Part 1 why go to Art college?

I thought I'd write a bit about all of the things I have been involved with but first thought I'd start with why I went to art college. All I knew was that as soon as a knew there was a place where you could do Art all day I wanted to go there. I have drawn and made things from a very early age, always making and drawing and looking and making and drawing and looking. It was encouraged in our family from an early age and my three other sisters have all gone into Art careers. I'll not get into the nature ,nurture debate but suffice to say that whatever creativity is, it's in my family in abundance in fact be have begun to see it as a bit of a curse. You have this "thing" called creativity but what do you do with it????????

While at school I had a wonderful Art teacher Ruth Alexander, I was often found hiding in the Art room drawing,looking and thinking. She encouraged all of her students to find their own voice. We were told to work really hard as getting into Art collage was really difficult. I really wanted to get out of Northern Ireland and could not think of anything more depressing than going to college in Belfast. This was my chance to escape and hay if someone was going to pay for me to live in another country I was outta here.Oh the joy of grants.

Going to the UK for interviews, I though there must be some sort of con on as at each interview for Middlesex,Manchester and Bristol I was told I had a place. Did not seem that difficult I thought. I decided on Bristol as I kinda knew it from visiting my grandmother who used to live nearby. Funny how you choose these things and interesting how they pan out to effect the rest of your life.

While there I enjoyed the delights of being away from home, halls of residence,shared houses and I suppose what all good foundations do, they take you out of your past experience and get you to try something different. We had trips to London and St Ives.There were five of us from Northern Ireland and I have recently identified what happened to everyone. Interesting that many have returned to settle back here. A ceramicist, theatre designer, printmaker,product designer and me ???

I really got into textiles and I had been making my own clothes for years so fashion seemed a natural choice, yet I felt the pure fashion students seemed a bit pretentious. My work and attitude was very fine art based and I thought textiles would give me an opportunity to explore it more. This meant a move but before the move I met my future husband ( but that's another story) for the summer I went to the US and explored life from Virginia beach, Chicago, New York.

Then in was back to Winchester Collage of Art, I really wanted to go to a bigger place but the course was perfect for me. Textile based with lots of travel. It was here that I started to explore the many different facets of my creativity. As I loved making things adding Fashion to everything else seemed perfect and I was one of five who took the extra specialisation. Meaning we learnt how to pattern cut and put together a collection. Not just make the fabric. I used to get really annoyed at the other students in the Winchester who were doing teacher training saying the Art students did not do anything. I was in the collage 9 in the morning to 9 at night enjoying every minute. I would often work at lunch time in a pub but kept the Art obsession together.

I suppose that's why I say Art college is an opportunity for self actualisation, you think , you work you discover in a very free way. An opportunity to discover yourself that you rarely get in so many other occupational choices. The international travel was year one Barcelona, year two Italy, year three France. Another opportunity to go to Russia with Fine Art. All good learning. In the holidays I'd visit NI, went inter railing around Europe. I cycled around Ireland in my second year and this is what gave me the inspiration for my final collection as I kinda fell in love with it again. I had put it out of my mind before but was ready to explore it deeper. Now when I look at what I produced I think it was my kind of therapy a way to try and understand the country I had been brought up in. I also think if I had of went to college here in Belfast I never would have done the work. It needed the distance. I'm going to dig out some pictures to put on the blog.

So I'm not sure if that answers the question why go to Art college? All I knew was I just had to I just could not think of doing anything else. Twenty years on I'd still do the same thing, funny. It is a frustrating choice but interesting all the same.