Name:

Judith Walsh

Email:

 

Subject:

re Jack Smith

Dates:

50's

Date:

26 January, 2012

Comments

Name:

Patrick Goff

Email:

 

Subject:

Fine Art Painting

Dates:

1967 - 70 (I think)

Date:

12 January, 2012

Name:

Steve Fairbairn

Email:

 

Subject:

Graphics

Dates:

1966-'70

Date:

24 December, 2011

Name:

Nat Bocking

Email:

 

Subject:

re Geoffrey Bocking

Dates:

??

Date:

29 November, 2011

Comments

Name:

Sioban Coppinger

Email:

 

Subject:

Sculpture

Dates:

1973 - 1977

Date:

09 November, 2011

Comments

Name:

Katie Morgan

Email:

 

Subject:

Graphics

Dates:

1982-1985

Date:

06 November, 2011

Comments

Name:

Kim Hinks now Bloomfield-Garland

Email:

 

Subject:

Ceramics

Dates:

83-86

Date:

27 October, 2011

Comments

Name:

lucy webster

Email:

 

Subject:

painting

Dates:

74-77

Date:

17 October, 2011

Comments

Name:

Tony Haase

Email:

  no email submitted

Subject:

Fine Art

Dates:

1975-79

Date:

05 October, 2011

Comments

Name:

sian evans

Email:

 

Subject:

painting

Dates:

1980-1983

Date:

23 September, 2011

Comments

Name:

Jenny Shimell

Email:

 

Subject:

Ceramics

Dates:

1981 to 1984

Date:

21 September, 2011

Comments

Name:

Keith Orange

Email:

 

Subject:

Foundation, Vis Comm : [Day1]

Dates:

1973 - 1977

Date:

24 August, 2011

Comments

The recollections of first days at Corsham are intriguing – and make me wonder whether our respective experiences were really that different, or if it's all in the telling..

I have to confess that, rather like Roland, my application for Foundation was based almost entirely on an aerial photograph of the Court found in an old prospectus. That image, along with the word ‘Academy’, seemed to offer a working-class seventeen year-old from a northern railway town an opportunity to experience something entirely unfamiliar. To those used to wealth and privilege (and lets face it, there were quite a few) it may have seemed unremarkable, but to some of us it was an extraordinary Alice-like experience which, as it turned out, entirely lived up to expectation. Of course it wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but then neither is winning the lottery.

My only recollection of the first day is meeting en masse with Derek Pope in the Barn to listen to the house rules, but I do remember later that week my first glimpse of Bath with nose pressed against the coach window, and Stephen Russ somewhere behind me declaring it ‘the most beautiful city on earth’.
And I also have a vivid recollection of first setting foot in the sculpture school to the smell of welding and epoxy resin, and being overwhelmed by the sense of creative opportunity.
Of course I didn’t make the most of it - which of us did - but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that for me the experience was profound and life-changing.

Perhaps I was naïve, and perhaps I still am, but having spent twenty-odd years in higher education taking on the spreadsheet junkies in an attempt to cultivate an environment which could begin to approach what we had at Corsham, I can only observe that we were indeed fortunate.
For what its worth, I loved every last minute, and can’t quite believe it all really happened.

As Joni famously said, ‘you don’t know what you got ‘til its gone’.

Name:

Petrina Brawn

Email:

 

Subject:

Fine art

Dates:

1976-1978

Date:

29 July, 2011

Comments

Lovely to read all the comments, the party pictures at number 40 were mine, what a surprise to see them again.

I too would like to track down Geoffrey Glover who drove the Citroen and sported a very strong aftershave. Also Adrian Hicken Art History extraordinaire, still tracking down the impressionists hideouts and the latest lush chick, no doubt! Alison Coath is still teaching and potting I think, Ian Allen, I'm not sure about but Jane Strother is working well, teaching, painting and exhibiting great work.
I've got an exhibition on at the moment so at least some of us are doing 'it' still.

It was said 'How many of you will be painting in ten years?' a challenge I well remember. Well it's over thirty years now!! And some of us are indeed 'still at it'.

Name:

sally pinfield

Email:

 

Subject:

graphics

Dates:

1972-1976

Date:

9 July, 2011

Comments

hello everyone.
miss Benno Zehnder, miss Bob Grieg ...

