First Project - Introduction

OK. initial housekeeping has been completed, and the bombardment of information is still slowly being digested but no time to pause and reflect. The deep end is looming and I'm heading head first into it!

So here it is, a field trip to the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. The brief - find a piece of artwork in the gallery and turn it into something else in whatever medium you choose. Easy you may think. However it is one thing to practice as an artist, it is quite a different matter to think like one! especially when it is your first time. So like a good little student I head off and arrive early hoping to get a head start on things. I must have spent over an hour wandering the various exhibitions searching for a glimmer of inspiration but all I found was brightly decorated walls repeatedly attracting my head to them with a suitable amount of resultant pain. It wasn't for the lack of stunning artwork it was more a case of my experience being in photography and my working practices being very organic. It dawned on me very quickly that I had n ever used or worked through a thought process regarding art or design. in the past it had been Brief -> product and this was beginning to pose a problem, there were many pieces I could have quite happily gone away and recreated or modernised in the form of a photograph or created a short video or audio documentary but what would that teach me, what could I possibly learn from doing something i had done hundreds of times before? NO! I needed to think abstractly and come up with an idea that I could utilise for my own benefit as well as fulfilling the project. AAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!! (head -> wall, head -> wall) I needed some air. Off I toddled outside to sit beneath the branches of a sycamore in the glorious afternoon heat, then out of nowhere came the flash of divine inspiration that I had been seeking STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW! But not in a literal sense that would have taken me back to square 1.

I had noticed a landscape painting of a view I recognised in North Wales A fine autumn day in North Wales by Benjamin Williams Leader) and I thought, forget the medium for a moment. Wales is your home,your heritage,your roots! YOU KNOW WALES!!!! So I decided to approach it from this angle and employed a technique I used for creating features for my radio shows - word association. so using North Wales as the starter for 10 I began scribbling words that I associate with Wales into my pad like a wild man. Jamie and Jo seem happy with my random (sorry - ABSTRACT!) scribblings so lets just see where this now takes me!

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 STAY TUNED!

New Beginnings

As the title suggests, this is my first step towards my new life here at Blackburn college.

 First however, a little about my old life - starting out in the hospitality industry, firstly as a chef and then raising through the ranks to hospitality management running pubs,hotels and restaurants after approximately 8 years in the industry and predominantly working on a freelance basis, I felt that I had taken it as far as I could and started looking for a new challenge. I had not long passed my driving test and I found a sense of freedom out on the road, this led me into my new career as an international coach driver, I was in my element! Being paid to travel around Europe having my days off in exotic(ish) places but I found that there was one down side - I spent a lot of my time sitting around waiting for my passengers while they were off sightseeing. I faced the dilemma of how to fill this time productively, after all although reading books is fun it doesn't get you out in the open air much. I began to think of the family back home and decided that maybe I should try and document my trips so my little girl could see the places daddy had been and that it might give her a talking point at school etc. so I bought myself a little digital camera and started to take photo's wherever I went. This very soon developed into a permanent hobby and as the photography grew so did the camera. Sadly in 2010 I was hit with a disability that forced me out of my career and very quickly into depression. My marriage had already broken down, I'd lost my house was in severe debt and had nothing left to do with my life. Then a chance meeting changed everything, whilst out and about in town I came across a new art shop recently opened and went in to have a look, I was instantly approached and told all about the shop, it being a local artists co-operative and was asked the strangest question I had ever been asked - "do you do any art?" now bearing in mind my art teacher's opinion was that I was a waste of paint and paper my gut reaction was to say ME? ART? YOU ARE FUNNY! but something stopped me in my tracks and instead my reply was " well I'm not sure that it is art but I do dabble with photography" to which the response was "do you fancy bringing some in to show us and maybe display or sell?" After I picked myself up of the floor I agreed and the next day I produced some of my photo's in very cheaply bought frames for them to have a look at. They were thoroughly impressed and the photo's went on sale immediately. This was the start of something completely new for me I found myself getting involved in projects of all descriptions, working with photography,music,film,design and much more. Two years down the line I have had my photography featured in exhibitions,magazines,websites and have received a few commissions also. I have my own website where some of my photography and other projects can be viewed here and I also rent wallspace in a gallery in Burnley for the sale of my special edition prints. So why am I here? Well photography isn't the only thing I have been involved in over the last 2 years as well as the film and music and design projects I have been presenting on hospital and community radio and wanted to take this further but didn't know how. So having found this course (purely by accident!) I decided to take a leap of faith and actually see if I can do it!

Anyway, I have rambled on enough all that is left to say is Here's to new beginnings and you are invited to follow me on my journey into the unknown.

Matt