The past eight weeks has been a huge growing period for me. I feel that my experience thus far in my foundation year at Chelsea College has helped me develop myself faster and more than I ever have before. I didn’t know what to expect coming from the United States and this had me in knots. I was moving to a different country where I knew almost no one, but I now had the chance to start over. We began with a rotation of Fashion Textiles, followed by Fine Art, Visual Communications, and 3D Spatial Design.
Fashion Textiles was a difficult place to start off. I suppose I enjoyed the continuous line drawings and altering photographs, but I just couldn’t get myself to grasp the way of working. I had no idea what I was doing almost the whole of the time, but by the end I could see the purpose of what we’d done and I could really appreciate that. I could see how materials being worked with could inspire a garment, for example.
I think this helped me get my mind set for Fine Art, which I loved. I really felt a shift of feelings between this and the previous rotation. I felt at ease and comfortable and also confident in what I was doing after speaking with mentors. When we did the drawings on acetate I became very inspired and inquisitive as I had actually never worked with acetate. After doing these drawings I wanted more and I wanted to try something different. I went home and worked on an animation of a nondescript shape. When I showed one of the tutors my animation I had put together, he spoke to me for quite a long time and everything he was saying I felt in-tune with. For example, I had tried to put an effect on my animation to convey a certain theme but when I mentioned this he said he liked it how it was because of the mystery behind it. He encouraged me to let the meaning come to my work instead of the opposite way, which is how I’ve tried to work in previous years, like in high school, but had been told by teachers the piece wouldn’t work that way. To now hear this encouragement made me feel ten times better than I did a week earlier. I felt so inspired to create more with this animation and to try other things, and soon my imagination was really flowing. That tutor also asked the pressing question of why I am here. I thought of a lot of reasons of why I should be here, only until I realized I can’t hide the fact anymore that I am most passionate about music and sound. I know I must be doing something with music in my life to feel secure. When I heard about the Sound Art course at LCC I immediately wanted to know more and was so relieved that there was a course that fit exactly what I wanted to do. I looked up the course and read on it and saw videos of people who are in the course, like Carina Levitan. Her bicycle piece fascinated me and I’m still in awe that she created that all herself, and the results are astounding! I also remembered that I’d heard Joshua Hayward of The Horrors actually circuit bends his guitar effects pedals to get a unique sound. It was then I knew I had to go into either Media or Fine Art so I could start developing work to apply to this course. Also in Fine Art, upon meeting Max and being reintroduced to David Lynch, one of the most inspiring artists I know, I realized how comfortable I felt in Fine Art. I heard that Max was the tutor for Media and I didn’t question why there wasn’t a Media rotation because I didn’t think much about going into it. I knew I loved music and sound, but I didn’t think there was a place for that at Chelsea, or in UAL.
Visual Communications started off with partner work, something I don’t usually like being forced to do, but in this case it turned out alright. My partner and I had different viewpoints and quite different temperaments, but I was pleased with our work in the end. I felt that the exercise of brainstorming different words off one original word helped me be more creative with ideas and try to think of different things. I love how strayed a word can seem to the original one, but you could follow the path sensibly back. Our narrative project was quite a challenge, as it forced me to be aware of design, which I didn’t think much about before. I was very pleased with my final project, however. For our third project we had to make a piece that had a sender, a receiver, and a message. This took me several times to get right and to get rid of clutter, but one of the tutors who I thought to be extremely keen helped me to realize what I needed to say, being the sender. I felt my animation was quite poignant and I am proud of that work. I do feel that the briefs given were hindering me, because I immediately felt tied down, and in a sense locked up. I was afraid to break the boundaries even though that is what’s meant to happen, essentially. Even so, I am the type of person who works better with a much looser brief or in some cases, no brief at all.
3D Design was a total nightmare for me. I am not the type of person to work in the third dimension, and can’t even begin to think of where to start. I thought the 3D maps were OK but the other projects left me feeling stumped and confused. The brief given for the final project made me want to give up because I had no idea what to do. I could not just sit there and draw designs and then turn it into a model. I did try but I still don’t feel I’ve received anything out of that rotation unfortunately.
With all that said, I would like to focus in the area of Lens-Based Media or Fine Art. I am just itching to try film, and the work I’ve done with animation I am pleased with and eager to learn new things about. I am even more intrigued, however, in researching different types of sound and noise making machines, and how I can develop an original way to make my own. I wish to combine this with Fine Art aesthetics which could possibly lead to performance pieces. I am very grateful for those who have helped me so far on this short two-month journey for I’ve discovered and will pursue what I love to do.


a bike, a suitcase and an umbrella from carina levitan on Vimeo.

the following video is me using a contact mic on the board of a toy dog