My constellation sessions all throughout first year left me feeling more and more interested in the art that I was producing. The reason for this wasn’t that I wanted them to end and couldn’t wait for them to be over, but that they opened my eyes up to so many new ideas and concepts that I had never really even thought about being back at home and in the past.
Art has always been my way of expressing myself and my outlet to give off a message; whether it was a statement piece about something I deeply believed in and was trying to say, or whether it was just a simple piece I made when I was feeling most inspired and just wanted to create. I always thought that coming to university would enhance my skills (especially practical) and not so much focus on my art history knowledge or background knowledge when it came to art. This is why when I walked out of that first constellation lecture at the beginning of the year, I was shocked. Not in a bad way at all, but with a smile on my face because for the first time I was surrounded by people who felt the same way about art and who were passionate and from all different fields and practices. As I listened to each lecture every week, I got more and more into my own work and research. I had always been very keen on artist research and reading up on new art practices and upcoming artist. The constellation lectures slowly changed my view on things though. I began to see the bigger picture and while learning about loads of new artists and art forms, my ideas of things began to change. I stopped seeing art as something I was doing to produce beautiful or aesthetically pleasing pieces; that wasn’t what art was about. I started to create simpler pieces, not because I didn’t have time or couldn’t be bothered, but because I was putting more meaning into each piece and emotion and when I was happy with the outcome, I stopped. When I felt the piece spoke for itself or gave the right feeling of what I was feeling at the time; I stopped. This felt so liberating, I didn’t know I could have become more excited or passionate but it just kept happening.

With every lecture, although I did enjoy some more than other, for example the one about the Doctor Martin Boots as it dealt with loads of concepts I was very very interested in personally and had created whole art pieces and projects before dealing with social ‘norms’ and categories and stereotypes. Also the Lecture about if ‘art is dead’, which confused me at first but ended with a bang for me, making me really think about the art I was producing, how original it was, how personal it was and what it was really saying, not just to me but to anyone else who was to see it. I began to create and run with my own personal work and I feel like this reflected in my personal projects in the Field and Subject modules. I tried more mediums and methods of working and worked on whole new concepts that before today I was slightly scared to push myself to try. I questioned things more and began to others artworks in a whole new light. I realised it wasn’t about how photo realistic or finished work was, it was about the feelings and emotions the artwork made you feel and began to appreciate textures and tones so much more.

My lectures from the second term on were fantastic as well. Art history had always been my weak point, and through these lectures, I learn’t so much about all the different eras and isms involved in this huge world of art; a realm I had never really dove into before. For example the only thing I had really studied or looked into before was Cubism briefly before and Surrealism which I have always been a massive fan of and very interested. With a brief psychology background, Freud and his theories were always very interesting to me and different but tying it all in with Dadaism and engaging with people from all different courses (meaning they all have different knowledge and background information on this all) made it all the more interesting for me; not to mention quite exciting. Overall the whole experience has changed me SO much as not only an artist but as a person. Since moving here I feel like I have grown so much because of the course and I am genuinely interested in so much and constantly go to galleries and watch documentaries about shows I cant see, online. I see the art world differently and mostly I see my self differently. I am so inspired and question everything now. I thoroughly enjoyed constellation this year.