ART COLLEGE:
I thought I was such a star – & then I got to art school.
It was clear from day one that everybody knew more about
art than I did, what the hell had I been taught at school?!
Somehow I made up for all the education I never got until
the age of sixteen & crammed my way into midfield by the
time it came to apply for University. In the process of
getting a more rounded art education I’d also got myself
a proper girlfriend who’d decided to leave & study at
Cardiff Art College. I was besotted so followed.
The foundation college had advised me to apply to a graphics
course, but when we did the rounds of the best uni’s in the UK,
crammed into a VW Beetle, it had become starkly evident that all
the fun was to be had in the fine art department, so that’s where
I set my sights.
The girlfriend was stuck on Cardiff as her first choice
so I put that & neighbouring Newport as my second so as to
be close in the likelihood I’d get rejected by Cardiff.
Shock of shocks we both got in, God knows what they saw in me,
I must have made by the skin of the teeth & couldn’t believe my
continuing luck. I’d imagined I’d be a painter, they played music
all day, wore paint stained overalls & produced huge canvases
that smelled great. I was surprised when the college sent me
to an obscure annex called ‘the Space Workshop’ where I was
to become a part of a unique department called ‘The 3rd Area’.
To this day I still can’t believe my luck as I was given access
to four track tape machines, quadraphonic sound systems, theatre
lighting, video cameras, film cameras, microphones, performance
art, installation art & a suit-cased EMS Synthi to take home
whenever I wanted – suddenly I was back in my wardrobe at home
playing Legetti on a mono record deck with Dad’s red light flashing
& yet, here at Cardiff Art College, it was all day, every day & for
the next three years. I’d been welcomed into paradise!
(K)
Karl Hyde 
I like the traffic cones in Japan with Dr. Martens on it. ;D