M.A. Show

The Paper Suit And Camera

I got A4 to come with me to the last M.A. Communication Design show.

It was fairly well hidden in the heart of Hipsterville.

So I got lost, naturally.

I had drawn myself a map on an old receipt (my phone is so old school that it has no internet and the call button has fallen off) but my hurried scrawl was a little confusing.

I asked some guy who was strolling along wearing ray bans, a white vest and tight trousers if he knew where so-and-so place was. He answered languidly in his hipsterville drawl in the negative.

I don’t know why, but I really wanted to punch him.

Fucking drugged up Shoreditchsters. They never know anything.

After much meandering past many artist-run shops with unaffordable, totally useless (yet strangely desirable) hand-made products, I finally found a little grassy hillock (It was a roundabout, but a classy one) where there was a ‘carom meet’.

This had puzzled me until I climbed to the top of this hillock and saw a couple of nerdy indian boys playing carom very intently. It was some fund-raiser of sorts. That it was Indians playing seemed perfectly in keeping with my idea of carom which we played often while on family holidays.

I found A4 on the other side of the carom meet with her woman.

We soon ran into more people looking for this show who were equally lost. We all wandered around the round-about, both groups lost and following each other, trying to find this school.

The guy with the cut-out things was the first thing by the door. He had a life size suit, shoes, a Rolex and the working pin-hole camera all folded and made from paper.

I promptly started accumulating all the illustration postcards. I love artist postcards. A4 said I must only go to these shows to collect postcards.

I also go for the free booze n’ schmooze, but I missed that evening this year. Next year!

Some of the illustration was very beautiful and very intricate. Some were slightly disappointing, I gotta say. There were not as many penises this year. I did a count.

It was a real struggle to give any time and attention to the design and media work. I liked some of the ideas but the presentation of it was so banal I dread to think what the M.A. show is going to look like next year without any photography or illustration.

I bypassed the arabic font thing entirely. It looked mighty dull, I’m sorry, but it really was. There’s only so much arabic font projects I can be bothered to look at. Our college seems to churn these things out every year. Give me a nice penis drawing any day.

There was a really interesting project about commercial fishing and depleting fish stocks. Nice graphic posters too.

I think the way design projects are exhibited needs to be addressed. Two dimensional media like illustration, painting and photography lends itself to just being placed flat on a wall easily.

Design projects that are all about the concept, the working idea or that have a function seem to suffer unless presented in some outstanding way. Placed flat on a wall just doesn’t work well and I don’t think that leafing through a bunch of research books and what-not is the best way to exhibit what might be a great idea.

Anyway my design bias aside, the show was good. Shame it’s all over.

Another show picture. It's not part of the art work. I just enjoyed it.

We then wandered down to Brick Lane to window shop and to see a collection of whole sale B.A. work from various colleges in a part of the Truman Brewery. (I think it was called ‘Egg’ or had something with ‘egg’ in it.)

Gung-ho Jesus. This guy's idea was by far the most interesting. He had a few others fake comic covers. Osama being defeated etc. I'd like to see this comic made. I wish he had at least a few pages of a story line done.

There is nothing more depressing that a bunch of foundation and B.A work lumped together in a giant network of bricked rooms. It was a show of mostly A4 sized photographs and seriously earnest project statements.

One was about how the media portrays people in such a idealized way that this persons project wanted to change all that by just photographing ‘normal’ people in the nude.

A4 said she felt terribly jaded.

There was also just so much all in one space that it was impossible not to feel slightly tired once you’d seen/read a few.

Another project was just an assembly of found objects: Old boxes, cigars, match boxes, some old photos. All this person had done was sew over the faces in the photos. It wasn’t even a pattern, it was just lines. That was it.

I read the artist / project information and it was a load of garbage. The sheer laziness of that project made me absolutely irate. Not only had his girl done very little aside from buying from junk sales and assembling it in a totally boring way but then she had also gone and destroyed some very interesting old photos for a totally shitty project. What an idiothole.

