Single White Feline (A.K.A. A survival guide to day 1 of being alone)

There is a percentage of women in the UK who are single. I do not know the percentage, because it didn't come up when I googled it.

Point is: thanks to me that percentage increased yesterday.

I guess that in the lead up to University a lot of women may find themselves in the same situation as me, and this is why I am giving you my tips to your first day of being single.

1: MAKE YOURSELF LOOK GOOD. SERIOUSLY.
I know you want to lie around your house screaming and crying, in your slouchiest joggers with shit greasy hair and bedsocks on. But you can't.

2: ADMIT TO YOURSELF THAT BLACK EYE MAKE UP IS NOT MADE FOR TODAY.
If you are like me, and like to do big eyes and nude lips, reverse it for a day. You're probably going to cry a couple of times and you don't want to be grabbing a compact mirror every time you sort of pull it together, only to realize how shit you look and cry again. What I chose to do was wear a really nice dark purple lipstick and just gold eyeshadow and waterproof eyeliner. Oh and a lot of concealer round the eyes - they're probably a bit gross looking. (Have a look at Laura's blog for general make-up godliness.)

3: GO SOMEWHERE YOU DON'T USUALLY HANG OUT.
I chose London since from next month it's my new home. The point is that you want distracting, but you don't want to bump into anyone you know and have the "Oh hey how are you today?" - "Oh not so good I just lost my partner." - *Silence* moment... awkward.

4: DO, HOWEVER, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW ONE PERSON THERE.
Having one person who understands what's happened and that you need some serious cheering up is a must. Choose someone who is super dependable, fun and who's company you like. Otherwise you're in for a right shit day.

5: AT A SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE TIME, HAVE A DRINK. OR SOMETHING.
Socially acceptable is anything after noon, by the way. We chose Portobello Gold for drinks because it's truly gorgeous in there and sort of makes you feel like everything is going to be fine.

6: SPOIL YOURSELF.
This is not the day to worry about money or calories.

7: SMILE FUCKING LOADS.
Because it makes you prettier and it makes everyone looking back at you (smiling too) prettier to look at. Pretty things are nice.

This is one of my favourite comedy videos on YouTube. Watch it, laugh, feel better. There - you survived day one. You're alright.

Johnny Flynn: Music You Need To Hear

It's a bit hard juggling social networking at the moment, have to admit I'm drowning a bit. I got an android phone and got eaten by Instagram (dickhead) and I've been using Tumblr a lot for my UAL contributions, and to upload Instagram stuff onto...

The UAL one is here - startingatual.tumblr.com
And my personal one with my Instagram bollocks and some occasional funny stuff is here - kittykittyking.tumblr.com

I guess I've been saving this bad boy for stuff I want to actually write.

Anyway I've got something I want to write but mainly I just want to share some awesome stuff you need to hear. I figure I'll post here and my Tumblr cos I don't know who looks at what but you all need a fair stab at hearing this.

Spent my weekend at Tramlines in Sheffield and got to hear some wicked music at a bit called Folk Forest, can definitely recommend a duo called Katriona Gilmore & Jamie Roberts. You need to watch out for those guys. I don't know much about music but I know that they sound good.



First up; if you've not been listening to Johnny Flynn for a few years then I apologize profusely for not doing more to help you. Really. He's a good buddy of Laura Marling's, but unlike how Marling's grown up and her music has got really serious and slightly depressing (lovable all the same, but you have to admit...) his last release in 2010 was still relatively upbeat.

Old Tricks

Can't honestly tell you when Flynn wrote or recorded this as there's not an awful lot of info about him hanging around on the web and I'm too lazy to search. This is an upbeat sing-along song with a female vocalist throughout. Happy music.

The Prizefighter and the Heiress

I can tell you that this was released on the second album Been Listening in 2010, and the whole thing's worth a listen. This one starts off a bit slow but you need to hang on in there because it becomes a pretty huge tune... well, as much as you can refer to folk as a 'huge tune'...

Ordinarily with songs I'd like to quote some lyrics along with it, but these aren't Dylan-esque works which can stand alone as poems - these words are accompanied by amazing sounds which you need to hear to really get anything off it. So just listen to the damn songs.

City called me so I caught the bus

I realized two things last night:

1: My bus pass expires one week tomorrow

2: I am poor

This is something I should get used to seeing printed onto my receipts, as my impending 3 year London art degree is not set to be an inexpensive affair.
Unfortunately, I am left with the dilemma: do I buy a £72 4-week-South-East-all-zones bus ticket for my last bit of time here?

