Education Cuts.

What an exciting yet financially terrifying time for students!

When i joined the socialist students union, the cut backs and tuition fee rises was the hot topic of discussion. I'm not at all well informed about politics, so i joined to learn from other people and to meet others that had the same concerns as i do. I felt abit useless at meetings because i didn't know the ins and outs of the political structures, but i do try to contribute by expressing my opinions about social issues i feel need to be heard.

I also wanted to use illustration to communicate ideas that were being presented. I thought it'd be a good opportunity use my skills to help raise awareness, practice working with a deadline and gain feedback from the public. I had a week to design it, bearing in mind a had another deadline the following week! i feel quite proud i managed to do it all in time. This book helped me along the way...



Here's some pics from a protest that happened on the of 24th of November. Noseying around Cardiff unis fancy building was an additional plus...











The latest news concerning Cardiff students was the annoucment of the proposed cuts of the sculpture pathway in Fine Art. Last Tuesday, the 14th of December, i popped along to the protest which was conveniently at the campus round the corner from my house. It was so good to see a diverse range of people there, not just anarchic art students! there were tutors, ex students and members of the public who came along to see and listen to the current concerned sculpture students. It was liberating to hear ex students talk enthusiastically about how the course has shaped and affected their lives. I liked it when he said this:

"Some of the best people i've met in my life have been art students, you guys are awesum!"

This was led by a big cheer, i even did a little one too. Another person who stuck out for me was a mum who expressed her anxieties for her daughters educational future. She quoted she said 'When i'm older, i want to be an artist.' awww. So she made the point of if they're making cuts to the arts now, will there be art courses by the time she grows up? Everyone should have the choice to study what they want. Here here!

Here's a delightful animation by David Shirgley about saving the arts. Genius.

Seasonal Inspiration.

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

This is the best piece of stop motion animation I've seen in a looong time. I love the simplicity of it. It proves with a little imagination and ambition, you can create something beautifully heart warming using earths elements as your medium and inspiriation. I especially like the part where they send each other hair!

ANNNNND RELAX.

For days and days I have been waiting to not feel up to my ears with work. It has been my only priory for the past two weeks! Having the leave-it-to-the-last-minute spontaneous ooh-look-what-I-finished-at-5am style, staying up in a jittery caffeine fuelled flux has been an regular occurrence!

It felt all too much at one point; essay to write in 2 days, 5 week project hand in, puppet show to perform, and on top of this, the Christmas was lurking round the corner, agitating me, waiting for me to start sporadically flapping about the expectations I felt to meet. Christmas is nice yeah, but I dislike the one-week-till-xmas stint as the day itself is usually a quiet one, so when all the worrying and pointless spending stops, the day can sometimes feel like a strange come down of it all!


A snippet of the Shadow Play, here's the King peering from his castle window, more pics to come!

19.41 and I should be sprawled out on my living room floor, next to the fake wood burner (the worst interior choice my parents ever made, the ‘wood’ resembles human shit and there is red glitter, YES GLITTER, to emulate a roaring fire), with my over fed dog in the company of the Parkers.

BUT NO, darn pretty white cold stuff had to fall from the sky at the time all us students want to be at home. Home and ready to do nothing but watch tele on real tvs, eat non-blue-and-white-label food and reunite with your sorely missed buddies. So this weekend I’m staying put in lovely Llandaff, enjoying being able to walk into civilisation and observe city life in the snow. I’m sorry Bratton Fleming but you’re pretty boring to be stuck in. especially minus the pub. Now we shall have to revert to drinking in our houses, pretending we’re enjoying life watching x factor.


Notice the yellow sky.


'shroom head LOL.

Today, I trawled through the parks and over the mountain to partake in what we humans call 'shopping'. I thought I’d help me get ideas for gifts, but it just made me want clothes that would make me look cool. Yes you little leather snakeskin boots. And floral hip flask.

