7 Reasons

Tag: Art

  • Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Reasons We Were Wrong

    Russian Roulette Sunday: 7 Reasons We Were Wrong

    The good thing about 7 Reasons – or should that be one of the good things? – is that it never gets bogged down in fact. Ninety-nine percent of the time, ninety-nine percent of all our reasons are nothing more than opinion. Which is great, because it means you get the chance to disagree with us. Or at least it would if our opinions weren’t so well thought out and presented. However, just occassionally we do get proved wrong. And when I say we, I mean me. I’m Jon. Here are 7 Reasons I got wrong. And 7 Reasons they were wrong. Which common sense would suggest means you have 14 Reasons to read. You don’t. You have seven. Twice.

    1. 7 Reasons To Become An Artist
    Reason Put Forward: It’s A Con. You can do anything and call it art. Take Tracey Emin for instance. No, actually don’t bother. No one is quite sure where she has been. Instead take a look above. That’s Emin’s artwork. My Bed it’s called. The Saatchi Gallery describe it thus, ‘Tracey Emin shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she’s as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world’. This is how Jonathan Lee describes it, ‘Bollocks‘.
    Reason I Was Wrong: People are making a mint out of forging Tracey Emin’s work.

    2. 7 Reasons To Write A Song About Rain
    Reason Put Forward: Grace Kelly – Singing In The Rain. Standing in the rain and having a sing-song is quite frankly a stupid thing to do. You’ll get wet and cold and the sound of the rain hitting the ground will drown out your harmonies. But if you are a songwriter then you have free license to try and brainwash people.
    Reason I Was Wrong: The reason is perfectly acceptable. Suggesting Grace Kelly sang it, is not. It’s Gene Kelly. Always was. Always will be.

    3. 7 Reasons The Tiger Woods Story Is Annoying Me
    Reason Put Forward: It’s Not Happening. If the allegations are true, a few people will be outraged. But that’s it. No one is going to make an example out of him. Tiger is too big a star to be dropped by those who sponsor him. Not even Nike. Nike need Tiger more than he needs them. This is the world we live in. I don’t care whether you like it or not. It’s a fact. Nothing is going to change so get over it. Stop wasting your time by drawing up pointless petitions asking Nike to drop him. It. Will. Not. Happen.
    Reason I Was Wrong: Pretty much everyone was outraged. Pretty much everyone dropped him. As getting things wrong go, this is one of my finer efforts.

    4. 7 Reasons To Fly With British Airways This Christmas
    Reason Put Forward: Sir Richard Branson. He never flies with BA.
    Reason I Was Wrong: He has. A few times. According to Chris Evans’ autobiography, Sir Richard Branson was so keen to get Evans to sign for Virgin Radio that he joined Evans on a flight to New York – on Concorde – just to try and get his signature. And in 2008 Branson flew to China as part of a British Government delegation on BA744.

    5. 7 Reasons Buying A Christmas Card Is Infuriating
    Reason Put Forward: Brothers. Why is it you can no longer buy a ‘Merry Christmas Brother’ card? It’s always ‘Bro’ or ‘Bruv’ or ‘Brother and Wife’ or ‘Brother and Girlfriend’ and new for this year ‘Brother and Boyfriend’. My brother is not gay. He has not got a wife. I am not sending him a text in which I may shorten to Bro. And he is not in some downtown hood where everyone goes around punching fists and calling each other ‘Bruv’. He is just my brother. I want a card that says that. Is that too much to ask?
    Reason I Was Wrong: I found one. It said, ‘Merry Christmas Brother’. All I had to do was look a bit harder.

    6. 7 Reasons To Love A Cardigan
    Reason Put Forward: The Dog. No one is going to tell me that the Cardigan Welsh Corgi was not made for riding.
    Reason I Was Wrong: In the words of the guy in Clevedon at Christmas, “Get off my f***ing dog! It’s not a horse!”

    7. 7 Reasons 2010 Will Be Great
    Reason Put Forward: The Winter Olympics. We’re only a few months away from Vancouver 2010 and what an Olympics it is going to be. Great Britain have their most successful games ever after clinching Gold medals in both the male and female snowball fighting events. Unfortunately they lose out to Canada in the final of the gritting competition, but the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown still hails the achievement as “remarkable” and “a terrific reflection of what global warming can do for our country”.
    Reason I Was Wrong: Not only are gritting and snowball fighting not included in this years Olympics, but the British Ski and Snowsport Federation is going into administration.

  • 7 Reasons To Become An Artist

    7 Reasons To Become An Artist

    tracey-emin-my-bed

    1.  Name. You can change it. To anything you like. Banksy. Hotelsy. Police Stationsy. No one cares. They just think you are cool and will queue up for hours to see your latest graffiti on the toilet wall.

    2.  It’s A Con. You can do anything and call it art. Take Tracey Emin for instance. No, actually don’t bother. No one is quite sure where she has been. Instead take a look above. That’s Emin’s artwork. My Bed it’s called. The Saatchi Gallery describe it thus, ‘Tracey Emin shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she’s as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world‘. This is how Jonathan Lee describes it, ‘Bollocks‘.

    3.  Entrepreneurship. We’re in a recession here in the UK. You aren’t going to find a job. So become an artist. All you have to do is pop down to the scrap heap and pick up a bit of metal. Whack it with a hammer a few times and suddenly you have something you can call ‘The Distressed Pigeon’. Then go on Dragon’s Den and wink at James Cann a few times. You’ll be a millionaire before you can say, ‘Gordon Brown won the election! What the…’

    4.  Nudes. Apparently you get to paint nudes if you are an artist. The only reason I know this is because I occasionally walk back from Hammersmith past an art school. Look through the window and all you can see are naked people covered in paint. Someone out there is making a killing on the sale of White Spirit.

    5.  Van Cough. Not to be mistaken with Van Gogh. Well, actually, yes he is. Rory Bremner makes a fortune spoofing Blair and Brown and the like, so why not become the first art spoofer? A spoofer is very different to a forger. You can get arrested for forging art. For spoofing it you could probably earn £1.56 a week by showcasing your work on a website. You just have to make the Sunflowers look ironic or something. You’ll be a cult leader in no time.

    6.  Vive la France. You may be French or you may just own a beret. Whichever it is, it is illegal to own a beret and not be an artist. If you are caught wearing a beret while not working in the arts, you will be sacked and forced to sell onions from tights.

    7.  Drugs. Now I am not advocating taking anything illegal here, I am really addressing those already addicted. There is no doubt that being high improves your creative output. Just look at The Beatles or Brian Wilson or Silvio Berlusconi. Though thinking about it, I guess the only reason Berlusconi got high was viagra. So ignore that example. Viagra doesn’t count. I’m taking about proper Class A drugs. If you are on something, as by the law of averages at least one of our readers surely must be, then maybe think about paying for your habit by drawing what you see in the twilight zone? It’s not like anyone is going to try and find out if you are portraying the truth or not, is it?