We left shortly and sat outside in the sun drinking Ginger beer.

Ah Buxton.

Brick Lane

Tiny Street Graffitti Women

I got a great quote from A4, (who is currently PhDing) who once asked her mother about future career prospects while studying marine biology. Her mother’s response is my current favorite quote.

“Don’t get onto the sinking ship of science.”

Dr. So-and-so P. Dr. of Nuclear Physics and part winner of the Nobel peace prize.

PhD’s AND Nobel Peace prizes!!?? I can’t believe A4′s family are such over achievers.

I’d better get back to drawing that outline of a lemon I started the other day.

 

Update:

The whole sale graduate art show wasn’t called Egg. It was called Free Range.

Close enough.

Official End of the M.A Communication Design Course

Final Show 2011 MA Communication Design Flyer

This is the last MA Communication Design end of year show for the course with the 4 separate pathways, as the facebook group, hysterically informs me.

I’d quite like to go. I like to attend these things for all the schmoozing and art nonsense.

I especially love the art nonsense. I’m counting on all those exciting, exciting information design graphs. Statistics presented on a A0 poster make me so hot.

Then there’s always some arabic font thing + some other font thing for the deaf or the visually impaired. One per year.

HAH!

I just checked the design section and I was spot on! Every year without fail! Someone should do a project on the amount of design students doing the same project year in and year out.

I’ve never understood how the design for the event flyer (that blue tiny thing above) gets picked. It’s pretty horrible.

Well, actually I do know. Our end of year flyer was equally indifferent. The problem is everyone is so busy that no one can be bothered to do it and its impossible to please all 4 pathways. Designers want it to be designed, the illustrators need too much censoring (too many drawings of penises) the typographers want letter-press and who knows what the photographers want.

A more diplomatic kind of flyer would be a white gridded poster – split into equal compartments of exactly the number of students there are on the course, allowing room for time address & dates. Then each student fills a single compartment manually telling people to come to the show or maybe some drawing. Then the flyer should be rescanned and submitted

No cutting and photoshopping of a crop of their final work. It has to be all painstakingly hand-written or drawn.

The illustration for the year looks very yummy.

Carl Partridge - www.carlpartridge.co.uk

This one below sounds interesting.

“My overall desire with my project is to make the desirable accessible with an A4 printer.

Another important factor for me when counterfeiting these exclusive objects is to retain their functionality so for example the above net of a Leica M3 camera functions as a pinhole camera accepting 35mm film.”

I have a weakness for things you can print and make.

Matthew Nicholson - www.mattmakesstuff.co.uk

Kanitta Meechubot

Martha Zmpounou

CSM To Kill M.A. Illustration Course!

I am fucking outraged. This is a travesty.

They want to drop the illustration pathway from my old M.A. at Central St. Martins.

Got an email out of the blue from Foz, our illustration tutor and the subject of many posts on this blog, asking us to sign this petition to keep illustration as a separate course as opposed to just some cheap whorish add-on to the design course.

Fucking designers. Fucking bastard typographers.

You know what? I may have a ‘design’ job but at heart, I’m an illustrator, and I always will be. So fuck all you designers, I don’t fucking care about your fucking grid.

Fuck you, fuck your grid and fuck, fucking Helvetica! Fuck.

So there.

Now lets take a deep breath, and sign the petition below.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/macdillustration/

So this is what I wrote for the petition:

“First of all, I can’t imagine being stuck with a bunch on typographers and designers on the same course. All they care about is ligature and kerning. It’s ridiculous. It’s practically impossible to stay awake during a crit.

I would never have bothered applying for the course if illustration wasn’t its own pathway.

More seriously, it would be a huge mistake to drop this course. Even if my future career is not illustration, it really informed my thinking and approach to any brief/project. It was a fantastic course, largely due to the teaching from Foz & Gary.

I wish I could do another M.A. Keep it!”

