art nerd

last night, my school put on an art show with work from the two a level art classes, one of which was mine.

most of my class & the other class after we gave our two teachers some flowers to say thank you for everything over the past two years. i'm on the far right, being a goon as usual.

lucy, catherine, mrs fitzgerald (legendary art teacher), naomi & me.

lucy & me in front of neville, one of the art room's famous mannequins.

and this is my display area. the whole night was really strange, i kind of liked people looking at my work but also kind of hated it. it's hard to describe, but i just felt ridiculously nervous most of the time.

the photographs i took of my work are a bit rubbish, because i was in a bit of a hurry & didn't want to look like i was obsessed with my own work.

this is the final piece i created in the 15 hour exam, based on the title political & social events or issues i chose feminism.

the pieces i created were a quilt piece based on tracey emin's work saying "feminism is a four letter word", a pencil drawing & collaged piece of my friend kate dressed as a land army girl (based on these photographs), a cross stitch & coloured pencil piece saying "fat is a feminist issue" and a headscarf with embroidery reading "feminism is the radicial notion that women are people".

this is the first piece of work i created in year 13; a still life mood board. basically, in the middle of one of our art classrooms the teachers created a huge pile of stuff from dried flowers to empty photo frames & we could choose whatever we wanted to create studies from. looking back i think this was one of my favourite projects  from the two year course, somehow it made me feel like a real artist by drawing from life & not just photographs.

and here is the final piece that i created based on the above moodboard, a dried poppy seedpod in oil pastel based on one of the photographs i took while preparing the moodboard. i think it is the best thing i have ever done.

for some reason, this piece really doesn't photograph very well, something to do with the surface of the paper i think.

anyway, this is a portrait of my cousin (from one of these photographs) and an "expressive" fabric & brusho background, which was for the structures project where i was looking at the reflections & refractions of light on/in water.

me with a totally dorky smile stood in front of my work. i have to admit i shed a tear or two when i got home, to think that art is completely finished is quite sad for me.

we had to write a little statement about ourselves for the display, and here is mine;

“Art is the most intense form of individualism that the world has known” – Oscar Wilde.

Art has always been a huge influence on my life, from the way I dress to the way I see the world. I have been told many a time that I “look like an art student”, and I consider this the highest of accolades.

I thoroughly enjoyed Art at GCSE, but it was only at A Level that I began to completely immerse myself in the subject. The last two years have been an incredible learning curve for me; I have discovered so much about the artistic process and have produced work that I am extremely proud of. There literally never is a dull moment in the lessons, either because I am absorbed in my work or due to the amazing people I have got to know throughout the course.

In my Art lessons, I have loved experimenting with different techniques and gathering inspiration for each project from a wide variety of places such as photography websites, magazine editorials, local art galleries and the lyrics to a John Lennon song. I always visit the Newcastle Gateshead art fair, which is always an enlightening experience as it gives an insight into what my life could be like if I choose to follow a career in art.

During Year 13, we were given the opportunity to go to Edinburgh and London to visit a number of art galleries. This was an amazing opportunity to see the work of artists I admire up close, such as Vincent van Gogh and JMW Turner. I especially enjoyed the V&A Museum as I had a chance to see a conference on women’s body image in the media, which gave me the idea for one of my A2 exam pieces. Visiting the textiles gallery was really inspiring as I have always loved sewing and using materials in my work.

My interests outside of Art include reading (especially Russian literature and the works of Sylvia Plath), compiling an encyclopaedic knowledge of The Beatles and making my own jewellery. Some time in the near future, I would like to start my own online jewellery shop using reclaimed materials and vintage ephemera. I also love vintage clothing from the 1940s through to the 1960s, and I did briefly consider a career in fashion before realising the industry doesn’t quite fit my feminist attitudes.

As well as Art, I also take Spanish and English Literature and I studied Psychology at AS Level. Next year I am going to be taking a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Newcastle College which I hope will allow me to explore other forms of Art, such as Textiles and Photography. I am really looking forward to the experience, and I hope that it will bring me closer to deciding on which university course I would like to pursue. At the moment, I have no real plan for the future but would like to do something to do with art, textiles or journalism or live in a Sofia Coppola film. Of course, if that doesn’t work out I intend to live the life of a starving artist.

i hope you enjoyed a little tour around my art world (: