BBC - Radio 4 - Radio and the Artist

"Before the Afternoon Play I will find the lined paper to make notes on Moneybox."

Radio 4 gets me going; helps me start "the work"; recharges my batteries.

I consider myself so privileged that on the weekdays when I do not do my day job outside of my home, I can listen to Start the Week lying in bed. For example, Germaine Greer on Aboriginality and White Australians and how Saddam Hussein is writing "interesting" novels but however ghastly his day job he should not give it up.

I am lucky I can listen and be involved in spirit in such stimulating, reflective and enlightening chat. But now to start "the work", I have to descend one flight of stairs to my studio, past the drying washing and the cat bowl, my daughter's and husband's breakfast remains, the silent telephone (not sociable enough? not famous enough?), past the sea of papers on the work surface in the kitchen which represents the last public space before I enter "the difficult place" - my domain.

If I am lucky I will still have work on the go and can continue to listen. I flip to "radio" on my old cassette/radio. If it was on tape it might have been to record a Radio 4 non-fiction highlight, perhaps William Dalrymple on walking. This means I do not have to go anywhere, but just imbue the philosophy of motion. Perhaps it was a Radio 4 play, not yet listened to. When I have time to replay it I hope it will be good. I anticipate the plays with eagerness. There is nothing quite as disappointing later in the day if the play is not to my liking. Before the Afternoon Play I will find the lined paper to make notes on Moneybox. This has given us advice on pensions, endowments, etc and thus has steered out family towards more stable financial solutions. Again a big thank you.

In the evening I retire again to the studio. I might draw from my photographs to the sounds within a glacier. I must catch the next in this fascinating series. I can cut into wood listening to Late Junction, which is a must and then rush from there to get Book of the Week at 12:30am in bed. A favourite has been Xinran and lately the sewers in The Third Man.

Can I work to Radio 4? I can trace an image, I can sometimes cut a book for a print but during the best programmes I am so involved in listening and being stimulated, my mind goes elsewhere, so I have to stop my artistic process because I run the danger of damaging an image and many hours of previous work.

Perhaps the greatest service of all is in the hours of the night when headache or insomnia strike and Radio 4 runs seamlessly into The World Service and I am told it's 6 o'clock in Jakarta. I will forget all these facts in the dawn but my batteries have been recharged and I have become part of a bigger equation and my art will grow more informed about the work by Radio 4.