About this time last year I spent £528 on an annual student saver ticket, which sounds a lot, but considering the 80 minute return journey from Thame to Oxford is now £5.50, it paid itself off in fewer than 100 journeys. College took up three days of the week and work an additional two (both in Oxford) and I would occasionally make 4 journeys on the 280 in one day if I wanted to go back in for the evening. (Funnily enough everybody will tell you that living in London is a big commute, but I live a 13 minute walk from one of University buildings and 20 minutes on the underground from the other. It’ll be bliss.)

When college finished I was tutoring in Oxford for 5 days a week, but for the last 2 weeks I have found myself missing the 280 somewhat. I have still travelled in to work and shop, or just to get away from Thame, and the idea of having to start paying in cash whenever I want to get out of the sticks is incredibly disheartening.

But am I really going to go in that much? Let’s face it, the bus is shit. It’s always late, it’s never clean, it leaks when it rains (and this is England, it rains a lot.) It’s full of loud teenagers or smelly old people, and recently I had to inform the bus driver that the floor of the top deck was incrusted with somebody’s vomit. Charming.

Things I like doing in Oxford, or would like to do before September the 8th (moving away date)
- People watching in Starbucks
- Spending money I don’t actually have anymore
- Jenny Saville exhibition at Modern Art Oxford needs revisiting
- There are plenty of bars and pubs I’ve not visited enough…
- Charity shop shopping in Headington
- Noticing and being noticed by people who I know and that awkward thing where neither of you wave or say hi cos you don’t know how close you actually are and no one wants to make really idle chit chat cos everyone has somewhere to be
- Going into work when I’m not working to make the people who are working really miserable
- Open mic nights

You know what fuck it I don’t like Oxford and I don’t like Thame and I just want to move already.

Listen to this if you have functioning ear drums which need a treat. It’s about a city and so is this entry, kind of.



City called me so I came - it isn't mine to question what it said. I sleep until the point when I'm awake, I walk until there's nothing left to tread. And everyone was looking for an answer and everyone was waiting for a break. I came and I was bored of it soon after but I had nowhere to go and so I stayed; I dreamed a lifetime of this place, it seemed an awful thing to waste.

The Tattoo Survival Guide (21 things I would have told my 16 year old self)

At the age of 16, I started getting tattooed. Soon after this I tragically came to realize that the law requires you to be 18 for a reason.

Here are some of the lessons I learned the painful way.

Tattoo number 1, August 2009

My first tattoo was done in a little studio in Dublin, using somebody else’s ID. I had flown out to visit a childhood friend from back when I lived there and I had wanted a crown tattooed to the back of my ankle for a few months. One morning we googled the ‘Scottish crown’ (is there even a special crown allocated to Scotland? In retrospect, I think not) and my friend traced a photograph for me. Only the size of a 10p piece, the tattoo cost me 80 euros and took 20 minutes.

Lesson 1: Tricking someone into giving you a tattoo is really dodgy – they could go to prison, and to be honest, at 16 you barely know how to dress let alone what to stamp on your body for life.
Lesson 2: If you are going to be a stupid illegal fucker, then get it small. Seriously. I’m lucky I don’t hate this one.
Lesson 3: 80 euros is a lot of underage drinking money, and tattoos are expensive. Don’t go crying about how poor you are afterwards.

Tattoo number 2, December 2009

The most regrettable tattoo of all: the pocket-watch, thanks to a raging obsession with Alice in Wonderland. It was New Years Eve, I felt impulsive, and I wanted an Alice related tattoo. Even on the bus into the city I hadn’t really decided what I was after. My boyfriend at the time knew a guy… so

Lesson 4: Just because somebody owns a tattoo machine and knows how to use it, does not make them a tattoo artist.
Lesson 5: Get an idea, and think about it for at least a night. Who am I to encourage methodical planning beyond one night?
Lesson 6: Never, ever, EVER and I repeat NEVER let somebody tattoo you in a grotty bedroom. It is unhygienic and if the artist is any good, they’ll have a studio representing them.
Lesson 7: The ‘artist’ traced this from a magazine for me. Don’t ever copy anyone else’s tattoo. Come up with your own ideas and if you have no ideas then go to an imaginative studio where somebody will help you design something awesome and unique.

