Full Circle Digital Magazine August 2013 | Page 5

A R T I S T ’ S P R O F I L E - P E T E R C L A R K E on’s Town It was here in his tiny lounge, where his They were both interested in mother’s old sideboard takes pride of place reading and I always tell people amongst an assortment of artworks, that he that my parents read, and when told me his story. your parents read you can’t help Born in Cardiff Road, Simon’s Town, in 1929, as the third born child in a family of six, there was much that his domestic worker mother and Dockyard handyman father could not give him. But what they did give him he values greatly. being curious about this”. “They were the right parents for me, because although they did not have a wonderful education, they were balanced people in that they wanted their children to choose the right paths. By the time he was four the family moved to a two bedroomed cottage in Wesley Street and it was from here that Peter would walk to the Boys Mission School which he attended until moving on to Arsenal Road School in Standard 3. A free spirited boy by nature, Peter suffered the institutionalisation of school life very badly. He battled to conform to the regimental thinking and behaviour that was expected of him and was happiest going off into his own world where he could be true to himself and draw the pictures that he saw in his head. Peter’s parents, though poor, recognised that this boy was a deep thinker and though their income was meagre, always tried to support him by supplying him with a regular supply of pencils, crayons and paper on which to practise his art. As the years went by Peter felt more and more stifled by school and after a year spent at Livingston High School he told his parents that he no longer wanted to go to school. “I fell in love with freedom early in my life and when I saw what looked to me like institutional regulations, I could not take it.” FULL CIRCLE DIGITAL MAGAZINE AUGUST 2013