My Grandmother the Gangsta Rapper.

So this is a bit different to the art stuff I normally post, because it's not a comic, it's something I did when I was on my Art Foundation year, prior to starting my Fine Art BA in 2004. The last time I went back to visit my parents, I found an old sketchbook from that course, which much to my delight contained photographs of my Grandmother posing like a Gangsta rapper. We had to do a project with the catch all title of 'image and identity'. According to my sketchbook, I decided to focus on Gangsta Rap, as it seemed so constructed and full of 'stylistic rules and codes', and also because I hated how 'macho' it was and wanted to have a pop at it. Ahh to be indignant and 18 again.

The sketchbook I found them in makes for slightly painful reading, as the writing and 'research' in it is about as subtle as a brick, and focused in the way that you could only be at that age and before three more years of art school have made you cynical and completely changed everything you thought about art at that time. Lots of it is also cribbed from stuff I read in A Level Sociology books. My love of Richard Billingham's photographs also probably shines through too much, but whatever, I still love these pictures.

I remember my Gran making sure we took the photographs in her 'better' sitting room. Showing her pictures of rappers and getting her to copy them. We frequently had to retake pictures because we kept creasing up with laughter! This was before digital cameras were so commonplace, and I spent quite a lot of my shit pub job wage on film. These photos were taken in 2003, and my Gran is 92 now, a bit less mobile but still just as awesome. Love you Gran.