This is fun, an early painting, very basic, struggling to find its form.How to make the pigment move, not technically but emotionally.You see me struggling with this alot.
At the time I was training in Social Work and working with teenagers, mostly boys, on a project that was set up as an experimental non-custodial sentence to borstal. In fact the recidivist rates are no different, but it is less expensive and perhaps it gives some boys a chance to escape the life patterns that confine them while contributing to the community in some way.
We were living in the wilds of Norfolk , building a log cabin that would be used as a community resource for other deprived/depraved children so it was useful work, learning about physical and social survival much as they now do in Reality TV shows! Maybe that’s where the idea originated.The cabin was built. The kitty was stolen. The toilets didn’t work. It was cold. There were arguments and knife fights, tears and tantrums. Life stories were told and vulnerabilities shared. These boys were old before they were young.
Anyway here we are sharing our Last Supper together like a regrouping of the famous Leonardo painting! Follow the links in the lines round the table, each telling their own story. The window opens out onto their nightmares. And round the outside is the frieze that tells the whole story of the project; sitting together round the fire, swimming in the sea, mooning on the scaffolding, the chequer tiled floor of the courtroom, football, breakthrough eureka moments, playing pool in the local pub.
