Resolution

The second review helped me evaluate and consider what I was going to refine for the final submission, which was the brooches I felt these were the most developed component of the assemblages. Also the review helped me make a strategy for unit X and what I wanted to take forward in that unit. After the second review I felt like I wasn’t really focusing and was doing a bit of everything and not resolving anything. After the presentation I planned my time out and really focused on getting the brooches made and refined, I feel I did this successfully.

 As I only completed components of what I originally set out to do which was an assemblage made up of a textured ceramic base with a stand and wearable piece, I didn’t fully complete the brief I set for myself. However I am pleased with the pieces I have developed and definitely want to carry on with the ceramic aspect of this project in unit X. Time management in this project was a lot better than in previous projects but I think that’s due to having a longer unit and experience from previous units. Due to poor health I had to take time off intermittently I believe that this had an effect on the flow and continuity of my project. However I feel I managed to sustain and remain interested in the programme of study I initiated.

As I’ve said before my long term ambition is to teach and I have been gaining experience and making contacts alongside this unit that will hopefully assist me when I apply for my PGCE. I wish to continue my own practice alongside teaching so I wanted to really understand who I am and what my practice is about during this year. I feel over the last three years I have gained a better sense of myself and where I fit within the vast world of three dimensional design.

During unit X I have a few different lines of testing I would like to pursue, I definitely want to continue with the same theme and inspiration which is memory, loss and family heirlooms looking at maybe the ceramic box idea I had that could change in to a wearable or trinkets and small objects that still hold narrative and memory but look decorative that could possibly be displayed on a dressing table?  Also I have ideas of branching off from the brooch idea to make other wearable’s such as pendants and earrings.  

 Transparency of the porcelain is something I am keen to experiment with during unit X

Development

The feedback from the first review helped me to clarify a few of the ideas that were a bit vague. Such as what memories did I want to incorporate in to my work? I decided that my own memories would give me a lot of range and they are something that I feel passionate about. They give me a different kind of motivation other than the motivation I have to make and create objects; I can take a memory and make it tangible. The idea of what we display and what we hide away also intrigued me. As many of the memories and photographs I am using for inspiration are personal and private I don’t want to share them completely. As I result of this I thought about what I would display and what I would hide away, one of the ideas I came up with was a perhaps joining together a piece of copper that has an imprint of a silhouette and a piece of porcelain with a ceramic transfer of the original photograph on it. I would most likely use these pieces as brooches and pendant that way the memory each piece represents will be close to the heart and body. The combination of materials could be very seductive and different I would like the pieces to be wearable but also unusual because the ambition for my practice is to become a contemporary designer maker of saleable small objects and jewellery.

Another idea I have been working on is to use different imagery and materials to create small assemblages and collections. I have gathered all of the material experiments I have done such as fly pressed forms, porcelain tiles imprinted with silhouettes and wires gathered together to perhaps form pieces of jewellery. I have been experimenting with different compositions and combinations of materials and pieces. I find these groupings visually intriguing but at the same time the materials provide a subtle colour palette so although there’s a lot of different things going on they all relate and work together.  I do need to spend time working out ways to connect things and other technical skills I am trying to do this as and when I need to so that my time isn’t consumed by just technical experimentation's. 

My strategies for moving my ideas forward and resolving them are to continue working on these ideas and refining and resolving them. I would like to have a collection of pieces at the end of the project but possibly one or two really polished and developed pieces. I need to really get behind my ideas and stick with them, and not worry and procrastinate. I have the ideas and test pieces but I need to select those that I want to push forward and refine such as the ceramic and metal pieces and the assemblages I understand it will be difficult to manage my time and I am trying to plan and use the time left efficiently using a self-devised timetable.

In addition to my practical work I am still undertaking work experience at a high school this is coming to an end next week. However I have learnt a lot during my time there and realised that I have obtained a lot of knowledge about art and design during my own time in education and feel confident about now passing that on to others. I have secured a yearlong placement starting this September. This is definitely the career I want to get in to and I feel that my own practice and my ambition to teach are driving each other forward. 

