Clark Winter American, b. 27/10/1951

A window, seen from inside, divided down the middle by a heavy dark mullion. Through the left pane: a shingled cabin with a metal stovepipe, tall grass, and the sea lying flat and pale to the horizon. Through the right pane, streaked with rain: birches, more grass, the same water. On the table below the sill, inside, a litter of papers and prints. And from the right edge, out of the dark, a bare forearm and a hand enter the frame holding up a small dark object, a cylinder with a horse and rider standing on it.

The title is June's Forge, so the shed with the stovepipe is presumably where the little horse came from, and the hand belongs to whoever made it. It is held out at exactly the height of the horizon, against the light, the way you hold something up to see whether it is finished. Nobody in the picture is visible except that arm. The rest of her is behind the curtain, out of the frame, holding.

What Winter has built is a diagram of how a workshop actually feels. The world is out there in two rectangles, flat and grey and enormous. The work is in here, on a table, in a mess of paper. Between them is a pane of glass with rain on it that softens everything beyond into an argument for staying indoors. And into the gap between the two comes one small forged animal, held up by somebody who wants to look at it against the sea.