The best thing about being an artist is the travelling and parties. In the last three years, I have spent almost two-thirds of my time living in hotels, apartments, various rooms and studios, schlepped around airports like an old friend, and not once have I paid for it. That’s the joy of being an artist. The being poor and not knowing when or where the next job will be, that also is the joy of being an artist, as well as the perpetual interrogator of why I am doing it.

As much as I love Australia, and as a foreigner who became a citizen it’s more home than anywhere else, I have a very difficult relationship with the place. Nothing would make me happier than to make work there all the time, and nothing is more unlikely.

Today I discovered is Australia Day. Heading out the door at 7pm to go climbing, I was dragged into a taxi by various people from the Artist Village and taken to the Far East Hotel for a very swank Australia Day celebration. This is the other joy of being an artist; getting to go to parties and eat really good food. I was very under-dressed.

I’ve never celebrated Australia Day but I like the place as my adopted home. I just wish you’d give me a fucking job. Anyway, these blondes were the life of the party.