I've been feeling quite disappointed and deflated the past couple of days with myself for not achieving what I wanted to achieve, but reflecting now - on the final day of the submission - I can safely say I did what I could among stressful circumstances, and I should be proud of myself for that. I shouldn't compare my progress to that of others n I should be content that my productivity isn't my self worth.
Its not that I didn't want to finish, or didn't have the passion and ambition for this project, I think its just that I simply ran out of steam. Unfortunate timing when I still had what was supposed to be the main outcome left to do, but there's nothing more I can do.
A big takeaway has been that I was never going to make my best ever work amidst a pandemic and changed life circumstances, and telling myself that FMP didn't have to be a culmination of the last 3 years and be my best work ever, was a big healthy step.
I am so glad I chose this project for my final project, its been a project of new things, and really indulging on making something for myself. Character design / writing / poetry / embroidery are all things I've never really dug into before, and I'm now hungry to keep going with all of them. I'm very keen to carry this project on and finish it in a way thats deserving of the time I've spent on it, but I think I need some time to decompress and take the stress away from it first. I may not have created as much or as good quality work as I'd hoped to, but I've geared myself up to make things in the future building off of this research and new ways of thinking.
Hopefully its the beginnings of something long-form and exciting. Its given me the confidence to try writing and responding to my own content, which isn't something I'd ever thought I was good/confident enough to do, and I've really found a love for poems. I would love to get the book up to a standard I'm happy with one day, and maybe look into self publishing and creating a self promo pack surrounding it once I've brewed and evolved it without time pressures to a place where I'm happy with it.
FMP has been the beginnings of a practice and a way of working thats personal, never really finished, theres no final end point. Its more about
ideas and indulgent and growth and change. like gardening
As Matt said in my feedback:
embody the tradition of folk and just make
I've had so much fun messing about in sketchbooks and brewing ideas during this project, but then almost stunted when it came to trying to commit to making final artwork for the book. When I finally was in a place to start creating the book, I knew I didn't have enough time to make something I was proud of in time for hand in and I think this was a mental barrier and meant I finished even less of it. Although I initially intended to have a final complete book, and a set of finished, polished outcomes - I think I've realised that this project as as whole has been an outcome in itself? Its been a new way of thinking and working and researching and I've learned so so much. Other than the tapestry/poems, I feel my outcomes are pretty weak and not necessarily 'outcomes'.
My tapestry/cape is my favourite thing that I've made during this project. It taught me the benefits in taking it slow, planning and modifying and shimmying as I went. Beauty in slow craft. Emerging not rushing. Textiles and sewing isn't something I had done since year 9 (and the odd clothing repair), but I loved it. Translated my work into shape and hands on making and being able to switch off my brain for a bit and just engage in melodic making. The tapestry was a labour of love and I'm going to continue this practice beyond FMP. I definitely need to work on presenting and documenting better and more professionally though, maybe save up for a camera if I'm planning on making more 3D stuff.
This year I've been reading and engrossing myself in language more. I'm so grateful to Matt for suggesting that I try and write my own stories in the first FMP tutorial I had. It was a daunting and vulnerable prospect but I don't think I would have learned or enjoyed this project half as much had I not done so.
I think throughout this project research has been one of the strongest points. This project could not have happened without it, it informed and formed my thinking and I went down so many interesting rabbit holes along the way. I'm really going to miss the library its been such a brilliant resource. Perhaps I spent too much time at the start focused on research and this is where I fell behind, but I can't change that now. Throughout this project I wanted what I made to be informed by what I was learning about, and not just make things because they were an outcome or could look impressive, I wanted everything to be rooted in meaning and have research behind it.
I remember in second year when I sent a zine of questions to Nick White for my PP contact report he said - "If you are interested in things you will be interesting and making interesting work. N I think thats brilliant advice. Need to stay hungry but not greedy.
This project (especially these last few difficult weeks) have really been a wake up call that I need to adopt new working habits. I know I sometimes don't have a healthy mindset regarding my own practice, but because its so personal, its been even harder to tell myself this because of poor mental health at the moment. I let ambition get the better of me, always planning too much and spreading my time too thinly so I don't execute each thing well enough. This is a big flaw which I can hopefully work on outside of the uni environment when I might feel less pressure hopefully. Too many tabs open metaphorically and literally. I need to be proud of what I've managed to do and not feel rubbish for what I wasn't able to do, thats no way to exist.
I'm going to wear my cape, slow down and enjoy it.
Blogging has been a real love hate relationship and I'm hoping never to use this website ever again, but what a lovely thing to have floating around the internet that I can hopefully look back on in years to come.
This has been the most wonderful (and hard) 3 years of my life and I'm so lucky and grateful to have met so many inspiring people and had such amazing guidance. I'm sad to see it end in such strange ways, and I'm apprehensive but excited about the future. I'm hoping its going to be like learning to drive a car, I only reallllly
properly learned once I had passed my test and was equipped with the skills n knowledge to go off on my own. (even if I did crash once)
illustration is like those drip water feeders for hamsters
slow n steady stops a head rush.
