By Victor Pross

“ART IS ABOUT DECONSTRUCTION!” Tammy cried out, bursting like a cork. “This is an art school, not a syndicated newspaper! This is not a work of art!” Tammy’s whole body was animated with anger.

The student’s turned, as if in reaction to gunfire and beheld a frizzled red head, her checks turning the color of her cherry mane. Her name was Tammy White, a first year art student. “Look at this,” she yelped, pointing to a stack of paintings and drawings of strangely morphed caricatures of celebrities and skewered social stereotypes that greatly exaggerated classes of people from all walks of life. She then spun around unleashing her anger onto a lone figure who stood at his easel in mid brush stroke, creating the wildly diverse caricatures.

“This is a serious art school and he is turning it to a second grade school!” Tammy sputtered to nobody in particular.

The lone figure was me.

I was secluded in a corner of the class room painting. My concentrated focus was momentarily distracted by the outburst. A little head head-turn, the rise of an eye-brow, and then a nod of indifferent acknowledgement was all I cared to offer. I returned to my painting as if nothing had happened.

Tammy’s appearance was as colourful as the paints she used: her hair was died, part red and green, her eye-shadow a gloss blue. Her eyes were made luminous by the dark purple eyeliner and her bone-white skin was stretched over her skeleton like shrink wrap. Her penchant for tie-die t-shirts and olive green army jackets pleaded for attention.

Tammy was not one to give up. “Look at that painting! What does he think he is doing?” I heard the first words of her rambling discourse but my mind dissolved into fog. By the time the diatribe ended, I addressed Tammy openly: “Anything you have to say to me doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference.” I said this without rancour. It was a statement of simple fact, spoken prosaically.

From day one, Tammy took an instant dislike to me, referring to me as “the hick.” In a school saturated with mass-marketed nonconformity, I stood out because it was impossible to classify me. My hair style was that of James Dean, complete with his soulful look, and I was given to wearing leather jackets reminiscent of Brando in “The Wild One”. I was dated, at least in appearance. Or perhaps I was completely from a different planet.

Tammy, too, stood out, but in an entirely different way than me. Her anger, her erratic behaviour raised a red flag in most people, even among those who were angry artist types. During her pubescent school years, Tammy White was trouble. At her high school proem, while other girls primed themselves before mirrors, Tammy sealed herself off in her room and listened to angst-ridden music indulging in self-mutilation. With a razor blade in hand she would carve parallel lines on her arms. A year later, she decided to attend art school to cure her malaise.

In this cadre of self-appointed elitist students, I faced challenges other than mastering drawing and painting skills. While in high school, I saw art school as a light at the end of a dark adolescent tunnel. I had hoped to advance my skills, perhaps find new friendships and enjoy, finally, a sense of direction and meaning. But art school was just as alienating. The students were not versed in the language of “classical realism”—which I had read about—and to which I was attracted. They responded to my work, at first, with quiet amusement. Their gentle sarcasm turned to hostility. Nicknames were becoming contagious and I became known as “the hungry artist” —a nickname that was pinned with scorn. It was my fault. When I first arrived at the school, I was asked what kind of an artist I was. I did not entirely understanding the question and answered “a Hungry Artist.” This was met with laughter and derision.

Four months at the school, I began to wonder why I enrolled. This wasn’t a thought that came to full conscious awareness and it remained suppressed in the back of my mind. I was still hopeful that I would learn. I was attracted by the name of the school: The Advent-gurde Progressive Arts School. I didn’t know at the time of enrolment what “advent-gurde” meant, but the catchword “progressive” caught my attention.

The school was a melting pot of scamps and roughs, inhabiting a gaggle of pasty geeks and faux lunatic poseurs, a variable compost of cultural caricatures: pretentious beatniks, gay fashion designers, livid lesbians, vegan hippies, neo-beats and deadbeats, art punks, art fags, art Goths and sullen-art introverts who considered learning how to draw or paint an enormous imposition. Every kid’s face was pierced with dozens of rings with smatterings of tattoos on their face or body. Among this motley crew of mongrels, as I mentioned, I stood out…by not standing out. I did not mingle with these kids, these apprentices of abstract culture.

As far as I was concerned, each gum chewing, attention-challenged automaton had been spiritually lobotomized. They all fitted a blinkered mainstream and I was a proud outsider.

I was out of the loop, completely unfamiliar to the political manoeuvrings of the art school and out of step with the life of New York. I did not understand why the students held our vaguely swishy professor, Ivan Wine, in such high regard. In fact, the students loved him. They attached themselves like flies to a no-pest strip to his every word.

When Ivan Wine entered the class that day, he found Tammy in a state he had become accustomed to: perpetually pissed-off. Her sudden bursts of temper was accepted as a given. She was a handful, it was true, but as far as he was concerned, ill-temper and disagreeableness were traits that simply come with the package that is the artist. Ivan Wine had seen it all. Turning toward Wine, Tammy held her hands out in a gesture of frustrated helplessness: “Victor is desecrating the spirit of this school and everything for which we stand—again!”

