School art exhibition

Went up to Lisa's school last week; some of her work had been selected for display. I wasn't expecting much from a comprehensive school's art room. I was wrong! I could have spent twice as long there, getting really involved in the work of various different years, some of it 'A' level, some for GCSE and some just course work. One or two of the works stopped me in my tracks. I thought back to my own days doing art at school and realised that, despite my almost continual denigration of modern education, the art was much advanced from that which we were doing in the 1970s. Partly this may be down to the way in which the exams are marked. Our work had to be of a suitable size and structure for transporting away to be marked for 'O' or 'A' level assessment. This meant there were size limits, limits on the sort of materials we could use etc. This no longer seems to be the case. One particularly eye-catching work is a good example. It was enormous and would have fallen well outside the limits in my day. But most importantly it was hugely inspirational, a painting on a board made up of various pieces of paper and textile. The theme was the bombings of the Tube system on 7/7/2005. Blacks and greys predominated. Alright it is a gruesome subject but that never bothered artists in the past! I can't say I want that painting on the wall of my sitting room but I can honestly say that have seen many paintings in galleries and exhibitions that are not it's equal. It is dark and frightening and evocative. I hope the artist did not have to endure that frightening day in person but he or she certainly provoked me to consider what it was like to be caught up in a smoke filled tunnel deep beneath the surface of London.
There were the usual collections of work from various years throughout the school, and sometimes you feel that you can tell who sits next to whom, but liberally scattered throughout the art rooms were paintings and sculpture which made you yearn to have had that idea yourself, or to be able to paint or draw just like that, or just to have been that original and creative in the past!
Most importantly I came away with one new notion: to go into town and buy a sketch pad and some pencils or charcoal and do something myself for the first time since school.