12:53pm Monday 22nd June 2009
Four of the art teachers at the world’s number one public school live in and around Whitby.
Ruth Campbell speaks to the Eton College tutors who are so inspired by the landscape of the North-East that they cannot bear to leave.
IAN Burke, head of art at Eton College, insists on living within a ten-mile radius of the North York Moors National Park. This is not an entry requirement for art teachers at the most famous public school in the world: it is just sheer coincidence that four of the teachers, or ‘beaks’ as they are known at Eton, happen to live in and around Whitby. And, by a quirky twist of fate, three of them also support Middlesbrough Football Club.
Captivated by the lure of the sea, the wildlife, the people and the wide open spaces, they reckon the regular 600-mile journey they undertake, back and forth between work, in Windsor, Berkshire, and home, in the rolling countryside of North Yorkshire, is worth it.
Eton, whose distinguished former pupils include 18 former British Prime Ministers and, more recently, Princes William and Harry, may often be referred to as the “top public school for boys”. But these teachers are in little doubt as to the top place to live in the country.
The flip-side of working typically long boarding school hours – including early starts, late evenings and weekend classes – is that these staff enjoy such long holidays they are able to spend so much time at the place on the North coast they call home.
All active, practising artists, the four teachers, three of whom are originally from Teesside and Yorkshire, cover all aspects of the artistic process: willow sculptures, oil paintings, block relief prints and wire and metal assemblages.
Ian, a former oil rig worker, grew up in Redcar and Studied Fine Art at Newcastle University. Many of his bold, unsentimental images, using wood blocks and lino cuts, depict the boats and buildings of the fishing industry that remain at the heart of this community.
Until recently, he was a resident of Staithes, and the village continues to inspire him. “I love rough seas,” he says. “I used to love sitting in bed in Staithes, listening to the sea bashing against the walls.”
He and his wife, Birmingham-born artist Susan Sharrard, who works part-time at Eton teaching painting and art history, live in school accommodation during term time. “But it has never crossed my mind to live in Berkshire, where I can hear the jets flying overhead from Heathrow and the noise of the traffic on the M4,” says Ian.
His recent works include a study of Punch and Judy shows in Saltburn. He also longs to capture on canvas the town in which he grew up. “The beach there is one of the best you will ever see. The sea is beautiful. And then you have the incredibly imposing steelworks, very dramatic visually. Someone once called it ‘Cornwall meets Chernobyl’, and that is a perfect description.”
Ian came back to live in the area ten years ago.
“When I left Redcar, the last thing I thought I would do is come back. When I grew up in the Seventies, it was a depressing outlook in terms of employment.”
But he has fond memories of trips to Whitby with the Boys’ Brigade, and fishing in Staithes as a child. “It was so exotic to me. As I got older I realised this was as good, if not better, than anywhere else for me.
“You don’t see the wood for the trees when you live here all the time. When you are away, you realise how special it is. It is a fantastic coastline.”
He and Susan now live in a converted mill in a picturesque moorland village, six miles from Whitby. She draws the inspiration for her stunning oil paintings from the moors and woodland around their home and the coastline from the Tees to the Esk, where she stalks the local wildlife with her digital camera and powerful lens.
Hull-born Emma Stothard, agrees that the working rural environment of the rugged North York Moors and the powerful forces of the North Sea are particularly inspirational. “You only have to drive for five minutes and you are in the middle of nowhere,” she says.
From her studio, set on a farm looking out to sea near Sandsend, Emma, who works as a visiting sculptor tutor at the prestigious public school, can observe the animals such as hares, deer, cattle, seagulls, otters and dogs that she uses in her life-size willow sculptures.
The 37-year-old, who has a four-year-old son, Alfie, and runs Green’s Restaurant in Whitby with her husband Rob, worked with the boys at Eton to produce lifesize willow sculptures of the pack of beagles resident at the school. She was also asked to make a sculpture of the Prince of Wales’s Jack Russell Terrier, which is now installed at Highgrove.
One of her sculptures is of a nine foot long limousin bull, modelled on the prize specimen from a farm near Pickering which supplies the meat for her butcher, Radfords in nearby Sleights. Her imposing sculpture even incorporates an ancient bull nose ring, found on the farm where she has her studio.
The fourth artist in the group, Dan Reid, originally from Stokesley, taught at Ampleforth before taking up his full-time post at Eton and also lives in Whitby. He describes himself as a ‘skip surfer’ who recycles waste to construct sophisticated and often amusing figurative sculptures.
Ian says: “There are so many really good artists up here, it’s just a shame there are not enough venues to exhibit in. Artists from the North-East struggle to get a show at a venue like mima because some big contemporary name from Chile or Portugal is doing something interesting with tomato sauce.”
But he and his colleagues do consider themselves lucky to be teaching at Eton, which inspires their art too. Ian, who was educated at a secondary modern school in Redcar and has previously worked both at comprehensives and public schools, including Barnard Castle, in Teesdale, and Rugby, thrives on the creativity of his pupils and their fresh ideas.
“I really like the boys; they tend to be talented, bright, humorous and quite driven. There is quite a network from Northumberland and this part of the world too. Of course, when you have 1,300 kids they are not going to all be without problems, but when you get a kid who is a good artist they throw themselves into it.”
Emma agrees: “It is a privilege to be in Eton College.
I am always received warmly. Being from the North, you are a bit different and they are really interested in what you are doing. It is a totally different environment to my life up here, yet we connect through art.”
Eton students have even got a genuine Northern tractor from Hawkser which Ian, with the help of a local gypsy, transported down to the art department for the boys to work on.
He just wishes Eton was closer to home. “Going away is difficult. I really miss my own space, my own environment, the idea you have of home.”
He consoles himself with the notion that, just like his father who worked on the oil rigs, he is continuing a family tradition of itinerant working. “That is the way our family has always operated. When work dried up in Teesside, dad worked in Iran and Nigeria. He had to work away a lot. I suppose it is no different to what I am doing now.”
■ Ian Burke and Susan Sharrard exhibit at Staithes Gallery, Staithes, staithesgallery.co.uk; Tel: 01947-841840. Ian has also exhibited at Zillah Bell gallery, Thirsk, zillahbellgallery.co.uk; Tel: 01845-522479 ■ emmastothard.com
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