Wine motioned for calm, placing his index finger against purse lips. He asked Tammy to regain her composure and to please take a seat. “Yes, sir,” she said dutifully, while shooting me a glance that said: step away from the painting to prepare for the daily lecture. The class took their seats and assembled around Wine.

Ivan Wine was a man given to wearing garish purple clothing as it were a classic black tux fitted for the Opera. He wore dark sunglasses in moderately lit rooms and his shaved head gave the appearance of a dirty tennis ball. When he removed his sunglasses, one was struck with piercing blue eyes set within a narrow face with gaunt cheekbones. His head was large for the emaciated, almost girlish overweight body. He wasn’t very tall, standing at 5’7. His skin was puffy, yellowish with thin lips. He was fifty-five years old, but he was blessed with a smooth ageless face. A tattoo that crawled up from his collarbone to his chin appeared to add to the image of youth.

Wine was the founder of the school. Through this school, he sought to erect a “pedantic myth”—using his words—by employing postmodernist philosophy as his framework, hoping that this would give his school a unique signature. He didn’t contribute to postmodernism art too much or its theoretical framework, but he hoped to cash in on it. He presented himself as postmodernism’s greatest defender, purporting great insight into its meaning and purpose.

As Wine began his speech, Tammy turned to the student nearest her and whispered: “He’s a genius.” I winced, turning to look at my surroundings. Wine’s voice faded out in my mind, becoming the sound of someone speaking into a pillow, and it was the room that took my notice. It looked like a dungeon—at worst—and a wine cellar, at best. The kiln brown-red brick that made up the walls was circa 1920s. It was a poorly lit room filled with canvasses, brushes, paints, cans, frames, filthy clothes and art supplies. A row of easels circled the room. My attention having went full circle, from one end of the room to the other, landing back on the students, who sat before the enigmatic flamboyantly purpled attired teacher. Wine’s words came back into my focus as if someone had turned up the volume on a stereo. Either from curiosity or boredom, I decided to listen in:

“The artist is seen as a curious creature, but he is nevertheless deeply admired for his rare talents,” he said, pacing back and forth, before his attentive students. An index finger rested against the palm of his hand. “He is admired for his so-called God-given talent and for his devotion to create masterful works for his fellow human beings that they themselves cannot create. Ideally, the artist should be seen as an altruistic creature, willing to live in poverty and obscurity, his only quest to enrich the spiritual life of the community. But the capitalistic endeavour to seek wealth and fame from one’s art degrades his art. Oh, yes, wealth and fame is sometimes thrust upon him, but such a state should never be the artist’s quest. People find inspiration in works of art—mired in the physical world as they are—and that art is cheapened if mired in enterprise. The true artist’s quest is to create art for art’s sake — his art is above the crass consumer society. Yes, let it be said again and again—the true artist is a solitary misfit who is above petty materialistic luxuries. This, I submit, is the genuine artist. This is the starving artist” Wine’s voice dropped to a baritone and his eyes narrowed and then he said with measured effect: “Ladies and gentlemen, become artists.”

Wine’s luxuriant speaking voice boomed out across the room, a theatrical voice capable of being heard in a large auditorium so that even half-deaf audiences could hear every syllable as if sitting center stage. There was an English lilt to his voice which had become “Americanized”—this being his term.

In a display of false modesty, Wine said: “Well, perhaps I have said enough.”

“Don’t stop now, Mr. Wine!” Tammy exhorted her beaming teacher and the class followed suit. This admiration encouraged Wine and he pressed on in full. He walked back and forth the floor, as if following a single straight line painted across the patch of ground he walked. His booming voice railed on:

“In this class, we will be focusing on creating art. We will not be focusing on marketing art. This is not a marketing class. This is not a business school. We are artists! We will be focusing on progressive art—not representational art. This is not an advertising agency, and in case you know nothing of history…the Renaissance is over. The days of painting the same old canards—half-naked woman in states of undress is over.” Wine’s eyes levelled the room like lava and the eyes of the student’s eyes were moisture. “I’m telling you now –and let it penetrate your young skulls – art and business make for strange bed fellows! Do you want to be artists or business men? I say, with great certainty and hope, you want to be artists!”

The class muttered its affirmation like a jungle tribe by the fire, the room becoming a flutter of doleful head shakes and clearly pronounced avowals of agreement. Nobody was more vocal than Tammy White. “Right on, man,” she called out, looking about to see if the others shared her degree of enthusiasm. The teacher smiled at Tammy, continuing his leisurely pace, summing up his thoughts, as if he were an attorney leading to the conclusion of his case. When Wine completed his speech, Tammy applauded with such vigour that it sounded as if the smacks were being drawn by a leather belt against a side of beef. “Right on, man! Right on!” The student’s enchantment was now complete.

As far as I was concerned, Wine projected both the saint and sinner. Both images, in this case, were unsavoury. As a saint, the image that came to mind was one of a faith healer supposedly healing the afflicted in assembly line fashion. As a sinner, one was reminded of a hair tonic barker selling a worthless liquid to balding narcissists. The truth was that Wine believed in his own dribble. There was no trace of insincerity could not be detected. I did not buy the bunkum that Wine spewed and this put me in considerable hot water with the other students.

