Reflection (29+)30/03/23 - Best one

Apologies for the convoluted structure of this one, it really reflects the last 2 days...

Wednesday -

Met Eric and Sofia in Archway because we were all feeling burnt out. It was nice to be put in an environment of forced productivity with friends, and felt like I was building on my intentions of mixing uni work and socialising (stated in a previous reflection). During this meeting, my friend and I realised there were crossovers in our project themes, and decided that it would be fitting to collaborate on a workshop where we experiment with natural dye processes. Meanwhile, I was enjoying working out of sketchbook and working with natural alcohol inks to develop colour and silhouette.

Evening. At my house with the lads and we're blending veggies to make dyes. They go out to get biscuits and cigarettes (grim) and I cut samples for the dye workshop. It's best that we do this all together because it's an awful lot of admin. We found that red cabbage and tumeric were by far the most effective dyes, but was pleasantly surprised by the strength of spinach and carrot pigments. Natural dye can be very successful as a process as long as you're mindful of your water consumption.

Eric bought a load of red wine thinking that it would dye fabric. It didn't, so we drank it.

Upon dying all of our samples, we decided that the night was young and that a walk around hampstead was a swell idea. This is a ridiculously wealthy area of London, and guided by the flickering lamp posts and feeling of adventure, decided to go "mansion hunting". This actually felt like a really good influence to my project, as these enormous houses felt like a facade more than anything, and the people within them probably long for the same sort of freedom as I do (why else would you live by hampstead heath?!) My Favourite part of the walk was seeing the juxtaposition between the houses and the tranquility of the heath, buzzing with owls, ducks, and foxes now it's been deserted by mankind.

Thursday

Leaving home at around midnight and returning just before 7am, the 6 hour walk has made me realise that I really do just compare any activity with friends that takes place in nature as joining a cult. I may be romanticising communes slightly but at least I'm self aware - this view will make for a much more enticing outcome anyways!

We were naturally exhausted after completing a 15km walk with no sleep, so decided to sleep through the morning and go into Archway after Lunch. This may have been poor time management on our behalf.

The lads and I arrived to utter Chaos. People were running around desperately getting ready for the final walkround, which we were relieved to have prepared for yesterday. The atmosphere felt intense and deeply toxic, but as we'd just arrived my friends and I were able to look on as outsiders and prepare our stuff more calmly. I felt insecure about the walkround because I had been working out of sketchbook so just had "piles" of different processes.

This was by far the best walkround yet, the difference between amounts of work to produce has been vast, and it's clear to see who thrives off independence and who suffers. Walking around the studios made me curious to see what the tutors thought, as they've seen hundreds of people at this stage by now and probably have a good idea on who gets in. In hindsight it would've been good to spend time curating my sketchbook, but at least I have 2 weeks over easter to take my time with things and come to a design decision that excites me.

By this point, people were coming around asking if we have received an update with our CSM application. I don't want to spend too long talking about this as the state of mind I was in feels to personal to share, but I got in. I hope this drives me to produce better work now I feel like a real contender..

Reflection

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