Name:

heather haythornthwaite

Email:

 

Subject:

Foundation, then Graphics

Dates:

1977-1981

Date:

29 June, 2011

Comments

I have more photos and some names for you too. How can I get them to you, or when/where could we meet to sift through them?

message sent to your email - Gerry

Name:

Roland Wallis

Email:

  no email submitted

Subject:

Illustration : [Day1]

Dates:

1978-1982

Date:

23 June, 2011

Comments

What a shock the first day on the fine art course was, only applied to Corsham because it looked like the nearest thing to being in Brideshead revisited; ended up sharing a room with a football fan because we both came from the north.
We divided the room down the middle; football pictures one side objet d'art the other. The room was in the gatehouse at the end of the drive to Corsham Court and was where Lord Methuens ex nurse had retired to. She kept a tight ship and so all dreams of wild college days sitting around drinking, smoking and discussing the meaning of life seemed to be evaporating.
I remember looking out through the leaded windows and thinking this was going to be more Mike Leigh than Evelyn Waugh.

Name:

Steve Fairbairn

Email:

 

Subject:

Graphics : [Day1]

Dates:

1966 - 1970

Date:

13 June, 2011

The first visit of the select Pre Dip graphics 1-in-20 to Mr. Wilcox's subterranean emporium at the Court. He was that 'white-haired old guy that ran the shop'. Probably only about sixtyish then, but he seemed very old to us.

Twenty sheets of Bockingford cartridge, a T-square (that turned out to be defective), the blade wobbled and no amount of tightening the screws helped. And that awful clattering plywood box on a rubber shoulder-strap which never kept things in order and had the nasty habit of opening unexpectedly and disgorging its contents.
After 45 years mine has still never served the purpose it was 'specially designed' for, nor any other for that matter. The rubber strap has completely disintegrated and it had some broken 
Christmas decorations in it. Sadly now gathering dust on a top shelf in our studio.

Waiting on the gravel in front of the Court for our transport to Sydney Place.
Rosemary Ellis strutting round like an over-stuffed pigeon shrieking orders at everyone.
Being scrambled aboard the coaches – there were two of them.
Christ-I know-that-guy-from prep-school (Richard 'Rosebud' Williamson) hope-he-doesn't-remember-me.

Falling head over heels in lech-at-first-sight with that buxom blonde in Pre Dip painting.
She gave me her T-square. (and I still have it, occasionally use it, has her name on it).

Learning for a whole morning how to stick a drawing pin into a drawing board. Yes, Andrew Wilson gave himself time to explain the niceties of fastening paper to board, punctuated by long silences and hushed moments of inner panic in the hearts of those who had not previously experienced that cold Wilsonian stare and whose attempts to comprehend were thwarted by that fearful Scottish accent. In fact he was from Northern Ireland and educated in Edinburgh, so the accent was a strange and, for some, barely comprehensible potpourri.

A rather insipid fish lunch with Clive Adams at a second-rate restaurant on Milsom Street because we hadn't discovered a decent pub yet.

The afternoon spent learning how to sharpen a pencil and how to make a gadget out of corrugated cardboard for holding delicate paintbrushes.

Beginning to understand Andrew Wilson.

That blonde agreed to sit beside me on the bus back to Corsham. Got to know her better later :-) wonder what happened to her?

Yep, Mike's got it pretty much right.

Name:

Mike Marsden

Email:

 

Subject:

Sculpture : [Day1]

Dates:

1965 - 69

Date:

08 June, 2011

Chatting the other day with a couple of colleagues as one does . . . we ended up recalling what we could of our very first day at art college . . . and whether it was that great elevating step we supposed it to be . . . . (back then someone had told me that in 1965 for the Pre Dip course at Corsham there were over twenty applicants for every place . . . r e a l l y???)

Now I start thinking how reliable is my memory . . . . 
anyway back to that first day in 1965 (probably Wednesday 22nd September), which started off in the morning in the Barn at the Court . . . . all the new 1st year Fine Art Degree students and we new Fine Art Pre-Dip students were there and maybe the new Institute students plus a few others too?. . . . Telfer Stokes and Malcolm Hughes (other lecturers popped in from time to time) were on duty trying to organise us so we got drawing and in turn went to the shop in the cellar to buy all we needed to be artists – later in the day, the image of all we new Fine Art Pre-Dippers walking down the drive each carrying one of those pristine wooden paint boxes slung over our shoulders has stayed with me to this day – not quite nightmare material but . . . . close. 

