End of Year 1 – Really?
I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that this year has completely whizzed by! It hardly seems like yesterday that I was actually applying to join the course. Sadly I had to miss the last session because of work commitments. However, by visiting the course YouTube playlist, I managed to catch up on the last session which was a writing workshop with Laura Robertson. As usual I have included a selection of slides for future reference.
Throughout the session we had to perform a short series of writing tasks. The first was a seemingly simple task of describing a shoe. My thoughts were as follows:
An item of footwear. It can be made from a variety of materials. It normally covers a foot or usually one shoe on each foot. It might cover all of the foot or it may leave some of the foot exposed. It can also come in a variety of colours.
Laura then went on to read a few passages from a book listed in the slides below. These passages demonstrated just how much detail could be found in the description of a shoe. This was a great exercise in recognising that even with something as simple and seemingly straight forward as a shoe could still have depth to it.
We then went on to take a look at Picasso’s Guernica (1937). Although I have seen the piece many times I had never really paid much attention to its deeper meaning, so my written piece was done looking at this piece with ‘fresh eyes’. The thoughts that I wrote down about the piece were as follows:
Disjointed, abstract, broken, different viewing angles and shading, varying perspectives, a man looking in on the scene. A figure in the background cheering. A mass of twisted figures. What is all of this about? A horses head all disfigured.
Opinion – I like it, although it looks like a battle
Keywords – Disjointed, varying perspectives and twisted figures
Key contexts – Is this piece a precursor to war. Was this painting the result of a prophetic dream?
Shortly after writing our notes, we revisited Guernica again, but this time to consider: what is this fundamentally? Why am I returning to this particular case? What is it that I want to see again?
My responses were as follows:
I want to examine more closely the twisted faces. I want to understand why the figure at the very back is throwing up his arms into the sky as if cheering. I want to understand the sun-like object floating above the horse in the picture. It almost has the appearance of a ‘lightbulb’ moment. I wished that my phone screen wasn’t so small so that I could analyse the painting further. The hands and feet that possessed an almost naive and childlike quality are interesting to me and seem to add a sense of urgency to the piece. My phone screen is small but there does appear to be a baby in the piece.
A Selection of Workshop Slides
Below are some of the slides from the session
The Biggest ‘Takeaway’
For me this was an excellent workshop! It was also very timely, particularly as my research paper writing confidence really needed a boost. One of the the biggest takeaways from this workshop for me was the following quote:
“Only my thoughts can flow from me, I have no other choice, who else’s can I tell.”
For some reason this quote resonated a lot with me. I often look at how other people write. Sometimes this can be very helpful but often it can also create a sense of ‘imposter syndrome’. I believe that the quote above helps to negate that kind of thinking. It shows that an individuals thoughts are unique to them – indeed, you can only ever be yourself, because let’s face it, everyone else is already taken.
Updated Zentangle Gallery
To ensure that I keep up my mark making skills, each week I produce a ‘Zentangle style’ freehand drawing. Pencil and pre-planning is not allowed. A Pen is used and any mistakes must be worked into the design. The images are then digitised. At week 30 and at the very end of the first year I hope that a progression can be seen. I feel that I am becoming more adept at designing these images and each design represents my thoughts and feelings on the day they were created. A form of mental derive perhaps? The latest designs appear first at the top.
