Here is a recent one off commission I made. A
lovely man got in touch after seeing my ‘Just the two of us’ greetings cards I
made around Valentines Day last year, based on my Staffordshire Pottery
paintings. He wanted a little one off for his fiancée, so I obliged:
-->
Whoa. I can’t believe I have neglected this for
so long! Working at two institutions really took it’s toll and I needed a big
break this summer. I was super lucky to go to Japan! Which was amazing.! I also
bought a house (eeek!) so you can imagine those two activities have taken over
my time over the last few months, as well as having a well deserved rest. It’s
the start of a new term now though, I’m three weeks back in, which leaves you
feeling whether the summer break actually did happen or not? Last week I kick
started the new term at the annual Graphic Design Educators Network at the
fabulous Institute for Arts in Sheffield. I spoke about No Outcome – a paper
I’ve delivered at three separate conferences now. No Outcome is a fortnightly
workshop I run at Nottingham Trent University, where students have the
opportunity to make and play free from the pressure of assessment. I believe
that assessment can kill innovation and students, who saddled with a huge fee
and looming debt, are acting like consumers. I passionately do not want them to
see education as a product to be purchased, with a degree classification – or
any grade, at any stage, becoming a currency that they exchange for a job. I
want them to learn and play and make and take risks and grow and intrinsically
make and play for the sake of making and playing not for any external gain – or
worry. The paper was well received and I
met some amazing other lecturers and academics who I hope to collaborate with
this up and coming year. I love this back-to-school, new start vibe around this
time of year. Perhaps that’s the outlook I can have with this blog… new start,
back on it.
As mentioned a few posts ago, I have been working at LCA on
the MAGPi pathway of FAD. Whoa, acronym central there or what?! LCA = Leeds College of Art. MAGPi = Moving Image,
Advertising, Graphic Design, Photography, Illustration. It’s been so much fun,
I’ve loved being back at Leeds. Last week I blogged about our amazing FAD show, check it out. I also work at NTU
(Nottingham Trent University) and trying to fit in my own work alongside being
split in half at two institutions, teaching across level 3 up to level 5
(occasionally level 7!) has been (great fun, don’t get me wrong) but has left
me time poor to carry on creating my own work, which I feel that I need to do
to feed into my teaching practice, and for a general happy creative life. If I
don’t draw or make something frequently, I just feel so …
sad, so....pent up. It’s like my own Maslow hierarchy of needs - on the bottom
rung; food, create, run, go to a gym class. Anyway – digressing…. today was my last day! I have
also decided to halt working at the college during the summer holidays – I have been
teaching classes with the Young Creatives – a portfolio development class and
general art classes for students aged 7 up to 18, which has been so much fun
and really inspiring.
The time has come, however, to move on, to concentrate on
making more work, to stop giving so much of myself away and be a little bit selfish
and make more for me. So as I depart, I wanted to leave a little memento. I’ve
been enjoying working with wood recently - one of the many things I want to spend my time exploring more of - playing around making some wall hanging experiments and I thought that two (for joy)
MAGPi(es) would be quite fitting. Adios LCA!
I've been thinking that maybeeee I need to stop drawing cats. But
then they are great to draw and paint and I do love them. Just afraid of
becoming a bit of a one trick pony. I just get commissioned for a lot of cats!!
Here’s some printed on to fabric and made into make up pouches / large bags, purses and pillows. They are inside my etsy shop now.
I love Staffordshire Pottery. I know I’ve
said this before. It all started when doing Lila Rogers ‘Make Art That Sells’
course, one of the mini briefs was to draw Staffordshire Pottery figures. I
just love how weird they are. It’s become a bit of an ongoing theme over the
last year. I’ve just been constantly doodling and painting them. I decided to
put together an illustrated zine of the characters that I’ve created. I’m
currently doing some applique experiments too – just having a play,. I’ll share
them when they are done! The zine is available from my etsy shop right now.
