| �19� Written by Nicholas Thomson � 30th December 2003 The Art Class: It�s like my entire life is written down; scribbled into history, on tiny little scraps of paper that I leave lying around somewhere. The inside of a notebook. The dog eared corner of a poem. The margin of my notes. My mind; my memory and my soul. Say I�m clich�d and dramatic and stupid if you will, but it�s how I feel, and it�s how the others feel, probably; I hope so anyway � if not then you are right and I am that little insane guy in the corner catching up on sleep. Head down; arms crossed. You felt like this at some point in your life, most probably at the same point as I am at now. But of course it was different for you; tougher usually. When I was a lad. When I went through that it was worse. I had that more times. Competing with me when any normal, decent and overtly kind person would comfort me. Or have I been watching too much Christian TV? It�s art class in high school, Sixth Form; Upper Sixth to be exact. I�ve already been 17, 18 wasn�t much different, just bridging the gap to 19 I suppose. But then every year is a bridging gap; nothing special, if you look at it that way. I love you. I say this over and over in my head; it feels stupid. It sounds stupid. I�m not the sort of person who should be saying those three little words. I look at myself. You look at me. Am I the sort of person who should be saying this? Well, the point being is that love was driving me the hardest, fastest, toughest at the time, it was the one thing I hated most. Soppy. Cliched. Unoriginal. It�s been done before. It�ll end in tears; so what�s the point. Yes I know, another jaded 19 year old. I�m not entitled to have an opinion, I�m just 19. I�m not allowed to express myself in my terms saying what I want to say. I have to rehash what others have said before. People who are two generations separated from me. We may be talking about the same sort of thing, but back in their day, it was different; as I�m sure the clich� goes. It�s art class in the Upper Sixth Form of some middle of the road, average comprehensive. And judging by the labels given thus far, you�d be stupid not to think this was set in Britain. Just because everything else is set in the land of the free, the economic superpower of the world, doesn�t mean this has to be set there. You say it�s universally speaking. But how much does the life of a 19 year old, jaded and fucked up (as per the usual) Brit compare to that of a Yank; when you really think about. Us Brits, we�re not American, so take away the Starbucks. Take away the shopping malls. Take away the driving licenses at 16. Take away the 20-something actors playing us. Take away the chiselled good looks, stick insect; product tested Prom Queen. Tear up the script and cancel the cheques; not checks. Fuck, where was I? You see, this is something you have to understand, you start telling one story and you end up telling another, or just bitching about someone else, or cursing your computer�s spellchecker for turning your native tongue into American for you, courtesy of Microsoft. Thanks Bill. Our minds aren�t particularly straight forward, they�re not focussed, uninterested, jaded and product tested to the ends of the earth. Till death do us part. Okay, okay, it�s fucking art class and I wonder in with this bizarre notion of love floating around in my head. Is it really me? Do I look good in this? Does it make my ass look fat? No wait, that�s �arse�. It�s fucking art class and I�m walking through the door late. The others, all seven of them are already sat at these huge desks; stained with acrylic primary colours, smudged with the fingerprints of six years worth of kids below you. Your headphones are on so loud you don�t hear the inane post modern ironic prattle of the class idiots. You don�t hear the teachers luke warm reaction to your being late. At least this teacher you can consider to be pretty cool, the other would be part of the old school. Part of the chocolate box illustrators. The delicate wash brigade. The media-fearing establishment. So you sit down, it�s taken you an hour to gain the momentum to drag your jaded ass over here, no wait; that�s my arse, not yours. Out comes the A3 sketch pad, as required of you by the course, the examiner and holy mother art teacher. It�s weighty. It�s thick with stuck in pages; little notes. Note to self; thump the stupid cunt ahead of me square in the face to shut him the fuck up. 9/11 was �funny� by the way. Just in case you didn�t know. This is how you think. This is how you think if you�re shoved firmly up your own false sense of confidence. This is because you consider yourself the class clown. The class hard-done-to. The class smallest child of your family. The class Brit Invasion-cum-Grunge unwashed being. Because only you and it really is only you, who