The Laboratory of Daily Life & Art At School

The Laboratory of Daily Life, RTomens, 2018

Today I watched an artist on YouTube say he didn't like the word 'art', which took me by surprise because I thought, in my stupidity, that I was the only person to shy away from the word, or rather, say it hesitantly, you know? As if I could be the only one to feel that way. I can't recall his name but he was getting on, easily in his 70s, a painter. I watch painters now and again. They're an unusual breed. No, I mean, unusual to me, who cannot, does not want to stay with one medium. 

I'm sure if I stuck with one medium for the rest of my life I might improve at using it but no, that would be akin to only listening to one type of music, or reading one genre of literature, or watching one genre of film, or...etc.

This piece involves a few media, as you can tell and a few processes to create something I was content to walk away from, metaphorically, since it was never stood on a easel to start with. I'm drawing more, these days, as if, perhaps, revisiting the roots of my a*t life, the roots of every a*t life, probably...to draw, scrawl, doodle. My art teacher at secondary school told us to really look at what was around us. He would. How else were we going to reproduce it on paper? I wish he'd told us to ignore the world around us and just splash, stamp, scrawl, smudge paper, print, whatever onto paper. That would have been more progressive, wouldn't it?

Well, I didn't listen anyway. Why should I treat his words any differently to those of all the other teachers? Perhaps because the Art lessons were, along with English, the only ones I came close to enjoying. Note 'close'. Actual enjoyment of anything other than chatting up girls never happened. My greatest achievement at school was being the first to wear Oxford Bags (trousers, ask your granddad!) and for my efforts being mercilessly ribbed about my 'turnips'. 

In the Laboratory of Life, learning-wise, I was the equivalent of no more than a speck on the microscope. 

Thanks for visiting - TTFN!