Art is life safely contained in a three-letter word (From Gazette & Herald)

Art is life safely contained in a three-letter word

I am an artiste. In fact, I could be a beret and one-ear-too-many away from being the new van Gogh. Hang on - van Gogh never spent all day and all night on a GCSE art project - surely that makes me the better, more dedicated artist?

Sadly, my three-foot-long canvas, entitled "My dad does the crossword", is only hoping for an A-grade, not international acclaim (though international acclaim would be a well-deserved bonus - my father is no oil painting, yet with a mere flick of my paintbrush, he was transformed into a Telegraph-wielding Adonis).

Like most GCSE art students, I am not ashamed to admit that I took it as my doss subject - I had expected lazy double lessons in the midst of other, stressful, 'proper' GCSEs, drinking tea and maybe flicking a bit of paint about. I wasn't disappointed - for the past year, art has been mainly a distraction from everything else, and I haven't given it a second thought after the end of lesson bell rang.

It's only recently that I've realised that this ain't the way to pass a GCSE - a few weeks ago, we were given our exam topic ("What? There's an exam?" One person bravely voiced the thoughts of the entire class). We were told to prepare a project on "Safely Contained", for our final examined ten-hour piece. ("Is that ten hours including tea breaks?" I asked. I was told it wasn't. "Oh, thank God.")

Suddenly, everything became art - I lay in bed wondering about how best to represent how "Safely Contained" my thoughts on "Safely Contained" are when I'm lying on my bed...

I'm not the only mad one, though - at least in art lessons I've decided to quietly get on with my stupid ideas. Our art teacher, who had previously been unused, is now in demand from irritating classmates of mine who have "had a brainwave" and spend the next 30 minutes excitedly explaining how, with a thoughtful look on their faces, "Life is safely contained, if you think about it..." before realising that it would be much more straightforward to draw a bottle of coke.

Soon the day will come when I don't feel compelled to photograph every egg/sleeping person/tin of beans that I come across - but until then I'll have to drink more tea than usual to get me through the whole working in art lessons concept.

Damn it, even the tea's safely contained nowadays - it's going to be a long ten hours...

Updated: 11:56 Wednesday, April 07, 2004