Preshil memories 

I am a painter and printmaker loving and working in London UK. I was at Preshil from the age of 5-11, from 1965-70. I left Australia with my mother and sister in 1971 when my parents divorced and have lived in London ever since, with regular trips back to Melbourne to see my father, relatives and friends. 

I studied painting and printmaking at the Slade in London and have been making pictures of my everyday life, like a visual diary, for the past 40 years. What I want to do is to celebrate ordinariness, the poetry of the everyday. The things we are all too busy to notice. I was pregnant with my first child when I left the Slade, so my early pictures inevitably centred around domesticity and my children. Unfashionable as it has always been, I feel I have no choice but to depict a woman’s view of daily life, rather than paint about grand themes and ideas. 

Looking back I realise that I have been making one continuous work, documenting my inner world and my ordinary everyday activities, and maybe inadvertently this is a statement in itself about what is really important to us all. I now have 4 grandchildren who are, inevitably, featured in my work. As my grandchildren reach primary age, and I’ve been collecting them after school, I’ve been thinking more and more about my own primary years at Preshil and how much they have influenced my life.

Preshil was a magical place for me. I have so many happy memories of making tree-huts, singing in the hall, choosing books in the library, playing with friends in the 'new rooms' (these were built in 1969 I think) and even watching the first moon landing on a black and white tv with the whole school crowded into a room in Mug’s house! 

But there are 2 abiding memories that were so important to me that I have managed to re-create them in my working life.  Listening to Mug read a story every afternoon, we were allowed to continue with craft activities while we listened. In the final year we were each allowed to weave the seat of a small stool (I still have mine!) during this time, but I also remember knitting and paper folding on the purple carpet. Giving busy fingers something to do was such a typically Preshil thing, allowing us to listen better without fidgeting and giving us the freedom to choose even within that activity. 

Now, in my everyday work, I paint while listening to podcasts and stories. Giving my thinking brain something to listen to and freeing myself to paint without thinking too much. This is my favourite way to spend the day and I owe it to Preshil. 

The other really important Preshil memory for me is finger-painting. Colours on a shiny white table to play with, and putting a painty hand up when a picture was ready to print. And here I am, over half a century later, painting with my fingers on a plastic sheet and printing monotypes onto paper. I also make linocuts, woodcuts and etchings, and the first 'reveal', when pulling back the paper on a new print, takes me straight back to the smell of peppercorn trees and the sunshine of Preshil.

Anita Klein

www.anitaklein.com