Day Ten - Friday 23rd - Last Day:(

Today started as any of the other days did, with opening up the macs, hearing the little sound it makes when it turns on, and getting on with blogs, finishing projects etc. The only difference I felt was that there was a certain rushed finality hanging over it all, like the day itself knew it would be the last one I would spend on work experience there, in the company of people I may never see again, and on a mac that the ones at school could never compete with, starting-up-wise. I had really grown to love that little wake up sound the macs made. Yes, the macs which I once feared and fretted over were going to be missed. And they weren't the only thing. I had really gotten used to coming in everyday, seeing the same people and although most days were different, doing the same line of work, day in, day out. It would be weird leaving it all and at the end of the summer, going back to school.

Later on, I had a review with Vicky, who I found out had written a really lovely reference for me, which I was really chuffed about. She also videoed asking me some questions about the placement, like Was anything I had done or learnt useful , What advice would I give someone else doing it, and so on.

In the last part of the day, we all watched youtube clips and generally relaxed and had food like strawberry laces and things, which was nice.

At first I was really nervous and scared about this placement, but after the time I've spent here, I think that was probably a stupid thing to do, because I have actually really enjoyed these two weeks and will really miss it, especially when I get back to school and have to do Physics and RE instead. All in all, I had a great time and have learnt so much from coming here.

Day Nine - Thursday 22nd

So today was kinda busy. So busy in fact I'm writing this late, it's actually Friday, but let’s pretend it’s Thursday.... (Cue weird flashback harp music)

Truth be told, I can’t actually remember most of what happened yesterday, so this will be sketchy. My memory is very poor, so bad in fact that I usually go upstairs and forget what I went up for.

What I do particularly remember about the day, though, was the bus journey, or rather the wait for it to arrive. There I was queuing at the bus stop, trying to get to work a little earlier, when the bus decided to do that annoying thing where it promises to be here in a minute, but then changes its mind and says it will be there in 10 minutes instead. It was incredibly irritating, waiting there, constantly checking the screen but finding no improvement, and I didn’t quite get there for the time I wanted, but I wasn’t late so it wasn’t too bad.

I came in and first started writing things up and photoshopping (that’s not a verb is it?) for my project. I had enough pictures as I got a few more recently, but I had to mostly pick and choose which ones I would use for the final thing. As well as this, I wrote up a few things for my arts award and blog, but those still need finishing, so I will have to do those tomorrow. Also, I edited the interview with Susanna and managed to cover up my mistake, so now no one will know! Well technically that’s not true is it, as I have just declared it in here. Oh well, you get the gist of it all anyway.

Day Eight - Wednesday 21st

We got kicked out today. That sounds really bad doesn't it, but the people at Site just needed to use the room is all, so we all had a nice, wait for it - SUNNY! - day out! I know English people always obsess about the weather but it really was quite miraculous.

First off we started in town and all split up and went to find pictures that would fit the caption "Hidden Sheffield", which was fun until Bethan and I got harassed by some plasterer selling joke books and the God Lady. Then I ran out of ideas and started taking pictures of pigeons, and especially this really fat one which was sleeping. I don't think I'll win the cinema tickets - which will be the prize - not even with a lovely snap of a cardboard cut out of Peter Jones from Dragons Den.

Anyway, after this we all met up in the Peace Gardens, where Bethan took a couple more of her motionless pictures. Then we were told about where we were going next which was Bank Street Art Gallery. This is where I would meet Susanna Gent, the artist / taxidermist who I interviewed. When we got there, we were given a general tour of the place. It kind of reminded me of this book I read in which there is a library which seems to go on forever, it turns this way, then that and before you know it, you're lost. It had all different levels and corridors and this little courtyard thing in the middle, and all in all I would like to live there. Ok, that sounds a bit weird, but I just really liked how different it was from other galleries.

