Artists

Got a story for ya that I hope will make you laugh:

We had one instructor, Pat Alt, who was fresh from the very freewheeling Cal Arts. He was pretty much open to anything. One thing that was a must for him: whatever art you produced didn’t really rate unless it was HUGE. At least a totally impractical and unrealistic 6x8 feet. (Okay. Where’s my mom gonna hang THAT in her house, ‘eh? And why would she even want to except as a sympathy vote?). But it WAS time for the final project.

I spread my ridiculously large canvass (including the required stretcher bars) out on the patio in the backyard of the house where my boyfriend lived. I set about “creating” with odd & cool stuff I bought at the local hardware store where my boyfriend worked. I used his employee discount to buy containers of broken glass bits, silver glitter, Plaster of Paris, big squirts of acrylic paint in white, black, and I think brown, too, and whatever else struck my fancy.

I covered the canvass with all that shit, in big blops and little sprinklings, sometimes shaken out onto the surface in different spots. I lifted one or two corners so everything would kinda run and ooze downward from where it was applied, but in different directions of downward. Then I turned the hose on it.

I decided I couldn’t think of anything more to do, so I left it outside there to dry overnight.

The next day (presentation day in that art class) I went out to inspect the results. Everything was dry, alright, but as it was laid out flat on the ground under that big tree, hundreds of little brown feathery spores had floated down all over the canvass, got stuck in place, and dried there. And if that weren’t enough, some unfortunate little caterpillar somehow crawled up onto the canvass and it, too, got stuck and perished.

I was mortified AND terrified. I thought it was the fiasco of all time and THIS was the final project to turn in for grades and class was in a couple of hours, so I was thoroughly SCREWED. There wasn’t time to try to make a new one.

So my boyfriend helped me drive it over to campus and set it up in the big art studio/“classroom”. We had to drive slowly because each of us had to stretch our outer arm through our open car window, reaching up to the roof of the car to hold my monstrosity in place. When we got it to campus and upstairs into the studio/“classroom”, I maneuvered it over kinda to one side so maybe nobody’d see it, leaned it against the wall, and then I hid (or tried to so hopefully nobody would spot ME either).

Well, no such luck. Each of us in class had to present our work so the teacher and classmates could comment, and a final grade, hopefully a good one, could be earned. My turn came, more or less, although I didn’t immediately present myself. So the critiques began. Just a few. Most didn’t really understand it. One uppity guy blurted out that it looked like shit. Teacher remained silent, just looking at the - uh - painting. Finally after what seemed like way too long, he spoke.

No. He actually gasped. Drew a LOOOOOONNNNNG breath. “Whose work is this?” I weakly held up my hand. He gasped again. And then he started, with feeling: “THAT… is… BRILLIANT!!! THAT… is one of the most brilliant works I’ve EVER… SEEN!!! O. M. G. THAT… could hang in the Nicholas Wilder Gallery ANY DAY of the WEEK!!!”

Well, I’d never expected ANY reaction like that, especially from the guy who was gonna give me a grade on it. And I’d never heard of the Nicholas Wilder Gallery, either. I was shocked! Speechless! I didn’t even have the nerve to look around at my classmates to see their reaction. I didn’t know WHAT to do. But fortunately, class was soon over and at least I could skeedaddle right outta there and disappear!

I left my “artwork” there and tried to forget about it. I’m pretty sure somebody finally threw it away at the end of the term. I didn’t want it because who among the people I knew would even have wall space to hang the damn thing, much less actually want to, and I sure didn’t have a place to hang it either. It was truly something even my mother couldn’t love, much less understand.

But, by Jove, I got an A.