Seeing as I was sent to a Catholic School when I was seven, these memories have had a while to turn into a visual chronicle. Though for many years I kept a record through poetry and in some ways these collages are illustrations of them. Coming from a seventies teenage background of obscure music lyrics, what are you wearing and what’s your concept then, I am reluctant to reveal. At school we were taught never to use ‘I’ in a sentence. In fact ‘I” didn’t exist. We were mostly “amoebas” Spineless in other words. These collages may be painted by ‘I’ but they are seen by you. I am now completing ‘St Peter Chanel of the Staffroom” Our school was, like most of that era, an old house so the pictures and statues sat well in alcoves, walls and in the case of Peter, the kitchen; Family portraits of merry burning hearts, weeping virgins and blonde beautiful Jesus. Why we had The Rape of the Sabine Women on a classroom wall I don’t know; were they Protestants?
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