Tattoo number 3, February 2011

The October previous to this tattoo I had become rather enamoured by literal translations of Japanese proverbs. You can check them out here, but my favourite was “kishi kaisei” and meant “to come out of a desperate situation and make a complete return in one sudden burst” – literally to “wake from death and return to life.” For personal reasons, this one stuck with me, and so during tattoo chat with friends I would tell them about this saying. After loving it for 5 months, one evening I asked my dad (who collects pens and is an avid writer) to write the saying down three times for me, to a certain scale. When he asked me why I told him it was for an art project. As he handed over the paper I gleefully told him “well that’s my next tattoo sorted,” and when I came home from Camden the next day there it was on my arm.
He would never tell you, because it’s a father’s job to hate tattoos, but secretly I think he feels quite flattered.

Lesson 8: It is a really nice gesture to have the handwriting of somebody you love.
Lesson 9: Inner arm tattoos can remain quite secret. Hardly anybody knows I’m a tattooed female, and I like it that way.
Lesson 10: Think hard before you have anything about death and life tattooed to you. A lot of people think that I am “fucking morbid” or have a fixation with zombies… not cool.


Tattoo number 4, June 2011

Finally, I decided to cover the awful pocket-watch, as I realized there is no saving a horrific perspective. Geekily researching birds I found I loved the Oriole blackbird with its yellow body, often nicknamed ‘jaundiced one’. In my mind I envisioned the bird in flight, holding in its feet an ornate empty birdcage, in a very illustrative style – like a nature drawing in a classical book. I booked in with an artist who would have done a really beautiful job, and when I turned up to the studio for my appointment, having travelled for about 2 hours, I was told that the artist was not actually there (great) “but this guy can do it for you.”

Lesson 11: Leave. Get out. I know it’s annoying that you’ve travelled so far but just contact the tattoo artist later as to why they weren’t there and can you get your deposit back on account of the studio being idiots and not letting you know sooner and can they book you in some other time.
Lesson 12: Always look at an artist’s portfolio before you let them touch you.
Lesson 13: It is one thing for an artist to say they know what sort of style you want and yes of course they can do it, and to actually understand. A good tattoo artist will put their hands up and tell you when it isn’t their usual sort of style and refer somebody who will do a cracking job at it. A complete dickhead will take a go at anything.
Lesson 14: By the time you’ve paid £260 for 3 hours work which is clearly taking too long and not going how you’d like, just don’t go back. Take a breather. Whilst an unfinished tattoo is annoying, a shitty tattoo is even worse.

Tattoo number 5, November 2011

After a few months tattoo free I was feeling the itch. My dad brought me up on a diet of Star Wars and Bob Dylan music, my favourite film is I’m Not There, and I firmly believe that Dylan is the greatest living poet. A friend at the time was dating a tattooist, and I discovered the incredible world of ‘mates rates’.

Lesson 15: Do your research. Fake signatures are everywhere online.
Lesson 16: Bob Dylan is awesome.
Lesson 17: Don’t pick the scab off your tattoo – duh. If this one wasn’t already pretty flowing what with being writing, I’d have turned it into a right mess and I would be to blame.

Tattoo number 6, December 2011

(Tattoo & photograph - Paul Tipping)

Following the Dylan tattoo, I thought about how I would like a tattoo to represent travel or free spiritedness. There is a Frank Turner song I Am Disappeared featuring the lyrics “I keep having dreams of pioneers and pirate ships and Bob Dylan” and “posters of Dylan and of Hemingway, an antique compass for a sailor’s escape.” (It is a wonderful song and Turner is perhaps one of the only singer songwriters I believe could even nearly hold a candle to Dylan.) A few days into these thoughts, Paul Tipping posted a photo of an anchor that he wanted to tattoo on somebody…

Lesson 18: Befriend good tattoo artists on Facebook or ‘like’ their page. They occasionally post photos of sketches they want to tattoo, which is sometimes a little cheaper. Either way, that many tattoo ideas and completions keep you up to date with what looks good and how artists work.
Lesson 19: If you like a tattoo artist, go back to them.

Tattoo number 7, July 2012

(Tattoo & photograph - Paul Tipping)

Having paid £260 for 3 hours with a studio which will remain nameless, I was fuming. For a year I had left the bird untouched, and I grew to resent it. Backless clothes became a nightmare. People will always come up and comment about any tattoo (because they are vultures) and the worst thing was hearing “Oooh I like your bird” and having to reply, “No you don’t, it’s shit, I hate it, it isn’t finished and I don’t know what to do.” I even started toying with the idea of laser removal, but really I was just upset because it wasn’t finished. My anchor tattoo had immediately become my favourite and receives so many compliments that I asked Mr Tipping if he’d mind finishing it off for me, and I am incredibly fortunate that he agreed.