Blog post 1 ‘Research and Ideas Generation’

I want to change my practice slightly I found that over the past two years on the course I have been very focused on creating decorative small scale objects and jewellery. Although this is where I feel happiest and where my practice belongs I felt my ideas and outcomes were becoming a little stale and too similar, so this year I want to challenge myself whilst still staying true to myself and my style.  My initial programme of study looks at objects in relation to memory and the power objects have to evoke certain memories and emotions. Over the summer I researched this topic in relation to my CP3 essay and the subject area is fascinating, so it will hopefully be a theme that will keep me engaged and excited throughout this unit. In this project as well as my work being aesthetically pleasing I also want the pieces to suggest memories that we can all relate to in some way and evoke the feelings associated with these memories. I don’t want my work to raise questions or debate but just quietly contemplate and consider.

My long term ambition is to teach, I want to take what I have learnt through my time in education and pass that on to others. I have been doing research in to PGCEs and other routes in to teacher training. I have also been gaining work experience in a sixth form college one afternoon a week and I have another placement lined up at a high school. Doing this work experience has confirmed that I do want to get in to teaching as a career and has made me believe in myself and my abilities so much more.  Whilst on placement I have been talking to the students and offering help and support where I can and I have found it very rewarding so far. However this year I want to strengthen my practice and make sure I feel confidant and comfortable with where it is going before I embark on to a PGCE course.

Originally it was very hard for me to try and visualise what I would start to create and experiment with because my chosen theme was a very abstract concept. I started looking at Victorian mourning jewellery and investigating how they went about preserving memory and commemorating a loved one’s as this is an aspect I am interested in. I began to consider containment and preserving a memory inside something such as a locket. Victorians wanted to keep mementoes of the person who had passed away; they kept locks of hair and created elaborate brooches and other wearable’s. Mourning jewellery had a few different uses, jewellery was made from jet which was expensive so widows who wore it were wealthy and wearing the jewellery was a sign of status. Also by wearing the jewellery it was displaying that you hadn’t forgotten your loved one. This research led me to visit the OPUA (Objects of Personal Use and Adornment) collection at Manchester’s gallery of costume. The collection was amazing and full of beautiful and inspiring objects.  Whilst at OPUA I started to look at all the sewing paraphernalia they had, everything was so beautifully made and preserved. I feel sewing and textiles have a relationship with memory, in a lot of my readings for the CP3 essay textiles are mentioned in relation to memory. I have started to experiment with stitching in to metal and I am pleased with the results, they have a lovely tactile quality.

I have also been experimenting with silhouettes because the memories I am using are my own I think it would be hard for other people to relate. So by simplifying photographs and images I am able to give the viewer a hint of a memory but still keeping it abstract. I have been doing different experiments with texture using the rolling mill, using different papers for the silhouettes, also overlaying fabric and stich to create different layers of texture on the metal. Some have worked well such as the watercolour paper and cartridge paper samples because they give a stronger silhouette, tracing paper and printing paper tend to break in the rolling mill and give a weaker image. The silhouette also relates to Victorian jewellery as they used a lot of silhouettes in there pieces, portraying loved ones or themselves.

My plans to move my work forward are focusing more on making things 3D and being able to start resolving some pieces. I’m happy with my experimentation so far but feel I need to move quicker in order to stay on track.

Evaluation

Evaluation Unit X

I chose college one because I had been thinking about teaching for a while I was thinking about looking for a placement just before unit x started. I knew this was the college I wanted to choose straight away but I wanted to work with high school age or college so maybe an 11-18 age range.

Initially I was really nervous when I found out we would be mixed with other students from other courses, I usually work on my own on projects that is how I prefer to work. I enjoyed the first the tasks before Easter and found that doing an activity with people I didn’t know helped us get to know each other. I especially enjoyed making the totem poles I felt like we all started to show our course specific skills but also our transferable skills in that workshop

The lectures I enjoyed most were DACA and I really wanted to do that placement after the lecture. The school seemed like a really inspiring and enthusiastic place. START was also really inspiring the ways they help people get confidence in them and confidence to help other people.

