Art teacher, David, and Arachnophobia

-Art Teacher-

A 5-year old me just lost my way to calligraphy class, I walked by a studio，somewhere mystical and creepy，and I do remember I saw a skull on the desk and a thumb in a jar, meanwhile, there were a group of kids sitting around a man with long hair, he seemed gentle, charming but also wacky.

“Come and join us.” he said，then he gave me paper and a pencil and asked me to draw a doll, then I drew something like this：

“Lovely” he came to me and said, his aftershave smelled like pine tree and chalk. that was intoxicating.

“I'll stay here and quit my writing class.”

That was my lesson 1 - fine arts.

-David-

As a kid，the most boring art class is plaster statue drawing.

Instead of 'Alexander'，'Homer' and 'Voltaire'，we named them 'moony'，'noodle hair' and 'grandma who has no teeth'.

The statue I hate the most is David.

I've been drawing every part of his body for years. because he is “perfection”

But nobody ever defines his penis as “standard model”.

“Maybe he was too nervous，he is about to fight then,” I thought.

What I heard later is in ancient Greek culture which was revived during the Renaissance, small penises represent rational, intellectual and authoritative which allowed men to remain coolly logical.

My mom once thought I love David so much，so she bought me a meter tall David statue as a birthday gift，

He's still in my bedroom，that is one reason I don't want to get into my room anymore.

Oh, David，a hero，the king of Israel，my sexual enlightenmemt，my nightmare.

-Arachnophobia-

Another nightmare in my design life is the Juicy Salif, the first lesson of many industrial designers.

Then one day when the first time I saw the giant spider statue, I thought it’s a peripheral product of that lemon squeezer,

It’s not very friendly to the person who afraid of spiders, it’s like Ron meet Aragog in forbidden forest.

I was standing under the belly of the spider and imagining the juice drop down from his butt onto my face.

“Why they keep bothering spiders. it's not a great idea to relate spider to lemon."

Then I knew they are two different things, one from an artist and one from a designer,

What’s the difference between art and design?

Maybe artists wouldn’t receive the feedback from picky customers like:” Hey, the “spider” I bought doesn’t squeeze juice very well!”

Art is what it is, could be good or bad, Their existence is the meaning.