Life Update - The Squeakquel

So it's been almost a year since my last proper blog post - sorry. So where have I been? What's been happening? Well I am currently writing this blog post on a flight to Prague, ready to volunteer as a Prague Fringe Voluntary Assistant (which I will keep you updated on throughout my stay) and so I will start with the last time I was in Prague about a year ago.

I was on holiday with my friends getting a bit of culture and sun when I get an email from one of the members of the Arts and Humanities department of Stirling uni say something along the lines of "oh if you want to find out your grade for your honors degree please reply to this email and we will send them 9am tomorrow morning". My stomach drops. Now here was me thinking "well we're not getting out results until the middle of the month, may as well enjoy myself a bit, relax, drink cheap drink and not think about uni or anything". Wrong! I send the email as quick as I can saying that I would quite like my results yes, in some vain attempt to make them send the reply quicker - this does not happen. So the rest of the day I try to relax and enjoy my Prague experience but the niggling feeling that in less than 24 hours I would know what my degree grade would be still lingered with me. Four years of hard work with a pretty tough time in the middle had all come to this moment. I wake up early the next morning because I never sleep on holiday and check the time. 7am. Two hours to go. Wait the Czech Republic is an hour in front. Three hours to go. Crap. I try to sleep and fail and end up finishing one of the audio books I downloaded. After a  long wait to until 10am when the emails will begin to send. I refresh my emails roughly every second and then finally, I see it. My stomach does a back flip and my hands shake as I tap the email. God I feel really sick. I see the number.

1:1

A first. A FUCKING FIRST. I could cry. Jesus Christ I did it. There was a point that I couldn't even see myself passing and here I was sitting with the best grade. I couldn't wait for the future, I really found my art style and where I wanted to be in the last two years and now I could really go onto a Masters. I tell everyone and we get prosecco later in the day to celebrate. It was probably one of the best days of my life, getting to celebrate a great result with great friends.

After my result I decided to take a break from education, get some experience with different things and hopefully save up a bit. It's been a pretty great year and has gave me a good amount of time time to relax and really clear my head to be ready to move on.

During the summer I take on three volunteering jobs. One was a workshop aimed at working with children with disabilities from ethnic minority groups. This was pretty chill, it was really fun to go along with some of the kids imaginations and stories they would create whilst creating their own art pieces. Unfortunately this had to be cancelled due to a problem with securing a space for the workshop. Though it was short I really enjoyed my time workig with the kids and helping them to create their work.

The next one I started working at was Six Foot Gallery, which is run by volunteers. I'm still there and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time there, it's really exciting  to be in charge of making sure the whole thing runs accordingly. Curating and administration were things I didn't really have experience in and with being thrown into the deep end here I got my experience and I got it quickly. This job has given me a full range of new experiences which hopefully lead on to many more in the future.

Lastly I took on a voluntary position at Project Ability. I help out at a workshop aimed at attendees of other Project Ability workshops to give them a chance to meet some of the other members. This has also given me a range of different experiences as everyone seems to work in different areas of art and have different abilities and experiences. I've met a lot of fun and friendly people here to share my thoughts, abilities and experiences with them to help progress their artwork.

So where am I now. Over the next couple weeks I will try to note down my Prague Fringe experience everyday and keep you updated with the goings on over there. I'm really excited I loved Prague, the buildings the food and the drink are amazing and of course it's another great addition to my CV. So stay tuned!

It's really nice to look back on at where I was a year ago and how well it compliments what's happening now. I found out yesterday that Edinburgh College of art have given me an offer to do my Masters, I'm over the moon. I can't wait to see where the next two years will take me and meet a whole bunch of new people! AHHHHHH EXCITED!

Adventure is out there!

Until next time,

Róisín -x

Life Update!

So, where have I been?

Well when I stopped posting I was up to my eyeballs in dissertation work, which was as you can imagine verrrrry time and energy consuming. So everything else kind of took a back seat, but all that hard work and stress was worth it in the end because... I got a first! I'm so happy as I put in a LOT of work into it and I'm glad I got a grade I can be really proud of. 

Anyway since then I've celebrated by chilling and going on a few holidays and enjoying the summer. Besides my part time job I volunteer at a couple of places now, a small gallery and at an art group, both in Glasgow. I've revamped my website to fit more with my professional art image and branding, and I think my Blogger page is next, just so everything is consistent. I'm now working towards setting up an etsy store to sell drawings and also looking at a masters for next year. So writing up C.V.s, proposals and personal statements is what I have to look forward to the next couple months. 

Art wise I've been practising and playing about with photography as I've been taking one photo a day for the first few months and plan to print them and stick them into a sort of scrap/sketchbook thing. I've also been working on a watercolour/ drawing for a present and I think I might play about with this style to sell on Etsy.

