The Moment when you realized you were interested in Art.
Grayson Perry yesterday suggested that most artists will have had a crux event in their early lives where they can self mythologize about when they became an artist. He went onto describe when he was 9 and had been naughty at school and had to work with the girls and wear a tight blue plastic apron and he made his first coil pot.
I can definitely pin point an event at school in exactly the same way. I was probably 13 or so and I’m going to self mythologize that my interest in art began then.
It was the ‘single maths’ lesson during the last period of every week on Fridays.
Our maths teacher was called Mr Pimenter and he realized that the last lesson of the week before the weekend was not when the class were at their most receptive. My class was renowned as difficult and after one particularly riotous lesson he announced that from now on we would not do maths on Fridays, but instead every Friday we could go to the back of our exercise books and colour in the squares and make patterns ……He went on to outline that he was a Muslim and creating patterns in this way was a special experience!
So while every-one else was, fighting, swapping football cards, flicking pellets with elastic bands and writing graffiti on the desks, bags or the backs of their own hands. I was the one colouring in the squares and making patterns having the special experience while everything else was kicking off around me!
From then on I loved this lesson and looked forward to it, it was my favorite lesson of the whole week.
Remembering that today, I went and bought myself a pad of squared paper and I have been in the cooler most of the day using squared paper to generate a mosaic design for Southwark Council.
It has influenced the design, though I can’t really describe it as truly geometric?
Tomorrow after I have emailed my designs off, it’s back in the cooler cracking rocks and being alone and solitary. I am actually looking forward to it.
It will be the calm before the storm.
