I’ve come back home to Wales this week because I’m in desperate need of HobbyCraft!! My exhibition piece is a small version of a dolls house, I bought a small cabinet for around £1 and have created a little dollhouse scene inside...but I need all the finishing touches and HobbyCraft is the only place I know of that sells the essentials! The scene I’ve created follows the story which I made up, It’s about a beautiful married couple who live in this lovely little house, until one day a wicked witch (or wizard I haven’t decided yet) cast a spell on the two for being so perfectly happy, and the spell turned the couple into half human and half animal! They were then looked down upon in their community and had to look out for themselves, robbing food from markets and living like gypsy to just get by. So basically the house I’ve created is supposed to show their chaotic house and the couple inside. I now need to buy lots of bits and bobs, including kitchenware, books and anything else I think will relate to the story. I just hope I can get it all done in time; I only have 3 more days until it should be displayed!

We had our cross course crit a couple of days ago, I knew what to expect because of having the same last year, though this year I guess I was put in a different situation because I now had 1^st years to discuss my work with too. My group was actually made up of four 2^nd years, three 3^rd years and only one 1^st year! We each took turns in talking about our work up to date and just talked generally about what were up to at the moment. It’s always good to talk to new groups of people, because It’s interesting and helpful to know their opinions especially if they have some suggestions which could benefit my work. I got quite a good response from the group, to be fair it wasn’t the most talkative of groups, and I probably would of liked a bit more of a discussion about each individuals work. I came away from the session with the influence to do more work, and especially more experimentation, because my ideas aren’t good enough without more visual props. Next week we start putting up our work in the end of term exhibition.

I got an email back toady from Selfridges and John Lewis...both aren’t looking for any temp work, they each said they’ll contact me if they have any further in the future, which is absolutely rubbish because I was looking forward to getting involved with that field of work! I think I need to start smaller, perhaps some shops in Manchester.

A few days ago I emailed a few companies regarding works experience or even just any type of help they might need in the coming year, I’m really interested in Visual Merchandising and decided to ask around at department stores like Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and John Lewis. I emailed all three stores and now I’m just waiting to hear back, I reallyy hope they have some vacancies, because I think this could be a step in the right direction with what I want to do. I’ve always loved the window displays at Christmas time especially, I like the mechanical moving toys and the bizarre scenario set...I think this is something which connects quite nicely with my style of work. This year so far I feel very panicky about the future, and that’s not something I generally worry about, but It’s sort of dawned on me that I should have some idea of what path I’d like to take, but I have NO idea! So I think doing some work experience with Visual Merchandising should give me a feel as to what the job would entail, and even just to give me a few contacts for any future plans.

I went to a life drawing class recently in the Nexus Art cafe in the Northern Quarter, oh I just love drawing so freely, the last time I did a class like that was on my foundation year and back then it was my favourite too. I found it exciting to be doing something which is different to what I’ve been practicing for the past year or so, I think it’s been quite important for me to get a bit of inspiration back too.

my dolls house!

We had tutorials again this past week, I missed my original one so I was in a group with a few others and we discussed our current work and upcoming ideas with Jon. My main idea at the moment is still creating a dollhouse; I’ve made a few characters recently which I imagine would fit with the theme of my house, I’ve sewn together a rabbits head made out of textured material and wiring for the ears, and placed it onto the body of a toy animal. I like the contradiction of two bodies coming together to create a new type of species, the idea isn’t for the characters to be scary and twisted, I’m aiming for a surreal element but relating closely to children’s fairytales. The house itself I want to create inside a piece of furniture, because a chest of drawers or an old cabinet has a real authentic feel to it, and I want each room to be inside a hidden drawer of some kind. The feedback I got from my group was all pretty positive, the main issue is that I need to produce more work, Jon has told me this before and I know he’s right, I’ve got so many ideas going on but not enough work to show for it. Also Jon spoke to us about networking too, volunteering more and perhaps looking for some sort of works experience.