K.I.A.D Days

  Canterbury School of Art, as I believe it was called before merging with Maidstone and Rochester, was a pretty interesting place to be.

In 1994 I had been accepted onto the M.A  Graphic Fine Art course and it felt good being back in an art school.

The boss of  Fine Art was David Haste, who wore black shirts and chinos to denote the seriousness of his purpose. Richard Davies, a highly talented printmaker, utterly superb in my opinion, was boss of Graphic Fine Art. He wore bright red polo shirts with the collars turned up. Sometimes two. There was also a fit, trim, healthy looking guy called Pierre laPierre, who knew all about movies and narrative structure.He used to wear pale blue machine washed jeans and I believe, denim shirts.

David Haste used to be holed up in his office in the more oil painty part of the building. He was rarely seen.

Richard and Pierre used to cluster in Richard's office next to our studios. The next guy to arrive was Pete Nevin, we could tell he was cool because he wore a round hat similar to the one worn by the Professor in the Rupert stories of my childhood.
These three gentlemen would natter with us students for ten minutes or so, mostly about what we were up to, but sometimes about the football or the cultural significance of Bruce Lee or Chris Marker, sometimes all at once.

Once this task was over they retired to Richard's office. Gales of laughter would then frequently erupt, sometimes bordering on hysteria. This aural evidence of jocularity, goodwill and cheerfulness used to continue until lunchtime. And then I think they went to the college bar, or if they really wanted to be left alone, to the pub round the corner.

After lunch there would be even more laughter gusting from the office. Those guys knew how to enjoy life.

I would like to report that my cohort on the Graphic Fine Art course back in 1994, were a bohemian, hard drinking bunch  of drug taking, sexually depraved, antisocial do-badders intent on mayhem, destruction and the downfall of society, followed by a fiery death. Unfortunately this would be an untruth.