“Now I decided to become an artist at about the age of sixteen when my art teacher saw my unconscious leaking out onto the paper. And I think what I must have done is wrote ‘I will be an artist’ on an imaginary piece of paper and I tucked it under my imaginary mattress and I’ve never really had to re-examine that decision. But ironically, about the same time as I made that decision to become an artist, I lost my ability to play. And I can remember almost to the day, my brothers had left some of their toy cars … my younger brothers left some of their toy cars out and I can remember trying to play with them and I couldn’t lose myself in the game anymore. When I was younger, I used to have very elaborate games and I would, you know like children do, they sort of whisper under their breath, “… and then the aeroplane flies over and then teddy rescues …” (LAUGHTER) I couldn’t do that anymore and it was quite a shock to me. I’d lost that ability to lose myself.”
– Grayson Perry. Extract from the Reith Lectures, 2013