We looked around Susanna Gent's work, in which I particularly liked her 12 Stag heads which are like the ones you might find mounted on the walls of a hunting lodge. However, these ones were different, different from a hunting lodge and different from each other. They were all made of different materials and each had different designs, and I really liked how original they were. My favourite would probably be the one made out of shells, because, not only did it look painstakingly hard to make and was very pretty, but also because I think it was something quite personal for her. A close second, though, would have to be one that was made out of pink rubber gloves pinned together to form the skin, plug holes for the eyes, and taps for the antlers.

Another person we met was Bryan Eccleshall who was working on an installation for the gallery, where he took the favourite postcards from Graves art Gallery and made line drawings onto some walls of them in the size the actual picture that the postcard was of was. I quite liked this because it was fairly original, despite the source not being.

My interview with Susanna went fairly well I thought, although on one question I kinda screwed up. I thought she taught Fine Art, but she actually teaches Media, whoops. She was quite nice about it though and answered all the questions in detail. I have posted the interview in my Arts Award Part C.

After this, Susanna and I went to Riverside. Well, she did, but I got lost. Poor Susanna probably thought I had abandoned her, but if its one thing I'm very, very good at, it's the whole getting lost business. Deary me. I ended up going back to Bank Street and painting some walls with Josh and someone called Michael I think. And yes, I managed to get paint on me as well as the walls, what can I say, I'm a girl of many talents.

Day Seven - Tuesday 20th

Tomorrow I'm going to interview Susannah Gent who is an artist who does a bit of everything I'm told, even taxidermy. When Vicky told us about her she seemed quite an interesting person to interview and so I thought I would go for her and I'm told she is nice so hopefully she won't be annoyed at my poor interviewing skills. With help I have written up some questions to ask her and also tomorrow, before the interview, we will go and see her work.

I've started photoshopping some of the pictures I have for the project but I'm still a little bit short despite some of my friends being so helpful and nice and sending me some of theirs. I should hopefully be ok though and I'll try and get it finished soon. The only thing other than the interview and this is to write everything up. So I'm really not sure what else to write about...

Part D - Arts Apprenticeship

Part D: Leading an art project

Having used photography as my challenge for improving (part A) I have come up with a project that also uses photography but that also uses writing, the web and collaboration (with the other apprentices and friends) as this I am finding out is an interesting area of contemporary art these days.

My idea is to get people to take pictures of places around the city which are special to them, and give me reasons as to why. I’ll then pick out ones those that I feel are particularly good, editing the text and images, and find a way to bring them all together visually on a web map. Not the easiest idea in the world but it brings together instructions and decision making and working with people and Vicky said that was a nice idea I’d had.

Have been looking at ways we can plot these and the meaning people have attached to them on a map people can view online. I’ve been discussing ideas with Vicky, Ben and Kim. The ideal now is for me to put them all into a blog and a technical person will link them to a map (yay!) I loved that I got my idea to work in the end.

The idea came out of thinking up collaborative instructions people could follow after looking at similar assignments on www.learnigntoloveyoumore.com which was a huge creative project that anyone can produce an assignment for. One family I think did the whole 70 or so tasks it set!

I really enjoyed setting the instructions for this and emailing to family, friends and explaining it with other apprentices on my team at the gallery.

I would have to say that this part was maybe one of my favourite parts of the arts award and my experience at the gallery because it gave me an opportunity to explore a range of ideas and creativity with other people. Also, some of the reasons people have given me for the places they had chosen for the map were really nice to read, with some making me smile, and others making me laugh.

I really enjoyed finding out all the places they held dear to them, with all the memories they had attached to them, and it made me think about what it must be like if every place in the world were associated with personal memories and not just facts.

View my final project blog here: http://putitonamap.blogspot.com/

Part B - Be the Audience

I have really enjoyed this part of my Site apprenticeship because it has let me see galleries and works that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. For this task instead of being an audience at one event, I decided to comment on two events (A 'why you should go' review) as I couldn’t choose a favourite and they both offered me a different idea about types of gallery experiences and shows.

