New Blood Art: The Story - Part 6
London 2001 - 2002
I found a job teaching art at a boys’ public school in Ealing. A Catholic school and a weirdly relevant yet emotionally irrelevant landmark that vicariously punctuated my life.
My brother had gone there briefly. The boy with the hamster had gone there. The man I would later live with, had gone there. And when I and three other fifteen-year-old girls thought we’d seen a ghost on a camping trip, we went there - hoping a priest could help us work out what had happened. (But that’s another story.)
After being there just a little while, a few months, I knew it wasn’t the right place for me though, so I left.
I took a job teaching art at an inner-city school in Wandsworth, and bought a small studio flat on the Upper Richmond Road - fifth floor, 1930s block, windows all the way along one side. It was small, but it was mine. And it breathed. I was excited. New flat, new chapter and all my energy went into making it mine.
I painted every wall of this tiny place a different colour: pale blue, mustard, pink, turquoise. Laid electric purple carpet, threw a shag pile in a flourish over the top. Cut mirrors into small squares and tiled the galley kitchen until it glittered at night - reflecting London back at itself.
One afternoon, a woman I worked with - one of the art technicians, came back with me for a cup of tea between lessons. She sat on the futon, looked around, paused at the mustard wall and said, “Oh… what were they thinking..?” I hadn’t the heart to tell her (or admit to myself).. so I made a confused face, threw a hand up, and said, “I know… what were they thinking?” we walked back to school, and somewhere between leaving the flat and starting the next lesson, I realised that maybe I'd got a bit carried away.
Writing this Laura Gaiger’s work came to mind - particularly this piece, Tenement Windows. There’s a careful intentionality in the way her interiors are held, and something about the boundaries between objects, colours, and light that feels like a home.
Tenement Windows Laura Gaiger[/caption]
I was running late for a yoga class at the health club one summer evening, so I took the lift. It jolted once, then stopped between floors. No phone, no watch, no sense of time. There was a red alarm button, but it seemed designed for another kind of person - someone ready to make a very loud very public announcement (and I was just going to yoga..).
I thought… someone will need the lift soon… won’t they? So I waited. The light flickered. The evening folded itself into a kind of pocket - in suspension. It didn’t feel dramatic. But too much time had passed… Eventually (90 minutes later) I called out. The fire brigade arrived quickly after that and hoisted me out from between two floors (which seems strangely symbolic) cheerful and efficient, like it was nothing unusual.
My elderly neighbour knocked on the door with a miniature bottle of wine - the kind you’re given on a flight with your meal - pressed it into my hand like it might steady something. I thanked her, shut the door, and opened a larger bottle.
One evening I was out for drinks and someone mentioned they worked at the Royal Ballet School. The way she described it… the location, class sizes, the rhythm. It sounded like somewhere I would be able to breathe.
“I don’t suppose they’re looking for an art teacher?”
She paused, looked unexpectedly surprised and said, “Do you know what, Sarah… I think they're interviewing for an art teacher tomorrow.”
She sent a message. I went in, and they offered me the job.
And just like that. The door opened. And I walked through it.
White Lodge rose pale out of the deep green of Richmond Park - hidden and sovereign, self-contained, a world of its own. The long tracks led towards it, open, breathing space all around, the trees leaning in close.
It wasn’t just a building. It was a kind of secret safe place in the trees, where a different kind of rhythm was possible - quiet, exact, attentive. Each morning I crossed into the park - driving or walking from my flat with the mist rising, stags at the edges of the paths.
Inside, the Ballet School moved in its own time. Stillness. Attention.
Tiny repetitions folding into breath, and into bone. The children stood with a kind of poise I’d never seen - the air seemed to vibrate around them. Breathing, in another key.
The cadence of the place - the repetition, the way the days moved with intention. My nervous system settled again. The school was attuned. Stillness was built into its structure. Attention shaped everything - from posture to the way the day held itself.
Bizarrely, Africa had given me something similar - not the same poise, but a vital, immediate contact with an embodied life force, with nature, and the immediacy of now. Different energies - both with an aliveness and presence that opened the same door, back to self.
This new job and environment arrived at exactly the right moment. At the same time, my dad was coming to the end of his life and I was spending as much time with him as I could - between lessons, in the evenings, and weekends. To have found this new environment - a place that honoured peace, that held steadiness, emotional sensitivity and a connection to nature - made it possible for me to be present.