A Terrifying Yield of Control

A wall in Chelsea. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

It is one of those moments when the artist is out of London and I am back from abroad before seeing her again.

The studio is empty. Dozens of paint pots stand in trays on the table. I pick one up—Liquitex acrylic ink in pyrrole red. Most of the others are Daler-Rowney.

An equal number of paintbrushes are tightly packed in a mug, with a bright orange sun-shaped into the ceramic. I had forgotten that mug. We first drank from it, fumbling...