YAS:

The first place I went was Yorkshire Art Space (YAS). It’s a huge modern building with a gallery at the front and it houses different kinds of studios and all different types of craft people, from silversmiths to ceramicists. We got to look around the building and in various studios, and also got to look at work by a ceramicist called Emilie Taylor. I liked her work because she made these really pretty pots, but also incorporated contemporary messages into them. I really liked visiting YAS because we got a real insight into how people work in their studios and make a living.

Why visit? Because they do a wide variety of exhibitions, it’s friendly, free and a really cool state of the art building and because it houses many different artists and makers from Sheffield.

Bank Street:

My other favourite place is Bank Street Arts, which was where I was able to see the work of Susanna Gent who I interviewed for Part C. Bank St. is a quirky big old house in the centre of Sheffield. Very different from YAS. From the outside you wouldn’t know it was a gallery.

Susanna’s work went across 3 rooms (we only saw 2 as the cellar exhibition had been only for a few days). It included taxidermy pieces of ‘road kill’ rabbits, foxes and badgers. The work is based around ideas about how children's books often use animals as characters and about how people aren't really very aware of where their food come from. Which we don't really want to know about because it makes us think too much about death, and that we are also partly meat.

Although I am a little squeamish, I did like the ideas behind all her work and it was obvious that she really thought about it, and not just did it randomly. Her other work was more playful and consisted of a square gallery full of a wide variety of fake and comical deer heads (amounted as you would see them in a film but all were made of random stuff). There were taps as antlers, and ones covered in shells and interesting fabric and rubber. Anyway that would work. All really creative and fun.

Also, we were able to talk to Bryan Eccleshall about his work which we managed to catch him in the middle of in a small gallery. At the moment he is making line drawings of the Graves Art Gallery's favourite postcards, and is drawing them onto the actual wall, using an OHP to copy from. They will be the size of the paintings the postcards are of, but will be drawn from the postcards instead off the paintings. He talked to us about this and about copying and I quite liked this idea, because it will be an installation and is fairly original, despite the source not being. His work is about exploring ideas rather than finished produces which is new to me.

Part C - Arts Heroes and Heroines

My interview with Susanna Gent: http://www.radiowaves.co.uk/story/151009/title/BethanyBoaminterviewingSusannaGent

For this part, I have interviewed artist Susanna Gent after visiting her Bank Street Arts exhibition which I really enjoyed. She doesn't work with just one media, but with lots of different ones, like sculpture, taxidermy and film making, which I thought was particularly interesting and was why I chose to interview her. I particularly liked her 12 stag heads that she had made, because they incorporated humour and a really creative use of material and were just really interesting to look at as they were made of all kinds of odd things she had collected, (like one, for instance, had skin made of pink rubber gloves, taps for antlers and plugs holes for eyes).

I really enjoyed my interview with Susanna despite being nervous and I think she enjoyed being asked questions. She was very helpful and answered all questions with lots of detail which I really appreciated. I hope to see more of her work in the future.

The questions I asked her were:

- How would you describe yourself as an artist and what you do creatively?

- How did you get into art and did you set out to be an artist from a young age?

- You use taxidermy (that is stuffed animals) and fake animals in your work, why?

- I believe you have taught yourself taxidermy which you've used in this exhibition, how did that come about and how do you source your animal bodies?!

- I've heard you are also interested in ideas around the uncanny, can you tell me a bit more about that?

- The fake deer heads mounted like trophies on the wall come across as bizarre and comical. What place does humour have in your work?

- How does your past creative work differ from this particular body of work and is it all related somehow?

- Which other artists do you admire and why?

- what kind of things or people influence your work?

- Does your art pay a wage or do you have other ways of making money?

- So you teach on the Media course at Sheffield Hallam University. I imagine art a difficult subject to 'teach' because it's such a personal thing to different people…how do you deal with that?

- What advice would you have for any aspiring young artists?

- What are your plans for future creativity?