truly matter the most. No, 9/11 wasn�t the great tragedy for thousands of families across the world that it was. People just going into work to earn enough money to pay the rent. Pay the mortgage. Pay the credit card. Pay the doctor. Pay the vet. Pay the dentist. Pay the divorce lawyer. These people truly did deserve to die because they chose a life of international trading and making money. Because making money to live off in a world ruled by it is wrong. Apparently a life unbound by such pressures is preferable. Coming from the guy wearing the obligatory Nirvana t-shirt with the yellow lined face on it, where did you get it and how much did it cost. What about the hair products, the nail polish whim of the week. Where did they come from. The sky apparently. I�m sitting down in yet another art class when I�m 18. I�m drowning out the same anti-American prattle in light of 9/11. Although to us it should surely be 11/9, right? But commercially and colloquially speaking, it�s 9/11, so no matter. Here I am again, for the third time this week so far; sitting with a 6B WHSmith pencil in my hand tapping the page without a thing to draw. I�ve been told to paint. I�ve been told to pastel. I�ve been told to study a tree and watch how the leaves change with the seasons. I�ve been told to drop what is now and what I like. I�ve been told to drop feeling. I�ve been told to create a copy of last year�s best piece. This is art in the Sixth Form. From the beginning we are given a thick booklet from the examiner; whose name is kindly printed on every page � just in case you didn�t know you are going to be marked against a generalised rule of thumb for someone running in and out of schools. Someone who doesn�t know you. I�m told art is personal. I�m told to go and draw a pine cone off the shelf. The shelf has many pine cones. I�ve drawn these before, every year before this one in art class as a matter of fact. I�m told to draw a skull. The obligatory art room skull, which everybody clambers for in lower years. Skulls are cool you see. Death is cool, although it�s not really death, it�s just a skull. But in the end it doesn�t really matter too much I�m sure. This booklet even shows pictures of previous student�s work from around the country. They�ve been specially selected, singled out and made an example of. Look how they�ve captured this generic figure looking out the window in this Kodak moment. Look how they�ve thought this all up on their very own. Look at their art teacher standing over their shoulder with a proud smile on his face � it�s invariably a man by the way. The men are usually part of the chocolate box mafia. The women are the forward thinking underlings of the department; not a hope in hell of becoming head of department to earn a little more money to pay the mortgage. I�m told to look back at the examiner�s booklet and check that my ideas from last week fit in with the agenda. Does it show my use of light? Does it show my use of different media? Does it show my yearning for a good grade. To go to a good University. To get a good degree. To get a good job. To die with a credit card bill left unpaid sitting on my kitchen table. Does it demonstrate a greater understanding of the classical painters. Do I know the different between utilising acrylics and oils? Are we getting jaded yet? Are we getting tired yet? Are we getting angered yet? I�m trying to read these guidelines; these unforced yet imposed rules. Meanwhile the muppet in front of me is now grinning with joy over his collage. Sonic the Hedgehog of standing on top of Ozzy Osbourne�s head wielding an assault rifle cut out of Keanu Reeve�s hands. Witty. Intelligent. Original. Constructed with care. Meaningful. If none of the above come to mind; ball a hand into a first and pump the blood through the veins until something pops under the skin. Release; repeat. She comes over for the daily appraisal of my work. The teacher. The female art teacher. The no hoper for the head of department; the nice young woman who could easily be your friend, if either of you was the other�s age. The threat to the exam board. Threat to the peace of organised art. �How am I doing?