Things I Learned At Art School

by Megan Dunn

From the writer who brought you Tinderbox, a book about a woman trying to write a book, comes Things I Learned at Art School, a memoir by a woman who has never kept a diary. Until now.

Part memoir, part essay collection, Megan Dunn’s ingenious, moving, hilariously personal Things I Learned at Art School tells the story of her early life and coming-of-age in New Zealand in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.

From her single mother's love life to her Smurf collection, from the mean girls at school to the mermaid movie Splash, from her work in strip clubs and massage parlours (and one steak restaurant) to the art school of the title, this is a dazzling, killer read from a contemporary voice of comic brilliance.

Chapters include (but are not limited to): The Ballad of Western Barbie; A Comprehensive List of All the Girls Who Teased Me at Western Heights High School, What They Looked Like and Why They Did It; On Being a Redhead; Life Begins at Forty: That Time My Uncle Killed Himself; Good Girls Write Memoirs, Bad Girls Don’t Have Time; Videos I Watched with My Father; Things I Learned at Art School; CV of a Fat Waitress; Nine Months in a Massage Parlour Called Belle de Jour; Various Uses for a Low Self-esteem; Art in the Waiting Room and Submerging Artist.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Biography

252 pages, Paperback

First published August 17, 2021

About the author

Megan Dunn studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, graduating in 2006. She won an Escalator award from the New Writing Partnership (now The Writers’ Centre Norwich) and her short story 'The Mermaid and the Music Box' was included in Roads Ahead, a 2009 anthology of new writers published by Tindal St Press. Her first book, Tinderbox, was published by Galley Beggar Press in November 2017.

Reviews

[Jessica Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthony you’re killing me here.

Tbh though I don’t think I can write a proper review of this book because it’s so personal. Parts of it are relatable (especially the parts about art school obviously) and the other parts I haven’t ever experienced (like death or working at a ‘massage parlour’).

It is def going down as a fave though. I just really love memoirs of witty and kinda sad women (insert “slow days, fast company” by Eve Babitz)

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved Megan's style of writing. I can only assume this didn't meet one of the criteria for the Ockham NZ awards cos in my opinion it should definitely have been a finalist.
It was fun, moving, and had some interesting points about art, artists and growing up.

Also she mentions the cover was designed by her friend and artist Yvonne Todd. Well kudos to Yvonne cos that was the reason I picked up the book in the first place. Love it.

[LILY JOYCE · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wonder if anyone who’s not/ or hasn’t been an art student would read this and care. I wonder if that matters. This book brings up complicated feelings I have around my own ongoing relationship with art school. (What’s the point?/ What isn’t the point? I’ve learnt so much here yet nothing at all). That deepened inquiry in itself makes me feel like personally, this was worth the read.


Pretty funny,

then serious, but only at the end. Comedy without some earnesty can sometimes fall flat for me - the last few chapters redeems that feeling. Could’ve been half the size and better.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading this book a few months ago and started to formulate a review.
Everything I said didn't seem to do justice to the scope and the enjoyment of the book.

There is lots of humour, but also heartbreak and sadness. There are moments of comic genius and others of great insight into relationships and parents.
There are lots of observations about time pent working behind the bar of a New Zealand brothel, which made fascinating reading about the people who work in such places.

So much to process and so many fine observations that I could quote that I will have to keep looking for my perfect review.
More to come - lots more.

[Briana · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essay on her uncle made me cry when I needed to cry but couldn't.

[Dan Organ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“My book of personal essays about art and life”
- Megan Dunn

I really liked the author’s ability to talk openly about her insecurities, being bullied, growing up, sex, death and struggling to find her life’s path.

Like the author I was a 70s baby and also spent time in the Waikato and Henderson in Auckland, so all of her references resonated with me, especially: The Smurfs, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, Splash, K rd cafes, going to Uni in the early 90s and student loans.

Reading this book Is a bit like having a drunk aunty, cigarette in hand, at a family bbq, revealing family secrets and dishing out harsh truths as everyone squirms. You sit there cringing and outwardly showing alarm while internally you are quietly enjoying the show.

I gave this book 5 stars. Well worth a read.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“People in art school often look more interesting than they really are.”

I really enjoyed this book and Dunn made for highly entertaining company as she takes us through her curious, turbulent and amusing journey. This account of her peripatetic childhood begins in Huntly and moves around NZ’s north island to art school and beyond. This is one of those memoirs populated by many memorable and imposing characters and Dunn does a really nice job of bringing it all to life, with humour, warmth and colour.

“Night came on like a bruise. The orchard turned rose, still yellow at the edges, then blue; blackness swallowed the street. The streetlights cast warm funnels over the pavement. The skeletons of the trees were built to survive the winter then recloak in spring.”

[Cormac · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first read of the year, courtesy of a Christmas gift from my brother.

I’ll be thinking about this book for a decent while and probably revisit it again at some point. Very touching at points and equally entertaining at others. A true pleasure ☺️

[Tama]

3.10.2021 This is already proving to be ‘Tinderbox’ on a bigger scale. ‘Tinderbox: Unlimited.’

But dude, it’s easy reading and really nice to read too. Jumping around three different focus points per paragraphs but seamlessly connecting it one lovely sentence at a time.

