ASSIGNMENTS:
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Matthew
Slingerlands, New York USA
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REPORTS:
PREVIOUS NEXT
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The story of my life isn't extraordinary in any way. In fact it is so unbelievably mundane that it becomes extraordinary. Birth is violence. Birth is the atomic bomb, especially my birth. Unfortunately for my mother I was an eleven-pound baby. The doctors perfectly executed my arrival upon this planet, but mom would be scarred permanently. This actually became a point of amusement for her after her hysterectomy, and heart valve replacement because she liked to say that her zipper was complete. I like to imagine that mom can unzip herself like a looney toon character and steps out of her flesh suit each night to become someone entirely opposite... like Elvis Presley.
My first memory was of my great grandmother that I only know as Baba. All of my other grandparents were dead except for my grandmother on my father's said, but she can't hear and is really ignorant so no one really likes her including my Dad. Baba used to sit quietly in the guest room and I used to visit her and ask how she was doing. "Baba are you ok?" And she would calmly pull out from her drawer a tin of gummy worms to satisfy my concern. Eventually I discovered the reward for such concern, and I believe as a toddler my flavor for gummy worms surpassed my attention for Baba.
My second memory is of a terrible rainstorm. The water flooded the basement to the point that my oldest brother was using a snow shovel to toss the water away. I remember a panic. My mother fell. I was crying, and looking at the droplets flow against the windowpane.
Jump. I'm in preschool. Sean Kellogg, like the flakes, and I are building a street out of blocks. Kindergarten ABCs. First grade, backwards day. Second Grade, with Mrs. Dimura, D-I-M-U-R-A, I love that song. Advanced math. Sexual education, I still don't know what sex is, but atleast I know what to do with a banana.
Middle School. I hate this place. I am bigger than most of the other kids so they leave me alone. I love being alone. I like to watch other people. Like watching animal behavior on the National Geographic channel. I hate watching weaker children being bullied. It gets me depressed. I become more and more depressed. My mom threatens to bring me to a psychiatrist. His name is Jonathan. He speaks in a mystical, angelical voice, and asks me about my problems. This is the worst experience of my life. I'm happy again.
High School. Not much to say. I like to play Frisbee. Art classes are a joke. These are not the best years of my life like everyone says.
Time to decide what to do with my future. Every college that sees my portfolio accepts me, except for SUNY New Paltz, but what do they know. I want to go to SVA, but I can't afford it. I go to a small illustration and liberal art school fifteen minutes away from home, not my idea of college; but they are they only ones to offer me a sufficient scholarship. In art history class I ask permission to leave early for my driver's test, and my Hungarian teacher in front of everyone asks how old I am.
My mother studied in Stockholm, and wants me to study abroad. I am positive I fucked up this opportunity by confusing spray fixative with spray adhesive for the judging of my portfolio. The winners are announced, and I am stupefied to hear my name in first place.
I'm in Paris it is another world. There is no culture shock, it is merely another place with more to touch, taste, smell, see, hear, and experience. I have to go back to America. I become a resident assistant following the previous student who got fired after making a comment to one of his residents about zipping up his fly. No one here has any ambition in life. No escape. I return to Paris.
I paint freaks. I hate normal. What interests me is the unusual. Different is inherently beautiful. I'm painting. I hate painting. I paint. I have a studio cubicle. Another cage. Factory. Today was a good day.
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