Part A - Take Part

For Part A of my Arts Award: Photography and image editing (photoshop).

This has been useful for my Part D, in which I have used and selected a lot of photography. One of the things I have learnt was about the rule of thirds, which is basically about splitting an image into thirds and making sure that one thing isn't in the centre as it draws the eye to that point and not the rest of the picture. We read images from left to right and around so it's good if points of interest in an image help the eye travel. Another thing I have learnt is how to frame a picture by using things which are around it, as it makes the picture look better.

I have tried to use these ideas in some of the photos I have taken, and have enjoyed experimenting with different shots. I took a lot of photos during my time as a young apprentice at the Site Gallery. The second we started using the studio to do close up portraits. It's most important to focus on eyes in a portrait. If the eye's are out of focus, the image won't look right as we naturally focus on people's eye's when we are looking at them. I enjoyed moving the light around and zooming in the studio to create different compositions. The features of a face became the points of interest to consider in the rule of thirds. It was fun being able to really focus on what I was doing in the studio and I think this gave me confidence to carry on like that outside or 'on location'.

I also took a lot of photos around town. Some were for the photo competition that vicky set and some were documenting what we were doing. This is known as documentary photography. I also took some photos in the studio.

My final project involve myself, my group and friends and family taking a set of 5 photos that I gave instructions on. I then had the task of deciding which photos to use in my final part d project. I tried to think about the ideal shots and the composition but I had to make do sometimes. This is good though as I know I can make better decisions now about photos and I know what looks good or how something can look better.

Photoshop is really useful software I discussed. I got to use it several times over the two weeks and by the time I used it to finalise the images I chose for my final project at the end, I knew how I wanted to improve them. I learnt about general stuff like changing the brightness and contrast to make the image clearer and brighter. Also cropping, (which is good for improving a composition that's not quite right) and things like mirroring an image and putting effects on which I really enjoy. I also like just little changes to images as I like the power of photos for us to believe them. Now I know that all photos are kind of 'framed' as vicky says to suggest what they should mean.

I feel more confident now with a camera and with photoshop!

Day Six - Monday 19th

At last, Sun! I've missed it with all this rain and thunder and lightning and dreariness. But I still managed to take in my mount everest tent of a coat because the stupid weather forecast said it would rain. Sod's law really. And it was in this lovely sun that we went to visit the Yorkshire Art Space. We looked at some interesting ceramics by Emilie Taylor which were these pots with drawings and patterns on them and had messages, like one which was called Suburbia that had a drawing of semi-detached houses and stags in front of them. She later explained this was about how suburban people are always so precious and stuck up about their houses and treat them as if they were stately homes. I quite liked her work because they had messages and yet were nice to look at. Sometimes, although it gets a statement across, I think some people who do this kind of thing do it a bit bluntly, but in this case it was quite subtle and I liked that. We also got taken around the studios by Rachel Dodd who gave us a debrief about this line of work as well, and we had a little look in on a silversmith called Charlotte. As well as all this Emily Foster who is at Sheffield Hallam showed us some us her photographs.

What a revelation I had at lunch today though. I mean, who knew Boots did food and meal deals? Apparently a lot of people according to Bethan, but not me. So that was basically my lunchtime, trying not to look too bemused and shocked.

Later on I helped Bethan and Bryony in their projects as they had so kindly helped me in mine, which is the thing with the map of the city. I'm trying to get more of my friends to take pictures of their favourite places, but at the weekend not many of them had any time (or in other words couldn't be bothered which I can understand at the weekend). Some of them have said that although they haven't this weekend, they could help me tonight, tuesday or wednesday, so hopefully I will have more in the next couple of days.

