Dancing with Martin Creed

For a successful, Turner Prize- winning artist with a career spanning more than 20 years, Martin Creed is a bit of a worrier. Not for him the swaggering self-confidence of Damien Hirst. 'I'm always scared people won't like my work,' he says. 'I just say to myself over and over, "Oh God, this is a pile of shite. Oh God, why would anyone want to see this?" '

But his concerns are misplaced, for art lovers flock to see his repertoire, which includes Work No 850, Runners - 50 sprinters pelting down the Tate's Duveen Galleries at 30-second intervals; Work No 79, Some Blu-Tack kneaded, rolled into a ball, and depressed against a wall and, most famous of all, Work No 227, The Lights Going On and Off, which he presented for the Turner Prize in 2001. The piece, consisting of an empty room with the light going off and on every few seconds, was the subject of intense debate and was pelted with eggs by a protester claiming it wasn't real art. It bagged him the prize, though, which was presented by Madonna. And it was only after this vindication that he saw its value. 'At first I just thought it was completely wrong. It was only later that I thought it definitely was right.'

It's not surprising that Creed is hard on himself. He works in so many disciplines - he sculpts, plays music, paints, makes films, writes and is now trying his hand at choreography - that each new piece requires the mastering of a whole new art form. With his new ballet, Work No 1020, he's placed himself in the middle of the event, playing the music and talking. 'It's all quite improvised,' he says. 'The dancers know the dances and the musicians know the music but then live on stage I jumble it up a bit. Every time I've done anything that was rehearsed it felt really fake and artificial.'

Creed was born in Wakefield in 1968 and brought up in a little town north-east of Glasgow. His mother, a physiotherapist, and his father, a silversmith, are both Quakers, an ethos reflected in the pared-down nature of Creed's work.

When I ask him how old he is he spends a good minute working it out and then comes up with 43, adding an extra year by mistake. Although he moved to London in 1986 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, he is still brilliantly Scottish, with his slim-line buttoned-up tweed suit and conversation littered with 'ayes' and 'wees'.

Creed is a few years younger than the YBAs - he was still a student when they were putting on their first big shows - and has taken a different path, eschewing the glossy party scene. He is humble, endearing and a little eccentric, turning up to the interview with a battered suitcase which he opens to reveal a few crumpled shirts. 'I couldn't decide what to wear,' he explains. He has recently grown a beard that springs at all angles from his face, and he smells of something too. It's hard to put my finger on, but mid-interview he pulls a little packet of pink wet wipes from his pocket and gives his hands a thorough clean, carefully going over each finger in turn.

Although he became friendly with Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Gary Hume, it was fellow Glaswegian Douglas Gordon - winner of the Turner Prize in 1996 for Confessions of a Justified Sinner - who championed Creed's work. 'He was really important to me,' says Creed. 'He curated me in one of my first shows, which led to other things. He really looks out for other artists.'

Since winning the Turner Prize, Creed's career has gone onwards and upwards. Earlier this year Thames & Hudson published an epic survey of his career called Martin Creed: Works. And two days after his ballet he will fly to Scotland for a monumental project he has opening on the Scotsman Steps - the 108 stairs that run down The Mound in the centre of Edinburgh, connecting the city's Old and New Towns - each of which he has inlaid with a different marble, meticulously sourced from around the world.

There was also Mothers, a show in January this year at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in Mayfair. It consisted of the word Mothers written in 2.5 metre neon letters spinning round on a high beam. Did his mother like it? 'I don't know if like is the right word. Obviously, it's probably about her. I got to thinking about the relationship between mother and child and how that is the mega relationship because the child is literally a part of the mother that has broken off. I don't actually know where I begin and my mother ends. Or where my mother begins and I end.'

While all his family have remained near Glasgow, Creed lives in a flat in the Barbican. His girlfriend, Anouchka Grose, a psychoanalyst and writer who he has been with for two and a half years, lives in South London with her daughter from a previous relationship. She is the author of the recent No More Silly Love Songs: a Realist's Guide to Romance, and in April wrote a piece for the Daily Mail detailing why they choose to live apart (he's messy, he likes living alone, neither wants children together, and neither wants domesticity to ruin their relationship). 'I feel sure that the differences between us would be causing problems by now if we'd been living together,' says Grose. Creed agrees, 'I don't know if it is perfect,' he says, 'but we both like it this way.'

Also, despite having an office in Brick Lane, Creed works mostly from his flat. 'I like lying in bed and making notes,' he says. He's clearly the kind of artist who never switches off. He turns up to the interview with a digital recorder, not so that he can sue me later but in case anything comes up that he wants to use. 'Talking is working, it's trying to investigate,' he says. 'You can't distinguish between life and work. I hate it when I come up with ideas and can't remember them.'