On the 8th of September I moved to London. I live in student accommodation in Tufnell Park, in the North of London (about two stops up on the Northern Line from Camden Town.)
You can see some posts and photos about those first few weeks on the Starting at UAL Tumblr I was contributing to. My posts are identifiable by the icon to the left showing a girl clutching a pint of cider. Standard. Jeremy and Irina wrote interesting pieces about their move too.
But just in case you're too lazy to look, here are some images which summarize my first few weeks here.
(Olympic closing parade, Charing Cross)
(Sushi in Chinatown)
(Mae West Lips sofa, The Sanderson, London)
(Saatchi Gallery)
(Lewis and Harriet catch a mouse)
(My embarrassing note from Rick Edwards... thanks George)
That should suffice.
This Monday I started my BA Fine Art degree at Central Saint Martins. During a tour of the Kings Cross building when I applied, I was given a booklet of postcards. One of them read "EAT IT, SLEEP IT, PLAY IT, LIVE IT." I stuck it to my wall until the move and it is now on my pinboard.
(CSM Kings Cross site)
It feels as if life has never changed so quickly before.
Last week I started complaining that I was living here, in London, in University halls, with a loan for education I'd not actually started yet. It was guilt inducing and surreal.
For the last 4 days I have indeed eaten, slept, played and lived art.
On Monday we were given a short lecture and moved into our allocated degree 'pathways.' I always wrote in my personal statement that I wanted to join a community of likeminded individuals (artists) and actually doing so has been incredible. We finished for the day at about half 4, I popped home for some cereal and went to Holburn with my friend for a ballet society taster session. On my way there and home I did some filming, and spent my night making about 87 stills from one of the 30 minute videos. That took until about 3am.
Last week I started complaining that I was living here, in London, in University halls, with a loan for education I'd not actually started yet. It was guilt inducing and surreal.
For the last 4 days I have indeed eaten, slept, played and lived art.
On Monday we were given a short lecture and moved into our allocated degree 'pathways.' I always wrote in my personal statement that I wanted to join a community of likeminded individuals (artists) and actually doing so has been incredible. We finished for the day at about half 4, I popped home for some cereal and went to Holburn with my friend for a ballet society taster session. On my way there and home I did some filming, and spent my night making about 87 stills from one of the 30 minute videos. That took until about 3am.
Tuesday was our introduction to our Byam Shaw studios in Archway. During stage 1 it seems that we will generally be using Kings Cross for lectures and workshops. Byam Shaw is a smaller and more intimate building. We spent the morning touring the place, because I say small, but it's kind of a maze at first. The afternoon was spent in groups making performance art about another art piece submitted on A4 by another student - trying to interpret their intentions without any materials besides ourselves. In a group of 4 my group played a huge printer. I told my boyfriend about this, and he said that if you didn't know we were Fine Artists it would sound like we were at primary school... it's unfortunate but true.
The pathway I have been initially allocated to is referred to as XD. However, it is oversubscribed and we were told that diagnostic pathway crits would be held in an attempt to thin out the group and put people who might be better suited to another pathway. Everybody initially thought that XD meant spanning every media (as opposed to 2D painting/photography/drawing, 3D sculpture, 4D video/installation/sound/performance) but it turns out we were only half right. The understanding I have of XD is that whilst you may span across media, it's about concepts being potentially more important than artistic execution; collaborating with other artists; and site specific work, eg. putting your sculpture on the street instead of in a gallery. I had Tuesday evening and Wednesday to prepare for this meeting and really pitch why I need to be in XD, rather than 2D, where I had first been placed.
The pathway I have been initially allocated to is referred to as XD. However, it is oversubscribed and we were told that diagnostic pathway crits would be held in an attempt to thin out the group and put people who might be better suited to another pathway. Everybody initially thought that XD meant spanning every media (as opposed to 2D painting/photography/drawing, 3D sculpture, 4D video/installation/sound/performance) but it turns out we were only half right. The understanding I have of XD is that whilst you may span across media, it's about concepts being potentially more important than artistic execution; collaborating with other artists; and site specific work, eg. putting your sculpture on the street instead of in a gallery. I had Tuesday evening and Wednesday to prepare for this meeting and really pitch why I need to be in XD, rather than 2D, where I had first been placed.