Even if you are not from CSM or even an art student please sign this petition so those fucking idiotic bureaucrats don’t drop the best pathway off the M.A.

Design is fucking cold and dead. The course needs illustration.

I also learned from Martyn that the entire printing facilities – silkscreen, etching, everything – will be moved off the college campus to Archway.

Like that’s fucking convenient.

I mean it was hard enough to be able to print back when everything was in the same building, now the poor students have to trek all the way to Archway.

Failing all these things – no illustration – no print facilities, I would really advise all future applicants that they should not bother going to CSM after 2011. It would be entirely pointless. Anyone can stare at a screen and use Photoshop (look at me, living proof.)

You don’t need to fork out thousands of pounds for poor facilities and a lack of creative choices. Go to Falmouth or the Royal Academy or somewhere else for a proper art course.

The University of the Arts is fucked. There I said it.

Sign it. DO IT!

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/macdillustration/

Friends and Family Day

i.e P.T.A day

I woke up early on Friday morning after the private view to drag myself off to the gulag (Savoy Tailors Guild) tired, hung over and with a mouth of cotton wool. That night I had a vivid dream where Anna & I were manning the Mall reception desk/shop. There are people crowding around like rush hour on the tube. Someone comes running up to me and says excitedly

“Oh my god your prints are just selling out! There are so many people!! Its amazing.”

I woke up bemused, thinking or hoping it was real.

It was not.

I am so pathetic.

Even my sub-conscious isn’t subtle. Pathetic.

As friends and family surged around everywhere, I vaguely remembering having a brilliant epiphany about my work that was crystal clear, made perfect sense and I suddenly knew exactly where it would go with absolute clarity. Within 5 minutes the timely arrival of more wine destroyed this brief, sparkling vision of the future and now I can’t remember any of it.

Mark my second cousin’s husband slightly criticized the show in his mild, cheddary sort of way, but I am willing to absolve him completely since he was emotionally blackmailed into buying one of my prints. My mother said I ought to have given it away but he works in the BBC and I sit on a couch blogging. It’s only fair game.

I was hardly expecting any to sell frankly but Uhr also coerced his dad into buying a print. God bless that Slovenian and his dad. Mark really set the ball rolling so I shall forgive every slight.

It was a really relaxed day compared to the hectic tension of the Private View. I had no family to babysit fortunately but Charis and Kardo kept disappearing, skulking around corners and then walked so slowly with their long English umbrellas to the Chandos I lost them again. Two days later I got a belated voice message from both Kardo & Charis begging for directions.

The college being as highly organized as it is, forgot to order drinks for the PTA day which the tutors only realized after getting hammered the evening before. They had to run around in the morning looking for a wholesaler but were forced to buy from various corner shops instead and drag them to the gallery in Foz’s granny trolley bag type thing.

The ex showed up for friends and family day late. I had invited one of the ex’s exs and she was nice enough to show up on time. The ex called me up cranky and irritable saying there were errands to do etc. 3 o clock became 4 o clock which in turn become 5.

I had humbly requested if it was on the way could I get some sleeves or large plastic bags to put my remaining prints in? Perhaps this made it later, perhaps it was my fault. It was well past 5 o clock when the ex finally showed up. The gallery shut an hour early so the show was missed but met us in the pub where the ex’s ex, Kardo & Charis (both looking very mafioso and Italian which is odd since one is an Iraqi, the other a Greek), Foz (with his granny stroller), Fernanda (in her best ‘good-girl’ outfit), Dan & Ruth and I were continuing the afternoons boozing.

For the past few weeks all my posts have ended with

“….and then we all went to the pub.”

It is both a sign of poor writing on my part and an indication that we are creatures of habits, us illustrators. (See how I generalize with such confidence? It’s so MA darling).

I finally had a long semi drunken conversation with Dan and his lady Ruth and it was highly entertaining. It was about time after 2 years but at least on this occasion there was no yelling with regards to my DIY incompetence.

