Hastings Summer School Ceramics Course

 

Upon visiting the LCC universities in Elephant and Castle and Camberwell I felt that I didn't have enough experience of certain subjects to completely make my mind up about what it is I would like to study at university. My three main subject matters that I am most interested in are Photography, Ceramics and 3D textiles. I had not yet studied ceramics at school and felt that before choosing what option I would like to take for year 13 I needed to get some experience. Because of this I did some research and found a 5 day ceramics course that was running during the summer in the Sussex Coast college of Hasting.  

Before attending the course my interests in ceramics were mainly coiling and creating pots as I have a keen interest in interior design and see a lot of different bowls and pots throughout many different interior design pots; I especially like the outdoor garden pots in Designers Guild at the moment.

Garden pots in designers guild

 

The 5 day course consisted of learning different hand-building skills, such as coiling, slab building and modelling and using these skills to produce a range of finished pieces. There were demonstrations throughout the course from the teacher, Jackie Summerfield who has 30 years of ceramic experience and specialises in portraiture, she was inspirational, patient and a lovely woman all round who guided us through the week. Here are a few pictures of some of her work that she has produced.

 

Jackie's website

 

During the week I made a life size portraiture head, three coiled pots and a bowl that I made using casting techniques. Before this experience I had never touched clay before and yet with help from Jackie I was able to create a body of work from my experience that I was very pleased with.

Here are some pictures of my work that I produced during the week!

 

 I was amazed at how much I learnt in such a short space of time, I found that by the time I had finished my sculpture I was ready to start another one and felt there were already so many things that I would do differently and felt I was ready to develop my skills further. I hadn't really thought about ceramic portraiture before the course but it is definitely something that I could like to continue, it was one of the most unforgettable experiences I have ever had and has truly inspired me to tap into many more skills and subject matters that I haven't tried yet.

 

 

 

LCC Camberwell University!

 

During the end of year 12, as well as visiting Elephant and Castle university, we also got to visit Camberwell university for their open day. We had an option of two universities that we could visit, the other option was Wimbledon university which is also a partner of Elephant and Castle, Chelsea and Camberwell. The reason I chose to visit Camberwell's open day is because they specialize in sculpture which is one of the subjects that I am most interested in studying at university, where as Wimbledon specialises in fashion and costume design.
During my visit to Camberwell university I got to see a lot of work done by the students studying there and I especially got to see a lot of sculpture work that I was really impressed with; I felt that there was a very wide range of ideas which made me optimistic about my future and what I hope to produce.

Here are some photographs that I took at the open day !!

 



This piece was one of my favourites from the open day; when you look really closely you realise that the contents on the clear box is in fact a vast amount of money torn up into the tiniest pieces. At first I was quite shocked by this because I felt that nearly no one in their right mind would destroy that amount of money; I think especially as I am a student myself, money is something that is much valued and what most people live their whole lives trying to earn. However once I realised what this piece of art really was I found it really refreshing to look at and was quite amazed, I think this is something that everyone will look at and have some sort of reaction to because money means something to everyone. I also found myself smiling at it because the student who created this piece probably doesn't have a lot of money and may be scraping by like most students out there and yet they've gone and torn up all their earnings which I found quite pleasing to think about because its probably the best way that you can say "Money means nothing".

 

This is another piece that I especially enjoyed looking at throughout the exhibition. What I liked most about this piece and what really stood out to me was the texture of the sculpture; without even touching it you can see exactly how it would feel and all the individual layers and markings were very visually pleasing, I felt that just by looking at it, it brought out my other senses. I observed that a lot of people didn't quite understand the sculpture but for me it wasn't about the finished piece it was about the process of it and the journey and the movement of the artists hands that have gone into creating it and the pure build up of this mound of clay. I find that physical creating something out of near enough nothing gives me great satisfaction and knowing that its something you have produced and can never be repeated identically again is one of the things I really love about art. 

 

School visit to LCC in Elephant and Castle

As the year 12 class of Visual Arts and Design at The BRIT School we visited the LCC university in Elephant and Castle to be shown the facilities of the university and to be told about what they offer and what they specialise in. We were split into small groups and were each given a personal tour of the university by some of the current students studying at LCC. Throughout the tour we looked at various different rooms in which certain subject matters are taught and practised in; we also looked at some of the work that has been created by the students, for example in the print rooms we looked at the students in process of screen printing and using screen printing to print onto fabric and then comparing different colours and fabrics to see the variation between them which I found interesting to see the thought process of the students there and what decisions they were making. Much of the tour was based around print making, screen printing; photography and  media which is what many of the students at LCC come to specialise in.
I was very impressed with the facilities of the university as I had never seen such a variety of machinery, tools, materials and other equipment all in one place before; it made me realise how personalised each course is and how much option you have in university to create exactly what you want without being limited by budgets and facilities; to me it felt like that next big stepping stone to reaching our ideal career.
I felt that something I noticed when on the tour was the way in which the students worked; I saw that most of the students were working on their own without fellow colleagues or teachers, although doing a BTEC myself I am used to doing a lot of self taught work and self developing work, I felt that the atmosphere in the university was even more so sophisticated.

We later visited the LCC university again a few weeks later to attend to their open day where they displayed work from the students around the building. I felt inspired seeing their work as it was such a high standard and quality, I especially enjoyed looking at the photography and the sculpture as they are what I am very interested in. However I did made me realise the big difference in BTEC level work and degree level work which I think was quite a reality check.

I had previously visited the LCC university a few years ago by myself in which I sat in on a lecture given by the head of the university about the courses that they run there, at the time I felt that university was along way off so I didn't connect to it as much as I have done now, which to me showed how far I have come in those few years.
From visiting LCC it made me look at what other universities are out there and what they offer, I very much enjoyed my visit to LCC but I felt that I would prefer to look at universities in other areas. The first few universities that came to mind are Camberwell and Chelsea which are partners to Elephant and Castle university, Brighton, Westminster and Portsmouth.
I am yet to visit these universities but I am very enthusiastic about learning more about them and others.  LCC Elephant and Castle , LCC Camberwell , Portsmouth , Westminster , Brighton , LCC Chelsea