About Me

I would like to tell you about my art teacher, whom I call "Ice Wench" but is actually named Lisa.

Since the beginning of the year, she has had us do, like, a billion self-portraits. The last time we did one, I didn't use a mirror, and she came up to me and was like "KIP!" (I go by that at school) "WHY AREN'T YOU USING A MIRROR?!?!" and I was like "BECAUSE I MEMORIZED MY FACE FROM THE UMPTEEN OTHER TIMES YOU HAD US DO THIS!"

Lisa never listens. During the beginning of the year, I would try to ask her something, and she would just not pay attention and keep talking about whatever she wanted. I eventually came to terms with this. Now, whenever she walks by me, I say things like "Lisa, every night I get down and pray that you are a eaten by a wild rabid camel." and she's like "Yes, Kip, very good work. Use more tone."

Now, this is a drawing class, so of course our final project is some weird sort of play. At first, she asked us all to pick a famous artist. I chose Leonardo Davinci. Then, she asked us to bring in a photograph of our artist. I told her that Leonardo was born during the renaissance, and that there were no cameras yet, but that I could get a portrait. She said no, it had to be a photo, and that I would have to go on google and look for one. The play consisted of each person walking on stage, introducing themselves as their artist, and sitting down and eating something their character would eat in front of a camera. Leonardo would eat spaghetti or toast or something, but being the genius she is, she scheduled it during Passover, so I was Leonardo eating mazza... I actually made a petition against this play; I got most of the class to sign a paper saying they didn't want to be in it, and about half of the campus to sign a paper saying they didn't want to watch it, but it was to no availl...

One of the first lessons we learned was contour: the outline of a shape. She demonstrated this by doing an outline of a clock, which turned out to be a circle. "See?" she said, "I didn't draw the hands on the clock; just the outline" Whenever we would try to ask a question, no matter what it was about, she would reply, "Yes, yes, but don't draw the hands on the clock." Now, whenever Sebastian and I imitate her (which, believe me, is quite frequent), it always ends with "Yes, yes, but don't draw the hands on the clock."

Lisa seems to think that all of our self-portraits can be improved my making our skin blue or green or something. Sometimes, Sebastian or I will be almost finished with a self-portrait that we are actually proud of, and Lisa will walk up with her paintbrush and be like "You should be blue," and paint on our paintings. Sebastian and I will leap up and be like "what are you doing you horrible frost maiden of the abyss?!?"
and she's like "yes, yes, but don't draw the hands on the clock."

To this day, Sebastian and I are the only ones with A's in her class. This is not only because she adores our artwork, but because we help her clean up. Everyone leaves her class half an hour early every day, and only Sebastian and I remain. She always claims to have control over her class, but nothing could be further from the truth. Anyway, Sebastian and I stay after and clean up after the other students and secretly write things on the board like "Lisa is homely" when she isn't looking.

Lisa tried to explain performance art to us, but due to the fact that she lacks the capacity to think, all we gathered was that performance art is the act of filming yourself doing absolutely anything. So, she showed us two performance art pieces: one of them was a videotape of a guy taking a pickaxe to a piano and completely destroying it like a whore. The other was much more comical. It was a lady with a beard glued on. She got on stage and started groaning and shouting as she pulled it off. The End *clap**clap**clap*. Then, she came back on stage, threw an egg at the ground, and started crying. She was not the only one.

If you gathered one thing from my writings, I hope it is this: don�t draw the hands on the clock.