Ruth explains that she too would prefer it if the drawing/photography would start and stop 9-5. It’s the lack of attention she explains. I still can’t understand the problem though. If you’re sitting in the same room, sitting on the same couch, watching TV, doing exactly the same thing (i.e nothing) whats wrong with maybe doodling in a sketch book or working or just fiddling with something (anything).

I can’t just sit there and watch TV. Drawing relaxes me. What makes it any different for whatever relaxes someone else i.e cooking, doing your nails, reading?

I don’t know, it doesn’t matter anyway I suppose. I suspect that this sort of relationship problem will never go away (for me at least) unless I date my clone (I’m such a narcissist but we’d probably kill each other).

Owen’s very large Irish catholic family were there with his heavily pregnant house mate. As I’m sure anyone can predict, they hated my work. That made me more happy than I can tell you (they are clearly my target audience) but being a shameless coward I avoided a lynching by staying well out of sight.

I hid behind the table while this lady stood for nearly 5 minutes staring at this one particular drawing.

It is the most brilliant picture and a piece of amazing good luck.

Mexican just ready to board her grandpapa's Yatch on the south coast of France dahling. I love the little 'toilets' sign just above her head especially since she seems to avoid them at all costs

Mark mocking my lovely amazing brilliant fantastic super amazing work.

I said amazing twice but its only because I'm an MA artist now that I'm now allowed to be so full of it.

Show Set Up – Day 2

Fernanda so pleasant, so innocent, so sweet. A regular Miss goody-goody-two-shoes. Notice the skull and cross-bones broach on her braces, like the hood of a cobra, a subtle warning sign

As a group of illustrators, we seldom eat any real food but survive solely on gossip.

As I assist Georgina in sticking her badges down on her much agonized over acrylic, we send Martyn out on a fact-finding mission to dig up juice on what’s going on around the gallery. Martyn being an inveterate gossip himself is only too happy to oblige.

I am happy to report that as per Martyn’s fact-finding, I am not the only clutz in our class.

Foz rushes along down a newly constructed corridor, kicks Athier’s bespoke cut, acrylic sheet and cracks it instantly. I haven’t heard any reports of tears or a nervous breakdown from Athier but what was really ironic is that:

It’s the day before the big show, someone’s final art work gets smashed, you might imagine that sympathy would abound for the poor bastard, right?

Wrong.

I get called every abusive name, twat, stupid idiot, general hatred for spilling coffee (and well deserved no doubt).

Foz gets

“Oh my god!”

Not poor Athier as you might expect but,

“Poor Foz he must feel so guilty. I feel really bad for him”

“Oh shit! Poor Foz that’s terrible”

and so on.

Fucking hell.

The much discussed smashed acrylic

Acrylic Close up

Final Work

Foz, at first Guilty...

Then looking delighted as he tells us about it

When I first heard this brilliant piece of information for 30 secs I thought maybe Foz kicked it out of pure rage. Maybe Athier pissed him off who can say?

Fernanda wages her wall space war, manages to win it and then cordoned off the entire area with masking tape. Athier returns from his hunt for last-minute replacement acrylic and is told he can’t get to his 2 meter space because the Pink Princess has decreed that it will and must be so.

He is reasonably cranky and annoyed. Accuses her of being inconsiderate, uncaring, not giving a fuck.

She responds in true Firecracker fashion by telling him;
- Yes she is inconsiderate so what? Fuck off
- And no she doesn’t fucking care
- Why should I fucking care about you, twat
- And lastly fuck off again (for good measure and a parting shot)

Do you remember that time when you and your sibling were perhaps on a long and tedious road trip that your parents insanely thought would be both educational and fun? (that’s what happens when you do too many drugs when you’re young: you grow up, shit out some babies and are deluded into thinking road trips are hilarious with children)

You & your sibling make invisible boundaries across the car seat. You stick one finger across the imaginary border line and shriek loudly

“Nyeh nyeh loooooo-ook what I’m doooo-ing! I’m on your siii-iiide”.

