A kilo of gold glitter

Sunday 24th June '07

So that’s it. I am officially a real person and no longer a student. What do I say now when people ask what I do? “Um, nothing…” I sold two paintings. Does that make me an artist yet? I’m scared. This was never supposed to happen.

At the private view for our degree show I reached what was I feel was my finest moment yet in terms of vintage fashion and this project. I wore a black lace bra and fifties style black pants, with the black lace underbust girdle, sheer black stockings and suspenders. Over that I wore a dark grey beaded twenties-style dress, black round toed heels and a vintage fifties glass bead shawl. Topping it all off were some ridiculous but very lovely head feathers.

Now pay attention all you fresh budding young artists out there. When planning work for an exhibition, make sure it all adds to your own comfort and happiness. A friend of mine had to take a freezing cold bath naked in some liquid clay for several hours whilst being filmed. My work was an installation containing some paintings and a ‘performance’ which basically consisted of me sitting in a chair, dolled up to the nines, listening to David Bowie and drinking Moet. It was all about mythology and decadence and so forth, even I don’t really know any more, but the important thing is I got an excuse for an entire new outfit, some very expensive chocolates, five bottles of champagne, two haircuts and a kilo of gold glitter.

In order to complete the look, I had my hair curled at the hairdresser as all my kind friend’s attempts with Carmen rollers and buckets of hairspray had only lasted an hour or so. It clearly needed scorching into shape if it was going to last a whole evening. While I was at it I had my usual four or five inches lopped off. This was my first real visit to a proper hairdresser. Before it had just been the little village salon or the lady down the road. It was quite scary looking actually: a shiny, monochrome palace of wonder, staffed by shiny, monochrome attendants. It all just struck me as a massive waste of time. The hairdressers flapped around, swapping places and disappearing into back rooms for hours assuring you that they would be ‘back in just a sec.’ My hair took about five minutes to actually cut, but they spent about an hour blow drying it, strand by tiny strand. I wanted to grab the hairdryer from the dopey girl and do it for her in the end. (My hair normally takes just a couple of minutes to dry) Although not exactly the style I had envisaged, by the time the hairdresser had finished though, I was enraptured. I wanted to keep it like that forever and ever. I looked like a Victorian doll, with perfect glossy blond ringlets.

Getting off topic a little bit, but it is still vaguely relevant I think, is number 3622 on my list of general complaints and grievances against humankind. (Shortly to be published in a ten-volume format) It is the fact that no one ever believes a word I say. Now don’t take this the wrong way, I don’t mean to sound vain or churlish, but I have always felt vaguely resentful that things such as hair dye, straighteners and sunbeds were ever invented. Had I been born a hundred years ago my colouring would have been considered rather unusual and interesting. Nowadays people, if they think at all, just take one look and think ‘bimbo.’ A year or so ago I went on a trip to New York with uni. On the second morning, after observing me wash and dry my hair, the friends I was sharing a room with said to me “wow, your hair really is straight. All this time we just thought you were lying.” I think that says it all. It’s the same with my skin. I have naturally very fair skin and cannot so much as look at the sun without burning. I never sunbathe because I just burn and apart from anything else, it bores me to tears. But I like to be outside and busy during the holidays (Rain or shine) so I am left with no option when it is hot but to smother myself in factor 40, hat up and go chasing patches of shade all around the countryside. As a result of this, I often end up with a very nice unintentional tan and then have to put up with lectures from everyone I meet on the dangers of sunbathing. No one ever believes me. Even when I got my tattoo one of my housemates maintained for months that it must be a transfer. Just for the record, so we can have this absolutely straight once and for all, I would like to say that I have never dyed my hair. I have never straightened my hair. I have never used fake tan nor been on a sunbed, and yes, they are real.



Remember what I said about being a jungle woman, about not wanting to sit indoors all day long? Well that brings me to yet another of my guilty little secrets. Trailer Trash: I love it. Not all trailer trash, admittedly. More the kind that probably only exists on catwalks, and not the English kind either. That’s far to chavvy. No, it’s a very specific look that appeals to me. I don’t know why exactly, I guess it’s because it seems a little exotic, and there is an element of freedom involved that really appeals to someone who grew up in middle class, conservative Sussex. I just love the idea of some feral fourteen-year-old hellcat, with a southern drawl, bleached hair and long, skinny legs, running wild around the countryside in tanned bare feet and denim hotpants. She would be a carefree, happy little slut and would wear pink lip-gloss and a contemptuous smile. She would cuss, smoke, cheat at cards and just generally do all the things I wish I had the guts to do. I know this is a fantasy born of far too much Hollywood and pulp fiction but I hope she does exist somewhere, I really do.