13 May 2011

Old Locker From School

Around this time of year is graduation and senior show.  I graduated ten years ago, and I try to go to the senior show...just to see how they compare to me a decade ago.  It is always interesting to see what the students can do when they are not tainted by the corporate world, still fresh and hungry to design.

One thing I always want to see is my old locker.  I spent a lot of time at school, in the same room for three years.  I had two lockers.  The first was number 101...Depeche Mode, duh.  Had that during sophomore year.  But the second one, the one I wanted was number 99.  This was my locker for junior and senior year.

Label still there, after 12 years.
What surprises me as I revisit the school no and then is, the label I put on my locker is still there.  Right above the 99 is GRETZKY.  Funny, I put it there in 1999...also, the year Gretzky retired from hockey.  I remember watching his last game in the studio down the hall.  Like I said, I spent a lot of time at school. 

So, after twelve years, it is still there.  I decided to take a picture of if before it comes off.  You can see the upper right corner beginning to peel.  This was also a great opportunity to take my weekly scar picture.

Through the years, I have left many marks at the school.  I even did two Fine Art installation pieces.  One was called "Sandwich".  I hung a sandwich outside the window.  There it stayed until it rotted...or was eaten by birds.  I have a picture of it somewhere, will have to find it and show you.

Another I simply called "Pear".  Inspired by "Sandwich", I hung a pear outside the window on a long string.  We were on the fifth floor, I hung it straight down till it dangled between two windows.  There were people on the third floor that would see it occasionally.  Why occasionally?  The wind would blow and it would just swing side to side, against the building.  The pear would rub against the rough outer walls of the building and it left a nice arc of pear residue.  Awesome!  After a while there was only the string, but the arc of pear residue lasted for months.

Yeah, quite proud of those.  Unfortunately, I did not have a camera back then, no mobile phone, either.  There are no pictures, that I know of, of "Pear".  Speaking of tech stuff, it seemed that every student at the show had either an iPad or laptop computer.  Where do kids these days get that kind of money?  Meanwhile, I used one x-acto blade per semester.  I would sharpen my blade on sandpaper when it got dull.  I also built my senior thesis model from bits and pieces of plastic that people threw away. 

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