Learner Profile - Peter Boyce

Arts, Crafts & Performing Arts

Learner profile – Peter Boyce

Picture Framing and Mounting with Shaun Turner

I collect pictures and I used to get pictures framed by a very good framer. About six to eight years ago he retired, went on to Spain and that left this gaping hole. I carried on collecting pictures, paintings, drawings and watercolours, but I wasn’t getting them framed.

When I realised how prohibitive it was finding another framer, I looked online. I typed in the words Framing courses on Google. There were a few one-day courses, but I wanted something that I could keep coming back to and was in a learning environment. I found one in Hammersmith & Fulham, it was comprehensive over 10 weeks and more importantly you came to the centre, you learnt in a class and had tuition.

So, I took a chance and enrolled myself and before I knew it, I had auto enrolled online. I just turned around to my wife and said I’m going to college! She laughed and said what are you doing going to college at your age.

I signed up in September 2019 for the first 10-week course and I was so enthused by it and had such a good return on my learning process that I enrolled for the next term.

Our tutor Shaun has such an enthusiasm for the subject, which really comes across and that can infect you with the same enthusiasm. I think depending on what you want out of the course, you can get a lot out of it.

"Framing for me has become quite an important part of what I do, I think the creative process was very therapeutic."

I came from an investment banking background and I had worked with numbers all my life, I hadn’t physically made anything. My grandfather was an upholsterer and furniture maker and I used to spend some of my summer holidays down at my grandparent’s cottage. He would make furniture and I sometimes would join him. I really enjoyed that I could say at the end of the day, I made that, and it isn’t bad.

Framing for me has become quite an important part of what I do, I think the creative process was very therapeutic. I still don’t quite know what I want to do next, and I don’t know where it’s taking me, but it is a journey I am very happy to be on.

The last couple of frames I completed, I was really quite pleased with, and I ask myself, “Did I really do that?” And the answer is yes. That feeling of achievement is very important.

There is a rush when your young to leave education because you’ve attained the certificates you need for your career or you just want to get out in the world and earn some money, but I think that we lose sight of the fact that there are talents and skills

that you can pick up along the way that you could return to. As we get older, we may not consider re-training or going back into further education.

These further education courses are such an important community resource for someone to learn a skill and sometimes their skill will become their vocation and their vocation will become their passion and like me you don’t know where it’s going to take you. My life has gone completely sideways from where I thought it was going to be and in a very good way.

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Picture Framing, restoration and woodwork courses