Design and Media

   I wandered through a rarely visited part of town today, on the way to looking for an old friend I've not seen in the best part of forty years.  But she owned her own house, so there was a fair chance she'd still be there, or perhaps her children would have inherited/moved in.

   Nobody was home, and with my jacket left at home because of the heat, I was - most unusually - without anything to let me leave a note with a phone number or email address.  That jacket is a mobile filing system ;-)

   But never mind, I'll try again later.

   The funny thing was walking past the now grandly titled College of Art, Design, and Media Studies.  I remember when it was just a run down annexe to the community college.  Now it's a whole cluster of modern buildings.

   The students were just going back in after the lunch break  Some things never change...

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Art Students

They still look the same,
despite the generations passing.

Skinny girls in long slinky dresses,
worn with chunky hand-painted boots,
or short shorts, cropped tops,
decorated with fabric paint,
or silky embroidery,
and those fragile 'kitten' slippers.

No bare feet though.
Modern pavements have killed that.

Long flowing red locks,
a battered Van Gogh hat,
She's old enough to be a lecturer.
Has the body language of instruction,
talking to a rapt younger girl.
Emaciated arms like an opium smoker,
but the searching alert eyes of an artist.

She pauses her conversation briefly,
long enough to scan passing 'Cammo Man',
and perhaps file something for later.
Just as I did with her.
Two silent snapshots.

Then, around the corner,
a different face of the same coin.

A strapping great wench,
taller than me,
striding with serious intent.
Deliberately holed black fishnet tights,
acres of flesh below a short skirt.
All in ragged matte black.
Her hair a skull-contouring buzz-cut,
with a narrow 'Stealth Mohican'
barely an eighth long.

A 'Steam Punk' Aura ;-)
She looks as if her chosen tools
would be an angle grinder,
a pile of rusted scrap,
and a welding torch.

Then, fifty yards further on,
the everyday world,
of take-aways, banks,
corner shops, and normality
closes in again.

Gyppo