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Thursday, February 25, 2010

Escape! Some hope!



The Great and the Good (or at least the governing council of our school) has been visiting today.

I am still no further forward in finding out just how our institution runs than I was when I first arrived. At one level it seems democratic and above board, but when you try and find out specific information then the waters become just a little muddier! But that doesn’t really distinguish it from most of the other schools in which I have worked. Sometimes information clearly laid out can be obfuscation personified. I’m not sure that the previous sentence makes any sense but what I am getting at is that presentation of information can be a variant on the ‘hide something in full view’ technique.

We seem to be a Foundation and a Grant Aided school at the same time and in addition we charge large fees for the students in our care, but we do not seem to be dripping with wealth; at least the teachers don’t! What, one is tempted to ask, happens to the money! The perennial cry of teachers through the ages!

Toni has started to produce abstract paintings. I found the first when I came downstairs to begin the tea ceremony which is an essential propellant in making the transition from inside to outside to get me to school.

There, leaning gently against the large canvas on which Toni has been working for some time and which has more layers of paint than the Sistine Chapel was a vibrant scarlet canvas with a vaguely fish like form in streaks of colour. In the centre was a round white blob surrounded by yellow and orange. All in all remarkably effective and I even (gasp!) took down MY photograph of the frozen rose to put up Toni’s latest efforts. And it looks good.

He has already started a second canvas which is a black base with smears of silver metallic paint and that is well on its way towards being a successful emanation of Toni’s artistic spirit! I think that these canvases are much more lively and interesting than his more representational paintings and have a flair and panache that the others lack.

I only hope that this artistic outpouring can be converted into a reasonable cash flow.

Bring on the internet!

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