Lesson 20: Good artists have a waiting list. Get yourself on it and wait the bloody wait. It is worth it.
Lesson 21: Forget all previous lessons and make your own mistakes. That way, you have all the best stories to tell.

And listen to this song, it is great.

'Gordon Behind Bars' on the box

“Most people think these are just crack heads and shit - fair enough they do take crack, but you don’t know what they went through in their life and shit.” - A prison participant

The first advertisement I noticed for Gordon Behind Bars was on a billboard in Birmingham. Three images showed the famous chef holding one of those white signs you see on arrest photographs and the gist of the show was laid out somehow. I looked up at it from my Megabus seat and thought about how tacky the triptych looked, as well as what a job he might have in this project.
For three weeks I didn’t think of Ramsay or the upcoming television show at all, nor did I tune in to Channel 4 enough to see it advertised.

Dinner was rather unplanned tonight (I haven’t been feeling so well) but for routine’s sake I decided to whack a chicken breast and some mushrooms in the microwave at about 9pm. I retired to the living room to find some undemanding entertainment whilst I enjoyed my bland concoction and faced the dilemma – New Girl on E4 or How I Met Your Mother on E4+1? Mindless indeed… Are there no cooking shows on the telly on a Tuesday night? Earlier in the year I would watch about 2 hours of Come Dine With Me a day until everything in my head was narrated by Dave Lamb, and my boyfriend continues to remind me that I could cook nicer meals if I’d only watch a bit of Jamie. Yes, you caught me – I like to watch food when I eat food, and yes, I am well aware that it’s probably part of the slippery slope to morbid obesity or something equally as appalling.
Flicking towards Channel 4 my spirits were lifted when I saw Gordon Ramsay’s name. Granted, I have never intentionally tuned in to his shows but anything felt more appealing than hearing that God-awful canned laughter that goes hand-in-hand with American sit-coms.

Unsure of what to expect anyway, I found that Gordon Behind Bars was not another ‘how-to’ cookery show but the documentary of a sociological study involving cookery. The show is set in Brixton prison, reputably one of London’s rougher areas, and sees Ramsay trying to occupy a small group of prisoners by setting high-pressure cookery tasks. I refuse to spend more time than necessary describing the show so I urge you to watch it instead – the link to the shows on 4OD is at the bottom of this blog.
What I did notice was that of all the TV chefs there is nobody better than Ramsay to be working alongside convicted burglars and drug dealers. With previous show titles such as The F Word if you remember one thing about him, it is probably the swear words. You see, Jamie Oliver is the sort of nice lad you could invite to cook a Sunday roast for your grandparents. In stark contrast Ramsay is comparable to the bad boy you remind about your Christian upbringing and find that he subsequently describes Nick Clegg as a ‘cunt’ and the potatoes as ‘fucking fantastic.’ As far as mainstream TV personalities go, Ramsay is a badass, and enough so to connect with these guys.

In this episode (the third, that is, I have no idea what happened in the first two…) Ramsay makes it his aim to market food made by the prisoners to the public. In particular, Ramsay outlines that he would like to crack into the £5billion UK coffee shop market (I know, I don’t want to believe that amount either. Incredible.)
One buyer asks “Was it made by a paedo?” That was particularly odd. So what if it was?! The individual may need reminding over a cuppa and a kind chat from somebody that paedophilia is a mental sickness rather than some flu-like disease you can catch through food preparation.

With 138 prisons in England and an excess of 80,000 prisoners each year, we do often wonder what they’re getting up to in there. If Ramsay’s goal of turning these under-stimulated and unfortunate individuals into hard-working individuals with an ever building skill set is achieved, then he will deserve every bit of praise he has ever received in ten-fold.

You can catch up on the last three episodes if you click here for it on 4OD...

Or you can do whatever else you do with your life, I don't actually give a shit.

People Talk

“A frustration or complaint only experienced by privileged individuals in wealthy countries.” Wiktionary definition of a First World Problem.

There are millions of people in the world going through various trials which, however small, feel crushing. And, like all problems, we believe that a problem shared is a problem halved. I for one am terribly guilty of complaining about small tribulations which, by any standard of a ‘real problem’ I am lucky to be worrying about.
We all know the people – but just in case you are squinting at your screen, desperately trying to figure out what I am talking about, allow me to contextualize it with this screenshot from Twitter.

Know what I mean now? Good! Let’s get cracking.

