ART UK: A Thousand Recollections: The Desire to Be an Artist

Some of my fondest and earliest memories are of drawing. The very earliest of these was drawing a teddy bear’s hard nose across a distemper-painted wall, when I was around four or five years old, and being profoundly affected by the sensation it gave me and the rich line it left behind. This incredible sensation stayed with me all through my childhood and it is still important today.

‘It was the one and only time when I almost felt like an explorer, in the Victorian sense. It was a majestically peaceful and sublime place to be.’

This feeling fuelled my love of all things to do with art but it was drawing that I had a special love for. It seemed natural to me to want to continue drawing and painting and take this onto an art school. This wasn't to be, partly because of the perception the institutions had in the late 1960s – fuelled by stories in the popular press of revolution, sex, drugs and rock and roll – and partly because art was the only subject I excelled in, having pretty much failed at everything else. So, with my parents not wishing their son to become a beatnik or a dropout sitting around and not paying his way, it was ruled out for me.

Continue reading the full article on the Art UK website: https://artuk.org/discover/stories/a-thousand-recollections-the-desire-to-be-an-artist