When I first received an email from the headmistress, Helen Ingham, at Ivydale Primary School I wasn’t sure what to make of it. My illustration was the inspiration for a new building for the school.
Every few months I would receive an update email informing me of the buildings progress. I still wasn’t sure which illustration it was. Eventually I received an email inviting me to come to the school and to officially open it. I also had a phone call from the architect, Shoko Kijima, at Hawkins Brown,telling me that the building had been nominated for a RIBA award, which it later went onto win in it’s category.
When I first arrived at the school I couldn’t believe how the beautiful glass bricks and paint had matched my colours from my illustration extactly. I couldn’t have been more proud.
When I went to Ivydale Primary School for the official opening, during lunchtime it was suggested by one of the teachers that I go and look at Nunhead Cemetery. It was just around the corner from the school and I couldn’t believe it. It was like an inner city forest, with most of the cemetery vastly overgrown with headstones emerging from the overgrown plants and trees. The teacher also mentioned that it was also home to many foxes that would come into the playground and snack on the bits of food that the children might of dropped from their lunch boxes. It made me think that my illustration Fox in the Forest was a perfect match.
In the afternoon I suggested to the children during one of the workshops I was taking that maybe they could writer their own ghost story. Then I thought I could write my own ghost story.
I’m currently working on this personal project which connects the school and a real life event. I have since returned to Nunhead Cemetery for a day of sketching.
