Threads

Since doing the MA together, Bo and I have talked about working on some common project. We even have got as far as booking some space later in the year to do it. There is a large enough overlap in the Venn diagram of how we think and work for it to be a successful mix, while the outcomes are still diverse enough for it to be interesting. We’ve been talking about similar things from different angles: deconstruction and reconstruction…. But lots of other words too. Anyway, the result of this is that we now have a fair vision of what we might do individually for this project. We may or may not end up making something collaborative. I’ve got myself all wound up about a completely new seam of ideas.

(I don’t think Bo and I will be blog-documenting the process, as we both have enough to be getting on with. But there might be the odd joy or quandary along the way that gets written about.)

My problem then is this… I have all this “Respectable” stuff going on in my head, several pieces I want to try to make, and follow that path… it still holds my fascination. But out of the corner of my eye I see the mass deconstruction of all sorts of things, that then will be reconstructed in some new way, yet to be discovered.

Exciting, confusing… wishing I could be something quantum, and allow myself to follow both paths, simultaneously, intensely and totally… but I find myself flitting from one to the other, getting an idea, writing it down, drawing, but in the process of drawing see something else across the room, across the other side of my brain. (SQUIRREL!!)

The workings of the artist’s brain are fascinating, which is why I love to read these blogs. Some are very similar to me – Sophie Cullinan and I wondered if we might have been separated at birth… I bet we could happily slip into each other’s work space and carry on working, finding little mutually admired treasures along the way. Others have similar starting points, then take them on paths that wouldn’t have occurred to me. Others make work that I think is astonishingly beautiful, but I have no clue, following their particular process, how they got there (Marion Michell, Anthony Boswell). Some, it is like reading a foreign language (David Riley sometimes) so I keep going back to see if I get it yet.

(I see just this very minute, before I post, that Kate Murdoch has commented on Sophie’s blog about being distracted… another common thread then….)

www.a-n.co.uk/p/2544868/ – Bo Jones

www.a-n.co.uk/p/2268962/ – Sophie Cullinan

www.a-n.co.uk/p/2157883/ – Marion Michell

www.a-n.co.uk/p/2655324/ – David Riley

www.a-n.co.uk/p/2294750/ – Anthony Boswell

Enough school stuff…

Back to respectability…

Finished the twin set, but finding it hard to wear, even around the house. It is the last item I would ever wear, it is beige, smart, smooth, clean and tidy. I NEVER do beige, or smooth, and the other two are pretty hit ‘n’ miss too. It feels weird, like I’m channelling some archetypical Mother-in-Law, or possessed by the chair of the WI. I think it might be the total opposite of Sophie Cullinan’s superhero outfits. It renders me incapable of rational thought and prompt action, causes procrastination and a desire to do the Daily Mail crossword. I may have to decorate a wooden spoon, or make some jam.

All these things though… make me want to persevere… to wear it would be to work out what it is… and would show me where I need to go next.

I have just amused myself with late night contortions, as everyone else has gone to bed, trying to take photos of myself in said garments… the combination of mirrors, camera, and the fact that one piece of text is not visible to me when I’m wearing it, due to the respectably ample bosom… all make for tricky posing.

I’ll wait till morning and get someone else to do it for me.

• 
• 

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.