On my second ever visit to urban outfitters; I saw they were selling Keri Smith books. An illustrator turned Guerrilla artist who s work and writings I simply adore. I brought ‘The Guerrilla Art Kit’ during my art foundation year, 2008, and have ever since thought of it as my saviour. It was defiantly a bookmark that opened my views to what illustration could be, or what you want it to be. Mail, d.i.y, post its, stickers, badges, stamps; woweee all my collected fetishes can finally become something!


New books! Perhaps the prefect gift for Lucy Parker?






‘Extol the virtue of the negligible and overlooked’….is what tutor Chris Gylnn keeps scribbleing down in my tutorials, and that’s exactly what I aim to do.

So for the past hour or so I’ve found the online existence of Keri smith and thoroughly enjoyed looking at blog and flickr. See here!Goes to show how a little trip into town can surprise you by turning the concept of the day around. I now plan to get scribbling and start making some the most radical xmas cards you’ve ever seen. No pennies required: )

Adbusters Article Review

Cocaine Culture : A global apartheid of decadence and death.
The audience that Adbusters captivates are people who are concerned about our cultural environment and the physical relationships within them. They are people who don’t want to ignore the problems of the modern world. They are concerned about current issues about our environment and our cooperative culture.

Adbusters have organised events such as “Buy Nothing Day” and “Digital Detox Week”. This enables the community to engage in an event and to also see what impact their action is making. It will intrigue the outsider public, which therefore achieves their goal of spreading their beliefs.



Adbusters started as a collaboration of people from various backgrounds who shared similar passions and spiritual outlooks. They have made a stamp for themselves and created a global community. The general readers of Adbusters are people who seek other likeminded souls. They want to find opinions that can influence, shape or fire up their views. They want to see a change happen in the lives they lead and for the future generation. Struggles with modern life is an everyday occurrence, but it’s the people who take action are the ones that want to stop the simulation occurring in our 21st century world.

I am going to talk about the current article ‘Cocaine Culture – A global apartheid of decadence and death.’ Written by Blake Sifton, 01/10/10, featured in ‘The Revolution Issue’



He begins the article by stating how the American cocaine culture is affecting the Mexican drug culture. He constantly collides the two contrasting lifestyles to conjure a bigger impact on the reader. This direct blame makes the reader feel uneasy, as it causes you to question your place within the senirio. If the reader has participated in drug usage, they will feel guilty of being unaware of the crime that surrounds it.

Sifton takes the mickey out of the activist-hippie stereotype.

“And so they march in protest, volunteer abroad, shop ‘green’ and insist on drinking fair trade coffee.”

As Adbusters is a non-for-profit, anti-capitalist publication for mostly activist, he is making direct stabs at the audience. By doing so, he is fulfilling his aim to cause controversy and seek conflicting views. He aims to cause a direct emotional impact that will influence their original preconceptions.

He bluntly states they have no moral concerns, which paints a wrong impression of young people. This is just one example where he has created assumptions about today’s youth culture.

“They do not seem to care that for coke to make its way up their American noses, Mexican heads must roll in the streets of Juárez..”

The tone of the article is aggressive, bold and roofless. He uses words such as ‘poisoned’, ‘sick’, ‘brutal’ and ‘horrific’ to describe the Mexican cartel. It is trying to ingrain the message in the most efficient way by using descriptive yet clear language.

The last two paragraphs summarize the key issues being addressed and suggest a solution to solve these. It would be a pointless publication if it simply stated problems without voicing solutions to people who crave change. By discussing serious and frightening issues about a particular country, it creates a distance from us to them. To conclude the article, he puts the topic into a global perspective. He states that the US isn’t the only country dealing with the relationship between countries consumption, and how it’s affecting developing countries. There is no evidence for this statement, therefore, placing it at the end of the article entails he wants to leave it as an afterthought.

Is it a cry for help? a deep concern for our human race?; or on the other hand, it is a plead to legalize drugs for recreational usage?, or an ill-informed rant on a subject only the people living it can tell the tale and find a solution.

