PUBLICATION-
While the stress tears are drying on my face, let me talk you through the making of my publication.
I have chosen to prints and coloured paper in a grey font, as it felt the most appropriate way of presenting it - colours are subtle and, with a classy font, it offsets the low-brow monoprint drawings. I am going to Japanese stab stitch the binding instead of hot glue, as it's a visibly hand made process and feels nicer to look at and to hold. I am covering it all in a hand-made beige paper, with a little monoprint drawing on the top. I want it to emulate a feeling of preciousness: a hand-holdable memory in itself.  Mishaps include, but are not limited to: accidentally printing two of the pages (at home) on white paper instead of sand paper, reprinting these pages at uni three times because uni won't support the font i chose so had to match up a similar one, putting the binding holes in before trimming the edge so that theres too much of a gap between the margin(i'm hoping this will work out as stab stitch binding is harder to open...?) drilling a hole into the table then the drill bit snapping off in front of Print Room Susie (she took pity on my as i was uncontrollably crying on the floor at this point), the print room then shutting while my publication was still in bits - not bound or chopped at all.....:):):)
uni shouldn't have to be this stressful, it isn't worth it
:)
roy xx

Yikes

I had a very personal life-situation-thingy happen during this time span, and it definitely put this project on the back burner. I took several weeks just coming to terms with some facts, and several more helping myself and others get through it. I wish i could have that time back, and things go back to how they were before, but of course that's not how life works is it hahahaha. I definitely lost my mojo in myself, and even more in getting back into the swing of this project- i knew the work i needed to make, i just had to make it. My writing, however, 'lacked conviction'. I was struggling to read and find sources, and it became homework-y and i avoided it like the plague, as i couldn't care less, couldn't see the wood for the trees, and i quite frankly had bigger things to worry about. Not to say i wasn't interested in my project any more, but there and then i couldn't bring myself to think about it. I'm glad i took the time i did to get better, despite it consuming all my weeks and leaving me all panicky with no sources. Looking back now, i genuinely can't remember this term, except The Thing That Happened. I'm continuing to get better from now and learning about my own resilience every day, but i'm sure ill Pavlov's cats about it in the future- when recalling my dissertation, be unable to separate it from The Thing That Happened. How on-brand with my dissertation, eh?

STYX

STYX was a performance i saw at the Edinburgh Fringe, and it has stayed with me ever since. It's gig theatre, telling the intertwining stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, and a grandmother, losing her memories due to Alzheimers, recalling her late husband. It incorporates songs written by the grandson, sciencey bits about memory: recording, recalling and loss. verbatim recordings of the grandmother speaking, and relevant mythological tales. It was genuinely so beautiful! It has definitely inspired the foundations of this project. It is interesting how music and theatre performance has inspired this project, yet t is entirely relevant in its creation and intention, and resonates with my own empathy, which is what i want to portray.

After a discussion with Matt, i had realised that my question has split into two. First of all, exploring the representation of my memories and ceramics, and the stories of my Nan, which i wasn't sure i would manage to do justice in 11 weeks. Second, a quest for truth, hand made immediacy, and low brow art- looking at beauty and looking at truth in making. This was definitely something i wanted to incorporate, but did't sum up everything i wanted to say, plus i needed it to contain a personal element to not be too homework-y and prescribed, and make me not want to do it. I realised from this conversation and from being encouraged to change my project in a way that i wasn't sure i wanted to follow and remain genuinely excited about, that my project was about memory. This linked the two intrinsically, and there was a lot of science jargon that i was excited to learn about. I hadn't realised until this conversation that i was genuinely passionate about  doing the Nan-story thing and was willing to stand up for myself wanting to do something- something i'm incredibly bad at. wow!

I always knew in this project that it had to be focussed toward making work that i wanted to make. The struggle i alway have had in the past was doing things that I though was expected of me, assigning it as homework to myself, and putting it off until last minute. This always resulted in shoddy work that I wasn't proud of. HOWEVER, I struggle to work under pressure, am a quick worker, and thrive off imperfection and low-brow methods. After such a long, and frankly, unproductive, summer, i knew that i had to work to my strengths and get back into the swing of it. There was no hesitation in knowing what i wanted to make: i knew i wanted to expand on my ceramics. I wanted to tie this in to something more personal and storytelling, but i didn't quite know how to do that yet. I started about thinking about mythology- it's an interest of mine, but i'm by nonmeans an expert. However, it didn't feel like it had much relevancy to me as a practitioner, and i wanted to develop my own narrative anyway. I looked at what meant a lot to me as a person, and recalled upon the longing i've had for several years to document my memories surrounding my Nan, and document her stories too. At this early stage, it was about linking the personal nature of my memories to the higher body of mythology, and somehow incorporate ceramics. That's where i started, and its a good amount to play with, with lots of little nooks and crannies to explore.