Filed under: inspiration, reflection | Tags: assignment, business, case studies, mentor, product, struggle
Completed – Professional Practice, Planning & Presentation Assignment 1: Statement of Intent / Draft Plan.
I struggled. Found this really difficult. Why? Well, this isn’t the first time I have tried to write such a document, the same questions were asked when I was trying to build my business ideas in Bristol. Since then I can recognise that I have really worked on getting my product sorted, narrowing down the materials, the process, the objects themselves and the ethos behind it all. I am happy with these – the designs keep coming – hooray.
I find the ‘business’ hard. This I already knew. I find it VERY hard when a part of my qualification depends on it – I get incredibly stressed and feel paralysed by the fear of getting it wrong. We are given many examples, case studies, options about what we can go on to do… but few of them have felt like the right thing for me so in some ways I have to work twice as hard to get to the point where is starts to make sense on the page. It feels like it’s not as easy as saying ‘previous artists have done workshops, I have done workshops, I’ll do more workshops’. I have done nothing in the past that equates to what is needed to make my busines a success and I have no examples of what others have done. The only example is my mentor and I am aware that time with Debbie is limited and precious – I can’t rely on her for all the answers, she is only one person! I need to find more examples out there…
- Find an ‘eye’ supplier
- Eco printing supplier (recycled paper, vegetable dyes). For business cards, packaging, boxes.
- Write to suppliers for sponsorship / freebies / discount
Filed under: reflection, session | Tags: , emotions, experiences, feelings, group, intrigue, presentation, support, themes, work
Today was….exhausting…..entertaining, nerve-wracking, fascinating, very tiring and a complete relief.
I wondered this morning how varied we were as a group. We are so different in our work that it is hard to make any links. Despite there being 2 jewellers, 2 textiles, many painters no two are alike in any obvious way. There are themes that join us and experiences that are similar but the work is very varied. It fills me with intrigue as to what our show will look like.
I am finding the group experience a lot more supportive than I had anticipated. Having worked by myself for so long it comes as a surprise and yet it shouldn’t be – we’re all in the same boat. I suppose I also have my last experience of structured education, my degree course to compare it to – that was a very competitive and less sharing environment, I don’t think I thrive very well in those sorts of scenarios.
The atmosphere when travelling home was as though we had suddenly leapt from meeting one another only a handful of times to feeling as though we’d been together as a group for a year. The day distilled our purpose and opened us up to one another on many levels. It feels as though something has been revived in me.
Filed under: knitting, reflection, supplies | Tags: , evaluation, experiments, market, methods, presentation, pure wool, quality, shop, techniques, yarn
Went to the yarn shop in the markethall this morning to buy some cheap pure wool (UK produced, at least) to do some tests. Mainly for felting but also to play with forms and construction.
I am thinking about the work I have made so far (with a view to selecting images for next week’s presentation) and I came to the conclusion that I have used many techniques and explored many methods but they tend to stop when I feel I have conquered them within one object. Whilst this drives me to move onto the next method, it often means that the last one remains in a sort of limbo: explored, creation complete, but without the quality and ’wow’ factor that comes with an object where you know truly what you are doing and how it will turn out. What I am trying to say, so far they have all been experiments.
Now I have a chance to look back over what I have done, evaluate what I like, what worked well, how it could be used again and pull this all together to make some pieces that I feel are of a standard I am going to be happy to exhibit. If I put one up here per week from now until the New Year, it will keep me focussed on all that I have experimented with until now and highlight things that I might like to work on.
