Section Reflection.

This section has been a classic example of my working method. I’ve started it, and I’ve got involved with the methods and techniques that are mentioned. I’ve then made them my own by creating projects that utilised them. I’ve over-complicated them by my drive to make useful or sculptural works. Then, I’ve spent a long time on them and off-shoots from their ideas (in this section, see the way my gold box linked to my gold bug). I’ve become afraid of spending too much time on the practical work, and not long enough in thinking about it’s meaning, or coming up with new designs. Feeling defeated, I’ve become despondent. Then suddenly, the comeback, and I’m finishing making things, I’m generating new ideas, and I’m setting myself proper work goals. Yes, I’ve got some excuses as to why this section has been slow going – I’ve started a new job, meaning I’ve had to cut my course hours by about a fifth; I’ve been exploring new art fields and thinking about the future, as well as trying to keep up with my still recently-acquired skills, like painting and ink illustration; I’ve been trying to keep some projects and techniques aside as personal experiments, so that I can have moments where I try things just because I want to try them; and I’ve had a good long period of very complicated relationships turning rather painful. However, I’m feeling more confident now I’m the other side. I’m beginning to realise there are links between the different disciplines of art, and that there’s nothing I can’t turn my hand to and try to learn because it’ll be too difficult. There is almost nothing that can’t contain an idea. Perhaps I’m growing up at last. In the next section, I hope I’ll be exploring (with a couple of extra-curricular essays) what new fields of art are opening up to a less timid version of me, and how I think they can be combined, in particular with textiles. So for now, I’m leaving my artistic-temperament quagmire, and stepping forward into new techniques.