****

Wine asked me to remain at the end of the class. I shrugged and nodded compliance. The class emptied, the teacher motioned for me to take a seat. Grabbing the nearest chair with a flourish, I sat in it backwards, tapping my fingers on the wooden back.
Wine pasted on an ingratiating smile and sat across from me. “You don’t seem to fancy the school affections, do you?”
“The a-a-affect…the what?”
“How old are you, Victor…if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m Twenty-one.”
“Ah, yes, of course. Well, it looks as though I have a good thirty years on you.”
My manner conveyed an impatient intolerance to small talk. This did not go unnoticed and the smile suddenly disappeared from Wine’s face much faster than when it first came.
He got straight to the point: “Are you pulling some kind of stunt?” Before I could utter a response, the teacher shot out a series of objections concluding with: …”if you are trying to draw attention to yourself…”

I held up my hand in protest. “That is not my attention.”
Wine’s smile returned, and this time it did not look warm, but was reminiscent of a wolf that senses the need to prepare for an attack.
“Well, then, what is your attention?”
“I’m trying to learn how to paint.” There was a moment of silence, as Wine touched the tip of his chin.

Then a velvet tone came: “Well, of course, Victor.” “That’s the point of this school. We all want to learn how to paint.”
“I’m trying to find my own voice.” I added.
“Of course.”

I felt as if Wine smirked derisively, or rather that is how I saw it reflected on his face. He answered, attempting to conceal what I had perceived: “You want to find your own individuality? Yes, of course. I understand that. Well, naiveté is a trait of youth.”
I said nothing. I looked Wine squarely in the eye, waiting for him to say something next. He did: “Why caricature?”
I shrugged. “Why not caricature. You gave us an assignment to paint to a person of our choice. I wanted to make it my own. I didn’t want it to be an exact replica of a photograph.”

“That is precisely my point,” Wine said, with sudden animation in voice, feeling he was making progress with the meeting. “I wanted to you and everybody else to paint from a photograph. I wanted to demonstrate to you, and the class, the banality of representational painting in our photographic age.”

“Okay, I understand the lesson. That’s why I chose to do a caricature. My painting is not a banal replica of a photograph. Hey, man, my intention was to express a microcosm, a small fraction of popular culture—or the sub culture—and to shoot it through my own individual prism. I have certain artistic goals that I want to reach…it’s something that I want to achieve. I have the imagination. I want to learn the craft and techniques of painting.” I pointed to the broad expanse of clear white canvases. “I want to express my own feelings and thoughts onto those. I don’t think I can do that effectively…if I don’t know the basics.” My eyes rested on the canvasses. It was as if they calling out to me to give them form and identity. My voice then fell to a near whisper: “I want to paint for my own satisfaction—and I want to make a living from my work. That’s why I’m here.” I tore my eyes off of the canvasses and they fell back on Wine. “Almost everything I’ve seen here, so far, goes against my instincts.” My statement was direct and without defiance. It was said as if I were simply stating my right to breath.

“Why of course,” Wine said, the velvet in his voice returned, only now more exaggerated than a caricature sketch. “There are some things you need to take into account. For over twenty-five hundreds humanity has learned new ways to create artistic expression, some of it very unorthodox. An artist who wishes to explore new terrain would do well from learning all he can from those who have gone before. If we are to express our, um, originally, we must not repeat the traditions of the past.”

I made a motion to speak, but Wine held his hand to hold me off.

“You are safe in the world of illustrations. You can work fairgrounds dishing out caricatures or you can work for an advertising agency creating disposable art, such as storyboards. And disposable is what it is; nobody reveres a storyboard artist. Their work does not hang in galleries and museums. You want to be recognized as an artist, Victor. Yes, and even though in some circles illustration can be considered as ‘art’ it will always remain inferior to gallery-sanctioned art. That bothers you, I’m sure. My speculation is that you want your peers, and eventually, I’m very positive, the art world to recognize that caricature as—potentially—an art form.”
“That’s not true,” I answered evenly. “I want to be recognized as an artist…because I am an artist. That’s first and primary. I’m an artist…who can paint and draw caricatures.” I said nothing else, a seconds passed between us.

I observed that Wine’s face was an expressionless mask, and that his eyes were icy with disapproval.

The bottom line to this little slice-of-life recall: the school was much more concerned with “expressing” than learning actual drawing and painting skills. That may very well be okay with other artist types, but it was not in the interest of this artist. I wanted to learn how to draw—than to break “the rules” if I so chose—and I wanted to learn how to paint—to paint outside of my drawn lines—if I so chose. I was the misfit among a cadre of faux misfits.

I left the school and I eventually went on to teach myself how to draw. What I learned…is what you now see in my art.

:}

#MISADVENTURE #ART #SCHOOL #Massmarketed #nonconformity #synthetic #posturing #rebelliousness #worthy #hearty #laugh