My Final Year as a Fine Art student at UCS

Over Christmas, I have been thinking of how I will display my work for the degree show. I don’t have much work at the moment as everything I’m doing seems to be work in progress but I thought it would be good to start some ideas.

I also bought a cabinet that I thought I could use to display some pieces of work. It’s not too big or small.

I’ve started collecting Crystals and minerals lately (oh dear another collection…) I’ve started some drawings as some of them are so beautiful and pleasant to draw. Each one has different colours and shapes. it’s also quite a challenge as I’m drawing them to scale (mostly). I’ll probably end up drawing all of the ones that I have, maybe even display the drawings for degree show? they would look quite nice on a wall along with the original crystals and would be a shame not to show them. Looking at crystals takes me back to looking at fossils at the museum, I might look back at the photos that I took of fossils in the geology department and look at how they are displayed and get some ideas.

Before Christmas I thought about starting sketchbooks of different things I collect, One of my collections is figures and merchandise from a game called Monster Hunter.

Some people might find it ‘childish’ that I collect figures from a game but it’s something that I love. It’s not a very known game in the UK like it is in Japan but is getting increasingly popular. it’s one of my favorite franchises and have had great times playing with friends. I wanted to create a sketchbook of the stuff I have as a sort of record, but through drawing. I am going to do a few more sketchbooks of other stuff that I collect and then display them on a shelf for my degree show maybe. Its also a contrast to the Egyptian stuff I collect as that’s what I used to collect more of when I was younger and is ‘ancient’ and more about history while my figure collection is what I collect now and is ‘modern’.

Over Christmas I was looking through my bags and coats and found loads of bus tickets and receipts. I sorted through them and made two piles.

things like bus tickets and receipts are things we don’t realise we collect. not sure if I’m going to do anything with them yet but I might make them in into little scrolls and put them in boxes.

On the 6th January I went to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, this was my first time going there. Some wonderful collections and unfortunately ran out of time so didn’t see everything but I found I was mostly drawn to the smaller objects like Egyptian amulets and fragments.

some of the photos didn’t come out well as some cabinets were quite dark. hopefully I’ll be going back soon with a better camera and see the rest of the museum.

My work has developed throughout studying at University Campus Suffolk as a Fine Art student. At the start, I experimented with natural and unnatural patterns, which then went on to looking at things we don’t really take much notice of, like weeds and wildflowers and looking at the beauty of decay. I also started volunteering at Ipswich museum in March as a few of us did a project there for professional practice and I loved looking at the behind the scenes stuff in conservation lab and they were looking for volunteers so I decided to join. which has led me on what i’m doing this year.

I’ve always collected objects since I was small, things like pretty rocks and shells from Felixstowe beach. One of the collections that I still have is a collection of Egyptian ornaments and items, which I probably started collecting when I was about 10. I’ve always loved Ancient Egypt from a young age and is something that still interests me now. I love ancient history, which is why I love museums. I love all the different collections from fossils to Anglo-Saxon coins.

I think collecting runs in my family, in our living room we have shelf’s full of ornaments from penny machines from different holidays we’ve been on, and my mum always comes back with a new collection when my mum and dad go on holiday as she feels like she needs to collect something.

I seem to collect all sorts of things, sometimes not even realising! (like bus tickets…) which is why I wanted to do art around collections, personal ones, objects at museums, stuff like that.