Peter Insole
Western Thunderer
Thank you Dave and Unklian.
Ah yes Dave, rare indeed! Not so many years ago I used to work at the old Cambridge Art School (at that time known as Anglia Polytechnic). The department was a bustling and incredibly busy place that might have given the impression of utter chaos! We had masses of students, dozens of tutors and a regular stream of guest lecturers. Young people were studying from A level, a very highly regarded and successful Foundation through to Degree courses! Life drawing was going on in various rooms around the site, and at an annexe, every day of the week - and most evenings too!
Back then, you could pop your nose round any door and see a studio full of wonderful, messy creativity going on! However, I was there when the first room was declared out of bounds to us, and fitted out with a seductively twinkling suite of brand new computers!
I still visit the college occasionally, (there is a privately run life drawing group calling themselves "Posers" that meet on Tuesday evenings in term time) but then I find it increasingly difficult to hide a melancholy mood.
Every door now has a combination lock on it, there is after all an awful lot of valuable kit and "vulnerable" students in there! The corridors are sterile. Instead of being decorated with artwork (and some quite intelligent graffiti) there are just dazzling masses of gaudily printed "Do this - don't do that" notices glaring back at every turn of the eye.
There are far too many ghosts in that place!
Dave, as soon as Volume Two is officially announced, and Capital have put the cover image on their website, I will then be able to tell the tale!
Pete.
Ah yes Dave, rare indeed! Not so many years ago I used to work at the old Cambridge Art School (at that time known as Anglia Polytechnic). The department was a bustling and incredibly busy place that might have given the impression of utter chaos! We had masses of students, dozens of tutors and a regular stream of guest lecturers. Young people were studying from A level, a very highly regarded and successful Foundation through to Degree courses! Life drawing was going on in various rooms around the site, and at an annexe, every day of the week - and most evenings too!
Back then, you could pop your nose round any door and see a studio full of wonderful, messy creativity going on! However, I was there when the first room was declared out of bounds to us, and fitted out with a seductively twinkling suite of brand new computers!
I still visit the college occasionally, (there is a privately run life drawing group calling themselves "Posers" that meet on Tuesday evenings in term time) but then I find it increasingly difficult to hide a melancholy mood.
Every door now has a combination lock on it, there is after all an awful lot of valuable kit and "vulnerable" students in there! The corridors are sterile. Instead of being decorated with artwork (and some quite intelligent graffiti) there are just dazzling masses of gaudily printed "Do this - don't do that" notices glaring back at every turn of the eye.
There are far too many ghosts in that place!
Dave, as soon as Volume Two is officially announced, and Capital have put the cover image on their website, I will then be able to tell the tale!
Pete.