Your sibling maturely responds with

“Stay on your side or I’m telling! Moooo-ooom tell her she’s crossing my line. Stop it!! MOOOOO-OOOM!! DAAAAD! Tell her!!”

That’s pretty much what ensued in Athier and the Mexican’s little ‘show-down’. Athier started to remove Fernanda’s masking tape border purely to piss her off (and it worked like Viagra). The words in the previous paragraph only need to be marginally altered for it to sound exactly like what happened (chuck in a few swear words for absolute authenticity).

“What the fuck do you think your doing?? Don’t fucking touch my tape! I’m telling!! Stop it!! Foooooo-oooooooz! He’s removing my tape!! FOOOOOOOOOZ!! GAAAARRRRY Tell Athier!! He’s moving my tape! YOU TWAT!! I’M TELLING FOZ”

My own, personal creative use of masking tape.

Shortly after, Gary is running along the corridor and managed to kick Athier’s new acrylic in exactly the same place as where Foz cracked the old one. Gary is luckier than Foz and this time nothing happens. (I forget to say lucky Athier too).

Gary orders Camille’s plinth to be whittled down by 7 inches without informing her. She finds out and is livid but I can’t really tell because she was mostly swearing in French (tres sexie).

Anna and I finish touching up our 3 meters and then having nothing to do run around looking for things to paint at random. Onnalin enlists us to help paint her plinths, commands us to do so-and-so, paint here paint there and then shrewdly disappears leaving us to do all of it.

The Firecracker hanging over a wall. She is only 3 foot 4 inches tall

The most important thing when curating a show. White white white paint

Lisa brings over a buddy from Camberwell (who I vaguely recall heckling a lecturer), to assist her. Lisa and her assistant smash another one of her frames and have to go replace it (for the 3rd time).

The ghost of Alex’s portfolio is still lying around but is largely forgotten by all.

Over lunch we sit outside, the designers on one section of the pavement, the illustrators on another. There is no breaching the great divide between design and illustration.

The great divide down the pavement

Illustrators one side, designers the other. Never the twain shall meet

Fernanda & Chris making no eye contact with the designers

Gay love in bloom

So Sweet

Dan on the right, who in the two years I’ve been at college has only said to me:

“You can’t cut your frame backing with a scalpel towards you!! You’ll slice off your fingers!! Use a ruler!! I though Foz was joking when he told me about the illustrators DIY skills!!”

The gallery is massively cramped with the 87 students the course admitted. What with the endless corridors of frames and design & type cubicles it becomes a gigantic convention hall. I’m expecting at any moment someone to jump out from behind one of the walls and offer me a brochure on a cut price holiday to Tenerife.

The Convention

Chaos

Sales women

Anna laying out her portfolio

Roderick, ever the diplomat suggests that although Anna and my sketch books are overlapping on the over crowded table there’s no need to make a fuss, it doesn’t matter we can just keep the books closed for the show.

Georgina is clutching her head in a sudden panic attack. Anna and I wisely ignore all of Roderick’s unhelpful suggestions, placate Georgina while Gary restores the peace by moving Mike and co. up onto the next table.

Onnalin's polite notices to us all

Onnalin's polite notices to us all

Some of the designers with truly anal precision had printed out accurate, half inch scale models of their space size and pictures as a pre-layout layout.

The illustrators at the other end of the spectrum, just got Roderick, Gary, Foz and Dave to hold up 4 heavy frames and yell out

“Slightly too much to the left…. more to the left now, ok to the right, less right, little more to the left, no too much too much!! Ok hold it there…….hmmmm we don’t think that works lets switch the frames around again…”

…..and repeat.

The ever prepared, designers and mini models of their work

The ever prepared, designers and mini models of their work

Simeon runs off to view the Queen walking down the street (or whatever) and simultaneously has a nose bleed from all the patriotic emotion.

Martyn sympathetically documents it all by taking a picture of toilet paper up Simeon’s nose instead of assisting staunching it.

