Wednesday 29 June 2022

Life Class 1967 Chapter 6 First Trip

 Chapter Six   First trip.


   The tutor in charge of our trip to north Europe thought the best way to

 make us keep up was to run from one tram to the next and not give us

an itinerary and we didn’t think to ask for one. He took the whole trip at a

breakneck pace, probably the third year he’d done it. Once at an 


 exhibition we had some time to look but he hardly bothered to discuss

or instruct beyond occasionally covering labels with his hand and asking

who we thought a painting was done by.

  Van Gogh in Amsterdam was followed by Warhol in Berne, the silver

floating pillows and the Brillo boxes, and Brancusi in Paris. Bryony

and I saw the famous studio through  slightly blurred vision as we’d

shared a bottle of wine in the lunchtime sunshine but at least we didn’t

knock over the endless column. In a museum of Impressionist works

Chris sat looking French while two English tourists talked about him

disparagingly and then he spoke in English to embarass them. He

always made us laugh.

  Some of them sat playing cards on the train and never even saw the

alps. One of the tallest of the young men was ill and I made everyone

laugh by saying ,’its always the big ones that wilt’

   We hardly remembered what country we were in. We refused raw

looking beef, coped with all the changes of currency and bought no

 books to keep our luggage light and were home in Nottingham in no

time.

  Now the course diversified to give a taster of various departments so

 the pre - diploma students could make up their minds where to apply for


 next year, not having our luxury of being safely ensconced for another

 three.

  One of the tasters was photography. We were isued with enormous

twin reflex cameras with square ground glass screens and two inch

negatives and we wandered  around the city to take pictures feeling

important. In the darkroom I found myself next to a technician

developing prints of Derek, the body building model. Life drawing had

now stopped and would not be referred to again. The technician looked

over a female students shoulder at a picture of her lean spindly

boyfriend magically appearing in the dish. ’Call that a man?’ he said

 with contempt, motioning to his muscle bulging Derek.

  Printing was another section, lithography on an offset machine with an

 eight foot wide roller that with the tiniest push rolled beautifullly along

oiled cogs to take up the image from the plate onrto the roller and then

 to the paper. We were warned not to inhale the toluene used for

cleaning as it was halucinogenic.

  I didn’t seem to have the time to take the other hallucinogenic

substances that were around. I took it quite seriously, read about Aldous

 Huxley and decided that unless I could put aside a couple of days and

have a friend to take care of me I wouldn’t take the chance.

 
  The Head of the Royal College of Art came to visit, Peter de Francia,
 
and chose a few students to talk to. I was one of them, but I hadn’t a

 clue how to make any use of this opportunity. I didn’t try to get his

phone number.

 Stuart Brisley came and staged a bizarre ‘happening’. We had to do

some concrete poetry using a word. I chose ‘sticky’ and wrote it in honey

 and flies walked into it and died. I exhibitied in college a warped comb

 I’d left on a radiator and called it ‘metamorphosis’

  We learnt nothing about how to survive as artists, how to make

 contacts in the art world or how to exhibit outside the college.

  It was time to move on from the cramped rooms in Burns Street and

 we found an unfurnished flat on Forest Road, with huge high rooms on

the ground floor and a garden. The shared bathroom was upstairs, very

 chilly and with three dining chairs opposite the bath as if for spectators.

 The gas boiler exploded into life dangerously.

  The question of buying beds came up. Bryony’s boyfriend had told her

mother that single beds only forced people to sleep on top of one

another. My parents looked askance put didn’t protest when I said the

only bed available at the auctions was a three quarter one.

 I painted my room entirely blue except for an orange door and  on the 


other side I cut out an elephant from the green and painted it pink. A

visiting child pointed to it excitedly and I told the parent that they were

 quite correct, there was really an elephant there.

  The landlord dropped in every month without warning for the rent and

to see what we were up to. Bryony had a red haired youth often there

with her. I had a round table top just on the floor so it was 4 inches high.

I had an enormous old sofa also from the auctions, a big mahogany

 wardrobe with mirrored doors for my satin and velvet secondhand

 gowns and a moleskin fur coat, way before anyone made objections

 about being clad in the skin of a dead animal.

  Upstairs the old lady that had lived there for years didn’t mind us. We

didn’t play our music very loud. Occasionally a few fancy dressed folk

 turned up and stayed for hours but there was no real problem. One of
 
these groups was actually the members of a band called ’Principal

 Edward’s Magical Theatre’. We were preferable to the skinheads with

 shaved heads and tattoos, big boots and threatenening behaviour. The

 two subcultures were uneasily side by side, hippy flower children versus

 bother boots.

  One hazard was venereal disease. It turned out that the Milky Bar Kid

 had dumped me because he thought I’d passed on to him crab lice, but


 it was the other way about. I made more than one miserable visit to a

 concrete clinic where one of the young doctors making their intimate

 inspections said,’It looks fine to me.’ Pills were given out to stop non

 specific infections. Examinations always hurt the urethra, a needle like

  a knitting needle was passed up it and afterwards to pee hurt for a

day.

   It was however between the time when syphilis had been incurable

 and the discovery of chalmydia and the start of Aids. It was a brief

window when a cheerful, uncomitted promiscuity could be tried by those

intelligent enough, or maybe just lucky enough, to avoid pregnancy. This

 serial monogamy gave experiences without learning anything about

 love or even about love-making.
 


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