Threads

I’m starting the school mural properly this week, payment negotiated and agreed, the job seen as a separate project, not as part of my normal working week. So that’s good. Proper artist money, as opposed to part time teacher money. A point well made, and well acknowledged I feel. I have a good boss.

I came across the term “embedded culture” a while back. I like this phrase. To me it implies a certain taking-for-granted of culture in the widest sense. I’m not going to get too political here, but it is embedded culture that Michael Gove is attempting to stamp out. He wants us all to see it as unnecessary frippery, bolted on.

In my little school (well it isn’t mine exactly, but you know what I mean) I like to think the children are within an environment where the culture is embedded, and I like to think I play a fair part in that. My own children went to this school, and it is since they have left, they realise what an unusual primary education they had. They were surrounded by beautiful things and places: in a leafy bubble in the middle of the town, surrounded by sculpture, painting and statuary, new and old. Play and experimentation were welcomed in all subjects. Music formed a large proportion of the day. The children in this school sing beautifully, and love it. They are surrounded by people making things, having a go and being praised for it. Talents as well as efforts are celebrated. As I paint this mural, the children stand and chat to me while I paint, they are enjoying it, but there is nothing about their demeanour which indicates they think the doing of it is unusual. This is the way things are (although I was asked if the head knew I was painting on the wall and would I get into trouble).

I want them to grow up thinking this is how things should be, so that they miss it if it’s not there, and make a big fuss. I want them to demand the same for their own children in turn. They may not be able to put it into words, but I want them to know the right feel of a place of education.

So this mural painting also becomes part of my artist~teacher performance then. I have the audience, the props, the script. They will watch me get grubby yet again. I love it when they get grubby too – year 2 had a really good go with a box of charcoal this week. I haven’t laughed so much for ages….

“you’ve got black on your nose”

“where?”

“just down this side here”

You have now too”

“I haven’t, you have”

“Jamie has a black moustache”

“no I haven’t”

“you did it like this”

Before I knew it, 16 yr2 children had a variety of charcoal facial hair. Excellent. One or two of them decided they needed French accents to go with them…. At least, they told me it was French. See… they are performing too.

I hope I am not institutionalised. I hope I am able to push against the boundaries mentioned in a comment on the previous post. But while I’m being a pirate in the art room, I like to think around the rest of the school, including the staff room, I might be a bit of a stealthy ninja, embedding the culture unnoticed… sneaking about making sure it is everywhere they look.

To teach is to perform.

To teach is to be an example (turning into Bo Jones – be afraid!).

Maybe this is why sometimes I rail against the fact I teach. I must be an example. I should be respectable. But perhaps I don’t want to be? Maybe this is partly where this new tangent sprang from? My frustration that as a teacher I must behave in a particular way… or is it that I must appear to behave in a particular way sometimes irritates me… so that I feel my work should show the frustration, show that I am aware of what is going on, that I put on the mask and perform, but it’s not the “real” me?

But the problem is, it IS the real me, part of me anyway. I show off, I do perform, I do put on the attitude, the persona, as I welcome the children into the room. I am acutely aware this room has a magic that shouldn’t be broken. Every part of the performance says “this place is different” “you can be how you want to be in here”. The door opens, the stage lights go on, they come in, and on a really good day, they participate in the performance. On a bad day, I fail, and it has turned back into a classroom. The performance is shown up to be exactly that. False, fake, sham… you see the strings and the little wheels, the smoke and mirrors, and the people dressed in black, shuffling stuff about.

So perhaps this work about respectability has these elements too to be explored. There is the whole myth(?) about the Art Teacher… I must be respectable to keep my job, but as an Art Teacher, there is an expectation also of an oddness, an otherness, I can wear my flowery trousers, and get away with being filthy by the middle of the day, and sing loudly and out of tune with my iPod in my ears. When I have the children crawling around the floor pretending to be ants, and a visitor is brought in by the head teacher, I am introduced: “This is Mrs Thomas, she is our Artist” the visitor nods wisely and the scene is instantly understood/excused.

So I’m exploring the “clothes” of respectability. I might even start wearing some to school to see who notices. A sort of un-performance…

I am confusing myself.

This is exactly why I need to do more exploring here.

So if you see me in a twin set, and a box-pleated skirt, with leg-coloured tights and shoes with a heel, having straightened and contained my hedge-like hair…. I’m looking that weird on purpose, because I’m playing at being respectable.

All the time I did the MA in “Art Practice and Education” after all…. I beat myself up frequently about how/if/whether I should take my practice into a primary classroom. Well, almost 6 months after it’s finished… it appears I might be onto something…

Right then.

Respectability.

I don’t quite know where this tangential thought has come from, except it has grown out of my last piece of work to do with parents and children, expectations, behaviour and so on. I am thinking of my own children and how they have been brought up, and the children I teach, (and their parents) and what I hear them talking about in that haven that isn’t a classroom, The Art Room. And constantly, while thinking of the present, and the future, there is a comparison going on, with my own childhood, and my own education.

My own childhood was fairly free, idyllic in many ways. Rural, grubby, adventurous, imaginative, creative, fun. Off out on my bike, wearing wellies every day, and expected home before dark. My brothers were much older than me, so not playmates, more like heroes, and protectors.

I can’t ever remember, really, at home being told how to behave in terms of showing myself to be respectable, other than “minding my manners”. I do however, at school, a Roman Catholic primary school in the late 60s early 70s, remember being told to be modest, well behaved, respectful, polite, walk/sit/stand in a ladylike fashion (can’t do it now, couldn’t do it then… what does it even mean?) … all went alongside wearing my hat in mass and having to go to confession if I thumped Declan Daly. But this all seemed a pretty reasonable method of socialisation of children really, even to me as quite a small child. Bad behaviour elicited punishment. That was the outcome, even if sometimes it seemed disproportionate, or unfair. A lesson in life whichever way you look at it.