Picture courtesy of Martyn.

Martyn and I go around checking out the rest of the course’s work and get depressed (at least I do while Martyn giggles like a loon) we (I) point at stuff we (I) like and moan

“That’s fucking depressing I hate them.”

At the end of the day we all head off to the pub (it’s an art school tradition).

At long last we go to the Chandos. What a weird name for a pub

Foz, Can't remember & Roderick

We seem to be the only group that goes out drinking quite as much. As we stand outside The Mall bantering, we loudly invite the designers to join us. They stand there and just look at us, not deigning to accept our kind offer. See? this is why we sit on separate pavements at lunchtime.

After a few rounds the exhausted tutors dragged themselves off home to their wives and babies leaving us to talk about the usual filth that we always get around to after 11pm, or before 11pm or before 11am even.

Fernanda and Amalia crucify me and my bad taste in declaring the girl in the beautiful frock and allegedly fake tan, who mostly seems to stand around looking lovely, is actually very pretty. She is a fucking broomstick they say, fucking fake yellow tan broom stick (What vicious women. She is damn pretty anyway I say).

Ed has a nice little dig at me about Simeon and my coffee. He claims it a case of karmic retribution that Athier’s work was fucked by Foz since he had split emulsion over Alex’s work in the studio (Ed is oh so subtly hinting that karmic revenge on Simeon’s behalf is heading my way).

Compelling as his argument was, I argue (to defend myself more than Athier) that if you really were concerned about what happened to your work, you wouldn’t dump it on the floor to be trampled on for over a week.

Amalia and Fernanda have a heated debate with us over amateur verses regular porn. Amateur porn is an absolute outrage they say. They want professionals they say no fucking amateurs for them! They want good camera angles not a shot of some fucking flower vase or a fridge in the background. No out of focus nipple they say!! We are idiots to even suggest it!

Martyn disagrees entirely saying he loves nothing more than seeing a naked German woman in a forest with a big hat on her head pissing into a handbag (this is no amateur porn I’ve ever seen)

The pub staff start turning off the lights, then moving the chairs, then lastly sweeping up. When all hint dropping fails we are finally told to leg it and part amicably (mostly) in various directions heading for home.

Camille’s Dinner Party: Both Fernanda and Onnalin Pee in the Loo. It’s a MIRACLE!!

It is always a pleasant surprise when you walk to a bus stop and there are people there you happen to know.

It is even pleasanter when those people happen to be Onnalin and Martyn holding 4 dead chickens and a bag of potatoes.

Kingsland road is a scary place.

I don’t fucking care if it’s in zone one, it’s a fucking ghetto (and this is where Camille lives).

So Onnalin, Martyn and I are buzzed in and we drag the chickens up to Camille’s, which is a massive loft flat in this warehouse.

After about 3 hours of basting, stuffing and poking by Onnalin (class chef and resident foodie) the chickens were finally done. Everyone was fairly plastered by then, and much like a Natural Geographic Special, we attacked the poor chickens like ravenous hyenas. They were gone in minutes.

In between Martyn raving about Georgina’s digital camera

“WOW! These pictures are fantastic! Another one! It’s fantastic!! They are all fantastic!!”

he was also drunk enough to admit,

“I have to say actually, Foz does have a really lovely smile…”

He now denys this.

Bruna insisted Uhr was stalking her because when ever she turned around he was there.

She then spent 5 minutes petting my head. (Yes, I think she was a bit pissed)

I have a small related whine here: Delusional iPod DJ’s.

Highly annoying. Halfway through a song, some idiot thinking they can do better and wow us all with their taste in music, will change it. This happened continually at the party. My poor iPod was cast aside and plugged in, alternatively every 5 minutes or so until it’s battery died in protest.

Most of the class was at the party, including a whole bunch of random people who turned up at 1:00 am out of the blue. Camille suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, turning up the next day in the flat on the first floor.

