As autumn well and truly closes in, I’m becoming more reflective on the sunnier months. The first summer since I was sixteen where I wasn’t unwell at all. I had a cold for a brief period, but my health conditions remained stable and I was able to experience exhibitions, shows, visiting friends and writing my research paper.

I visited the university several times over the summer months, enjoying the labyrinth of a library in CSM, I became particularly interested in the work of Byung Chul Han and Yuk Hui, my reading then expanding into areas that weren’t necessarily linked to my research paper. I’m proud of the amount I’ve read over the summer, I feel a lot more embedded into my ideas of what art is and why I’m so drawn to creating in the first place. Through my research of Art as Ritual, I have found the elements of the process that truly benefit me which is helping me to not focus just on the end product.

My Mechanical gut piece is coming together now, I have all the elements that I originally planned for and have found ways to connect wires. I’m also currently creating an illustration off the back of the theme of combining organic and digital forms, my illustration is less fine art print and more illustrative and sellable. There are puns involved. More recently when creating I question whether what I am doing is ‘correct’ for a Fine Art course. At first I rip up the rule book and go in with a creative mind, but once I’m half way through a piece I start worrying about the invisible rulebook I don’t know about. That one that says ‘this isn’t art’ or even, the one that says ‘you should push the boundaries of what art is, but within the confines of what art is’.

When I feel like I’m in a better place with my research paper I’m going to start writing my second study statement, which will be aligned to my current exploration of organic and digital, connection and disconnection. Current ideas are around AI and nature and I’m looking to explore the canal system as a reflection of physical connectivity. Currently I’m bouncing between Llanmynech, Birmingham and London (specifically CSM) which are all close to canal systems. I spend most of my time out doors near the local canal in Llanymynech.

I’m also still wanting to and planning to create knitted pieces with binary within them, connecting myself to the sheep outside my window. Coded wool.

This natural point in my journey has come over a period of exploring and TRUSTING, sometimes tears have come with that trust. Seeing most people on the course having a very solid and long standing practice. But I’m happy that I didn’t just try to blend in and create digital work as an extension of my work in advertising. That was never my ‘practice’, it was a job.

I always wanted to find what I organically was drawn to, by letting this process unfold in front of me. Without forcing a topic to come, though at times I did have ‘eureka’ moments where I thought I had it, they came from a deep desperation and impatience. Instead what I have now is a repeated theme I have gone back to. I can also see why this is a repeated theme, it reflects my life, sitting inside on a computer, hours scrolling on my phone in the dark when I’m unwell. Life walking up hills, visiting waterfalls, bird watching, mushroom hunting. I live in two worlds but they merge into one another. The world has become split. The digital and the physical. The artificial and the organic.