Looking up

Being a journalist and an artist means constantly having to adjust my viewfinder. In my trade, I work very closely with text, often zooming in on the tiniest detail - like a comma that's been incorrectly input in bold, or a double space between two words (OK, this is not the most glamorous part of my job). But in the studio it's all about stepping back, taking a wide-angle view, not getting too bogged down in the minutiae of the work. The transition between my two worlds is not always easy.

This picture, taken at the McManus Galleries in Dundee, does quite weird things to my eyes. It really looks like a camera aperture, doesn't it? Or a pupil. When you focus on the dark bit in the middle it seems to expand and contract. George Gilbert Scott created a very neat little optical illusion here, but you've got to look right up to see it. What a brilliant piece of kinetic art. It made me think of Aubrey Beardsley, too.