Assignment 4 was the first real practical piece I did so I was pleased with the feedback I got. I had a video call with my tutor to discuss my work who is very impressed with my progress so far. I have produced a good range of creative experiments so far and am beginning to find my personal visual language. This I am pleased about as it is an area that was concerning me. It is always difficult producing something personal and getting feedback on it as it is something you have poured feeling into. I realise this is an area alongside my perfectionism that I struggle with as I have a fear of people not liking or understanding it, even being judgemental about it. I think all artists feel like this to some extent and it is about gaining confidence in yourself and your work to face criticism. Not everyone is always going to like or understand everything you produce and that is okay if it comes from a place of authenticity.
One area to work on is to continue building synergy between different elements of my practice in research and studio work. I think I am still a little too careful and could experiment more to create even better synergy and unique pieces.
It was interesting that my tutor picked out one photo as a highlight that I wasn’t too keen on when I originally created it. Again it should be a reason to not worry so much about what people think as they will have different opinions on what I do and different preferences so I shouldn’t be afraid to experiment.
My tutor also gave me a lot of links and suggestions to look at which I have summarised here:
Cairdeall 