At school, I watched the clouds sail across the window and the three hands of the clock swirl, stroll and sloth around - "Come on 4 o'clock."
"Eyes on the board!" Cumulus. S is for stupid, scary, strap. W is for why - don't ask.
Every term, we took our report book home to show our parents. Once, I got an A. I was so proud. On the way back to school, I had another look but it was drizzling and the page got smudged. The teacher was so angry, she put it on the shelf for everyone to see - for a week! H is for horrible, hurtful, humiliation.
At playtime, we played ...
But if I had a sixpence, I escaped to Joe's Cafe where it was steamy warm and the air was raw vinegar. I read my book and listened to other people's chatter.
"...all for your own good... (said the ape). There'll be schools and offices and whips and muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons - Oh, everything."
"But we don't want all those things," said an old bear. "We want to be free..."
from 'The Last Battle' by C S Lewis
14 comments:
This series is great!
I love these!
Hi Alison
Thanks for visiting my blog, and I'm having a great time reading through yours. There are so many little details in your paintings and I love your written descriptions of the events.
My mum and I have both been writing our life stories over the past few years, and we're also compiling a list of our family's strange phrases and sayings, so I particularly liked your mum's phrase about making cat's trousers out of the blue in the sky.
I'm off to read some more, and I have sent the address of your blog to my mum as I'm sure she will love it too.
Oh it's always a red letter day when you add another post to this blog. Love the alphabet and the description of the chip shop. Love it all
Oh these do bring back memories! Lovely drawings.
I love this blog, Alison. It reads like a storybook with your cute inscriptions and nice illustrations.
I'll definitely drop by again.
Ronell
Alison, I really enjoy your blog. These memory drawings are wonderful, and stimulate memories of my own. Thanks for posting them.
Great drawings Alison - I love the child's perspective
Your memory book is so wonderful! What a fantastic treasure to have for the future. It was very reassuring to hear that your kids unschooled all the way too! I'm always full of anxiety for my to but I couldn't do it any other way. Looking forward to seeing more of your work!
These are WONDERFUL! I wish I could draw from memory and imagination with such confidence - I need to always have my subject in front of me ...
Just found your blog! Thanks for commenting on mine--greatly appreciated your kind words. I LOVE this memory book you are making! I am in awe of how you can draw things so well from your memory of them. I can't draw things right in front of me--hehe! I love the stories!! I have bookmarked your blog so I can find you! :) Wonderful!
I'm sorry you had such an awful experience at school but I'm thrilled by your drawings. The first one is so fabulous. It could be an illustration used for an article about everything that's wrong with school. Your memory drawings are almost supernatural in the way that the drawing is beautifully done but also imbued with that sense of mystery that I remember from being a kid...where things just didn't quite make sense and the world seemed strange and scary.
These are interesting - are you working straight from memory or using visual references? There's a lot of detail (I particularly like the image of the dump) and I like how the child's eye point of view puts me right in the picture.
Some of this is surprisingly familiar to me. Thanks for the memories! (and a fabulous set of drawings as usual!)
Post a Comment