There's a guy called Lewis in my halls and on my course (and in one of the photos up there with the mouse trap) who I'd been planning a collaboration with. We spent a good 4 hours on Tuesday night writing a proposal for this collaboration and making some tests for it.... as well as occasionally going on YouTube to watch Goldsmiths: But Is It Art? and Nicki Minaj videos. It ended up about a page and a half and it's a bloody thorough explanation. I will begin looking into copyrighting, as it has received some interest from others collaborators and I must ensure that every artist is given equal credit. But it's very exciting... if you're an artist. 11pm finish, 1am realizing I was done for the night, 2am bedtime, 2 night playlists before I nodded off. Ho hum.
Wednesday saw a morning of rehearsing and showing performance art in groups again, and a lunchtime hanging out with other XD students chatting about art, mostly. I went home, finished preparing stuff for my meeting, then flew out the door to get to Tate Britain for a talk by Spartacus Chetwynd who has been shortlisted for this year's Turner Prize. Half way through the talk I realized I was scowling, despite her fun and totally unconventional talk. Mainly because I was frantically scribbling notes so that I could write an essay about her. Being in education after a summer off is very odd. I feel like if I'm paying £9k then I'm going to get every penny from a £6 talk and crack out some work from it. After all, it's two boob jobs worth of cash.
After getting soaked walking from Tate Britain to Pimlico, we got back at about 9pm. I made my first microwave meal in my time here, and spent the evening typing up my notes so that they made sense later. One of my favourite bits of the talk, in my notes, is:
"Chetwynd
has been stressing that the subject matter of her art is “fun.” She recalls studying at Slade and being asked
by a professor “What is your subject matter?”
She didn't know, and he wouldn't let her use the painting workshops on
account of it. 10 years later at an
interview for the British School in Rome, he was one of five panelists she
showed her work to. Mortified, she
describes avoiding him, imagining he wasn't there, as she shows the panel her
paintings. He eventually exclaims “I
know what your subject matter is! It’s
‘fun’!” Until then she hasn't realized
this herself, and responds; “And is that something with which you are
familiar?”"
This morning I had my diagnostic group meeting/crit/I can't even decide what it's called, and I'll find out for sure whether I've been moved again hopefully by Monday. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Tonight I had a choice between the first Yoga society class or an event in Holloway called "Welcome to Meeksville" which CSM have had some involvement in organizing. I was almost going to let yoga win, until I remembered something a tutor at college had told me about going to CSM - "You're going to be invited to a lot of [art] parties, and you must absolutely attend them. Your degree is important, but that's as important." So tonight art wins again.
9:30am lecture tomorrow, but I hope to be finished by 4pm or so... it's Late at Tate tomorrow night, but I think I ought to give myself a night off. I'm going to try cooking a fish lasagna (yes, I know it sounds weird) and watch some films with my boyfriend. At the most demanding, maybe we'll walk to Kentish Town for some drinks in this nice little cocktail bar... but I've got a bottle of Absolut in the fridge and he used to work in a better bar, so I'm pretty sure that won't need to happen.
So I've got this far and now I don't even know who I was writing this for. I guess it was for me - an icebreaker with Pondering. It's been so long, there was a large gap to fill and a lot that I wanted to summarise for friends and family so that I can stop repeating information. I apologize profusely if you believe the post belongs in an email to people who give a shit.
I do have plans to return to Pondering though.
- Now that I live in London I don't eat in chain restaurants since there are so many interesting, well decorated and soulful spots about. Having also bought into the Instagram thing, I tend to photograph my food when it arrives... hey, I'm paying London prices for it and I'm a fast eater, let me immortalize it somehow. For a while I've been talking about food reviews, and the food society first meeting is on Saturday, I'm hoping to get involved with that.
- Women in London are very well dressed. I noticed a big need to step my game up when I got here, though I've not bought any new clothes yet. On my walk to studios this morning I thought about photographing my outfit every day to post weekly, in an attempt to look as good as possible when I leave each morning... it's a bit LookBook and fashion student-y, which isn't really me and never has been, but maybe I'll give it a go. Even though it's only for documentation purposes... and for my family to look at when they miss my face and telling me that my skirts are too short.
- I'll be going to a lot more galleries, artist talks and art events, which I should be reviewing and reflecting on as much as possible. Turner Prize started on Tuesday and though I went to the talk I've never even seen Chetwynd's work, so I'm looking forward to writing about it when I have. I'll probably share these here, even though I don't always need to.
- General reflections. My best blogs have always been about random topics I found interesting or sharing cynical rants.
I need to write to stay sane. Since moving here I can't remember a night I haven't emailed my dad before bed.
If you made it this far, you deserve a cookie.
Here's a miserable looking photo, just so you know I'm the same grumpy bitch as ever, just a bit strung out and boring from the last week.
Ta-ra for now.
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