The end to a very long series of events involving helping people...

Our crit was today, and lucky me got to go first. It was really unfirtunate actually because i had asked Dave to do a seminar a while ago and he had planned it for that morning and i was asked to speak about my work just as i was supposed to be leaving. I don't feel like i put myself accross very well in explanation and i recieved responses like "I don't think your piece worked because we felt responsible for you" which is actually something that i felt my work adressed- well obviously if they felt that. I didn't feel that i could really address my work either without people previously talking about theres or being in such a large group as we were. It was a little unfortunate i didn't get round to talking to many of the tutors last night, i think it may have all clicked together if they had seen the performance. I'm still thinking that the proposition of helping was more the work than the performance but i can't deny that the group chose for me to do an artwork for thier show.

Anyway, on leaving the crit i ran off to Daves seminar which was terribly crowded. I didn't feel i really got enough out of the seminar, there were alot of people asking very simple questions and changeing the subject. What dave did address in Ethics was very interesting but i would've liked to hear more about participation as an artform as opposed to it just being a use of social art therapy (again, repeated questions). I'm hoping that he may do another- otherwise a tutorial wouldn't go a miss. I'll have too remember to ask.

The third part of my day was going to Susie Wrights leaving party (Susie was our ambassador boss) It's a real shame thats she's leaving because she is such an interesting person to talk about your work, and she is very good at relating your work to getting a job in the outside world. Very down to earth as well, also, i've been working for her for three years- it's going to be odd having a new boss. Me and Joe popped over to the Tate and bought her a present- a mug with a rabbits face on the bottom, so when you drink out of it you look like a rabbit (It is actually hillarious) She was very greatful, and gave us her card. I think Camden working mens college is the first place i'm going to send my CV when i leave college.

Performance success!

Success at work today at college- I have been asked to help out with the Saturday School programme in line with the ambassador programme that i am involved in, over the next couple of weeks. The Saturday school this year is for potential 1st generation  university students that are at college  or school preparing for their art foundation courses. Today's task involved animating sentences- some obscure- some simple, but with the intention to create a stop motion animation at the end of the month with all of the important supporting material. It was my role to talk to the students today and help them with initial ideas of where they would like to take their work. This is also the same group of students that were doing portfolio practise a couple of weeks ago, so they all know my work already. Anyway- one of the sentences was 'painting yourself into a corner', a student today asked for my help with the task because as everyone else was drawing and cutting out letters she was finding the task a little boring. She asked me about my work- after seeing it in the previous weeks and said it was a shame she couldn't do performance in this session. So we found a way to incorporate the task into a performative piece. instead of just animating the words in 2D we animated them in 2D  within a performance. It consisted of the girl in a manic way writing the sentence on pieces of paper with black paint and putting them in front of her (Each time moving slightly backwards)- eventually she was writing with her fingers dipped in the paint and was under a table in the corner of a room! Brilliant- Performance in the Saturday school! Next week she is planning a stop motion performance....