presentaiton script

Slides 1+2+3

• What I was up to last year
• Where was I when I left off?
• How was I developing my practise

Slide 4

• The Real Junk Food Project
• Volunteeing
• Working for free and why you should do it

Slides 5+6+7

• The Leeds Bread Co-op commission
• Working with a worker's cooperative and working for money without selling my soul
• Working with a graphic designer

Slide 8

PLAY! Why I'm glad I've played so much this year

Slide 9 

• Weaving, pass it around, talk about process

Slide 10

• Principle and philosophy of my work
• Radical Softness
• Craftivism

Slides 11 + 12

• Let's Talk ABout...
• working with emotion
• sincerity

Slide 13

• Finding joy in work
• Nurturing that

Slide 14

Self portrait

pp3 final presentation

Thinking about the future

Thinking about life post-college, I'm definitely going to apply for any creative programmes or studio spaces that are advertised. I feel in a really good, exciting place creatively at the moment, and just want to the space and time to keep develop the things are nourishing my creativity.

I will deinitely apply for both the Duke Street and Serf programmes. I also think I will buy membership to the Leeds Print Workshop, and possibly try and do more stuff The Print Project in Shipley if I want to develop my Letterpress skills.

Footprint workers Co-op are also recruiting for a 15-24 hr/p/w worker, which is really the ideal amount of work for me. I live simply and keep my personal overheads low, so I would love to be able to balance a job like this with enough time to develop my personal practise.

Aside from being ideal logistically, Footprint are exactly the type of group I want to work with. They're a worker's coop, they're part of the Radical Routes network, they're political, they have a voice. 

I also intend to keep volunteering with a lot of community projects around Leeds and West Yorkshire. I currently volunteer with The Real Junk Food Project, Inkwell Arts, Hyde Park Souce, Outside the Box Arthouse project, A Flock of Needles (present making and letter writing to inmates in detention centres) and Bedford Fields Community Forest Garden. These are all causes close to my heart, and I hope I can continue to make art work to publicise them. 

I think I'm going to use this as my letterhead and as the title page in my portfolio. I think it says quite a lot about my current practise. The only thing that I'm still unsure of if whether to work under my given name, or under a moniker - I'm considering either 'Floppy Cat' or 'Me At My Best'.

I think 'Me at my best' is a nice sentiment to make work under. Because being creatively productive is when I feel like me at my best. I think 'me at my best' also contains a certain positivity that I try to incorporate into all of my work. 

Laura Carlin

I really enjoyed the Laura Carlin talk, and a lot of the things she said about her practise resonated with me and how I feel about my mine. It was incredibly refreshing to hear a successful practitioner say that an internet presence isn't really necessary - this is something I've always stuck by steadfastly, and it's still how I feel now. She felt very real and she swore a lot more that I was expecting (a pleasant surprise).

Something else that felt quite significant in Carlin's practise is how exploratory she is. Although there are certain visual threads that run through her work, it's quite eclectic and  incorporates lots of different media. This makes me feel in the fact that my practise is no one thing right now - instead I see it as lots of different practises that are all unified by a tone of voice.

What I took away form this talk:

• There is no one way to do anything creative 
• Your practise is yours, you have autonomy over it. Even if something like instagram might seem important, or your peers are doing it, it's not essential. You make things work for you
• Be prepared to keep learning and to balance your practise with your life*

* This felt especially relevant to me. One thing I've prided myself on this year how skills-based I've been and how much learning I've done. I wanted to learn more about typography ----> I read a lot and looked at lots and developed lots. I wanted to learn how to weave and letterpress ----> I paid the money and went to workshops and developed new skills.

I'm quite prepared to keep learning and going to workshops and building my skills,  I want to do that. In no way am I yet a finished product, the joy is in the process.

Professional principles

Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is what principles underpin my practise. To me, I want my work to be stamped as mine by a principle, a tone of voice, or opinion, rather than by any particular visual signature. I think this is something that I have been gradually developing over the year, and will continue to develop.

I think that this idea, more than any other factor, has created space in my mind for me to actually develop creatively. It has also helped explain what sticks and why, and why some ideas just don't develop.

Example

• The project I wanted to do on ancient Egypt failed to develop, because although I love the rich and beautiful mythology of that period, I didn't feel there was anything I could really say through it.
• My 'Let's Talk About...' project started and developed very quickly, because I immediately felt that what I was creating was in some way important to my practise, and said something about the creative I want to be.  

