Remind me to tell you how one of my drawings ended up in the Barbados National Art Gallery Collection without me knowing about it. Soon.
Right now I’m putting off delivering a bit of disappointing news. The funding application didn’t exactly turn out the way we’d been led to believe it had. We were told we’d be receiving some money for the catalogue, which led me to believe it wouldn’t be the full amount requested. Two weeks later I’ve found out we’re getting no money for the catalogue, and some money for advertising. No, I can’t push it around either, as it was specified for that purpose. And now I feel like a prize-winning lemon for not asking for more, as we still need to cough up a fair bit between us for advertising, printing and booze, and if I’d have known that advertising would have been the only thing favoured by the K College honchos, I’d have put more of my eggs into that basket. Hence my reticence to email everyone with the news. Still, we’ll raise the funds ourselves, as we had planned to beforehand. We’ve got a sponsorship opportunity available as well, so it’s time to get the claws into that.
Instead of ranting, I’ll add a bit of background info to the course I’m on. I’m often curious about other bloggers’s course structures, so I might as well explain ours. At the University of Kent induction day back in September we were addressed by the head of the School of Arts, and during his speech he went on to say, “You’re like full university students”, whilst showcasing the facilities on offer to us. That ‘like’ rankled with me; it was a slip, of course, but an interesting one. I heard a lot more than he probably meant to say with it. We are University of Kent students, studying at a partner college, but it does lead to a decent sized identity crisis at times. Our B.A. journey is different to the other University of Kent students, being chopped into two: the two-year HND, then the B.A. Top-Up. Apparently this makes this final year a bit more pressurised than other courses, as the first two years are disregarded, but I have little to compare it to myself.
On the positive side, so I’ve been told, we’ve got an amazingly generous allocation of studio space. Ironic for me, as I was given a great space, but still refuse to paint in the studio (no windows!) and now spend most of my time when on campus in the sculpture room. As a very small group, we seem to have more tutor time than most, and we’re fortunate to have fantastic teaching staff and an excellent technician back on our site this year. On the down side, the facilities leave a lot to be desired. Coming from MassArt in Boston, which was, oh, about ten times the size of the Henwood campus, I learned to stop comparing pretty much straight away. Still, I believe you can get around the limitations if you’re prepared to roll your eyes instead of jump up and down like a lunatic. Furthermore, at Henwood, we’re like a little art school island on an industrial estate. I quite like it that way. I‘ve been across the Atlantic more times than I’ve been to the main campus on the other side of Ashford. It still scares me a bit.
After all that, I’m sure I can manage to tell you a bit about the actual art I’m making. After a much-needed morning at home clearing up, I started putting my paintings and drawings into their frames. This led to a mild panic once I realised just how few I had ready, and then to a bout of remorse over submitting some of them to other open exhibitions. Still, it’s a win-win situation; if they come back unselected, I’ve got more work ready and less to do, and if they are selected, why on earth would I complain about that? Still, it was shocking to see that I’ve got only one quarter of what I’d initially envisaged going on display, and probably one third of what I can actually get away with showing as a convincing version of my proposed idea. Time to swap the chisels for the size 000 sable/synthetic brush. (Saving up for the all-weasel… in time!)
