Initially i thought that the inspiration that i had to become an Art Therapist would work well for me during the course of the year, as I would have a direction, the penny had dropped; I didn't intend on me looking back at this and thinking how naive I was to think this way. Due to positive feedback from tasks and tutorials, I headed down a path where I had conducted more research than practical work; getting too carried away with the theory of working in the community, and reading about homelessness in particular, made me an expert in theory, but not in hands on community work.
After then getting a little hand-on with a group; I decided that working with groups, and developing social projects with them, was not what I wanted to be doing; Finally I realized that what I needed to be doing was more hand-on practical work; from this lead to many min-briefs from making origami from chinese take-away menu's; to making a copper ring; projects in curatorship and nature photography with butterflies.
As many practical skills that I made from doing these mini-briefs, which where plenty in-fact; I do feel that my greatest accomplishments within this module where the skills I learned about what is the best way of working for me; Revelations such as; I may not even want to go towards being an art-therapist as such anymore; I have always wanted to keep my own practice and it is because of that, it may take priority. Another valuable lesson is that, I want to make more use of the colleges facilities whilst I have the opportunity to do so; I only have a year and a half left and I need to make the most of it; prioritizing my own practice and working much more practically than I previously have been. Another reason that I have decided this is because I plan on developing more three dimensional work within my time left, taking the knowledge that I have gained from this module; I am already developing ideas for making such things as jewelry and sculpture, within the next brief.
Other important aspects that I have learned from this module, include that, personally, for me to work best; I need to schedule weekly library and time to do theory work; for scheduling is a major help to my problem of procrastination. This revelation, teamed with the fact that I have finally decided, blogging, in its current format does not work for me; within the next project I will try to record what I am learning, in numerous ways, until it feels right for me as a learner; because blogging simply does not suffice, in my opinion.
Once again, I feel that the mini-briefs and the theory within this this projects, are far inferior to the lessons that i have learned about myself as a learner, and have ben much more of a stepping stone into, not only my next module, but also my future career; and it is because of that, that I feel this project has been successful; I learned what I want to do. Watch this space. Visual Language is going to be a great one. Bring, it, on!
