I was hooked.
I’d visited London between terms and had come home with a bag full of those cards that sex workers use to advertise their services in phone boxes. All women. I had this idea to recreate them, but instead of advertising sex, I’d photograph the people on my course advertising their artwork. I had a tough time getting everyone into the various costumes I’d acquired for the project: the skimpy school uniforms, the cut-offs and construction helmets which matched what the girls on the cards were wearing. But I managed, with varying degrees of success, in the end.
In this first proper photograph book, I have pasted next to a real calling card reading, Naughty School Girl Needs Detention: Red Cheeks For Louise? Genuine photo, a photograph of a boy named Luke, similar outfit, but his caption read, Straight White Male Painter Thinks Rothko Rip-Off Revolutionary: Original Ideas For Luke? Genuine hack.
I was such a cunt in the captions. Colin thought it was exceedingly funny, but Kevin was not amused. Kevin was a gentle man who’d spent the majority of his career teaching in private schools, unprepared for even the light brutality of the Fine Art foundation diploma and degree students he taught at the city college. He covered his mouth when we swore, and seemed genuinely distressed when he’d walk past Flo and me smoking outside the building, or when we’d complain about hangovers on a Tuesday morning.
Irina, this is exceedingly mean spirited. To embarrass your fellow students in such a way after they did you a favour is cruel. See me in the office on Monday please?
It’s written in red pen, torn from the feedback form and glued to the title page – beneath it I’ve drawn two stars, and written Kevin’s name, like a bad review. I recall getting into a huge argument with him in the office, with Colin sniggering in the corner.
This is my art, and it’s transgressive and I’m sorry if that offends you: I can hear my own voice in my head, girly and shrill.
Colin was on my side, and he and Kevin bickered in front of me like an old married couple. Someone had complained; I needed to be dealt with. Then Colin let slip that Luke, specifically, had complained. I hadn’t even been that mean about him, compared to the others.
I find a page with a picture of a girl called Georgie, who had let me photograph her holding a pair of toy handcuffs, and that was as racy as she’d let me go. I’ve written, ‘Insipid posh bitch, will paint your nana’s dog for a tenner’。 Next to her, a photo of Tessa, who’s a full-on-Flat-Earth-Facebook-racist now. She’s dressed as a sexy builder, duck-facing, glossy lips shrivelled and pressed to the head of a hammer. I’ve written, ‘Hot Charva! Get her before she’s pregnant （please contact ASAP）’。 It’s funnier with hindsight, now she’s a proper racist and stuff. And she did get pregnant about a year after the course finished.
She tried to fight me, for this. She told me to meet her round the back of the building after the tutors left. She was all bark and no bite, in the end. She squared up to me, and I came at her with a lit cigarette. The tip had barely brushed her cheek, before she scarpered. She wouldn’t come near me afterwards.
She didn’t tell on me, though. Not like fucking Luke. I reckon the comment stung because he loved Rothko, in that very genuine way only teenagers can admit to loving artists they love – it’s a cardinal sin by BA. I had to apologise to him in a letter, and his dad shouted at me at our final show. Kevin hid in the studio while a grown man screamed at me; my parents weren’t even there.
I peel Luke’s photo out of my sketchbook, and drop it into a plastic wallet marked, To include? That’s the only certainty at the moment. Maybe a couple of drawings from Xxxtreme Penis Envy.
About halfway through foundation they started telling me I needed to experiment and try something away from erotica and the erotic inspired （trying to push me to that conceptual installation bullshit tutors always cream themselves over）， and when I complained they were still letting Luke repaint Rothkos, they said they weren’t and he’d gotten the same advice.
They made us do this transformation project, where we had to do something that was more or less the polar opposite of our current work. Well, they didn’t make us. I just followed their suggestions out of, like, intellectual curiosity. And, you know, you want to get into a good uni, you have to play the game a bit, don’t you? So, fair’s fair, I had to do some abstract bullshit, and I did some reading on Dada and German Expressionism and watched the first twenty minutes of Painters Painting.
Unfurling from an A3 sketchbook like a Dead Sea Scroll falls my result: an enormous ballpoint drawing of a penis, captioned simply with, je suis not un le penis, which Kevin hummed at with a thoughtful, ‘I think it’s a breakthrough,’ and Colin had responded, with a great sigh, ‘I think it’s a breakdown.’
Luke painted a naked lady instead of a Rothko.
Flo took over Kevin’s post when he retired properly, and Colin’s desiccated corpse is still there. We have a pint with him on occasion. He still thinks I have penis envy.
therabbitheartedgirl:
Me and Michael had another fight about Irina last night lol. She’s coming round for pre-drinks and he was just like being weird about it again. He knows we had a thing during uni, and he’s never been cool with it like as soon as he found out. I told him flat out he was being jealous and honestly???? Kind of biphobic????? Like he thinks bc me and irina r both bi and we had the briefest thing in uni like there’s something going on there????
Unreal tbh. Told him to fuck off down the pub and cool off. Like my feelings for her aside, I WOULD NOT CHEAT ON HIM and it’s not like he knows about it so wtf. Like where does this come from and why does he have this HUGE PROBLEM all of a sudden w my best friend who happens to be another queer woman. He swears its not a bi thing n he just doesnt like irina or ‘how she speaks to me’ but like,,, she never tried to police who i hang out w.
So he was on the sofa tonight but i let him come back to bed. Still annoyed tho.
WILL
Flo shrieks along to the entirety of Lizzo’s ‘Good as Hell’， and I wince. Her ‘THIS IS A GAYS ONLY EVENT, GO HOME’ playlist, finishes, then loops, and takes us back in with ‘Cool For The Summer’， which I just hate. The homoerotic over-current of the lyrics while we’re both in sat in the living room in our bras and curlers is just… It’s a lot.
‘Come and do my eyeliner for me,’ says Flo.
‘Come and do my eyeliner for me,’ I repeat, with a sneer.
‘I never get it as good as you do. You’re baking, you have time.’ She’s got me there; powder is piled up on my cheekbones and cannot be disturbed for at least a few minutes.
‘Fine.’ I shuffle over to her on my knees and sit between her thighs. Nothing gay about this. Just a pair of regular gal pals here. Her lips are slightly parted.
I rest my hand on Flo’s shoulder for balance, and there’s this sharp little intake of breath down her end. Demi warbles in the background. I tell Flo to stay still, and gently sweep the liquid liner from the corner of her eye, so it almost meets the point of her eyebrow. Always looks a bit daft when I do that, but she likes it.
I’m almost waiting for her to lean in and whisper, Oh, Irina, remember the summer that we were ‘cool’？ Flo licks her lips. I could slap her – she’s posting about it on her fucking blog again. I can practically see her having flashbacks. For the record: we were never cool for the summer. We were more… lukewarm for the September/October period.