We're all looking for purity. We're all looking for perfection. We're all looking to be the best that we can be. We're all looking to erase the mistakes of the past and to prevent the mistakes of the future.

I think, beyond the many other reasons, that's why many people believe in God. It's an easier way to become clean; an easier way to make reparation. "I have sinned, Lord. Remove the blemish from my soul and I shall go forth and do better than I have been."

It's a reason to believe in love, too, isn't it? Love, long held up as the pinnacle of human emotion, holds all the promise of a new beginning. "If someone loves me, then I must be good. To keep this love, I shall strive to be good."

We bathe to remove the dirt of the day, love to remove the dirt of self-loathing, have faith to remove the dirt of sin, and smile to each other to remove the dirt left by sadness and loneliness.

A smile, by the way, can make all the difference in a day. All the difference in a life. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, and sounds worth a thousand pictures ("A sound is worth a thousand pictures." Pere Ubu), but - as one young man of my acquaintance once put it - to see someone truly smile is worth a thousand lifetimes.

Try it sometime. Try it today. Smile at the person in the shop as you pay for your milk. Smile at the secretary who brings you your mail. Smile at the delivery man who brings your dinner. Say thank you and smile at them.

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Taint has such a negative connotation in our modern tongue; when once it meant nothing but colour. Something that had been touched and altered by tint.

We live to rid ourselves of negative connotations, but as an artist, I live to add them. I live to add taint and remove the sour taste the word leaves in the mouths of people who only look at the surface.

Taint might be ugly in your part of the world; taint might be impure, even. It is in my world too, in some respects, but it doesn't have to be that way in all aspects.

I have a white canvas sitting in the corner, propped on a much loved and much used easel. I shall pick up my pigbristle brush, dip it into a potted rainbow, and taint that blank space with beauty.