Overview

This second volume of John Froy's memoir, a sequel to his childhood story in 70 Waterloo Road, takes us from Italy to Reading University and Falmouth School of Art with many twists and turns between. The memoir chronicles the life of an art student in the 70s: a time of great experiment and change; the figurative/abstract divide in painting and sculpture; the new photography, film and Happenings. And in the gaps, while extricating himself from the family home, being a volunteer archaeologist in Assisi, an osprey warden in Scotland, a London bedsit and dead-end job, a Wiltshire valley idyll and landscape painting in a caravan through a Cornish winter. 'Things may come and things may go, but the art school dance goes on for ever.' (Pete Brown, 1970)

Full Product Details

9781901677959

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Reviews

Reconstructed from old diaries and letters, and written in the present tense, we endure with the author the lostness, the self-mistrust, the confusion of those painful years between the ages of 18 and 22. We look over his shoulder and ponder the hand that life has dealt him, with all its complications and compensations. The memoir is also a chronicle of the times, with their brand new freedom to hitch-hike around Europe, throw oneself into sexual relationships and sample mood-altering drugs. What would today's teenagers make of the books surrounds himself with, and the hours and hours he spends on his art, looking intently and with deep seriousness at what is before him, and trying to record it - as, in fear and trembling, he finds his way towards his future self - the adult he will become? (Jane Serraillier)

Reconstructed from old diaries and letters, and written in the present tense, we endure with the author the lostness, the self-mistrust, the confusion of those painful years between the ages of 18 and 22. We look over his shoulder and ponder the hand that life has dealt him, with all its complications and compensations. The memoir is also a chronicle of the times, with their brand new freedom to hitch-hike around Europe, throw oneself into sexual relationships and sample mood-altering drugs. What would today's teenagers make of the books he surrounds himself with, and the hours and hours he spends on his art, looking intently and with deep seriousness at what is before him, and trying to record it - as, in fear and trembling, he finds his way towards his future self - the adult he will become? (Jane Serraillier)

Author Information

John Froy was born in Yorkshire and grew up in the West Country. He went to art school, travelled widely, and taught English as a Foreign Language, then settled in Reading with his wife and daughter and started a decorating business. He ran Two Rivers Press for a number of years. He has published two collections of poetry Eggshell: A Decorator’s Notes and Sandpaper & Seahorses, and a volume of memoir The Art School Dance, with Two Rivers Press.

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