Whatever side you take, Adbusters was created to get people thinking about their presence on the planet, and if you didn’t feel any emotion after reading the article, then maybe you should get back to reading ‘Take a Break’ magazine….

Museum of Me - Curating the Self.

Brief - Research, design and illustrate the ‘MUSEUM of ME’. (That’s it).

6 Week project.

My original idea for this project was to showcase my future ambitions and messages i want to share with the world. Since being at university, my interest of ways we communicate and send messages have risen to the surface. As an illustrator, we are trying to communicate ideas and information to the world in our own unique language. What interests me is the history of human interaction and how technology affects this.

Everyday life is bombarded with information and messages; Internet ads, those REALLY ANNOYING spotify ads, e-mails, texts, facebook updates, post, conversation. Technology has created new ways of communication, therefore in today's society we have a choice of how we choose to communicate.

I never thought as myself as a 'tech' person. I often feel frustrated and senseless when using some technologies. i.e. computer always has a problem, wasting hours looking at a screen. There are days where i feel suffocated and drowned with information from all directions. But i hypocritically go on my computer everyday and spend a fair amount of time on my phone. This is not by desired choice. I try my hardest to only use these tools for communication, music and receiving information from my tutors. I feel i have to change and adapt myself to live on this day and age. I have to learn to deal with my frustration, learn how to stay active, learn how to avoid mislaying important information, learn to seek ways i can fully relax (this is where i think mediation/yoga should step in) and learn to accept i am not alone with these anxieties.

I don't like the idea of spending 'leisure time' on the computer i.e socialising, reading, playing games. Everything has gone digital and i think people need to peel there eyes off the screen for a moment look back on when people were being present with one another. I don't not hate the Internet. I feel very lucky to have a tool that enables me to delve into archives from years ago, listen to whatever music i want, watch whatever i want, find out about anything i want! And it's ALL AT THE CLICK OF A BUTTON! WOW!
But i am just a little concerned on how it's affecting our way of life and well being. It's the power if the Internet which i find alarming and at periods having no control over what your exploited to. After a certain amount of time using these objects i feel drained, numb, achy and tired. 'A day at the office' is what i like to call these computer filled hours.

I never crave the newest version of things as i think 'well what happens to all the 'old' versions?' Probably get dumped in a big hole in the earth somewhere that's where. Fair do's if its broken (which of course it eventually will, as most machines are built to break after a few years, ridiculous silly madness i tell you!). Being an avid recyclers/hoarder/collector, i like to look back on old technologies to see how they fitted in with the social and cultural aspects were happening at the time. I find the fast paced nature of new technology bloody scary. There is a computer now that is apparently as intelligent as the human brain. Meaning it can feel real human emotions. I find this hugely unnerving. Can you fall in love with a computer? Digital love? Computer love? (According to Kraftwork you can) Our consumer culture instructs us to think we need the latest version of everything. But we really don't. When is this rapid influx of technology going to take a breather and think about what is needed of our day and age?

RANT OVER.

Coming back to my MOM piece, I'm aware it doesn't communicate my resolved idea. My final concept was inspired by Marshall McLuhan's 'Meaning is the Massage' book. He says that each medium is independent of the content it mediates. It has its own intrinstict effect which is the unique message. This led me to look at the movement of Fluxus artists. They created flux boxes which contained objects, drawings, letters, games and printed empherema. As i collect similar things, i felt i could emulate this way of representing my ambitions, messages and past times using the medium itself. I wanted the piece to be interactive, so the viewer can be part of a sensory experience - an experience i feel is missing in our digital world. I wanted them to touch, smell and look at the messages. We treasure material objects, like letters and postcards, because the way we receive and transmit them.