� �Duno really� I�m saying; as per usual. The conversation bats back and forth fairly quickly; moments of silence where I droop my head and think of that word �love� again. All great art comes from great pain. Maybe this should be my angle; it�s working so far. It worked before when I was 17. I�m told that�s thinking outside the box. I�m told that�s not what the other art teacher would like. I�m told to hold that thought for another day. Another project. Another time; meaning no. I�m told to look at the exam guidelines. Take note of the words in bold; the examples. The options; the brainstorming words provided for us on a white, recycled, acid free platter. The conversation has ended and I don�t even realise. All I can think about is how the idiot in front of me is still talking. Does he have an off switch? Now Super Mario has joined the ensemble and has donned a fetching pair of sunbather�s bronzed Barbie Doll legs, sipping delicately on an Acme stick of dynamite; the fuse forever trapped in limbo. I bet the Coyote is fed up by now; not least because he�s now wearing a baby�s head snipped harshly out of Argos catalogue with the word �killer� biro penned on its forehead. I�m told it�s end of lesson. I�m told to go away and think about what I could think of for the next lesson. I�m told to try to not be late next time; but it doesn�t really matter. After all I am a trustworthy, upstanding young student who never steps out of line, rashly speaks their mind or challenges too much authority. Not openly at least. All great 18 year old jaded art students in Sixth Form are cowards. Or maybe not cowards, perhaps just lazy and in need of a new fix of heavy music via headphones turned up to maximum; against what I�ve been told by the Surgeon General of America. The Dream: This tends to happen; it�s either at day or at night with varying levels of consciousness. Their frequency is erratic as is their power. The dream about the girl, or the girls or simply just the dream. It comes. It goes. It comes back again. The clutter of the dream; the setting, the weather, the time of day, even the faces; it�s all blocked out or it�s different or it�s just not as you would expect. But the key aspect of the dream, the plot to your in-flight movie of the unconscious is what matters. Call me clich�d and romantic at heart if you will, but the setting is the woods. They�re non-descript, just dense and rocky in parts, they could be anywhere; the farthest flung fantasy realm or the hills around my home. It doesn�t really matter, but that�s what the setting is. It�s cold out, or so it would seem as everything is blue and ever so sluggish. It doesn�t really matter, but that�s what the weather is. It�s late; past sunset but the sky is still blue on the horizon where the land and the heavens (if you believe in that sort of thing) meet. The cancerous lung branches of the trees around me shatter the perfect pitch of the skyline. That DVD quality colour sitting quietly overhead just waiting for its mother to usher it to bed for the night. It doesn�t really matter, but that�s what time it is. Then there�s me; only it�s not me, it�s what I think I am without a face on and it�s almost as if I�ve forgotten to put my face on that day; it�s left somewhere at home hanging up, taken off to rest for the night. And as I begin to walk around this setting of my dream, I turn a corner in this cooled wooded wonderland and there�s someone sitting on a mossy boulder up ahead, facing away from me; looking out across a vast landscape only the Impressionists could have dreamt up. So as you would have guessed quite quickly I begin to walk towards this figure, arm outstretched; hand slowly reaching out to what lies ahead. As I get closer, the figure becomes more defined; a slender image with long ruffled hair shining sharply in the moonlight beaming down from above. Everything is moving at twelve frames per second; juddering strangely but still smooth and elegant in vision. Jump cut to my faceless self standing in front of this figure; add a quick insert of another faceless person before my reaction shot in close up. Continue scene focussed on faceless her. At first she�s unaware of me being there, but without a face it�s kind of understandable. Then she looks up at my standing over her, the moon over my shoulder beaming down like a searchlight; I must be a mere silhouette to her, disguising that I too am devoid of features; of individualities. Then it hits me like a shockwave. I waver, shudder and fall to my knees in front of her; my head bows down while my shoulders cave in forward as if I�m hurt and taking stock of the damage. Then I muster the energy to raise my head and look at her. She is slow to follow my descent and for a moment she just looks into the space where I was just standing, but we are soon looking at each other; admittedly without eyes, but of course that doesn�t really matter. �I love you� I utter. Her eyes (if she had any in this dream) withdraw; become still as they dilate. And we just stay there in this little motif for what seems ages, the moon beaming down, the sky turning black around us hiding the diseased branches overhead. We could easily be statues by now, the foliage is beginning to hook onto us and crawl over our skin; devouring us alive, nature taking it�s course. I should have moved. I should have said something. I should have said �like�. I should have said �sorry�. I should have made it all better. I should have left and never looked back. But I wake up instead. |