She walked into her flat the next morning and instead of viewing a very lovely mess of cigarette butts and garbage, everything had been cleaned by Georgina and Mike who felt too guilty to leave without cleaning.

I’m so glad I left at 2:30 I must admit. Cleanup duty is really rotten.

Anyway, at about 2:30 I began the trek to the ex’s flat (The ex refused to accompany me on grounds of general lethargy).

Right next to Camille’s front door is a club with a que of drunken, dolled up people.

A little further down the road a group of girls were crying and screaming as 2 boys chased and beat each other up right in the middle of a traffic filled road. Two cops arrested them promptly. (Don’t you just love the East end at night?)

I mistakenly ran to catch an over crowded bus full of pasty red faced ‘lads’ while the very surly buss driver cursed, swore, muttered to himself and refused to let me off at my stop.

I had to take another bus back 5 stops.

The bad tempered bastard.

I hate winter.

Uhr follows an inebriated Bruna around.

He continues stalking Bruna, while she looks disgruntled.

Georgina, Fernanda and Tiphaine collectively maul Onnalin

Then they force Fernanda and Onnalin to smooch

We call out for Camille. "Caaaamiillllleee where aaaaaare youuuu?" we yell

Amalia and Fernanda on the far left make a pact to get married

Amalia and Fernanda seal their bond with a lot of tongue, and Ed joins us as an honorary woman

Uhr now seems to be scoping Bruna's behind as she looks up to where she's hearing the voices

He also seems to be checking out that guy in the white T shirt. Bruna does a quick salsa

While Ed looks deeply suspicious

Soon after Onnalin tries to smoke an imaginary cigarette

She then listens very carefully to Amalia

Georgina shows Amalia and Onnalin what a camera is

Onnalin then tries to seduce Amalia away from poor unsuspecting Fernanda

Surrounded by a multitude of women, Martyn looks serious

…seriously pissed. 'Ooo' he says to Amalia

Georgina looks to the heavens and prays that our show will go all right

Foz’s Soft Underbelly Is Finally Exposed. HA HA!

Foz talked so much for the last two days that by the end of Wednesday afternoon his voice was a hoarse croak.

It started off in the morning as a healthy, yet unusually deep baritone but by about 4 ‘o’ clock you could hear it beginning to rasp. At 4:28pm it cracked completely.

“Simeon”

he whispered,

“You didn’t bring in any images? *croak* What a… *croak gasp hack* …utter donkey!

We finally ended out marathon crit and he had to start critiquing the new batch of first years. We just stood around watching him attempt to shout but only bleat his way through their sketch book presentations.

He saw us smiling and swore that he would get us next Wednesday.
————————————————————————

On Tuesday Foz had given us a brief that he had submitted something for, an illustration for the cover of a Neurology magazine. Yes, a fucking dull brief, but it was our job to make it more interesting [he said]. So Wednesday afternoon, he brought in his own final image to show us.

He said as he opened his laptop laughingly,

“I’m going to get it from you lot. Thats utter shite!, you’ll be saying.”

His explanations for why he did everything were confident and clear BUT THEN, right at the end, he remarked hastily, as he closed the screen.

“Ah don care what you lot think anyway. That was just to give you all an idea”.

Which was surprisingly defensive and sort of vulnerable, and therefore, was also quite funny.

Foz, the terror of St. Martins, scared?!? Of our worthless opinion???

BUWAHAHAHAHA

Rubbishy Sketches That I Like Anyway So Screw You

Death By Stiletto

Georgina as Goldilocks

Pub Conversations

This is an Email from Foz, My Tutor.

I always have a minor aneurysm when I see his name in my inbox. He writes the most frightening emails.

