I really could not even consider applying for Art School after years of confrontation with insufferable Art Teachers, and my enthusiasm had long since waned by the time I was through with them. Although I fancied that I might return to it sometime, it was years before I did so. The advantage of being self taught is that you develop at your own speed and in your own fashion, and when I came to do an Access Foundation course in my thirties I was lucky enough to have an excellent Tutor who helped me along.
There are times when the process of painting seems easy, but they are extremely rare. Many is the time I have considered adopting an exotic
name, and inventing an impressive CV, replete with art school credentials
and an array of Art prizes, but there's plenty of time ahead for such invention( I hope) -
I was born in London in 1960 and at 8 was sent to boarding school in Sussex, Cumnor House. At 13 I was sent away to Charterhouse, and I saw out my education at that establishment. The school as it was then was about as welcoming as colditz, only Edgar Alan Poe could have done justice to it. My Father and Grandfather had been there, and it had barely received a lick of paint since those heady times. After a year we moved into a plush new house where I saw out my undistinguished education. I ruled out any further education, and found myself in a succession of mainly menial jobs. I later worked in framing with Nick Hawker Frames in London W.8 and then at John Jones Frames in N.1. For the last few years I've painted at my Studio in Chysauster, near Penzance, Cornwall.
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