The Art of Scrap, Friday, Period 4

[drinks_coffeezilla]

Okay, cool. Dean had been on the island for exactly a week now, and so far he was still more or less sane. This probably had something to do with the way he'd managed to avoid actually meeting any of the students yet, granted. But for the time being? Sane.

Ish.

"Hey, guys," he greeted, once everyone had settled down in their seats in the art room. "I'm Dean McCoppin. Please, please just call me Dean. I don't need any of that 'professor' stuff being thrown my way on a Friday afternoon. And it's the last class of your first week this semester, so there's coffee at the back of the room for anyone who wants it. Try not to take too much, or you won't be able to work straight later, capiche? Good."

Overall, Dean was pretty easy to please.

"Welcome to the Art of Scrap, which I'm pretty sure most of you kids probably decided to take for the easy grade, right? It's cool. I was a kid once, went to school and everything, I know this stuff. But I'm going to tell you right now, I'm planning on actually teaching you guys some things too before the semester is through. If you can't tell by the name of the class, this is going to be one of those crazy beatnik artist classes where pretty much anything is fair game to be turned into art. Especially, you know. Junk."

Junk was his thing. Dean smirked and took a sip of his coffee before continuing on.

"See, guys, I'm a sculptor by trade, even though I dabble in paint and that kind of thing on the side, so while we'll touch a little on the sort of thing you might want to frame and hang on the wall, most of what we'll be doing here is going to be way more hands-on, and you're going to want to wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty, since almost everything we'll be building art from is going to be junk. Cleaned junk, because I don't want rats moving into the classroom, but junk."

So no, they probably wouldn't be gluing macaroni to the side of a tin can in this class.

"This week, we're going to take it easy, though. Since I'm new here," be gentle, "I'm going to need a little help getting to know you guys. But you're probably all sick and tired of introductions, right? So on the table up here, there are a bunch of old magazines and newspapers and stuff, some poster paper, and some scissors and glue. Go through the periodicals there, cut out whatever catches your eye, and glue it to the poster paper however you want to. You can make a collage, try to cobble together a self-portrait, show the class a bit about your hometown, write a ransom letter with random words you cut out, whatever, just so long as it tells us something about who you are. The catch is, at the end of the period you have to present your piece to the rest of the class explaining why you did what you did. And maybe for my sake, you guys can let me know your names, while you're at it."

He took another mouthful of coffee.

"Don't eat the paste or anything, okay? I'll be making my own if anybody needs me. And if anyone wants to volunteer to TA or whatever, that'd be cool, too. It's like, double-easy art class marks or something."

[And open class is open!]

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[drinks_coffeezilla]

Needing more coffee for this.

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

Nathan Young

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

Butters Stotch

Lecture!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

Listen, take notes if you're feeling good and ambitious, wonder what's up with this teacher, dread the fact that he's going to make you work with garbage, grab more coffee, whatever.

Re: Lecture!

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

It was actually a pretty good thing that Dean mentioned that part about not eating paste, because Butters had a jar of it in his hand by the end of the lecture and had sort of been wondering what it might taste like.

Butters slowly, carefully, subtly, put the paste back.

Re: Lecture!

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

Okay he was letting her have coffee. He was officially the best teacher ever. George was pouring herself a generous mug and inhaling it. Once that was down, she was getting another cup.

She was even going to try to fucking participate in class. Just for this guy, because he fucking gave her coffee.

Make Art!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

There's a wealth of old, discarded, totally moddable periodicals here for you to choose from, so go nuts, guys. Just try to refrain from making anything too phallic on your posterboard, unless you can justify it in front of the class.

... Artists are kind of obsessed over that kind of thing. It's a totally fair warning.

[tripledmyself.livejournal.com]

Nathan wasn't an artist. Sure, he liked to think himself exceptionally gifted in everything but he knew the truth. He wasn't an artist and he'd never be an artist but that wasn't going to stop him from trying to create...something.

Hopefully it wouldn't come out looking like a ransom note.

Re: Make Art!

[notmyownage]

Claudia grabbed several antique (to a 17 year old, anyway) copies of Popular Mechanics and went to town. She had no idea what she wanted to create, so she just started cutting out shapes and gluing them together.

What? Dean hadn't said they couldn't go three dimensional on top of their posterboard, right?

Re: Make Art!

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

It took Marshall a few minutes to figure out what he actually wanted to do, but then he started cutting out all the letters he could find.

No, it wasn't for a ransom note.

Re: Make Art!

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

Butters set to work, singing a little song about the magazines and newspapers he was picking out. Most of them had to do with travel, fashion, the entertainment industry, horses, and model trains and cars. He was probably cutting out way more than he would ever get around to using, but that was okay! Maybe he could save them for a later project, too!

Re: Make Art!

[leavingthenest.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEEEEE! ART!

Rapunzel tried her best not to look too eager to get started.

And even with that, boy did she look eager.

Re: Make Art!

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

George was sifting through the piles of magazines and wondering how candid to be. It was art, so she could get away with a lot, right? Call it artistic license.

Present Your Masterpieces!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

Dean cleared his throat near the end of class, standing up and holding up a newspaper collage that turned out to actually be a pretty impressive portrayal of a mug of coffee, made using mostly bits of pictures of women's hair for the coffee in the mug, and blue skies of different hues for the mug itself. He'd run out of time and used a wisp of cigarette smoke from an old ad for the steam, instead of trying to piece that together out of words from the newsprint, like he'd been planning to do.

"Self-explanatory, huh?" Dean was smirking as he nodded toward his own coffee mug. "The stuff of life, kids. Trust me. You'll understand someday."

