Beginning the second year of the course has been somewhat of a shock to the system. The first thing I realised was that I needed to work smarter! Opportunities had doubled now that I felt more confident in my abilities, and I was eager to take advantage of everything I was offered. I was so excited to find out who we would be working with to fuel our first project, with all the good feedback and praises sung by past year groups on the course.
The collaborative project with St Fagans was the gateway to a lot of my success so far, where I learnt to be brave with my ideas and try things I was too intimidated to do before. I spent a lot of time in the textile print room at university, exploring all the new chemical processes we had been introduced to, being more adventurous with mixing ideas and most importantly making mistakes.
I made a lot of mistakes these past few months where things didn’t go as I planned, colours went awry, spillages and blobs and floods changed the way I worked, but I think the biggest benefit of all of this is that I learnt to give myself space to make these mistakes. I’m still learning. Errors are all part of the process that leads us to creating my 'perfect print', vibrant and clean shades are achieved from a long day slaved over colour chips and endless calculations and proportions, carefully thought out placements and alignments, and a refined process for screen printing.
I want to continue to make mistakes, and continue to create beautiful things from them. Looking on into my new projects, I’m excited to take everything I’ve learnt so far and continue to improve.