This painting, like a lot of my others, they began life as a drop sheet while I worked on painting murals, I made sketches, notes and tested colours on the drop sheet, If you look at the left-hand side the Resene logo is still visible.

One of the studies on the drop sheet was of the Stokes Valley School House, that detail features on a mural in Stokes Valley Wellington and provides the title.

Once the drop sheet got to a certain point I cropped and stretched out a section and worked into it with oil paints, finding the imagery and symbolism amidst the splatter and blotches.

Magnolias were flowering at the time, their blossoms are in the center of the piece.