Brockley Adult Education Centre, London, 4 May 2022

This class at Brockley Adult Education Centre wanted for nothing except, alas, the necessary minimum students to keep it viable. Three had signed-up, but one couldn’t attend due to sickness. As I always say, I’ll give of my best whether modelling for 2 or 200 artists. Unfortunately the adult learning sector can’t afford to be so airily carefree.

Coronavirus pandemic, wholesale gas prices, war in Ukraine… all factors contributing to a worldwide cost-of-living crisis that has been vastly amplified in this country by the collective insanity of Brexit, and compounded by our self-serving, debauched, corrupt far-right Tory government of elites and hangers-on. Art is an inevitable early casualty.

But it’s not only art. All courses are affected. The trickle-down effects are everywhere. It’s to be expected when people have less disposable income, no disposable income, or not even enough to pay for essentials. When people have to choose between food or heating, who chooses art? Tories are destroying all that sustains and defines us.

When people say “life goes on” they mean “existence goes on“. For some people life won’t go on; under this government, needlessly, avoidably, tragically it won’t go on. In this session, for this evening at least, we went on: 1-minute, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5, 20, a break, and 50-minutes to the end. Me, tutor Jo (who made these drawings), and 2 students.