The workshops after Easter were really fun; I especially enjoyed the sweet and origami tasks. We were all getting to know each other better then. The tasks helped us think about the limits the people in our chosen associations might have also ideas about cost, practicality and how the workshops might benefit the people. I preferred working in a two opposed to a whole group.

I chose the primary school because it was something I had considered but really didn’t know if it was for me, so I though while the opportunity was there I would take it. I was very nervous of teaching children I didn’t know what to expect. I missed the first visit to Northenden primary school due to my dad being ill so I was worried that I had missed out and I wasn’t prepared for the first workshop. The first day I visited the primary school I was so nervous but luckily the other group members helped me out and I was able to participate in teaching the children how to make origami frogs. After that workshop I became more confidant within my team and teaching the children, I think all the workshops were appropriate to the children’s learning levels.

We decided on the theme of space after a meeting with the teacher and came up with the idea of creating a box that would fit on to the playground wall, it would have different sized holes cut in to it these would be targets for the children to throw balls in and score points. We came up with the idea of getting the children to do a workshop where they created their own alien which would then be transferred on to the box to decorate it. We created a slide show to let them look at different types of aliens and how they could do anything they wanted and make there aliens personal to them. We noticed they liked to copy each other’s ideas a lot so they were given prompt cards stating how many arms, legs and eyes the alien had or the shape of their body. I really enjoyed that workshop I worked with the children helping them to consider the composition of their aliens and the textures, colours, marks and techniques they could use.

The last workshop we decided to do after a tutorial, some of the group wanted to get on with making the playground piece and others myself included wanted to carry on gaining experience in the school. I had to think about the reasons why I decided to join this college and that was to decide whether or not teaching was for me and whether I would want to consider it as a career.

We decided that the children needed something to follow on from the designing an alien workshop, we decided to create 3D planets made from two pieces of foam board slotted together. Also we wanted to see how it was to teach a year three class and asked if we could shadow the teacher in the morning for reading, maths and science. You could see how hard it was to be a teacher and the lessons were squeezed in to one hour slots, it made me think about whether I would want to teach all the lessons or just art and design and I don’t think I could handle all of them. We had more involvement with the children this time giving them a presentation on the solar system and then introducing the learning objective to them, which was to design and create a planet in a group. Most of the workshops had been done as individual tasks and we thought it would be a good idea to see how they worked in a group and how they interacted. However we didn’t make enough planets for all five tables so I decided to draw a rocket and gathered materials for the children to do a collage. Paint was a bad idea, the children just went crazy with it and I had to talk to them and keep reminding them they were a team and they had to consult each other before they did something. In the end they all worked really well and produced a fantastic collage I was really proud of them and myself, that was the most challenging workshop I had done with them but we had it finished on time and had met the learning outcome.

In the last week or so it has been very hard to get the whole group together to work on finishing the playground piece, communication has been really bad. However a few of us got together and had a talk about what we needed to do next and how we were going to go about doing it. I feel more confident in speaking to my group now initially I didn’t really feel like a part of it because I was quite shy at first then I had time off. We have gotten all the wood and its cut to size; we have started to draw the aliens on to the wood which was really fun.

I feel like teaching is something I want to do, as much as I enjoyed the experience at the school I don’t like the idea of teaching all the subjects and would much prefer to focus on art and design. I am seriously considering applying for a PGCE after my degree is over and want to gain experience in high schools and colleges. I feel like my own personal skills have grown much more throughout this project and I have become more confidant in being part of a team and having a voice within that team. I would definitely go in to a school again and feel happy and confidant delivering a workshop.

Planning workshops

Initially planning a workshop was a really intimidating prospect but as we were shown some ideas in the first few weeks of the project and having a team to bounce ideas off it’s not too bad anymore.

I wasn’t in last week so I didn’t plan a workshop, I helped Joel with his origami frogs and the children really enjoyed it. I think it worked well with the small groups of children rotating around the different workshops so they got a chance to experience the different activity’s. Also we got to work with all of the children. I enjoyed doing the workshop more than I thought I would, I was terrified of the kids being really unmanageable but they were so good and really enthusiastic, it definitely made me want to go back.