I'm also working on building up concept, workshop and artist folios. This is to help me with research for further study and my goal of working in community art. I also plan to write up my artist folio on this blog and also include some exhibitions that I've attended reviews. 

So I'm looking forward to what the rest of this year might bring - so watch this space for what I'm working on :D

Byyee!!

Róisín -x

Survey!!

As part of my dissertation I am conducting a survey based on how we view certain objects. I would be extremely grateful if you took the time to fill it out. Thank you!!

https://risn.typeform.com/to/DsVJCx

Last steps of research

It's the last week of research - yaaaay! I'll most likely do bits and pieces of research throughout as I start to formulate ideas along the way.

This week I was looking specifically into my local area for statistics so I could plan out where I could go. I think I've decided on one area being one of the more "deprived areas"  I just need to think of what would be a more wealthy area and an area of average income etc. I've been able to get a lot of information from the Falkirk census site which I've been printing pages from for my logbook.

Here are some of the images I took from the "Case study" I looked at last week:

The reason that I'm planning on doing these is to get a general idea of what sort of things I will find in certain area - this example being woods next to estates and schools etc. 

So the plan for next week is to begin getting my ideas in order and applying all the research I've been gathering. This is also the same week that I'll finally be able to go into my sketchbook. A couple of things that I have planned are to go to the Smith Gallery in Stirling for some inspiration and also do another case study near my house.

Until next time-
Róisín -x

Researching

So yeah as I warned you last week - I'm still researching, not the most fun part of the process but it's how I work and needs to be done. I like having a bulk of knowledge to fall back on and it seems even more necessary this time around than it has in the past so I'm really trying to focus and keep everything organised.

Speaking of organisation - look at my new and improved, colour coded folder! So fancyyyyy.

So what have I been looking at?

I have three artists in my folder right now, Mark Dion for his methods and practise, Grayson Perry for his TV programme and tapestries focused on the different classes in Britain and Eric Fischer who I found by accident when looking a different types of maps.
I've also been looking into different ways to display data, types of maps and infographics.

Also during the week I went for a walk as I am thinking of maybe doing preparation "case studies" in certain areas to try and get an idea of what kind of things I will find.

To some up I'm on track, I'm researching, and next weeks post is gonna be pretty similar, after that one though I'll hopefully have some more stuff to show. This week I'm planning on evaluating on the stuff I've been reading and also getting some statistics and such to try and help me decide on where I will be focusing on.

So that's all I have for you just now,

Until next time

Róisín - x

I'm Back!!

So yeah summer's hard to be consistent - sorry.

Annnnnyway I'm going to blog (hopefully) every weekday - I'm planning on Mondays but I'm not promising anything.

So what have I been doing so far?

Currently I'm on week 5 in my timetable which means I should have finished the basic research into my concept and starting to gather some visual research. Which I've sorta done - I would have liked to have gotten some evaluation in but, well, there was a lot of stuff I had to print off and apparently that takes up a lot more time than I was anticipating. I'm still on track though because I do have a bunch of stuff that I can get my teeth into.

So this is the boring research stage with not much to report on or pictures to post cause I'm not really able to go into my sketchbook just yet and need to stick to research and get a good idea on my topic.

And it's at this point in the post I realise I haven't actually mentioned what I want to do - great start me.


What's my topic?

After really enjoying what I did in my degree show I wanted to continue on with using found objects in my artwork except this time develop the idea of how these objects reflect the people that left them and offer a bigger reflection on the area as a whole. I think I'm going to focus on how they can reflect the areas class as this would give me a good starting point for my dissertation.



So yeah that's all I can really say right now (next weeks post may have a similar theme to tell ya the truth)

until next time :)

Róisín -x

Inspiration of the Week - Cathy Wilkes

In Cathy Wilkes she creates installations using found objects and also includes some of her own paintings. 

I really like Wilkes work as I think that her pieces create an interesting - and to me quite eerie, unsettling and sinister - atmosphere. Placing these human like figures amongst these objects creates a whole situation and scenario within the space these objects occupy.

What I like most about this work is that the viewer is allowed to impose their own story onto the installation and create a sort of dialogue between the "characters".

Part of what I think makes this piece interesting in particular is the use of the hanging sheets. These are reminiscent of an washing line giving the sense of home life an comfort. The patterns on these sheets also remind me of wallpaper furthering this feeling. 

However even though they give a sense of comfort and protection, it also acts as a barrier, blocking the audience's view on the installation. They seem to be trying to hide what is happening behind them, with what is going on behind them appearing to be somewhat dark and potentially depressing. 

In my work I have used found objects to tell some sort of story or dialogue behind the objects, however I have never really used them to tell a whole separate story. 

In all I like these installations and I like the artists ability to tell a story but not reveal all to the audience but allow them to make it up for themselves with the objects presented.

NB - all photographs here have been taken from this site:

https://www.themoderninstitute.com/artists/cathy-wilkes

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.