ABSTRACT

As I eagerly reread the transcripts of the wonderful and often bizarre conversations with the children I recently interviewed in preparing for this chapter I recalled that, as a child, not many people asked my opinion about anything. In fact I don’t think I was given much credit for having an opinion, let alone expressing it. Much later I realized that there was a time when assimilated preconception and conditioned response formed the major part of what I believed in and my philosophy on art, society and life in general was borrowed. I remember at times being quite passionate about these borrowed beliefs. At least I believed in something. And then the people who believed in me taught me, in a gentle and nonjudgemental way, how to use the understanding I would gain as I made my art, how to recognize the rare instances of illumination which would mould those misconceptions, how to contour the conditioning and replace the purloined paradigms with a personal philosophy – tempered with a healthy dose of anarchism. By now it was my own epiphany. As I reflected on the changes which I have undergone – from quietly confident child to deeply doubting student; from professional painter to teacher and lecturer – I came to realize how important it is to remember that it takes time to develop beliefs and even longer to master the skills to share those beliefs.