When we were helping Bethan, well, let's just say, we got a lot of funny looks. She is doing this motionless society thing with apparently dead or asleep people lying around random places in town, and I had to pose in a few of them. Today was down at the station again and it was fairly busy, with people coming and going about their business, the few occasional loiterers and waiters, or those with a bit of time and a cup of coffee in their hands. One of the first we did was on a bench type thing outside where their was one such previously described individual, sitting their with his drink. Poor Bryony, she had to go up to this bench, stretch out on it, and pretend she was dead, like a glorified game of dead fishes. As she was lying there and we were taking pictures on a blindingly noticable tripod, this man turns around and says to her "tired?". Or later, when I had to pose, there was another conveniently placed bench with a man on the left, smoking a cigarette, a woman on the right reading a magazine and an ominous space in the middle. You can guess where I had to play dead. It wasn't like they didn't notice or anything, they did, but when I resurrected myself, they immediately turned away and went back to smoking and reading.

Day Five - Friday 16th

Today Mr. Cawthorne, - or Sammy C as Bethan calls him - an art teacher from school came in to review how work experience was going with me and Bethan, except she wasn't here first off, so it was just me. I really didn't know what to say because, well, first thing in the morning I'm not always entirely with it. In the end I just ended up showing him this blog and some photoshop stuff and said I'd learnt more about contemporary art, which is true, but I felt I should have been more descriptive.

I have also decided what exactly I want to do for this art award! Seriously, this is a big achievement for me as I am completely and utterly useless at deciding. I'm going to go with the map of the city thing, but with people's memories and favourite places. I hope it will go alright, although I fear it may go somewhat pear-shaped. Oh well, you know what they say - if the going gets tough, pretend to have avian flu and go home - no, no, they don't say that and of course I wouldn't pull a sickie, but I guess I'm just paranoid about things. Actually, this sounds a bit like I'm not enjoying the placement, but I am, I really am, its just that its sometimes a bit challenging. I mean thats good as well, because it makes things more interesting, not like a boring office job or being attacked by small children like my friends.

Day Four - Thursday 15th

I've seen it all now, I really have. Another scary film, oh yes, but this time much worse. Much, much worse. I now may turn insomniac, but at least I will do so with the happy knowledge that Sheffield filmmakers are very good at what they do. It was terrifying and was called something like Aphex Twin. But hey, I also saw a flying lawnmower, LED shepherding and a death metal rooster on Youtube which was entertaining. Oh, and I got a badge as well, you know, just thought I'd throw that in there. Quite a random morning.

It wasn't all watching random youtube clips though. Later we did some film editing with the stuff we had shot yesterday, and for once, I seem to be able to understand how to do something on the mac! At last! (took me long enough:)

Also, I had a little chat with Vicky and now have a bit of an idea of what I want to do, but it's a little sketchy at the moment. I'm thinking that I might want to do a kind of Map of the City with people's favourite pictures around the city. Hopefully no tourists will use it, because they could - no will  - get severely lost. At least I have an idea now, we'll see where that goes.

Day Three - Wednesday 14th

Now its the third day of work experience and I'm kinda getting used to everything. Today we did a bit of photoshop with the pictures we took the other day. I don't think I mentioned them, so if I didn't, basically we paired off and took pictures of each other in a studio-type room with various poses and stuff. I remember one of the ones I did made me laugh; I was pointing and laughing quite like a mad scientist in a film. What exactly I was laughing at I'm not sure, but I really did look deranged. I made sure that one didn't make it to the internet, believe me, no amount of photoshop would help make it look sane.

Later on, after lunch, we started trying to think of ideas for for projects for this arts award thing that we're doing. You know when people visit therapists and yoga teachers and that kind of thing and they are told "Clear your mind...", well I would have had no trouble doing that, the only problem was, I needed to think. Eventually, after much pondering and frustration I remembered that Vicky had told me in the interview about flash mobs, where people do things in crowds like apparently spontaneous dancing, like in the T-mobile ad. I thought maybe we could organise this big flash mob in town dancing to, I don't know, Lionel Richie or whatever, but it would have been too much to do in simply 2 weeks. Ho hum, we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll think of something. Hopefully:)...

