DEGREES UNEDITED

With lashings of experience behind her, Carol is all set to embark on her MA straight from 2009 graduation. Alongside part-time work, and bringing up kids she finds time to answer a few questions and offer a review of her Degrees unedited blogging experience: where it got her and how it got her there.

Carol Ramsay in conversation and her review of blogging on Degrees unedited

Since finishing her studies in Wrexham in 1989 Carol has worked part-time as an illustrator, supplementing this with other, 'blue collar' forms of income: working primarily with pencil she produces fine detailed figurative and portrait drawings. Two-dimensional realism and attention to detail was art for Carol, yet she was concerned by her clients' contentment with lifelike portraits and felt the urge to experiment: wanting to produce art for herself and for public consumption not just for an individual. "Not that I don't appreciate the work... it helped pay for my further studies over the last three years" she hastens to add! Carol has since graduated from Wirral Metropolitan College in Fine Art with a first class BA honours.

Through Installation Art, deconstructing well-known objects and creating something altogether new, Carol is interested in producing work that is more accessible to the average person: "...recognisable objects that become art can engage individuals from art lovers through to those who would not necessarily encounter or appreciate contemporary art." By using common 'found' items Carol tells the story of its life through shape, shadow and form, fabricating unusual and delicate works: wanting people to actually think about what they see and she wants people to enjoy art for what it is, not just if it adheres to aesthetic criteria.

Blog post # 41 [29 July 2009]

I have been lucky enough to be offered a place on an M.A. in UCLAN Preston on the Fine Art: Site and Archive Intervention course and I find myself slightly nervous, wondering if I am mad doing another 2 years study and very excited all at the same time.

I will start a new blog in Artists Talking very soon, have to say I have found that blogging on Degrees Unedited has been an amazing experience; the comments received from other bloggers were greatly appreciated. I would even go as far as to say it's been quite therapeutic and look forward to continuing to blog and converse with other artists on the site.
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Interview

Richard Taylor: At what point did you decide you wanted to do an MA, and at what point did you begin to apply? Was it a panic decision or something that was always in the pipeline...

Carol Ramsay: It had been my plan to do a Masters....one day... I had thought I would complete a PGCE first and then hopefully do an MA whilst teaching somewhere.

However, after good careers guidance at college I realised that I didn't necessarily need a PGCE yet. Though I would still love to teach, I would prefer Higher Education level not at schools and as such I felt it more important that I should first undertake an MA, work as an Artist for a while, to be able to pass on that experience to students and then undertake a teaching qualification later on.

I researched many MA courses, the one at Preston looked most suited to my style of working. It was my original intention to take a year out from study first but at the last minute I thought 'why not', I'm 40 already, I have life experience as well as that of a working artist (albeit an illustrator) and so I applied at the eleventh-hour. To discover I had been offered a place came as a surprise, I really did think I was too late but I am excited now and looking forward to all the new challenges that lie ahead.

RT: So having got your place. Do you think that you will carry on with a similar practice using the fact you have just graduated to your advantage whilst your ideas are still fresh in your mind? In this sense, will you continue to blog in a similar sort of way, or will you use Artist talking as a different sort of device to Degrees unedited?

CR: I think that I'll try to keep it similar to start with, I tend to 'chat' in my blogs, I use it like a traditional diary in a lot of ways, to remind myself what work I have been doing and when.

I often forget people can read it so my writing becomes what I am thinking rather than what I perhaps should say, I quite like that and rarely edit once I have realised any blunders, that's just me.

I think it is inevitable that the blog will evolve with my art practice, I hope to exhibit when I can and will probably talk about that, the trials of hitting the real world; but I intend to hit it running. I have spent long enough waiting to get to this point so I want to just get myself out there. I certainly have the advantage of still being so eager; my sketchbook is already full of ideas.

RT: Would you say that you used the blogs more so as you are someone that tends to write things down? Some artists are purely visual, and never tend to write anything, they just make. Do you think the Degrees unedited blogs could be utilised as visual diaries entirely... do you think they would function in the context of a visual recording / documenting device?

CR: I'd agree with that, I do write a lot, my sketch books are half written ideas as well as drawings. For me, blogging wouldn't work as just a visual recording device, I think the written diary entries make the blogs more attractive to readers. I tend to read the blogs of people I know will have written a lot, you get to recognise peoples names and find yourself really interested in finding out how they are getting on. That said, it wouldn't work with just the written word either, I believe that in an artists blog you really need to see their work.

RT: Do you think the activity of blogging has begun to shape your ideas? Do you find that reading about the practice of other's lets you reflect a lot more on what you produce? The activity of blogging suits the environment of an arts degree, how do you think this will transfer to Artists talking now that your environment changes to that of an MA?

CR: I don't think blogging shapes my ideas as such, I think you become a lot more aware of the quality of the work being produced by your peers but I don't think it affected how my work progressed.

I think my blog should adapt easily to my talking about the MA work, I think if you blog your thoughts and findings honestly and often, there will always be other artists willing to read and respond. Specifically I think the transfer will be easier with my dissertation; which will be about Public Art perception. I started a report for my B.A, which I can now continue to research over the next two years.

I'm hoping for some feedback on this through the blog.

• Read Carol's review of her Degrees unedited blogging experience »
• Read other Degree show blogs, comment on what people have said and start your own
  Go to Degrees unedited blogs »
• Introducing another Degrees unedited blogger of 2009: Caryll Jack Dawber on her cultural heritage, thoughts on Cairo's contemporary art and her review from Forming Ideas’ Khamseen Symposium.
  Read on »

Richard Taylor

Richard Taylor, Carol Ramsay

www.rich-taylor.co.uk

First published: a-n.co.uk August 2009