So here I am at the end of week 2 of fourth year… it’s gone by ridiculously quickly already! These first two weeks have been mainly research. I didn’t want to rush into anything even though I have a good idea of where i’m going with my ideas, research was critical. I had my first tutorial with my tutor Louise Scullion (One half of Dalziel + Scullion – here’s the link to their page – dalzielscullion.com). I think that’s what I love about uni compared to high school, here we get taught and mentored by practicing artists. They go through the creative processes every day – not like high school teachers who for the most part did it several years ago.
We had to send her a small summary of who we are and where we thought our ideas were going for fourth year. Here is an excerpt from mine:
“As last semester I focussed more on my reaction to working with these people, this semester I would like to focus on the people who have this disease and also the disease itself. I plan to continue my use of the University Museum Services for their herbarium collection. There is something quite striking about the similarity of someone with dementia and these pressed flowers and plants. I want to show through my art that even though they are both stuck in a moment in time they are beautiful and even though they might have changed from what they once were, they are still beautiful.
I would love to try and show dementia in a different light. So many people are perhaps scared of the illness and therefore refrain from visiting relatives or friends because of this. I see this degree show as a fantastic opportunity to change their mind and to see that even though that person may be different from the one they knew before they still have a beauty inside. I hope my art can portray this while also using this opportunity to raise awareness of the illness.”
So most of this week has been looking into artists past and present who inspire me and spending time in the wonderful Herbarium Museum Collections. More updates to come next week!
amycrawfordart.com 