Nurturing young artistic talent

ANDY PHILLIPS TALKS TO ALAN LEMIN AT HIS SCHOOL FOR BUDDING ARTISTS

FOR Alan Lemin, it took retirement for him to be able to fulfil the major ambition of his working life.

Having worked at the then Plymouth College of Art for 30 years, leaving a salaried role as Head of Education and Community Partnerships meant he was finally able to do what he really always wanted to do: set up his own school for budding artists.

It was 2015, and Alan had been named in the Queen's New Year's Honours list, receiving a British Empire Medal - which he has since handed back and was approaching 60 years old.

But it was then that he quit his post, and set up The Young Art School from his studio at the end of his driveway in Millbrook.

While he missed out on seeing the college become Arts University Plymouth, Alan said teaching primary school-aged artists in his own studio is what he has always wanted to do.

"I've had the idea since I was 16," he told The Herald from a seat in his studio - a long and narrow building called The Woodshed because that was precisely what it used to be before it was extended and refurbished.

Now lined with half-a-dozen young artists' workstations, the white walls are hardly visible as they are covered in a mosaic of pictures, photographs and inspiring messages. "Without art, the earth is just eh', says one postcard.

Standing against the wall at each workstation is a piece of work by each student. Each is neatly framed, with the artist's name and age labelled. One is a picture of a dog wearing boxing gloves, by eighty-year-old artist Remy - a clever play on the idea of a boxer.