Very comfortable reading, as a stranger I am actually endeared to Megan Dunn, probably because of having already read ‘Tinderbox.’ But Megan is as funny (and more personal than) Sedaris here. I’m into it. Very nice inner mind display. I do think the ideal way to read would be several essays at a time every other week, but I’m currently doing that with Edgar Allen Poe. This is my focussed daily read.

Art school Alice Megan Dunn is really cute. This book is a good friend in your shelf. So much content!

The first time I’ve been able to picture real locations are just before this Belle De Jour section. The kebab shop with hookahs in front. K road, which I didn’t realise I was on over three years ago until Megan describes the naked woman sign above the building, I had been very impressed that this obscene image was allowed up. Neither of my home towns have anything so publicly graphic. Then there was that shopping centre described, which I had even been upstairs in, even when no-one usually takes such a trip, and then the park below it I remember. I liked that feeling of recognition. Later the Rotorua ice cream parlour is mentioned, yum. My godfather taught me about the mechanical Santa that they disabled the mechanical part of because of controversy. Fortunately they still put it up immobile while I was there, though unfortunately it was immobile.

I think this is a thing with Sedaris too, the repetition humour. The call back joke. I don’t often get along with these uses of trigger words being reused not long after first being introduced. It’s cheap and the effect has often worn off the word or phrase completely by the time of its final deathly use. I prefer always looking forward. Respecting something that should be funny as funny in its own right. For me, it is almost as horrible as when you reference something funny of the past, everyone laughs, three minutes later someone else says it again.

Interesting take on sex work Megan!

It deserves it’s Penguin brand that’s for sure.

29.11.2022 Was at 2/5 but I upped it to 3/5 because I’m grateful for the insight and imagery of Megan’s art school life particularly. There’s a BFI Greenaway season happening right now, and I’m writing a script about an art student and the memory of this book is pleasant when those things meet. 1 year later, it’s stuck! :)

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny, entertaining book from the Queen of the Quip. I loved the stuff about Megan and her mother - esp her life growing up in Huntly and Rotorua. I'm roughly the same age as Megan, so many of her touchstones were also mine - Smurfs, Barbie Doll -she had Western Barbie, I had Birthday Babie; Strawberry Shortcake dolls. SHe's lived an interesting life. A great read for lockdown.

[Nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and entertaining collection of personal essays/memoir. An irreverent look at the life of someone in NZ's art community during the 1990s, with a really interesting collection of storytelling methods. Some essays worked better than others, but the format made for an enjoyable read. I had to move through it quite quickly as it was due back to the library, but found it pretty easy to keep going due to the variety between each essay (I guess that's what they call a page-turner!).
It does take a pretty big stylistic shift at the end, but I found that a nice (albeit bittersweet) way to finish the book.
Looking forward to reading more by Megan Dunn.

[Francesca Pashby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm finished. I liked this. It was me if I'd gone to art school, and had the figure for short shorts.

(It took me ages to read because I was on holiday, and people kept making me go for walks and play board games).

[Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many lovely little stories but a few were too abstract for my tiny, non-creative brain

[Spencer Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendous. Almost read the whole thing in one sitting then didn't want it to end so saved the last hundred pages for later... And read them all the next day

[Holly West · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favourite books. My sister went to art school at about the same time as Megan, so I could remember going to some of the same parties and galleries. I went to art school later, and so much of how she describes art school is just so accurate. This book is a treasure. One of my all time favourite books. I gave it to my sis-in-law to read next.

[Bryce Galloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such easy reading short sentences. Is this because I’m reading the early chapters set in childhood? Wondering whether the sentences will become more complex when we move into the adult years… Did they? Or did I just get used to the rhythm of short sentences? Probably the latter; suits Dunn’s vernacular cynicism to write in sentences as short as toilet wall graffiti.

Paints an image of childhood that feels so familiar, which is surprising, as the gender, location, class, time… all different from my own, amongst those differences, this reader’s nearly a decade older than Megan Dunn. The obsession with various franchised toys feels real, though, being that much older, for me it was an Aqua Man doll I set in tableau (that’s a bit ‘gay’). The faded Picasso and Cezanne prints ring true.

Dunn’s is not a sentimental voice, it feels quite world-weary and tough, mean even. Girl's gotta fight?

A book I wanted to return to, though I got a bit weary in the middle.

Dunn is obsessed with pop culture; it bleeds out of her childhood and into her art school and post art school gallery space Fiat Lux.

I do LOVE the description of the Artspace curator and director as terrible oarsmen in a lake that smells like duck butt, touring the hungover emerging artists and trying to get a read on them (p226).

[Linette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read this because Megan Dunn talked to my MVA class via Zoom during yet another lockdown. I failed the Masters but this book was worth the reading. In fact a lot of the points she makes about art school are why I failed my masters. I remember one of the other students rumbling under her breath that this book wasn’t as good as Dunn’s previous book. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t read her previous book. What I would know is that maybe this book took more of a skewer to that reader’s pretentions about art school… I know for a fact that that reader was very pretentious. Though I should probably be careful there. My response to her pretentiousness is probably my reaction to believing that she disliked me greatly.