My first world problems this afternoon were as follows: I had eaten too much at lunch and felt too full to walk into town to collect my dry cleaning because my dad handed it in a fortnight ago and forgot to collect it and I need to wear a jacket tomorrow to work in a different branch of the retail store I am employed by. (It sure is a hard life.) So I promised myself a medium skinny sugar-free-vanilla latte when I got there, and brought some sketching stuff to do in the café whilst I enjoyed my pretentious beverage.

My first world problem of the summer is that I have a place at one of London’s most prestigious art schools in September and I have to keep myself thinking of concepts for when I arrive since I’ll be left to do my own thing. (Again, I’m really suffering here guys…)

I encountered some more first world problems when I got to the café. The barista almost gave me full fat milk in my latte (we all know that the 100 extra calories would put me up at least three dress sizes instantly, God) then once I got my latte to the table an uneven base meant I lost about one fifteenth of my beverage, equating to about 30p of waste. And to think of all the starving Africans with third world problems I could have fed with that 30p… who I wouldn’t have fed anyway because I’m too busy worrying about my own latte spillage. Yep, you think I’m a dick, but as Andre 3000 would say – “I’m just being honest.”

Leafing through a leftover copy of the Sun, which was full of first world problems just as unexciting as my own, only you’re meant to care about the ones that make the papers, I decided I was better off trying to sketch some stuff around me. First off I drew a nice little old man who was also leafing through a paper.

(Bear in mind I am a conceptual artist/class A bullshitter/not an illustrator/I don’t draw people good, yeah?)

My attention was being forced towards a conversation taking place between two brunette girls opposite me. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop (that’s a lie they were talking so loud it was impossible not to) but I did anyway.
Of the two, the prettier girl led the conversation, her friend occasionally managing to throw in a contributing sentence here or there – you know the conversations, don’t pretend that you don’t. We’ve all had or heard them.

I have mentioned in a previous blog that I find myself acting in a slightly (non-sexual) voyeuristic manner, and it has surfaced in art projects such as the one below where I, in disguise, photographed strangers whilst being photographed.

After a while I thought, fuck it, what these girls are saying is gold. And I couldn’t stop myself.

Try to view and read this as handwriting as it has far more flow and charm – but here are the transcripts too. The ellipses are where they continue to talk but my hand couldn’t keep up with their mouth, so naturally there are parts of the conversation missing.

The thing about that place is office work I’d hands down take it … I like the flexibility … not doing anything til the end of July … I don’t know, I’m going to see what they say on Friday … even if it’s just a month’s work in August … working in the evenings – I wanna do things in the weekends and evenings … but um, yeah …
I don’t know why I’ve never been to that ABC before … not bother going back to Bicester.
What do you think you’re gonna do with the summer though?

All I want is 9 to 5 office work Monday to Friday … Eight pounds an hour or something … it’s not just I owe my mum money but I need to buy so much shit … problem is, I was so desperate to have a really sociable summer … I don’t wanna be sat around … this is the thing like, I have so much I wanna do and no money … thought about … it’s my own fault, I can’t complain, it’s my fault.

Once I got bored of writing, I decided to draw them… but one of them must have noticed and suggested that they depart, so I only got a head and leg and completed sketching the sofa when they left.

Okay, so I’m going to step back for a second here. How many of you think I am a total creep? I would be interested to know. None of this was recorded in a malicious way, I was genuinely charmed by the conversation they were having. I wish I could hear myself back, troubling over what to wear at a weekend, or how many squats to do in a workout, or whether I’m drinking too many carbonated drinks. The reason I was charmed is that these are problems, real problems to somebody, and yet they barely cross my mind because I’m so busy worrying about my own spilt lattes and wobbling tables.

Most important of all, these girls first world problems helped solve one of mine: I now have a starting point for a project this summer. It appeals to every aspect of my curious and slightly inappropriate nature. I will be looking into the legality of the entire thing, but I will not be capturing actual voices or pictures of the individuals, rather they will be portrayed in (very bad) drawings and short snips of handwriting.

Now tell me – am I a terrible person?

Disclaimer: I do recognize that unemployment is a more serious problem than a wobbly table.

Fifth & Final Instalment - Evaluation

Here is the fifth and final instalment of my evaluation. Throughout I have highlighted some artists who, if you like modern art or wish to know more about it, you should certainly consider looking at.

To make the exhibition more mixed media, I took some photos to exhibit too. I asked friends if I could photograph their living rooms on my SLR film camera to show the sorts of spaces I would want to exhibit my sculptures. The whole idea of them by the end was that the parts they were made of had been discarded, but put together with other discarded objects and cast to make a statue that would be exhibited in a home. Useless objects transformed by a casting process, to serve a decorative function.