Reflectively, i feel the piece came together as i came back to my main idea of 'who would be my messengers', but this time using my collections and findings as the medium. My intentions of creating a tactile and sensory experience was lost, however, i enjoyed making the scenery and characters for it. I wanted to included pieces of paper in an envelope that had my messages written on, for the viewer to take away. However, i couldn't logistically find a space within the narrative composition. Instead, i created rubber stamp stickers for people to keep. The stamp idea steamed from looking at examples Mail Art, where many of them created their own stamps. Stamp collecting and designing is an area i would like to explore further in future projects.





In previous projects, my work pattern goes as such: usually spend too much time in the research/early development stage, which leaves me little time for final development and making. This happened again in this one too! I often felt i was reading irrelevant text, so I'd stop reading and start searching again. For future reference, i need to have a more specific subject and to use the resources efficiently. It was only in the late stage of this project i really got my teeth in something i felt very connected with. I also wish i branched out my sketchbook more and experimented visually rather than just note taking. This would have avoided feelings of being unproductive.

I would like to continue developing characters as i really enjoyed it but left little time for it. I'd also like to continue using photographs as a medium for creating another image. I could look at the Dada artists manifestos to further this interest.




Tape horses RULE!






^ My personal zebra messenger through the years : )


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Keri Smith, The Guerilla Art Book,Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2007.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/mcluhan.html - Audio recording of Marshall McLuhan's book The Medium is the Massage Columbia Records, late 1960's.

Tom Philips, The Postcard Centuary London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.

http://www.postcards-letters.org.uk/index.php/picturethis/pt

http://www.logolalia.com/mailart/archives/2006_11.html - Dan Waber Mail Art.

More pictures from assesment viewing>





^ The post-its where to give critical feedback for the project. Sami left me a blank one - speechless!


^ The exterior of the box is supposed to emulate a computer, a macbook in this case, playing on the idea of a computer being the dominant tool of how i/we communicate.

I Hope This Makes the Postman Smile.

and Sam too!

2D House

7 Things You Didn't know About Paper...

This was a one week brief to yes, you guessed it, find out 7 things about paper you find interesting, then present them in a group however you wish. It's a basic research project but the facts could be as weird and wonderful as you like.
I however, found the idea of googling 'paper' and seeing what i could find rather static. The thought of trawling endlessly through web pages didn't tickle me fancy. So i gave the brief a twist to make it a tad more enjoyable.

Meet Paper...



-Paper enjoys flying.

-Papers favorite band is Pulp.

-Papers last relationship really screwed him up.

-Paper is very into his well being and eats a diet high in fibre(s).

-Paper's last job was at the post office. He left because he felt belittled when his colleges didn't take much notice of him.

-Paper has a recurring nightmare everytime he watches the X-files.

-Paper doesn't date smokers.

And there's 7 things you didn't know about paper.

^Suicidal Paper^

Here's a short video that documents Papers attempt interact with the public.



(Paper takes a seat on wooden bench)

(Man on bench looks Paper up and down)

MAN ON BENCH: Very nice.

PAPER: Oh, thanks. Cool! (said with slight concern)

(Man points towards flapping leg)

PAPER: Oh no my leg....errrr.

(Paper adjusts hat, feeling abit embrassed. Paper changes the subject)

PAPER: My favorite band is Pulp.

MAN: Oh, ok.

PAPER: Ermm, yeah.

PAPER: Do you like the song 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'?

MAN: Umm..

PAPER: It just blows me away...

MAN: Your sexy you know..

PAPER: Sorry?

MAN: This is sexy you know. (points to paper body)

PAPER: Oh, is it? Thankyou very much!

(awkward silence from 'sexy' comment made by man)

MAN: Is she always like that? (said to Grace the camera woman)

GRACE: Yea, everyday.

MAN: Everyday? (to Paper)

PAPER: Everyday. (nods)

(man giggles)

PAPER: Err, my last job was in advertising.

MAN: Advertising?

PAPER: Yeah, and i've also worked at the Post Office.

(another silence)

PAPER: Hmm quite enjoyed that. My last relationship really srewed me up.

MAN: Ahuh? (laugh/grunt)

MAN: Because of that? (points to body again)

PAPER: Yeah, he just messed me around.

