, white-lime canvas with black strokes which express guarding eyes of the Atlantic's blue light which enters through the big windows.

Looking to my left, there's my favourite corner, an allegory of so many lost battles. Further away from the cavity with the eyes, I drag my left arm on the wall to reach another cavity transformed into shelves, which is two hands deep, its height is twice the depth and half its height in width.

Within it, there's a division of three cavities protected by two white painted wooden boards. In the lower part there are all sorts of paintbrushes in a white porcelain glass and some tubes of paint lying down lengthways. In the cavity higher up there are different sketch pads piled up randomly. In the top cavity some paintings coexist and share all the space, in line and seen in profile, where at a first the cavity seems unnoticeable.

In the central corner, we can see a sort of door and whims which feed my creative heart day by day. I still measure the corner's height, for without it I cannot construct these words. Words that describe the forms and fantasies of a room and which only through mentioning can be translated into an accurate self-portrait. The corner is continuity without even reaching it with my left arm and twisting my elbow to an apex on the anterior wall.

There's a cavity in the wall two hands deep which turns into shelves divided in two parts backed by a wooden board which supports two Andalusian flamenco percussion cajones on its lateral sides, all painted in white the same as the wall. Its height, where the two cajones are supported, we can remember as a reference to the previous shelf, but it ends in the ceiling. Visually it's the most poetic shelf in the room. For that reason the starting point of my narration is the top right side where coexist: an oxidized musical tuba, which tries to whisper light and joy to a blue crystal vase with an enlarged neck in which rest four sun flowers who dance to the tuba's light and sound. Two paintings follow, three hands in a square in size: the first one captures the image of a black French 'Flechet' hat, which itself gives the impression of shedding tears thus the paint fades away. In the second there's an image which references a palette of primary colours and it's mixes, which inclined at 120 degrees in front of the spectator gives the impression that the liquid which dissolves and mixed colours is slipping downwards, wishing to reach the lower shelf where 80 Venetian masks live together, with anxiety for colour and to reunite again with the fantasy that characterise them.

Leaving the shelves, outside them, making a corner with the right side poses a plaster made Venus of Milo goddess, half my size, she guards the history of that corner and reminds us of the parameters that need to be drawn to reach the ideal beauty. Parameters that the Venus could write, if she still had her arms intact, on the Olivetti typewriter which rests on top of a plaster column with its Doric style shaft, plinth and capital.

All the history of this corner sleeps in a medium size filing cabinet which rests in the middle of the corner, right underneath the shelves, which measures a quarter of my height and half the width.

I measure one meter and eighty-three centimeters.