It all started in the summer when I went out to buy just a carton of milk but returned home with a lovely vintage easel, having taken a 'short cut' through the market. O the perils of a sunny day and a persuasive woman.
The easel still had 2 of the original pegs and attaching chains and seemed to be crying out for a blackboard so I made this one out of a new frame and a piece of plywood painted with home made chalkboard paint in a faux slate colour. Obviously the new, blond wood frame had to be stained and treated harshly to sit comfortably with the aged easel.
Blackboard equals thoughts of school and the memory of a feeling of imprisonment, looking out the window at the clouds and freedom. The schools I went to were strict with an over abundance of nuns and I don't remember ever getting the chance to draw on any of the innumerable boards there. So initially a slight sense of transgression and then something joyful in the freeing process of making a drawing that will disappear at the slightest touch.
Here's the easel in the stairwell leading into Wainsgate Chapel Sunday Schoolroom where I've had a temporary painting studio for the past 18 months until tomorrow when I move out.
