Little Talks

                                                                 
                                                            Of Monsters and Men -Little Talks

Its been a while since I got a chance to update this blog things have been pretty hectic and exciting recently, I have just finished my first month of College at UCD  in Dublin, I have now moved from studying Fine Art and Illustration to English and Art History ( I also study psychology and Film Studies as my electives) , its a big change in my many ways the college is a lot bigger, the course is completely different and I am now living four hours away from home.

I have always loved Dublin and I am really happy that I made the decision to come here, there is so much things to do and I was lucky enough to meet new people and settle in so soon...since I stay up here a month at a time it makes me appreciate my hometown a lot more when I go home. My Summer ended quite abruptly once I got my offer which meant I never got a proper chance to celebrate the end of Summer with my closest friends which I was quite disappointed about, luckily most of us are all addicted to Facebook and Twitter and barely sleep at night so we're able to keep in contact on a regular basis.

 I probably wont be posting my own art on this page anymore but intend to keep it up to date with some of the artists Im interested in along with  fashion, films and music as usual. This song "Little Talks" in particular is my favourite song at the moment, its such an autumn song and I was convinced it was Ellie Goulding singing when I first heard it.

Change of Mind

After those few trips to Dublin it was around Easter time and I had made a lot of changes and decisions:

1.  1.   I did not want to go to DIT; I wasn’t fond of the building and did not feel comfortable in that area on my own even in the daytime. It also had no campus accommodation or the College atmosphere that I felt while visiting DCU and after so many months on my Art Foundation Course I was certain I wanted the College Student Lifestyle.

2.  2.  Under no circumstances was I going to take a place on any Fine Art course. I adore clothes and fashion, after being introduced to a few Fine Artists and their stories throughout the year; I was not prepared to live the life of a struggling freelance artist.  I would consider teaching but I was not ready to narrow down my career options that far and I couldn’t risk it for financial reasons also most freelance artists that sell paintings work on different subject matter  to me, so it just wouldn’t work.  I did like the idea of working in a Gallery or Museum within Ireland but not many Galleries often have job vacancies.

3.    3. I felt that IADT was too far away from Dublin and it would be a major trek from Donegal if I wanted to go home at weekends. I also qualified for the HEAR scheme this year which entitled me to about  €1000 ever  year I’m on my course unfortunately, IADT is not one of the participating colleges and I wasn’t really in the position to pass up €1000 for each year I’m in college.  I did really like the atmosphere of IADT there was definitely a relaxed and arty feel to the place.

4.      4.  I also realised my art had changed, fashion became a major factor in it, I had become completely fascinated by Alexander McQueen collections.  I would make art inspired by his collections, I never actually wanted to make clothes but I would always be inspired by his creations. I didn’t want to paint traditional landscapes I wanted all my art to be dramatic and dark yet still beautiful. I used McQueen as one of the artists in my Art history essays and I began to want to write about his fashion and impact on the world. It made me realise that maybe I would be better off researching courses that would allow me to go down the route of fashion journalism or art history since during my spare time I thoroughly enjoyed researching his Savage Beauty Exhibition that was held in New York last year.

5.    5.    I was applying for Visual Communication courses and successfully passing the portfolio criteria for them. I wasn’t too sure about following that path since the majority of my photoshop pieces that worked out well were generally created by accident; I hadn’t a clue at the time what I was doing.  I came to the conclusions that going into a course were I would be surrounded with photoshop a lot of the time would probably not be a wise choice.

CAO College choices

Summer moving swiftly along can only mean Leaving Cert results and CAO offers are fast approaching . Thousands of 2012 Leaving  Certs will receive their results tomorrow but they will have to wait until next Monday August 20^th to find out if they were fortunate enough to bag a coveted place on their chosen college course.

This year the CAO offers are very significant to me , although I did my Leaving Cert in 2011 got points that I was happy with, I decided to go ahead and follow the route of Art College. The prospect of a future career and opportunities was always going to be questionable but I was defiant and determined to follow through with my passion for art. Art had always been my ‘thing’; I was utterly obsessed with it even from a young age through primary school up until Leaving Cert. I would always enter competitions and put so much time and effort into it, without seeing it as work.

During 6^th Year I built up a portfolio and was successful in my interview, once I got my results I was sure about taking a place on the Art and Design Foundation course starting in September. I wasn’t sure what specialism I wanted to base my degree on so it was a great opportunity to have the year since I got the chance to experiment with areas such as Ceramics, Textiles, Animation, 3D Design, Fine Art, Print and Visual Communications. 

A few months into my course we had to start thinking about where we wanted to go next year and what we wanted to do, that meant applying for UCAS and CAO all over again. At that point I had decided I only wanted to consider Fine Art and Visual Communications courses. I applied for courses in DIT, IADT, NCAD and LYIT all places based in Ireland. I had no intentions of going overseas to England on my own and with fees of up to £8000 I was not willing to go to Belfast or Derry either  so as a result I gave UCAS  a miss this year. My tutor did spend weeks trying to convince me to apply to Falmouth College for illustration but unfortunately the only thing I knew about Falmouth was that it “Noah and The Whale” often performed there and as much as I appreciate the band they couldn’t seal the deal for me.