Respectability, to me, has overtones of pretence, sham, shame. And in my head, actually I have discovered while working and stitching, nothing much to do with respect.

So… back to the dictionary perhaps…

Respectable = Proper, correct, socially acceptable

Respect = deep admiration for someone elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements, due regard for the feelings, rights, wishes or traditions of others.

I had teachers that were respectable = they dressed in the proper manner, said the right things when the right people were listening, but a couple of them said things to small children that would make your toes curl. They DIDN’T LIKE CHILDREN.

I also, thank goodness, had teachers that I respected = they could do stuff, they knew things, they were funny (always a winner) they tried to be fair, they LIKED CHILDREN.

Hmmm…

So the things I am drawing and making have everything to do with the sham, the shame, the pretence, the outward appearance as opposed to the inward feeling for how to treat other people, and how to be ourselves.

I think, in hindsight, sending a child out on a bike to fend for themselves, get themselves out of trouble, (stuck up a tree, trying to climb out of a brook that is suddenly running very fast and over the top of your wellies) is a pretty good way to encourage self-reliance, self-respect, self esteem founded in something real, not just the fact that you are surrounded by doting adults who hang on your every utterance as if pearls of wisdom… I certainly didn’t have that, I was pretty far down the pecking order really, although always felt loved and cared for.

What I’m interested in here is the clothing, and by this I don’t JUST mean the textile, I also mean the mask, the voice, the opinions of Respectability.

At the moment, I am exploring the look of it. Trying to recognise it. I expect, in the midst of more obsessive stitching, my brain will come to the why.

Still plodding on then:

Still adding layers of scrubby paint to this canvas – in the morning, when I look at it refreshed

Still hand quilting – while watching tv in the evening, don’t need to see it that well, just higgledy piggledy running stitch.

Still making holes in this tweed jacket – middle of the day, when the light is best, with strongest set of glasses on.

Still listening to Christmas cds… all the time…

Peter Broderick – “http://www.itstartshere. com”

Elbow – “Dead in the Boot”

First Aid Kit – “The Lion’s Roar”

Loney Dear – “Hall Music”

All the above highly recommended.

Sophie Cullinan sent me a sock that arrived a couple of days before Christmas. I’ve been panicking because I thought I’d lost it – got thrown out in a load of wrapping paper or turkey carcass or similar, but no. Just found it half way down the ironing basket… phew!

Will deal with that tomorrow!

My Christmas reading list consists of books with high ratio of image:text, including:

“Information is Beautiful” ed David McCandless very browsable – attractive and prompts exclamations of “ooh! that’s interesting” at regular intervals. You don’t need a book mark, you can just dip into it in between glasses of mulled wine and mince pies.

“Fifty Sheds of Grey” by C.T. Grey – parody of the other book with similar title. This one much more suited to me. It has pictures of sheds in it. And a healthy disregard for the seriousness of sex. And gentle wordplay sprinkled with double entendres. I particularly liked:

“Pleasure and pain can be experienced simultaneously” she said, gently massaging my back as we listened to her Coldplay cd”

(see, the writing’s better than in the other one too)

My husband bought it for me. He knows what I like.

Not being twitchy…

3 days after Christmas and it has happened. I’m not twitchy any more. The fridge is full of food, there’s plenty to drink. Help yourself, I’m doing nothing now!

Except… that basket of stuff I hid under the table.

I’ve almost finished the quilting that’s been hanging around for two years – can’t imagine why it’s taken me so long! Can’t wait for the cheer to go up when at the next Rebellious Quilters meeting I whip it out and go Ta Daaaah! They will all be glad to see the back of it too.

Unpicked the stitching around the holes in the jacket – not neat enough. Must try harder. Sometimes I go at things in a rush, desperate to see if they work, then go back and improve the look of it. Those of you that know me, or have read this, will be stunned to see such impatience and sense of being in a hurry…. (ahem hem)!

I have an urge to go back to the sound stuff too… but I will have to wait until the new year when everyone else is out of the house and I can sing and play the same 20 second bit of stuff over and over without them losing the will to live.

I also did a painting! Shock! I love the process of painting, but my style and method is immature really, like a little girl with a new set she’s had for Christmas. This was different, and possibly worthy of a bit more experimentation. Due to a series of errors and misjudgements made by the aforementioned schoolgirl, I happened upon a method that seems to work. I mixed the paint too thin so it wouldn’t sit on the canvas nicely and was too drippy. I couldn’t find a big enough brush to just do a general sweep to work out the composition, so wrapped my finger in a bit of cotton rag (there’s always a bit of that around here) and rubbed the drippy paint all over the place. As I rubbed and worked out how I wanted things to be, this nude emerged from a foggy cloudy mess of ultramarine mixed with viridian. The nice thing is, as a textiles obsessed person, I can still see the warp and weft of the canvas. There’s hardly any paint on it at all! The deeper tones need building up a bit, but if I just keep doing more layers with the painty rag, I’ll still be able to see the textile beneath the paint. I also when painting, choose “pretty” colours, which, while pleasing when working, mean I’m never particularly happy with the outcomes, thinking it looks like interior decorating channel 4 programme “art”. I hunted for some crimson, but didn’t find any. This is a blessing as I used cadmium red with a tiny bit of violet something or other in instead. I know you painting purists will be horrified at my lack of discernment, but I just wanted to carry on, get it done! It was a yucky colour. Not what I wanted. But the outcome is better. I think, next time I paint I will do a lucky dip thing and just use the first three colours that come out of the box. That should break the nasty habits!

So, when I’ve done a bit more on it later today, I’ll take a photo for you to see. Online crit please – need help!

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