I do not know if anybody who hasn’t been to art school would enjoy this book that much even with its accurate view of growing up in New Zealand during the 70’s and 80’s. I wouldn’t know about growing up in the 90’s I was already a grown up at that stage. Either way it was a four star for me.

[Nicole Van Heyst · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much, I stayed up late at night to read one more chapter. Part memoire part smart cultural observations. All told in short fragments across four decades.
I found it always relatable - even when the situation is so far from my personal experience.

[Nina Parkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this so much, read it in one day! Great humorous writing. I also found myself googling a lot of her references as I think they were before my time but this made the read even more immersive!

[Derek Macleod · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something warm and intimate and honest with Megan Dunn’s writing from the very start, which is never lost. “In 1994 I started at Art School. I had big brown eyes like Gizmo, the adorable Mogwai and I wanted to be loved…..At Elam I turned into a Gremlin. I made friends with other Gremlins….the things art school held sacred, we wanted to mock”.

The anecdotes, the baring of Dunns soul, the exposure of her frailties and vulnerabilities embellished as black humour and smart rhetoric all make for an engaging and seductive read. While the narrative is rich in metaphor and imagery it never looses an element of humility and personal scrutiny.Dunn carries us along on her dazzling journey. “ Sometimes life’s pleasures shrink to the size of a muffin.”
The ‘submerging artist’ in full flight has barely left the ground!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were many essays in here that I really enjoyed. Some made me nostalgic for all the 80's toys I never actually had (because I was slightly too old for cabbage patch dolls and strawberry shortcake dolls which my friends' younger sisters had). Some reminded me of the time I worked as a kitchen hand at a restaurant that had an (unconnected ) massage parlour above it (when, just as in Megan's essays prostitution was still illegal in NZ), and the second workers would come down to the kitchen and order food in their break. Some had had searching up the artists she referenced. But the best essay of all was the poignant last one, about her mother's death. Megan's mother features heavily throughout the essays but the last essay is a beautifully moving tribute to her mother and their relationship.

[Rory C · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's something to be said here about the subtlety of the Goodreads star rating system. I would ideally like to give this 4 1/2 stars, but giving this four stars seems mean and doesn't reflect how much I enjoyed reading this. Oh well.

I did love this though. Oddly, the part that left me a little disinterested was the actual art school/art scene phase of her life. Otherwise I found this thoroughly entertaining, thought provoking, often moving series and moorishly readable series of essays. Bonus points for getting me to google works of art to better appreciate some of the work she's writing about. Thanks, Megan.

[Tinanz · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much in this was very relatable: the era, the city, the teen angst. Not so much the “start your own avant-garde art space” though. I don’t understand why so many publishers oversell books on their supposed hilarity, when they can stand perfectly well on their actual merits. This is nothing like David Sedaris and whoever else was name checked in the ads, but it is a charming, interesting and well-written memoir from someone who has taken their own individual path.

[Hannah Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fantastic. Especially if you're of a certain age I think. Laugh out loud in parts, and also brought me to tears at the end. Total highlight was how she basically epitomised 90s cool for me. Honestly the art scene was was *it*. Tho on reflection it was actually appalling? I'm also listening to a podcast about 90s music at the moment and so am very nostalgia all around. Anyway, 5 stars.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great essays in here...it was a bit of a blast reading Megan's reminiscences of some of the major touchstones of my childhood and teenage years. The Smurfs, Jean Auel's sex education via the Clan of the Cave Bear series, Elizabeth and Jessica from Sweet Valley High...although from a very different perspective, I could relate!

[Jonathan Corfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this book.
Darkly comic but heaving with insight.
Usually I offer a few nuggets of thought and a throwaway line or two when I review a book but in this case it is superfluous. All the thinking is mapped out in the book. It is more about thinking than anything else and for someone who likes to wonder why about just about everything it struck a real chord.
Yeah, watch this author...

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Megan is my Mum's best friend's daughter. It was both strangely familiar and poignant to read about Megan's time in Rotorua (my home town) but especially upsetting for me to read her honest account of Lee's cancer and passing. Megan's writing shows both dark humour and brutal honesty and is both courageous and heart felt. Wonderful writing Megan xxx PS I am also an art school 'drop out' 🤣

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Funny, sad, wise - and so utterly engaging. I recognised myself on some of the pages (the pop culture stuff) which doesn't always happen when you're reading book of essays by other people. I'll also read anything Dunn puts down on paper, such is her way with the word.

[Mindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of the reason I liked this so much is because the author and I are close in age and so I related to everything from her obsession with the movie Splash to Strawberry Shortcake, Smurfs, Alf and Sweet Valley High books. She has a wry humour and is brutally honest.

[Caroline Barron]

Fav quote:
The heart doesn't just beat; it also hauls you back and forth on your feet. Its tread is exhausting. Exhausting.