- Tabbes: Have you ever taken an art class anytime in your life? You probably have, unless you're home-schooled. Actually I don't even know if home-schoolers are offered art class. Anyone in the comment section, enlighten me. In any case, you would think artists are the most chill people you could meet, and you're right. Some of them are. Art class is also the most chill class you can take, by the way. The students are generally open to new ideas. Mm-HMM! And all about creative expression. But I had one class specifically that I have to say otherwise. Now I never have the opportunity to go to an art school because of the cost, and because like many others, my parents thought it wasn't anything worth studying for in the future. I've only taken an art elective in high school and I got my general impression of artists from those classes. I know artists sometimes have this reputation of being weird strange people, and I don't disagree with that either. Don't get me wrong, people can be unique, but when they come in contact with you the wrong way, that's when it becomes a problem. So in high school, I would have a few girls sit around me and some of them are friends. Some of them are acquaintances throughout the year. There was one girl in particular who was in front of me that I never really talked to, but she got comfortable real fast, and I mean, REAL FAST. She gave me some alarming smiles, and I was looking at her like "What? What do you want?!" I didn't know what her smiles meant at first, but for now, let's call her "Touchy" for obvious reasons. This girl, Touchy would inappropriately touch other girls around her during class, including me. She would grope them, grab their ass, purposely fondle them, you name it. She popped out randomly out of nowhere and tried to cop a feel every time she passed by. Behind my seat, around the sink, near the tables, anywhere in that classroom. She would go under the tables trying to do her thing. I catch her there by surprise and it's like she thought I would respond like "Oh, lovely to see you here! Thanks for stopping by. By the way, how's the weather under my legs?" Nope, fuck that! She'd looking just like that clown from IT lurking under there. My foot reflexes would automatically stomp her down, then she would just be like:
- Touchy: OWWW!!! What you mad feisty for?!?!
- Tabbes: Oh I don't know! You're the one violating personal space. Why don't you tell me? But despite that, she would just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I would have to keep some smart-ass ninja bulls-eye focus on her every time she got off her seat because she tried to be sneaky. You never knew who that victim was gonna be that time. It would just happen. She didn't really do it to the guys because they actually liked it. She was just known as that girl who did it to other girls and seemed proud of having that reputation. You'd ask why we didn't tell on the teacher. Some of my friends were on very friendly terms with her and didn't intend for her to get in trouble. They told me she was just doing that as a friendly gesture. Doesn't matter, still wrong, right? She got the hint by the time the end of the year came how I actually felt towards it and toned it down. OK, the next person isn't gonna be a specific person (ART CLASS ROBBERS). It's gonna be a group, or at least I think it's a group, because there's no damn way one person can pull this off themselves without being caught. So I'm talking about art thieves. Nope, not the ones you see online where people steal other people's art, remove the signatures of the artists, and claim it as their own. That's still a super ass movie to pull, but I mean the people in my class who would steal art supplies and the art hanging up on the walls then nobody was looking. You know how tough it was to work with limited Prismacolors and watercolors? Those markers cost more than 100 bucks! Some of these kids would stuff a few of these markers in their bags each class session when they thought nobody was looking and waltz out like nothing happened. SHAME ON YOU! The rest of the students were left with just dry and empty markers. Regarding the kids who stole other students' artworks, I don't know if I would take that as a compliment, but I'd probably be more pissed thinking of all the hours I took working on the project and for some tit-bag to take it off the walls never to be seen again. For those people, thank you for massively contributing to our society. This is one thing that happened towards the middle of the school year (ART CLASS ASSHOLES), and it wasn't something I particularly like remembering every time it came to mind. Our project during that time was to draw a portrait of a human face. So I chose to draw that one awesome nun lady from American Horror Story Asylum. Fucking Jessica Lange!! You better recognize! YEAH. Her character was too bad-ass not to appreciate. So I decided to use her as a reference looking her photo up from my phone. So I started sketching with pencil first. It looked great. Great! Then I started to paint. It was looking nicely up to the hair. I was really loving the piece and that didn't usually happen with my own paintings. If you didn't know, many artists tend to be self-critical with their own art, but not this time. This piece actually looked decent to me. Students in the class would admire it (ooooh) or walk by and compliment it. (OMIGOSH JESSICA LANGE!) One of them even asked me if they could buy it after I finished it. (CAN I BUY IT?!?) My bragging's about to end right about....now. I wasn't very skilled at painting and I never practiced too much with them, really only with pencils and pens. So eventually I did end up making one wrong brush (vinyl scratch) and messed up the drawing of her completely. If there was any time to panic, it was then. Oh shit! SHIT!! NOOONONONONONO!! Where the Ctrl-Z at?!? I didn't know how to fix it. I was discouraged by then because I remember the students had high expectations for that piece. So did I. But apparently some students in the class were expecting and hoping for that mistake to happen. They were the ones who silently stared at the piece but said nothing about it every time they passed by before I made that error. But when the time came that I fucked up, that's when they said anything. Immediately, a few of them shouted:
- "A-hole" girl: HAHA!! Look at the mistake she made! MISTER! MISTER!! LOOK AT IT!!!