(man creases with laughter and leaves the bench)

PAPER: I better get back to class actually...

Filmed on 11/10/10 by Grace Gotte with assitance from Sophie Heath.

From Across theee Water.

Time: 23:17hrs
Date: 13/10/10
Location: Bedroom, Llandaff, Cardiff, WALES.
Position: Half slouched against pillow and knees up to rest laptop on. Hands tapping and hovering above light up buttons (YES macbook pro maaaaate) it is brilliant, I can punch away in the dark and not have to worry about getting up to turn the light off in a half concious state.
Activity: Fullfilling desire to update blog.
Reason: In recent lectures, it has been proposed and strongly encouraged we log our thoughts and interests digitally as well as analoge. It allows you to be open to all doors in the creative industries. A blog or online journal is essential for others to view your work. It also is a more clean way to store your thoughts and reflections.


I find blogs challenging. I don’t want to sound like an arse, or dumb/illinformed infact. Therefore, I take too much time scrutinizing the sentences I write. I don’t read a lot, therefore I feel I can’t form sentences that well. Or articulate my point in the clearest way. I’ve probably re written the past sentance about 4 times but pffffft, at least I’m giving it ago! I suppose that’s all that matters. You learnt from yourself this way. If you have an exciting idea you want to share, you innately want to find the right language to express this. I really enjoy getting the theasaurus out. I once said to myself I’d try to learn a new word a day. Maybe I should get one of those post-it-esques calendars that provide this desire. I want good words though, words I can frequently chuck into everyday phrases to make me sounds intellectual, darling.

Well I’ve been living in this big house for about a month now, started my new course and lost my double bed v-plates along the way. I cannot express my opinions about this new course without using clique phrases like ‘it’s amazing’ and ‘having the time of my life’ because frankly, they’re both true.

(my room isn't really this tangoey)

Evers since I left school, I have been waiting to discover a new light. A place where I no longer linger in the past but instead can put my whole heart into what I want out of the future. College showed me the way, foundation saw me the light, now this degree is the solar system times 89.

I have a place here, I am part of a community among like minded people. NEVER in my life have I ever felt so liberated and comfortable in my own skin. The emphasis of being unique allows you to feel ok about sharing your visions and quirks with people. I feel I can speak and they will listen and be sincere however ludacrious/serious the subject might be.

Illustrations are from a trip to Abercavenny during our introduction week. Meet Hank! ^

I don’t want to write a sob story of how repressing some periods of my life have been, but it is hard to avoid when feeling so elated about the present. The past month has flown by, and I know the next three years will do too. So I am going to do my best to document it in all kinds of mediums. I may throw in a video log just for the crack; day 67, I drew a light bulb today! (holds up picture of lightbulb) hmm.

My days have been full of laughter, stories, ideas, plans, imagination and enthusiam. The tutors want you to get on board the Illustration boat (or bike?ha) and take full steam ahead. They have been on exciting journeys and want us to see the wonderful, fun and exciting world of illustration. They are life changing people to me. Most of my art teachers have been because they nurture your creativity to help you see something beautiful.

^ Silent old couple in 'Lugi's' cafe. i had egg, beans and saute potatoes for lunch. yummy.

The days turn to weeks and I feel as if my feet aren’t touching the ground. I am in a reality where I am another personality; a free spirit. I can no longer lay in bed in a meaningless state. The cogs in my mind get ticking and sooner or later, I have to get up to deal with this restlessness. Hence the name of my blog. I just have too many god damm ‘text message drafts’ that go stale in my phone!

Artists don’t have ‘time off’, it is impossible. If you could turn off your brain off you could. It overtakes your life, keeps you up at night and takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Inconvienent and frustrating it may sometimes seem, but I feel so unbelievably lucky that I am this way. I mean, I get to chat to interesting people everyday, make up stories, listen to great mixtapes made by the tutors (YES AMELIA!), play the piano, draw out the obserities in your mind and generally feel inspired. No more monotonous lectures and academically wrong memory test exams! Huzzah! woop! yay!