Anyway back to the barn . . . . 
it was pretty crowded in there, drawing-boards jostling drawing-boards as we did drawings from observation of a female nude . . . . and probably in the evening it was glasses jostling glasses in the Pack Horse too. One of my colleagues remembered the clothing fashions, with some of the staff at his college dressed like peacocks, I told him we were lucky because we had the real things parading around manicured gardens! Nevertheless we each agreed that no matter what we did on the first day, starting off at art college was bloody exciting, even though it might have left the majority of us “feeling like potholers trying to navigate by the stars.”

Now I think again, how reliable is my memory.
Let it be . . . .

Name:

Stephen Fairbairn

Email:

 

Subject:

Graphics

Dates:

1966 - 1970

Date:

26 May, 2011

It has sadly come to my notice that my friend Wendy McLerie (Pre Dip Graphics 1966-'67) passed away in January 2011.
I had been in touch with her not so long ago and knew that she was struggling with cancer, although she made light of it. Wendy was always ready for a giggle. May the gods giggle with her.

Name:

Mike Watson

Email:

 

Subject:

Old Times

Dates:

65-67

Date:

7 May, 2011

Comments

I was photo technician from 65 to 67 under Richard Morling and married Wendi Thairs from the graphic design students of that time.

Name:

Betty Holmes

Email:

 

Subject:

Art Education/Teaching

Dates:

1954-57

Date:

5 May, 2011

Comments

I like many other BAA students, have many many happy memories of my time at Corsham 
Court and Monks Park, and would love to hear from any old friends who remember me.

Name:

Pauline Watts

Email:

 

Subject:

Sculpture

Dates:

1965-1969

Date:

20 February, 2011

I suppose this is a continuation of my previous contributions!

Really enjoyed the reunion last year and remade lovely friendships. Also spurred me on to re enter the 'artworld' by seriously moving on my painting. This has resulted in a very productive and creative year for me. Thank you Corsham! you are still influencing after all these years.

Pauline or Paddy Allen as I was known then.

Name:

Chris Garratt

Email:

 

Subject:

Fine Art - Painting

Dates:

1963-66

Date:

15 February, 2011

Comments

Good to read Paddy "Kansas City" Adamson's reminiscences about the ever changing personnel of the Big T Band, sometime house band at impresario Roy Forgan's "cheaper by the Double" Royal Oak. .... and Lest we forget drummers John Punt, Michael Albert and church organist Chris Hall who lent a special Baroque feel to Paul Deacon's murdering of James Brown's "I'll Go Crazy". I still think we should have done more Rolling Stones numbers, Tony.
And apologies to the local guy who lent us his amp which we ruined with a spilt pint of 6x. As he complained "it's only made of pressed cardboard." Keep on rockin'.

I am, playing tenor sax in a soul band. And Deeks is still murdering James Brown songs.

Name:

David Alexander

Email:

 

Subject:

teacher training

Dates:

56-59

Date:

16 January, 2011

Comments

The glory years of Corsham!
Lots of us men had come straight from all male National Service and suddenly we were outnumbered by women. What wonderful years, great teaching, lovely place; we were very privileged. And all for free! We hid from Rosemary Ellis and threw our call up papers for the Suez Crisis in the bin. We had a film society in the barn and some great visiting lecturers like Nicholas Pevsner.

Wanda Szalinska are you out there somewhere?

Name:

Brian Dunce

Email:

 

Subject:

Head of Graphics

Dates:

1980-85

Date:

09 January, 2011

Comments

Going through my files of 35mm slides, there are some general shots which I think must have been for use in promoting the course and campus. They may be the work of Helen Harris who was often doing photographic work for the Course. They will date from 81 or 82, and will be of interest to all who were there then. As I said above, they are 35mm colour transparencies. Being a dinosaur I have no reader!
Still meaning to put the vhs onto dvd, I have bought the machine.

Best wishes and love from Brian

17 March, 2011
Peter Lanyon exhibition at Tate St Ives, reminded me about how vital the teaching was by practitioners not bound up with masses of red-tape. Has the experience for students now been greatly reduced?

Name:

Gerry McFarlane

Email:

 

Subject:

Ceramics

Dates:

74-78

Date:

01 January, 2011

Comments