Ideas about Radical Softness and Craftivism have become integral to my practise and what it means to me.

"radical softness is the idea that unapologetically sharing your emotions is a political move and a way to combat the societal idea that feelings are a sign of weakness. "

We like in a cynical, emotionally-stunted society. I'm a bit proponent of the idea of being the change you want to see in the world. I want to make work that communicates feeling.

"Craftivism is a form of activism, typically incorporating elements of anti-capitalism, environmentalism, solidarity, or third-wave feminism, that is centered on practices of craft - or what can be referred to as domestic arts"

This idea is important to my practise for a few reasons. Firstly it spans 'craft' rather than art; making as a tool for change. In an increasingly digital age and industry, making almost seems an act of resistance. Craftsmanship is tied up in our history, it is essential to us. It was through craftsmanship that we first told stories and exchanged information or a large scale. 

Commissioned work LBC and what it taught me

I undertook a big design commission for the Leeds Bread Co-op, a worker's cooperative based in Meanwood. It was a really fun creative job; it allowed me to do a lot of drawing that I was happy with, and offered me what will probably be valuable experience in back-and-forth communication with a client, as well as experience collaborating with a graphic designer. Working with LBC also got me the opportunity to have some communication with Footprint, another local worker's coop who specialise in environmentally sound printing.

However what was really valuable about this commission was the glimpse it gave me into the future of my professional practise. I've wrestled a lot in the past with the idea of working for money. I've done a lot of little jobs on the basis of charity for community organisations I'm involved with, or used work as tender in some kind of exchange. Perhaps this has something to do with feeling that my practise is something that's still developing, and feeling protective about it. I don't like the idea of handing any work over to anyone whose ethos and ideals I'm not 100% sure about. It is vitally important to me that any of my ideas or work never be put to something I personally wouldn't advocate.

I knew about LBC before I took on the commission and have always supported them when I can, and it was their aims and intentions that made me keen and happy to work with me. I liked the fact that I worked on a flat-wage structure (the same as the employees) and was paid for my hours, and that I had lots of communication and input with Coop members, making the job feel like a collective effort.

LBC also align with lots of my personal ideals, such as using local and organic ingredients, keeping their environmental tread light, and creating an enjoyable and ethical working environment for all workers. 

It's great to have had a really successful professional experience, and has made me feel more confident in seeing my work as a commodity. I now know that I actually have complete autonomy over who I work for, and there are clients out there who are decent. I don't have to feel like I should work for anyone I don't want to. 

professional presense

I've wrestled for a long time now with ideas about the professionalisation of my practise. I've always maintained that I felt on this course I was being pushed to think of myself as a professional and start marketing myself as such long before I was ready to. I've also been vocal in the past about thinking that the push toward websites/instagram/etc is a very prescriptive way of measuring professional development and isn't currently in line with how I want to keep exploring my practise, or how I feel about it.

I am still creatively in embryo, and I'm happy there. What I see as coming next for myself is still all about development, and learning new skills. And importantly, my work does still reach people: I use my work for community projects and workshops, I use it as the lens through which I see and explore the world. It's not online yet, so what.

How I have (or have not) developed presenting myself professionally may well cost me dearly in terms of marks, but I don't regret anything at all. Some ideas have started to develop about visual signatures that define my practise - eg the title page of my portfolio - but I haven't hurried to develop anything that hasn't happened organically.

I am looking forward to going to London for D&AD, and am totally receptive to the idea that perhaps that experience will change how I think about my professional development.

Hannah Waldron and weaving

I took a weaving masterclass with Hannah Waldron last year. I have always like the aesthetics of her work, but was becoming increasingly interested in her process as an alternative form of narrative. An interest in the tactile and the physical world is coming to shape my practise.

Hannah said some things during the class that I found really resonated with me, and that I totally agree with:

• Don't let yourself be limited by a conceived idea of what 'illustration' or image making is
• Value craftsmanship, and take care and pride in what you put out into the world - it is a window in your mind

I took away some new skills from that workshop and continued to develop them over the coming months, doing lots of small bits on the mini loom I had.
It was really interesting to see how seamlessly weaving become incorporated into practise, and how - through the process - I developed a new confidence in shape, colour and pattern (things I've often struggled with on paper). Through weaving I feel like I have opened up new opportunities for myself in how I work.

Hannah was also happy to answer questions from me about looms and yarns when I felt I was ready to progress onto bigger pieces