Nina Simone's Gum by Warren Ellis

Author:Warren Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Nina Simone’s gum stayed in that drawer until November 2019 when I took it to London to be taken to Copenhagen for the exhibition. I removed it once for an evening while my new studio was being built in the backyard of my house in 2009. There was an old atelier frame I decided to fill in and make a studio. I wanted the gum to be there when the foundations were laid. I took it from the drawer at night and placed it on the cement slab and listened to Emergency Ward by Nina Simone, Universal Consciousness by Alice Coltrane and Symphony No. 7 by Beethoven.

Alain Brunswick, a metal worker from Montreuil, came to look at the old wooden frame in my backyard with the idea to fill it with iron and glass in 2008, to make my studio. Some friends recommended him to me as he had built many beautiful theatres in Paris and the suburbs. He had retired from work. A lifetime of Gitanes and welding fumes left him poorly. I explained I wanted to build a studio to make music in. He looked at the frame and his eyes sparkled. ‘Now this is interesting. This makes me dream. I will build a great cathedral for your music.’ I watched him work for three months, mostly alone, struggling with his health. He had his tools, an arc welder, a grinder, a metal saw, a ruler, pieces of paper and a pencil. Not a computer or iPhone in sight. One day he was standing head in hand, cursing. I asked what the problem was. ‘I was in a hurry with the handrail on the stairs and I’ve messed it up. It’s crooked. What an idiot.’ I looked and could see nothing. I told him it was fine and not to worry. He turned and said, ‘But I will know it’s wrong.’ The next day I found him smiling, having dismantled the day’s work and rebuilt it. It was the last work he completed. He still asks me if I use the little windows he installed.

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