Our Frank

I'll admit I found the second year of my degree quite challenging, I had an extremely slow start and when I did begin to get going it was hard to muster creativity. To put it bluntly, I was a magician who had run out of tricks. Making work was a hard thing to do and concentrating and knuckling down was even harder.

However, once the Workshop Module started and we began to bring in ephemera I found that I could easily adapt on something already existing. Ephemera is something I love and have a considerable amount of, I'm not a hoarder but a lover of things, of objects. I'd bought some old books which were possibly worth a bit of money, but as I didn't care for selling them and felt that cutting them up might be of some benefit, I did exactly that.

The work I made with this ephemera was something very different and I really liked what I'd made, I was proud of it and I could see it going somewhere. I love words and I'm very fond of them so it seemed natural to combine both word and image to make work. The stuff I wrote as part of this investigative journey complimented the images I'd selected, I'd managed to impress myself. Not only was it using typography, collage and ephemera but it was incorporating my views on relationships and love - I'd not made work about these two subjects for some time.

So my Workshop Module and Studio Practice were working alongside one another and this was the whole point, to allow the two modules to intertwine. It was around this time that things got on top of me and everything just went by so fast, I didn't have time to catch up, all I could do was to stand there looking gormless, doing nothing.

At some point during the Exhibition Module I sorted myself out, I realised what needed to be done, what was important and how I could careen this sinking ship in a more stable direction. The stained glass windows proved to be somewhat of a saving grace. For all of the late nights and marker pens I plowed into them they were the one thing that managed to get me back on track.

When it came to report writing I found that I didn't struggle with this quite as much as others might have. I can write, and dealing with the facts and putting them in some form of logical order was something I didn't find hard to do. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the report writing and there's no doubt that it will come in handy in the future, for whatever career awaits me.

As I've wrote about the ephemera, it really did help me to vision things differently and allow me to be able to create work in a new way.

Another 'highlight' of my second year were my Jesus screenprints, these too were made with literally seconds to spare; I was fighting off deadlines with my limited kung fu knowledge. The outcome is one that I am incedibly happy with. By taking some engravings from my ever-growing collection of Bibles I was able to create some beautiful and very profound screenprints. The typography of which was influenced by the colours, decided through trial and error, and subject matter.

In conclusion, my second year is one of mixed emotions. In the end everything worked out and all of the worry really wasn't worth it. Overall I've learnt that finishing this degree and doing something I'm extremely fond of is what matters. Onwards and upwards, so they say

Mrs Vandebilt

Is this me making excuses? I'm not sure. This past year has been godawful and as a result a lack of creative output has followed. Things have got to me and made me feel like I'm not capable of anything and the idea of throwing it all away has been very, very tempting. I think at the beginning of the second year of my degree I was at a loss of what to do and I was stuck for a while.
However this dry spell wore off and I created something that I was moderately pleased with. Then things went awry for a number of reasons, neither of which were my fault but these things have a way of making it seem so.
Psychologically my head is a mess, I think. I've toyed with the idea of changing my place of study, switching my course, jacking it all in and getting a job. I'm fairly certain that neither of the options would make me happy and would make true the statement that I'm "incapable of anything," as I was told by someone. The statement probably worsened the state I was in, but then I considered the person who said it and looked at their position in life; I'd happily say they haven't made much of it and that they're a horrible and callous person. Nobody should be told that they're "incapable of anything". It's a disgusting thing to say and it really affects people, but I seem to be getting back on track now.
I'm looking forward to summer, finishing my second year and moving onto the third. I can safely say that the time out will be much needed and very benefitial for me. As long as I get a pass for this year I'll be happy and I know it hasn't been easy and I'm not fully to blame for the disasters that have occurred.
I'm going to stick out this degree until the end and finish what I've been working for, hopefully I'll get to where I want to be.