Being Childish  Art - Graham Bendel asks how much Tracey Emin's
work has been influenced by her ex-boyfriend  Tracey Emin,
celebrity and acclaimed artist, is known for her confessional,
emotionally charged work. Her life is well documented by her
art. There is, however, a "missing period": the years 1982-87,
the time of her passionate affair with the artist Billy
Childish. The nature of their complicated relationship is fairly
well known, but what is less so is exactly how much Emin's art
and her current persona owe to Childish.  Childish has never
sought fame. In fact, he considers celebrity to be a nonsense.
Yet his work to date includes more than 80 albums, 30 volumes of
poetry, innumerable woodcuts and 2,000 paintings. His poetry is
admired by Mike Leigh and, as a novelist, he has been described
as a British Bukowski. He has achieved all this without an agent
or a manager. His fan-base stretches worldwide: as an
underground artist, he is popular in Japan, the United States
and Europe. Some regard him as a