Stories from our students
Ana Maria
Talks about finding a sense of vocation
I was interested in sacred geometry, then I learned about the School and said 'this is where I want to be'. I’m from Colombia but had been living in the United States for ten years working as a graphic designer. I moved here for the course and completed my MA two years ago. Now I’m returning to complete my PhD.
This place changed my life. Perhaps I didn’t find the answers here, but the ways in which to find the answers to many questions I’ve had all my life.
The School encourages people to explore their own traditions. I started looking at whether South American art can reflect the principles we study here. I chose Colombian and Native American art and totally fell in love with the subject. This is what I want to do with the rest of my life
I’m hoping to dedicate my life to the academic and artistic world, maybe to teach and to publish and to practise art.
Lisa
Explains why she finds it different from other art schools where she has studied
I studied the PhD programme which I finished last year. I’m now working for the school for the foreseeable future. It’s really good to find an arts school that teaches you something practical.
I had been interested in traditional methods and materials which is no longer taught in art courses. I liked the idea of a well-rounded arts education and even if I’m never going to be a stone carver or a stained glass artist, I feel quite strongly that you need to understand the different media in order to know your own.
At the school we’re seeking something that’s universal, something that we have in common, but then we’re also given the freedom to express it in different traditions. Although I come from a Christian background, I learn the Islamic patterns just like everyone else and they in turn learn the icon painting methods. We are learning universality as something that links everyone rather than things that separate us.
We have religious people and we have people that aren’t part of any particular tradition, and that’s not a problem. If you look at the news we shouldn’t be getting along but we do.
The classes are small, you see each other’s strengths and learn from each other. We’re all living in the same space, in the studio, you have a lot of time to develop those close relationships. Your work builds on that of your colleagues. My experience of other art schools is it tends to be a very solitary affair, you don’t really get together to talk to people until it’s time for a public critique.
I would very much like to have my own art career and definitely think that’s possible. We have an unusually high rate of alumni who actually practice their craft, something completely unique about this place. I think with most art schools people end up doing something else.’
Hana
Has won a 2008 Jerwood prize for traditional Islamic art
I hear that what the judges liked about my work is that it presented the traditional sacred proportions in a nice, subtle, contemporary sense.
I’ve been practising traditional art for a while and obtained a BA in Jordan. I spent three years experimenting and working as an administrator before coming here.
Although I’ve been practising for a long time the School built my confidence and showed me my tradition and culture from a different perspective. I moved from using the material I’m used to, which is paper and gold pigment. I tried ceramics and was amazed that it felt like creating another painting. All the traditional crafts require the same approach from the artist – the physical form is just a surface thing.
Socially, it has been amazing. I left my family and everybody I knew in Jordan and thought I would be lonely for two years. After a few weeks I realised I had a home here.
In Jordan we used to make traditional things and have them as part of our lives. Then all of a sudden we wanted to copy the West in all aspects and Western goods started coming to the market. The traditional arts and crafts started diminishing and lost their social and economic function.
What’s happening now at my school in Jordan is the revival and appreciation of ordinary people for these arts. That’s not difficult, these arts talk to the primordial nature of the human being. I’m returning to teach, to pass on the beautiful experience I’ve had in London to my students and colleagues.
