June 2011

It all started with a very dull schoolyard and the story of a female gym teacher who in the 60´ties were fired because she had painted hopscotches in the scoolyard without permission. She drove away on her motorbike. I started out redoing her hopscotches – as a cadeau to her, and anyway the schoolyard was still very boring. I loved to go and paint the hopscotches outside in the early spring, talk with children and old people who themselves had gone to the school – others who came by and could show how they used to jump the hopscotch, or talk or jump in and about them. The hopscotches developed with input from all these my informants and users. I was a mixture of archaeologist, game-researcher, folklore collector, promoter of abstract art and I felt the joy of using the local context and art right there where I lived. All the hopscotches ended up not only being originally painted hopscotch squares, but also new ones on requests, or as I had seen elsewhere. They were always refreshed each easter, freshly painted for the spring games. I used hours. Gradually the schoolyard was covered with more than 20 different hopscotch and gamediagrams, all in red and yellow. Some were obvious hopscotches, some others approached the decorative, where one might find a way to use them – or not. Some were beautiful and strange old shapes almost occult looking. A boy came from Poland and could show a special way of dancing – jumping with both legs in an old hopscotch square, maybe it was actually an old Polish way of jumping in them, maybe it was something he just made up, but the other kids started to do the same at some point. We made a film of the jumpings, which unfortunately got lost.

To paint hopscotch, by hand, all both red and yellow, was a simple way of painting, and using the abstract painting as a form of recipe, or an instruction, 1:1.

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