- Tabbes: Wowww..... You fucking bitch! Those girls made an outburst big enough that the next thing you knew, a lot of students were surrounding the painting. They gave me a genuine:
- Students: Aw... That's too bad...
- Tabbes: And my teacher seemed disappointed, but he didn't intend to make me feel bad, compared to some of the other girls. Honestly, did you really need to yell out to the whole class for this? For what reason?! Like wow!! How fucking extra can you get!? But them making me feel guilty about messing up that drawing work that time, I was pressed, and I couldn't say anything under that current pressure. SO WHAT'D I DO? I did what the angstiest of angsty emos would do in the early 2000s. I put letter X's over the eyes, and a big red smile on the piece with red paint, then wrote "I'M SORRY I'M NOT PERFECT". (brief sample of "Crawling" by Linkin Park) Psych! No I didn't write that, I didn't go that far. But I did do the rest of the stuff which was still pretty bad. Then I reluctantly submitted it to the teacher. I mean he still gave me an all right grade because of..pity, I guess. Thinking back, I should've smacked those girls with the canvas as soon as they opened their mouths. (WHACK) Here's the lesson, in the midst of people who try to push and encourage you, there's also going to be peers around you secretly hoping you fail. (bangs on the fourth wall) DON'T TAKE NO SHIT. No matter what they try, fuck 'em and just keep doing what you love. I made it a resolve not to let them get to me the next time something like that happened, also to practice art a lot more since then. ARE MOST ARTISTS INTROVERTS? APPARENTLY. The students in my class, or at least the ones that were very focused on their art, didn't really expect people to come talk to them and disrupt their work form. They were always in their own little bubble sitting in their seats and would be startled if other people walk by to ask them a question or to simply compliment their drawings.
- Student: WOO!!! You draw mad good!! How do you do that though??
- Introvert: Huh??? Oh! Uhhhhhhhh...... (20 MINUTES LATER...) Wait, I never thanked her! Oh my god, she probably hates me now.
- Tabbes: At the end of the year, my teacher announced the final project, and I swear at that moment, the classroom atmosphere changed within that second.
- Teacher: Hey y'all, I got some great news! (students smile) Your final project would be a simple five-minute presentation. (X-Files theme plays (at PAL speed)) You guys good? What's the matter??
- Tabbes: But my teacher was the positive encouraging type that thought everyone could do it.
- Teacher: PRESENTATION!! AYY!!! HI!! WOOO!!!! YEAH! Aye, looking forward to it!
- Tabbes: It was like half of them were having an internal panic attack after he said that. Luckily, my teacher was pretty chill about grading and was nice about some students cutting their presentations short, even if it was just one minute long. On the other hand, there was another type of artists (INCEPTION ARTISTS) which stood out to me who seemed like the complete opposite. A few of them made their own bodies canvases. In other words, people made art out of themselves. No, not like that. I mean they would have extra accessories like earring holes the size of donuts. It would make me cringe every time I saw it, mainly because it looked like it hurt like a bitch. I've always wondered what it would like if they took those out. Would they have Dumbo's jiggly ears every time they walk around? Other than that, they would get piercings everywhere on their noses, tongues, ears, belly buttons, and probably other places too if you know what I'm saying. Tattoos all over their bodies too. Some people have the most colorful-ass hair out there, while others would poof it out like crazy. The pattern of this style was commonly that those people were metalheads. During class I see them trying to hold back their headbangs since my teacher would let us to listen to our own music while working. (small sample of "Redneck" by Lamb of God - IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING INVITATION)
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- Tabbes: And those were the wild encounters I remember having just for that one art class. I'm pretty sure you guys had some. If not, more stranger students than the ones I mentioned. Also one thing, the school semester's just started. Many of you guys started school now too, right? So did I, and it sucks so far. Hope you guys are having some decent experience with it, because this just took all the time away from me that I used to have. Don't worry, I'll still be uploading though. Just not as often.