Art For Art's Sake & Who Art In Heaven? (17)

This blog was partly inspired by Steve Johnson!

Back in the day I used to be an aspiring artist of sorts. I enjoyed drawing, doodling and mainly copying other artists sleevework! In all honesty I was never really anything less than average, but that small fact never stopped me from trying to copy album sleeves, super heroes, Christmas cards and all other manner of 'artsy' related stuff!

In the first years at Sammies, my art teacher was the stringent Mr. Ryder, whose classroom was based in the very top left-hand corner of M-Block. It was easy to find Mr. Ryder's classroom, all you had to do was follow the medieval artwork up the stairs, and as if that wasn't enough, the closer you got to Mr. Ryder's classroom the stronger the smell of pipe tobacco became! Mr. Ryder wasn't exactly known for his love of modern art or for his sense of humour either.

Stood outside M-Block (L-R) Maxine Harris Joanne Tryner Phil Young and Sharron Price

On the day of our first art class, we (our form 1-2) were all collectively nervous at the prospect of having Mr. Ryder as our art teacher. As we entered his classroom for the first time there was the nervous fumbling as we reluctantly took our seats, quickly followed by a collective hush. It felt like we were the taciturn congregation at Mr. Ryder's medieval chapel, who were about to experience the full wrath of Mr. Ryder's fire and damnation brought down upon us. Mr. Ryder didn't look like your average stereotype of an art teacher. He looked more akin to being a straight man character from out of an Ealing comedy. He was immaculately turned out, with a precise beige checked sports jacket, razor-sharp pressed black trousers, finely polished brown brogues, a yellow waist coat, and secured with a windsor knotted old-school striped club tie. He also had an immaculate comb over which was camouflaged by an impeccable waxed moustache.

Our first lesson consisted of Mr. Ryder delivering a pre-rehearsed speech, which touched on many topics, featuring the totalitarian discipline which Mr. Ryder was going to enforce on us, and then as if to accentuate this he made everyone jump as he whacked a table with his 'instrument of terror,' a stick which resembled the base of a small fake wooden-fibreglass fishing rod. He then went off on a tangent about modern life, which was basically a rant about 70's celebrities, and in particularly a thinly veiled venomous attack on Jimmy Savile and how many times Savile had dyed his hair in an attempt to gain notoriety! This must have irked him for many a time, but was wasted on a classroom full of jumpy eleven year olds who only knew that Jimmy Savile could and only would 'Fix It' for them.

Our art classes had all the atmosphere of a wake at a co-operative funeral home, and consisted with all of us sat quietly at our desks trying to express ourselves in a edgy, nervous way, which wasn't exactly conducive for producing art . For my first art exam I had drawn a picture of acrobats, which at the completion, I felt very happy with about the end product! I thought that I was going to get top marks! When I got my my results I couldn't have been more wrong! I got a disappointing C+. Apparently Mr. Ryder wasn't that keen on Marvel comic art, and looked down upon the way that I outlined the muscle definition of my acrobats with a black pencil.....

In the weeks preceding Christmastime in 1981 a Christmas Fair was announced at Sammies, and in conjunction an art competition was also announced to produce a poster which would be used as a flyer for the forthcoming Christmas Fair. I fancied my chances of winning this competition, mainly because of my talent for copying Christmas cards! So I did a felt-tipped coloured collage, based around three distinctive Christmas cards. You could have knocked me down with a feather when it was announced that I had won the art competition........

Fast forward to 1983 and I was trying to get an O-level at art. My art teacher was still Mr. Ryder and the classroom atmosphere was still as oppressive as ever. Part of my art homework was to draw a picture of a relative, which was something that I should have done but eventually didn't getting around to completing. So I did what I do best, I copied a picture of Ian Craig-Marsh on a Heaven 17 record sleeve from a track entitled "I'm Your Money". / Are Everything.

From L-R: Glenn Gregory Ian Craig-Marsh and Martyn Ware

I brought my picture to school and tried to keep a low profile about the origin of my forgery! Usually nobody really cared about anything I did, but on this day my mate Darren Wells took some interest in my picture. For some reason I decided to keep the origin of my forgery a secret, mainly because I thought if I told the lads in my form that I made the whole thing up then I wouldn't live it down! So I proceeded to tell Darren that it was a friend of my dad's who sat for a portrait. The more Darren asked me about Ian Craig-Marsh the deeper the hole got that I was digging myself into! I commented on his suit, his hair and his age and lied through my teeth.

I've carried the guilt of that tissue of lies for almost 27 years now! So if you're reading this Darren, and if you remember the conversation we had then accept my sincerest apologies.

And as for the art competition back in 1981. My 'prize' was a 99p selection box which I was presented with by our headmaster Mr. Powell on the last Friday morning assembly before Christmas. My name was called, so I had to go on-stage in the main hall to collect my 'prize'. I confidently strided up to the steps to the stage, and in my own inimitable style, tripped on the final step right in front of the whole school........

There's an old saying that, "Pride goes before the fall" and what little pride I had at the time melted away in front of a guffawing school assembly.

Embarassing moment: #873