I had the idea of creating a workshop working with air drying clay, I mainly work with clay in university so I thought I could show them the skills I have in that area and create a workshop around mythical monsters as I know they have already done a collage project around that, using different materials to texture the clay. I was lucky in a way that I got to see everybody else’s first workshops, that made me feel more confident in planning them. I think the idea for next week’s workshop is the children will create their own aliens to be put on some sort of outdoor game. We haven’t properly figured out what that will be exactly yet.

I think next week’s workshop will be quiet challenging, it will make the children think more about what they are going to do before just drawing the first thing they think of. Thinking about colour, form, texture and scale.

Learning

I have increased my confidence throughout this project especially when working within a group. Group work isn’t something I really enjoy doing, I much prefer working on my own but I think this time round I have found it more enjoyable, maybe because we all have an interest in teaching.

As a group we planned the workshops together and because of the age group and the theme of space I think the activities were quite easy to plan. Obviously we had to consider what was appropriate for the children and project but once we got to know them better and their abilitys it wasn’t too hard. The children were really enthusiastic about everything they did and that boosted my confidence because it seemed we were getting things right and Vicky was happy with what we were doing. Sometimes for certain children I had to change the workshop slightly or give them more help because of their learning ability’s but all the workshops we have ran so far have seemed to suit the children.  

The first two activities were individual tasks whereas the last one we did was a group task, the children adapted really well and my group were absolutely fine about working in a group. I had to encourage them at the start to talk to each other about their ideas for the collage and what materials they wanted to use but after that they got on with it.

I think we have benefited the school by coming in and bringing our individual knowledge of our specific areas and also a general knowledge of art and design. The children were very excited to work with us and having 1-2 of us to a table of 6-7 children gave them more support in the smaller groups. It would be hard to teach 32 children origami frogs all by yourself. Also they will have a new playground feature that we have created for them.

As it’s the third time I have visited the school I have enjoyed being there more and more. I’ve learnt I can teach a group of children and being able to keep them calm and focused but also at the same time encourage them to be creative and excited about what they are doing. 

Reflection

I have enjoyed the teaching aspect of this unit a lot, and I think I definitely want to look in to doing a PGCE after my degree is over. I have learnt a lot about myself and the skills I have, that I didn’t think were skills.

Initially the main ambition for the project was to work with the children to create an interactive feature in their playground, I think I got too focused on that at the start and worried about it. I had to think of the real reason I had decided to do college one and that was because I wanted to gain experience teaching and working with children and to decide whether that was something I would like to do after finishing this degree.

I think through running the workshops I have become more confidant working in a team and working with the children, at first I was nervous in case they were naughty and I had to shout at them, but I after the first session and knowing the children better I felt more confidant in telling them to listen and settle down.

One of the greatest challenges for me was saying to the group that I wanted to just focus on the teaching aspect and not the making of the playground piece, obviously I haven’t consistently been in due to my dad being ill so I didn't feel that I was really in a place to be a bit selfish and say this is what I want. The group divided any way and I think everybody was happy with the decisions we had made.

The subject specific skills I used were taking the things I have learnt through my time in education and trying to get the children to think about what they were doing before diving straight in. Thinking about texture, form, shape, colour, pattern, shading and personality’s for their aliens. On the last workshop there weren't enough 3D planets to go around so I drew a big rocket and on an A2 sheet of paper. When my group found out that’s what we were doing they became very excited at doing something different to everyone else and the group kind of united more. They had discussions about where to build up materials and layering sections which I prompted but they seemed to have taken everything they had learnt and bring it together as a group.

The transferable skills were hard for me to identify on my own but when I was working with the children I could see what they were. I think I am quite calm and patient, so when things were getting hectic I could calm my group down without having to shout I just tried to make them focus again. I am also a neat person so when I showed my group examples they picked up on that and tried to be more careful when colouring and painting. I am a friendly person and I got on really well with the children, we chatted about things they like to do and their plans for summer etc… That made it easier for me to get to know them.

As I said before I am seriously considering doing a PGCE or more placements in different learning environments or with different age groups. I really enjoyed my time at the primary school and feel like this is something I want to do in the future. I think that has been my greatest learning achievement, realising that teaching is something I enjoy and that working with children isn't as terrifying as I first thought!