^We climbed a huuuge hill and saw a bunch of other ones, in the window you will see The Sugar Loaf hill.

Illustration is all about playing. Playing with ideas, possibilities, people, materials and reality. I’m basically in a massive playground, finding and discovering new toys and ways of seeing that will shape and colour the rest of my life.

Had i not been subjected to the darkness, i could have not seen the light.

A Thought from Morrisey...

Does the mind rule the body? Or the body rule the mind?

A Token of a Time

During my last week in the tub, I said to myself I would try to make the most of the place whilst I was there. eg. flaneur around the beige city to soak up the hustle and bustle, go the The Little Theatre, take a boat trip, rinseeee the decent pubs and generally hang out with le Bath folk. But to my stupidity, I did not take into account the domestic deeds that needed attention.eg. cleaning our pit of a kitchen, cleaning MY pit of a room and packing fun. So my desired 'joyful-and-fun-filled' week turned out to be 'shit.-cleaning-is-tiring-and-i-can't-do-anything' week.

However, i did get the chance to indulge in one thing I will definitely miss about Bath. And that is the delightful little walk to the local supermarchee - NISA. I'd like to thank Caitlin Aston, Rebecca Wheelright and Tom Rees for introducing this wonderful place and location to me. It is so great on soo many levels. Nisa fm has to be mentioned. I really can't go too deep here as it would bode in a lengthy post that I didn't intend to write about, maybe save that for a rainy day. But here it is in short: take a left away from the hubbub of the city centre toward the slightly rougher area of Twerton (keep your sugar cubes on yer), cross the pedestrian bridge over the emerald river, and walk on up to a crossroads that separate off into clusters of small independent shops. Lead your eyes to the right of the uphill road and you will see the navy blue flag that is Nisa. (sometimes with a hench security guard outside, coz it's SO FUCKIN G LIKE THAT.)



Enough of Nisa (GASP), where I was going with this was to share a moment that seemed to have some poiencey. A moment where you think 'hey...this nicely sums up all the things that have been ticking over in my head all week'. Beside Nisa is a charity shop that has become a nice addition to the regular visits. Big room with rare generous spaceing between clothes racks. Full of junk, but good junk. And doesn't smell too bad. One day whilst cheakin' out the shiny section, a little mustard badge winked at me. (sorry if my liney palm distracts you slightly)


I haven't brought a badge in a long time. This is a shame really because badges are fantastic accessories. I have one bag which I have organised all my found badges, and for this reason, I’d say it is my favourite out of my larger bag accumulation. Handbags are for fancy times don't you know! So I was a little more than excited when I found this gem. For those who aren't familiar with Moles, it is cosy live music venue in Bath that has a reputation of nabbing bands before they get 'big'. They've (in my opinion) quite pretentiously exploited this by stencilling the band’s name and date they played over the walls upstairs. (I have hunted everywhere to find the photo that reads 'LUCY PARKER: 12/06/10' to share, unfortunatly the bad joke will have to remain unheard, gutted) Despite this, it's impressive who's played there, most of my favourite bands in fact, but I quite liked the rumoured talks and air of prestige that surrounded the venue.

The reason behind the rad deco is because of the new 'moles music cafe', which sadly meant the death of the luring upstairs floor - a floor basically full of sofas where'd you'd do the 'drunk slump' and ramble nonsense to the lucky person beside you. Ah good times. So the place had a little re-vamp, new wood block type logo, but my little badge is the OLD logo. And I’d call that vintage my friend. Which makes me well trendy now. So i feel kinda proud that i found a little slice of history.

I see the badge as a memoir, an item I can have with me that will remind me of a period of time in my life; the day I went to but G+T from Nisa, the week of strange contradictions, and the year away from home for the first time. It signifies good times, a place I went to seek familar faces, have little dance and generally enjoy myself. Yeah.

