The slaves of art/torture of the innocents

All around the house the tempo increases in time with the rain, it's an almost seamless garment of torrential downpour. All around us half drowned students slave in the mud planting a kind of pseudo English garden look, a mundane collection of bedding plants, it’s reminiscent of the Seven Samurai battle scenes. At the scratch house (a traditional building that is being arted up) 20 students lie on their sides tap taping away making tiny directional cuts into the interior surfaces. It creates an effect that I am sure is available on photoshop. These students have been working at this for 2 years, they work a 12 hour day and sleep on the village hall floor - despite the fact that the house they are working on is equipped with a luxury German kitchen and 2 bathrooms.
Down in the old school Junko and the village up the tempo on the flower making and upstairs (above us) the newly finished luxury apartments wait vacantly for their decorative screens. The artist then clumping around half the night, sanding and listening to the radio (the carpenter was far quieter) as she trys to decide what blob should go where in her Ikea styled installation that I have a very strong suspicion can be bought of the shelf direct from Ikea.

Our own tempo has changed as we prepare to perform at the weekend. Barnaby paints like a sixth former who has just discovered the 'joy of art', Jamie maintains his grueling routine to the point where we all feel the need to physically tear him of his machine. Everyone else works pretty much all the time unless I arrange a ‘time out’ Onsen or 'dinner out' break. And still we all feel guilty that we are not doing enough. The Tokyo hotel is looking more and more appealing despite the packed schedule of performances ahead.