“Hi everyone, Hope your weekend went well. (FUCK NO, IT CERTAINLY DID NOT)
This week I want you to start responding to a given sketchbook theme for a minimum of 1hr per day. (RATS) I will set these every week from now on. (DOUBLE RATS)

Also I want you to see an exhibition of your choice. (I HAVENT SEEN ONE ALL SUMMER, LAZY FUCK THAT I AM)
Possibilities-Henry Moore War & utility £5, (I’M SO BROKE, SOB) War museum, Paula Rego RCA, free, The Sex factor, Hans Bellmer, Pierre Klossowski, The Whitechapel, free. (FREE, I LIKE FREE)

It’s up to you where and what you attend.(THAT’S THE PROBLEM, REALLY)
Make it relevant and you can attend when its convenient,except for Wednesday as we are having a crit…AS YOU KNOW. (YIKES HE TYPED IN CAPS. THAT CAN’T BE GOOD)

See you on Wednesday at 10.30 with work already on the walls (OH NO NO NO) etc for the crit and ambition seminar. (AMBITION, OH CRAP MAN!! WHAT FUCKING AMBITION? I DONT HAVE ANY)

Weekly sketchbook projects-1hr per day (THAT MEANS I HAVE 7 HOURS OF WORK TO CATCH UP ON!)
The sketchbook should be used as a vital means of developing a personal visual language, a visual curiosity and improving craft skills. (WHICH I DESPERATELY NEED, I THINK )

Sketchbook, like a diary can be your most personal document where inner feelings, thoughts and observations are stored. (DOES BLOGGING COUNT?) As visual artists we must get into the habit of making daily visual statements. (MAYBE A BLOG JUST ISNT VISUAL ENOUGH)

Minimum of 1hr per day (MINIMUM. SIGH)
Week 1 – Hidden beasts (Rottweiler attacks, drunken outbursts, teenage tantrums, Frankenstein)

Have fun (FUN? HAH!!)
Foz & Gary “

My mind is a complete fucking blank I am so dead.
Crap crap crap crap.

Tuesday Crit

Today we met at the Mall Galleries, the scene of the MACD art show to critique all the work of the year ahead of us.

I usually dread these ‘crit’ days. It’s excruciating trying to avoid sounding like a miserable bitch, (which for me is especially hard).

I have only now come to realise that it’s easy tearing work apart when the artists are not around.

Trying to be nice is rarely a problem behind someone’s back.

Foz gave us a list of criteria upon which to judge. (According to his list not a single student would ever get a distinction.)

1. Originality (fairly dubious and suspect to personal taste)
2. Presentation
3. Entertainment (for me one of the most important criteria but not exclusively)

…boy, blogging is a great way to rant about pure rubbish isn’t it?

I mean does anyone truly care what the criteria are or what the hell I even think about the work? Not that you would have seen any of it anyway.

But being a selfish person, I plan on subjecting you to my vent anyway.

4. Communication (or mis-communication)
5. Research (does it look well researched?)
6. Skill
7. Ambition (also important)
8. Level of inquiry
9. Aesthetic vs. content

So based on these 9 points most people are going to get trashed. Rather unfairly occasionally.

The one major bone of contention (for me), was this performance piece thing.

I despise all performance art, purely on principle, from David Blaine to mimes – Although they might be temporarily entertaining, they also have about the same artistic value as watching Big Brother.

Gay guy works in a sauna, has fun, goes out, takes a few photos, chucks some black varnish on a box, dances around it a bit and hey there you go! A work of art.

What fucking shit, the lazy wank. For some reason some people thought this was great. (Foz defended him, but when I asked him how last minute it all was Foz was forced to admit his final piece was a little.)

Fucking performance artists. Lazy bastards. That gay sauna thing really pisses me off the more I think about it.

Anna said she has suddenly become really scared of Foz. She can’t talk to him anymore. She said it was perhaps because she wanted him to like her or think she’s funny. (Much like how I feel about that sexy bitch, Ken Hollings *sigh*)

Foz IS sort of terrifying, if you’re late.

Laura J. Middlehurst

Claire Scully

Rosemary Mills

Emily Warren

Anne-Louise Knudsen

Takayo Akiyama

Margaux Luzuriaga