Caitlins Bird-day

Lots of people. Lots of grass. Lots of orange bags = Lots of fun had at Caitlin's birthday bash!

boring card made better

Twas Nerrissa 20th birthday on the 13th, and i adapted this card for her to have. It orginally consisted of three, rather bland, floral teacup illustrations. I personlised it by adding a jaffa cake (which i stupidly spelt wrong on the card) reference, as the jaffa shares a special place in Nerissa's heart.

The pun formed over a convosation about how great jaffa cakes are - disguised as one of the biscuit family, but it's main substance is actually cake. CAKE. and cake is just great. (note that my recently liking for cake has stemed from two consectuative birthdays including batches of cupcakes, 2cm icing coated half vanilla/half chocolate home-made cake and the fittest toffee/coffee concuction- plastic casing was thoroughly cleaned by me, and the fat child inside of me.)

The orange jelly inside is also just fantastic fun to remove from the cakey base, and gives you the excuse to be really gross and wave it around in it's slimely amber entirety. So..

LONG LIVE THE JAFFA!

and Happy Birthday Nerissa.

Collecting and reflecting.

Ok so, i've been really lame with regular posts, my 'expect to hear more' quote is just a little embrassesing now. BUT, i believe i will actually do it more so as i've been thinking this blog could be a conversion of journal rambelings, findings, sketches.etc. minus the joy i could be recieving from handwritting, I'll give this a bash.



THIS,is my room at home, rather large abode in the village of Bratton Fleming, North Devon, where i shall be returning to next saturday.


THIS, is my room at uni, waterside court, Bath, where i'm currenlty reporting from (NB.inner desire to be on radio often shows). After a day of cleaning and sorting through my belongings, i became really frustrated with how much STUFF i actually have! A hoarder, collector, comes to mind, but my god is it annoying having this trate. I'm constantly faced with decisions whether a scrap of paper, cardboard, cup, bottles (paracetamol packet?!?) is worth keeping. Back at home, things began to get silly. Collections stringing from straws, pitastio nut shells, lightbulbs, candles, reciepts, train tickets, business cards, take away menus! I have an unhealthly desire to document things. Maybe it's because i want to remember everything, and overly enjoy reading through old diaries and thinking 'oh my god, did those thoughts actually belong to me once?'

I see enviroments as a reflection of all the things that have been there. In relation to my nearby move back home, the persons belongings in their room reveal who they are. Little details like how they've orderd their cd's, to what's on their bedside table. Also the fact that we live in a consumer culture, argument goes you unconciously buy things that relfect yourself, or what you what to be associated with. Right, this could easily turn into a seminar rant about 'The meaning of the object', freudian refernces all over the shop, but that wasn't where i wanted to go in this post.



So once you've acumulated an acceptable amount of objects to call it a 'collection', what life does it then fortake? Decoration? I feel with all my junk i've got, one day, ONE FORSAKEN DAY, they will serve a purpose. For example, i see my evergrowing bottle collection will become an installation in some beautifully discovered space, where all the different sized and coloured bottles will encapsulate something. A collection inside a collection? As for the paracetamol packets, little fragile plaster moulds/impressions, that contradict the original meaning. Once a container for a drug, now becomes an object that shows the absense of the drug but in a purer and more intriging form. Now why aren't i studying fine art?!




So from all the rumaging, transportation discussions with the 'rents, comparisions to how other people in halls have applied themselves to their new 'homes'; i find myself at a point of major reflection. And now i need to decide how i'm going to act upon it. I've just turned 20, and i keep thinking, 'what was i doing a few years back?' 'How have i changed?' 'When was i most happy?' Maybe these are signs of wanting change. Becausing i wouldn't be thinking, writting, recording it all otherwise! I really don't know what it will be, but what i do know is i'm a keen believer of fate and chance, so if i just stay open minded, everything SHOULD all fall into place.

COOL AMAZING BIRTHDAY GIFTS/HANDMADECARDS/PHOTOS TO COME!