On a disposable camera I took snaps of interior decorating magazines, with pages turned, hands on them, so the viewer of the photograph feels as though they are the one browsing the magazine. I have referenced Sophie Calle in a number of my projects, most recently ‘Flow Around Town’ when I photographed strangers, but these photographs are more similar to hers despite not being the same subject matter. They are similar to ‘The Shadow’ (1987) and ‘The Sleepers’ (1979) as although they are not photographs of people, they show a hand flicking through a magazine – somewhat voyeuristic, and are grainy black and white film photographs.

I shot colour film and had it developed in an hour, though I digitally processed the images to black and white. The reason I didn’t shoot black and white film to begin with is that it takes a fortnight to get developed, and I was pushing it pretty near the deadline.

Having not yet referenced many artists – allow me to do so now. The sculptures themselves have been compared to works by Jeff Koons and Tony Cragg. Koons “Pre New” and “The New” works are the most similar – the former is made of domestic objects attached to lights, for example a kettle and a fluorescent bulb strip. They become part functional, part decorational, but almost like something you’d expect to see on a spaceship or in a warped nightmare about a domestic situation, rather than in real life! “The New” is a series of vacuum cleaners mounted in illuminated Perspex boxes. Had I not transformed my towers from ready-mades to sculptures, I would have had to consider presentation such as illumination and presentation cases; otherwise it could have looked incredibly half-assed.

Jeff Koons "The New" - photograph credit to www.artnet.com

Tony Cragg’s sculpture ‘Circles’ (1985) shows stacked circles of steel, wood and rubber and in this way is comparable to the tower-like formations of my stacks. Obviously the casts could be comparable to the work of Rachel Whiteread, although I have not looked at negative space. Whilst I can make many links to various contemporary artists with this project, I believe the work is completely my own rather than a copy of anybody else’s.

My statement of intent read - “It is likely that an outcome will be mixed media, or have qualities of installation.” I was correct, as I also added an audio component. I considered asking somebody else to read a reflection of the work which I would write, to play on ideas of art being collaborative and not necessarily one person’s vision and delivery. Other audio ideas included asking two retired antiques dealers to discuss value of objects nowadays, their views on waste and the IKEA market. In the end I read the IKEA catalogue in a flat monotone voice for 20 minutes. This was recorded on a Dictaphone, transferred to my computer and burned to a CD. A CD player is taped to the wall with headphones coming out, and a typed instruction informing viewers that they need to press play, as it isn’t a fancy enough CD player to play on a loop. There is irony in enthusiastic statements such as “transform your room with…” being read in such a dull and unexcited, almost robotic tone.

I noticed after assembling my exhibition that mine is the only entirely monochromatic work in that room. It’s very clean and unfussy looking, and I am glad I did not try to recreate some bright domestic IKEA-style living space. There is something clinical about the work too - a break from the patriarchal society where women rule the domestic sphere*. The materials are bleak, cold and hard rather than soft (fabric, cushions, bedding) or colourful, almost like statues that belong outdoors.
The voice on the record, whilst spoken by a woman, doesn’t sound feminine or enthusiastic and adds to the coldness of the entire show. Whilst I hadn’t considered mood within my planning, I am happy with what the mood does achieve: it reflects my own bleak phases of depression experienced during this project, and the unanswered questions about whether objects can truly be made worth something. Lastly, the work is also somewhat ghost-like, a purgatory between states, the casts froze those objects in time and the originals no longer remain in those formations, and the photographed hand flicking the pages of the magazine went on to do many other things of more importance. And then there is my own purgatory, between receiving a place on a University course, and finishing at college.

*Thank you to Louise Doulin for the words! They were particularly pertinent.

So that's it really, and I have already published a post about the similar work I exhibited at Bear on a Bicycle later in the month.
I hope anybody who read these instalments found them interesting!

The Extended Diploma in Art & Design at Oxford & Cherwell Valley College (which I just finished) has been full of ups and downs, but the tutors are absolutely fantastic and I recommend the 2 year course to anybody who, following GCSEs, knows that their future employment or education will be in an Art or Design field.
Personally, I thought when I began that I would be moving in to commercial photography, but I am far happier with the move I will be making.

I will find out my final grade tomorrow, so far two of my best friends received the highest possible grades (well done, ladies!) but I don't expect the same. Whatever I get though, I know my show must have been received well by the tutors, as when I went to take it down last week I found this note -

What a wonderful compliment.