Like, as soon as they made it to college. Especially if they went on to art school.

"Okay, your turns. Let's see your work, hear your names, and learn a little something about what you put together, there."

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[notmyownage]

"Claudia Donovan," Claudia said, offering up an odd little salute. "And, uh, this -- among other things -- is what I do."

She set a fresh, steaming cup of coffee on a nearby desk, then held her work for the day over it. A big paper fan stuck off one end on a scissor axle, spinning slowly thanks to the steam rising off the coffee, setting off a chain reaction of little wound paper belts and posterboard-covered-in-car-ads gears.

"It doesn't actually do anything other than spin." She shrugged. "And, you know, look kinda neat."

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

Well, Dean was suitably impressed. He'd made one or two sculptures that had moving parts in the past, but not out of paper and coffee steam. He let out a low whistle.

"Well, this is art class," he pointed out, walking over to get a better look. "Looking 'kinda neat' is one of those things that comes in kind of handy with this sort of thing, you know?"

He watched the whole thing at work for another moment before glancing up at her.

"So, you're some kind of mechanic, I'm guessing?"

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[wheeler-360.livejournal.com]

"I'm Marshall Wheeler, and this..." Marshall said, when it came his turn to present. His posterboard was backwards; he turned it right-side-round with a flourish. "Is the periodic table of elements (http://www.enasco.com/prod/images/products/93/AC094017l.jpg)."

It was even colour-coded, as much as he could! Some of the letters were cut out of larger pieces of solid colour; he hadn't been able to find enough letters of the right size to make it all match, otherwise. It was actually fairly well put together, although Marshall's lack of experience with some of the more art-y aspects was probably showing. "Because I'm into chemistry. And, uh. Kind of a nerd."

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

"Kind of," Dean agreed with an easy laugh, "but hey, I'm not about to judge, Marshall."

After all, he'd been the one to do the coffee cup. Then again, he didn't have the periodic table memorized, either.

"You got any experience with putting things together that don't explode?"

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[geewhizfellas.livejournal.com]

Butters still had some newspaper and, somehow, glitter stuck to his fingers when it was his turn and he waved sheepishly to the rest of the class.

"H-hey, there, everybody," he said. "I'm Butters, Butters Stotch, or maybe you might know me as Big Texas Butters from the radio, only I can't do it this year on account of me being grounded for sayin' some bad stuff on there. Anyway, here's my collage."

And a collage it was, filled with all sorts of things that Butters started to point out and explain. "This here's Bennigan's, it's my favorite place in the whole world, next to Fandom High, of course. And that's a crown, because I got homecomin' prince! That was real exciting, and here's a rainbow, because I sure think they're pretty, and this is Jesus, our Lord and Savior. He has a talk show back home, too, called Jesus & Pals; home is here, in the mountains of the beautiful state of Colorado! And this here is Kim Kardashian, she's the most beautiful woman in the entire world; I'm sure glad she's not dead in this reality like she is in mine, on account of my book getting her killed, and I'm sure glad she's not married anymore, so I'm gonna start playin' more football...that's what this football here's for...so I can maybe marry her sometime, too. And here's some cars and trains, I like those, too, and a puppy and a pony and that's some lipstick model's lips because I had a kissin' company once and I like kissing, except kissing Kenzi, blech, and that's a hamburger, because I like those, too. And I think that's everything."

"Oh, wait, there's some kittens over there, too. I like kittens, too; aren't they so cute? Hahaha, and that's my collage, everyone!"

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

Somewhere about halfway through that presentation, Dean had to set down his mug and pretend to look very thoughtful with his hand over his mouth in order to just flat-out start laughing. At least he sobered up a moment later when the kid said something about his book getting someone killed.

What?

"Well, thank you, Butters. That was a... very thorough presentation, I'd say. Though I have to admit I'm kind of curious as to how a kissing company works, exactly."

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[leavingthenest.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEEEE! ART!

"I made the beach!" Rapunzel declared excitedly, bouncing a bit as she held up her poster. She'd used various pictures of water that didn't really fit together to be the water, and a collection of yellow cloth from fashion ads for the sand.

"See? Here's the waves coming in, and the sky, and some clouds!"



"Oh! And I'm Rapunzel!"

Re: Present Your Masterpieces!

[onapalebicycle.livejournal.com]

He did not need to convince George about the supremacy of coffee. She was nearly done with her second mug and about to start her third.

"My name's George, and I ... went for more of a abstract piece," she said, shrugging. It would be an apology if she were less of an apathetic nihilist. "I just ... glued things together that I liked or that were kind of important. So ..."

The collage had random symbols all stuck together. There was a mug of coffee, an orange frog, a plate of waffles, all scattered around. There was a little girl with pigtails -- for Reggie -- and a drum kit. There was the Space Needle, and a few grunge album covers, and a cartoon of a woman wearing headphones giving the finger.

If you looked carefully, you could see the strange silhouette of a hooded figure in the background. Kind of like the iconic imagery of the Grim Reaper.

"Do I have to explain it?" she said. "I like it standing for itself."

Talk to Dean!

[drinks_coffeezilla]

Whose coffee mug never runs dry. Like the stuff of legend.

OOC

[drinks_coffeezilla]

I embellish no facts about artists within this hallowed OCD. None.

There's no TA picked out, since I wasn't nearly that organized this week, but if anyone likes the job they're free to talk to Dean about it. He and I are both pretty easy, that way.

Re: OOC

[notmyownage]

Claudia spent all last semester as Jamie's TA. She could possibly use a chance at TAing for a somewhat less insane teacher.

Though if Dean wants a cow sculpted out of butter, she will outright refuse. ;D