I have been betraied and let down by education. I am betraied and furious. I am beyond frustrated. Can you beleive it?
I went to the life class, right? With the model, OK? In the nude with no clothes on, right? And guess what? You will never guess in a million years. I will have to tell you. It was a skinny young bloke! Worse, it was Phil who was in my class at school’s brother Dave! Dave Green from three streets away from me. I do not need to go to art class to see what Dave Green looks like with his gear off, we used to go to the swimming baths in the summer. Phil and Dave, Darren Singh and Mustapha Ormerod and his brother Chang and me, down the baths every summer holidays for years. I don’t even need to do that to see what a young stud looks like with his clothes off, I can see one every day by looking in the mirror. (Well I could if I go into mum’s room and move the chair with all the clothes on and the siutcase with the broken handle.) I can do that every day if I want to see a man in the nude with no clothes on, that isn’t art, that’s just getting dressed.
This sort of fiasko happens becase of no funding for universities. If there is no funding universities will end up being just for the kids of rich people. It is not fair. If I could go to a university miles away in Scotland I could probably find a woman as fit as future Queen Kate as well. Instead of being stuck with Phil’s brother Dave from three streets away. It is easy to find a fit woman in a place miles from anywhere with only one street and an art shop and nothing for the students to do but each other. It is so cold in the winter they don’t even go out until the helicoptre comes to pick them up. They have to stay inside with future Queens or risk frostbite. I could do with these natural advantages. I bet they have life classes with other students of the opposite sex as models all the time. I could be a really famouse artist miles from anywhere with nothing to do. I could be Gaugin in the snow surrrounded by future Queens and other women students, easily. With no distractoins except hundreds of naked women I could become a very famouse art critic with a higher degree or even a professor of naked women in art. I could have more experience of breasts than any other artist in history.
How-ever, this is not going to happen with one life class with some skinny bloke down the local FE collidge. I am gutted. What happened was I went in looking flash (I had even had a haircut, in this weather, now my ears are cold, for no reason) and found the right room. There was only the teacher there and she said ‘Hello you must be Elvis, what is your experiense of life drawing.’ I said, ‘Not a lot, there is not much oportunity up the top shops.’ And she said, ‘Just draw what you see, rugh the skeleton out and don’t worry to much about all the musculature at this stage just consentrate on one area and try to get that.’ And I had decided exactly which 2 areas of musculature I was interested in so I got my charcoal out and looked as sensitiv and intelligently attractive as possible and then the door opened and in came Dave wearing a dressing gown and he said, ‘Hello Elvis’ and snifed becase he had a shocking cold and I said ‘Hello Dave, fancy seeing you here, what’s up?’ And he said, ‘I’m the model’ and took his dressing gown of and sat on a chair and draped himself with an old sheet, and I said ‘You needent bother for me mate I’ve seen it all before.’ And he said, ‘The poses are in the contract Elvis, I hope the heater is working this week.’ And the teacher said, ‘I see you kno each other, look Elvis, David has such powerful toes.’ And I said with biting sarcasam, becase I was gutted ‘Why, what’s he going to do, pick up the chair with them and twirl it round his head?’ And Dave luaghed and said, ‘Just draw my foot Elvis and then I can put my sock back on.’ And I have to say his foot did not look normal. It was blue and purple.
So I treid. No one can say I didn’t try. So Dave put his dressing gown back on and a jumper on top of that and a bobble hat and a scarf on and gloves and did his ‘Thinker’ by Rodin pose with blue and purple feet. I sat there for a whole hour drawing Dave’s foot and then Dave’s other foot. And the teacher helped and the bits she did looked like feet. She can draw. And I was surprised when the hour was up and I said, ‘Can I do the legs next week?’ And she said, ‘No its Christmas.’ And Dave said, ‘I won’t be here after Christmas, I was only doing it so they keep me on the job seekers allawance.’ And I said, ‘Can you come round ours so I can do your legs?’ And Dave said, ‘Can you pay me 8.50 an hour becase if not, not.’ And of course I could’nt.
So that is probaly the end of my art carreeer. This never happened to even artists I do not like, like Picasso. He had real naked women all the time and look what he did with them! I could do a woman with triangular blue breasts one on top of each other out of my head. It’s real pink warm heavy round breasts with nippuls I can’t do becase I’ve never really had any to study. In detail. The breasts in the top shelf magazines do not count. Half are silicon and the rest are airbrushed. And the ones on Mrs Brown over the fence were to real and the ones on Jason Clegg are more revolting than I am. There must be some real breasts somewhere I could have a go of.
I need to see breasts for educatoinal reasons. And it is just a few days to Christmas and I only just have enugh for a discount magazine subscription for mum again and a sell by date box of chocolates but not the perfume, we still only have the stugh that smells like drain cleaner.
I have been betraid. I could end up doing retail forever. Mr Ahmed would like that, he says I am indispensibel. I think I am being used and sold down the river. All I have to show for educatoin is three drawings of Dave Green’s feet. Mum offered to put them on the fridge next to the postcards from Karachi but I declined as I am an art student, not a school kid.
So I am still revolting. I still need a drinks machine, a dictoinary, and breasts. And now I need a hat to keep the snow off my ears, as well.
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JaneLaverick.com – chilly best foot forward.