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Art Students

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Gyppo
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Art Students

Post by Gyppo » Fri Jun 17, 2022 3:12 pm

    Design and Media.

    I wandered through a rarely visited part of town today, on the way to looking for an old friend I've not seen in the best part of forty years.  But she owned her own house, so there was a fair chance she'd still be there, or perhaps her children would have inherited/moved in.

    Nobody was home, and with my jacket left at home because of the heat, I was - most unusually - without anything to let me leave a note with a phone number or email address.  That jacket is a mobile filing system ;-)

    But never mind, I'll try again later.

    The funny thing was walking past the  now grandly titled College of Art, Design, and Media Studies.  I remember when it was just a run down annexe to the community college.  Now it's a whole cluster of modern buildings.

    The students were just going back in after the lunch break  Some things never change...

=====

Art Students

They still look the same,
despite the generations passing.

Skinny girls in long slinky dresses,
worn with chunky hand-painted boots, 
or short shorts, cropped tops,
decorated with fabric paint,
or silky embroidery,
and those fragile 'kitten' slippers.

No bare feet though.
Modern pavements have killed that. 

Long flowing red locks,
a battered 'Van Gogh' hat, 
She's old enough to be a lecturer.
Has the body language of instruction,
talking to a rapt younger girl.
Emaciated arms like an opium smoker,
but the searching alert eyes of an artist.

She pauses her conversation briefly,
long enough to scan passing 'Cammo Man', 
and perhaps file something for later.
Just as I did with her.
Two silent snapshots.

Then, around the corner,
a different face of the same coin.

A strapping great wench,
taller than me,
striding with serious intent. 
Deliberately holed black fishnet tights,
acres of flesh below a short skirt.
All in ragged matte black.
Her hair a skull-contouring buzz-cut,
with a narrow 'Stealth Mohican'
barely an eighth long.

A 'Steam Punk' Aura ;-)
She looks as if her chosen tools
would be an angle grinder,
a pile of rusted scrap,
and a welding torch.

Then, fifty yards further on,
the everyday world,
of take-aways, banks,
corner shops, and normality
closes in again.

Gyppo 
 
Last edited by Gyppo on Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

indar
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Re: Art Students

Post by indar » Sat Jun 18, 2022 10:14 am

Got me beyond a smile! I think this might be my favorite of your recent poems Gyppo. Wonderful (and familiar) imagery. You are right: some things never change. I'll bet if you listened in on a few conversations around there you'd hear much the same complaints/aesthetic proclamations/ art theories as I remember from the 70s. I still refer to myself on occasion as a "recovering art student".

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Gyppo
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Re: Art Students

Post by Gyppo » Sat Jun 18, 2022 12:00 pm

I thought it might tickle your fancy, Indar.

I love the concept of a 'recovering art student'.  Maybe, one day, when I'm really old, I'll refer to  myself as a 'recovering writer'.  Doubt if I'll ever truly believe it though ;-)

It's the privilege of youth - and an essential rite of passage - to rediscover old truths and techniques, and find themselves in the process of learning what they truly need and what's just protective colouring until they accept who and what they are.

I can't imagine the one I labelled as the 'SteamPunk' girl still dressing like that in fifty years time.  But I can imagine a big and formidable old lady in practical scorched and spattered overalls, gloves and face mask, wielding a free-hand laser cutter with seemingly reckless abandon.  And probably still taking commissions for metal sculptures.

There's no doubt I struck lucky with the timing, catching them returning from lunch.  I must make an effort to pass that way again.  But not often enough to make it commonplace.

Gyppo
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

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Mark
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Re: Art Students

Post by Mark » Sun Jun 19, 2022 1:11 pm

Another enjoyable well-communicated narrative.

AlienFlower
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Re: Art Students

Post by AlienFlower » Tue Jun 21, 2022 5:27 am

Really enjoyed the descriptions, Gyppo—while wondering what the guys looked like.

Jackie

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Gyppo
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Re: Art Students

Post by Gyppo » Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:32 am

You raise an interesting point, Jackie.  There were no males amongst the sample I saw as I walked past.

There were four young men sat around a picnic table in the grounds, having what appeared to be a terribly earnest discussion about something.  Because of their location I assume they were art students as well,   But they were just wearing 'comfortable' clothes, nothing exotic or dramatic.  Not a sign of any 'peacock finery'.  Not a single beret, or paintbrush sticking from a back pocket.

They weren't near enough for me to see if they had 'artist's eyes, or hear what they were talking about.

When I cast my mind back over the years most of the few male artists I've met have all seemed very ordinary apart from their one talent.  But they did collect 'colourful' female companions ;-)

Gyppo

 
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

AlienFlower
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Re: Art Students

Post by AlienFlower » Fri Jul 01, 2022 4:28 am

Interesting, as you say. Gotta be a reason for that.

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Gyppo
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Re: Art Students

Post by Gyppo » Fri Jul 01, 2022 8:02 am

Jackie,

This is just speculation...  Maybe, just maybe, because I've never asked one, male artists see it as 'a job', as something they do, rather than something they are.  Just as some journalists will deny that they are writers.  Or perhaps they simply see no difference between what they do and what they are, so don't feel a need to display their difference from the ordinary world.

Drawing a possible parallel with writers, I have a distinctly separate life outside of writing.  I can feel a mental shift in my focus, but I don't change my clothes to reflect this.  Family and close friends can tell when I'm 'away with the fairies'. but I doubt if it's obvious to everyone.

But maybe the female art students feel a need to dress more in keeping with how they feel they should look.

I quite like seeing their  colourful 'non-uniform uniform', but 'peacock' males always make me suspicious.  What are they trying to hide, or prove?

Gyppo
Last edited by Gyppo on Mon Feb 27, 2023 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

indar
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Re: Art Students

Post by indar » Fri Jul 01, 2022 1:01 pm

Two words, my brother: peace and love:

Image

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Gyppo
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Re: Art Students

Post by Gyppo » Fri Jul 01, 2022 2:00 pm

;-)
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

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