Day Two - Tuesday 13th

As I hoped yesterday, I did arrive earlier. A bit too early in fact and so, as I didn't want to be he first one in, I took a little saunter around the block, and didn't get lost this time, which was a nice change.

I caught up with Bethan on the way, and we both entered the gallery to begin our second day.

It started fairly quietly, just doing blogs and computery things, (and at last the macs seem to be working with me!). Then, after a while, we all headed downstairs to view the current exhibition by Haris Epaminonda, which was a series of films all playing at different times and for different lengths. It wasn't something I would usually go and see, and although it wasn't really my kind of thing, I thought the idea behind it all was quite interesting. I suppose I wouldn't have really got it if it wasn't for the fact that the curator, Jeanine, came and told us all about it. Basically, the films were all playing at different times and lengths because then the viewers can see the exhibition as a whole thing and not just as individual pieces, and I think it made it have a nice feel to the whole thing this way. 

Also, Richard Bolam came and showed some films of his. Like the exhibition we had seen before, they were time lapse fims, but this time based in Sheffield. One of them he is hoping to use to back Sheffield in the bid for the 2013 city if culture. Also Rob Speranza, a producer from South Yorkshire Film Network came and talked to us for a while about filming and that kind of career, and like Richard Bolam, he showed us a short film he had recently worked on. Well...how to put it? I think I will not sleep again. Ever. It was well made and certainly thrilling for a thriller, but seriously, it spooked me. 

And then we did some filming ourselves, which was fun. Bethan and I went around the station hoping to catch her boyfriend Tom on camera in suit. Sadly we did not find him, but something that did make us smile was when a little boy, wandering around the fountains suddenly declared that the water came from nowhere.

Day one - Monday 12th

Today was the first day of work experience at Site Gallery, and I'm still trying to get my head round it all. Maybe macs just confuse me I guess (I don't think technology likes me!) but I am glad that we've done so much. I feel quite pleased as it seems I'm probably doing something much more interesting than some of my friends. Like one, for instance, she's working at a doctors surgery, which may well be very interesting, but when we met up at lunch, I seemed to get the impression that copying addresses wasn't something she found particularly fun.

Looking back on the day, I think I have learnt more than I expected on the first day, but that's good as I think it will make the next two weeks easier, (like with macs - fingers crossed). However at the start of the day I wasn't nearly as calm as I am now - or maybe I'm just sleepy, which may be because I didn't sleep much as I was really nervous about today. I arrived relatively on time to the bus stop, and luckily it had just stopped. So I jumped on and found a seat , and then suddenly I remembered that the bus had to take a big diversion because of annoyingly closed roads. Oops. I was going to be late. And I was, but I might have just made it in time, if it wasn't for the fact that I went in the complete opposite direction. There I was, frantically asking people at the interchange where Brown Street was, but no one seemed to know, only telling me how to get to the lIbrary, the train station and other places I knew the the whereabouts of. I was getting seriously stressed when luckily, I finally found it thanks to a student, but I was ruffly 25 minutes late. Outside the door I braced myself, took a deep breath and timidly pressed the buzzer, expecting a torrent of angry shouting and questions about what time it was. In my head I thought of a hundred excuses, (ranging from being mugged to having a family back home with smallpox - very believable I know) but when the door was opened, I was relieved to find that they were more worried about the fact that I might be lost somewhere in the city than the time it took for me to get there. 

Anyway, so the day wore on, and I realised that as well as having to catch an earlier bus the next day, that I didn't really need to panic as much as I did previously. We learnt a lot like; how to use macs (even if they seem to have some sort of grudge against you), interviewing and editing the recorded result, and Lesley Guy came in and told us more about what contemporary art really is. I think I will like it more here compared to how I would have at the infant school I might have gone to instead, especially as I have recently found out that my other friend who is at a primary school is spending her time in the company of a load of 7 year olds who scream, hug her violently and watch her every move. I felt very smug after she told me that and, as I said to her, I think all in all, I would have to say I enjoyed the day:)

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