Thursday 12 March 2009

Finished at last!!!!!

Well the C&G is finally finished and the CD has been sent for the final assessment, yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As some of you know there were grave doubts as to whether I would finish it, and to be honest, without the wonderful support of my family, friends, and my tutors I would never have done it.

I received wonderful help and support from so many generous bloggers, who gave me great sound advice and I'm very grateful.

It's a bit of a flat finish as there is no exhibition or final finishing get together, as some of you will already know, Opus have sadly stopped operating as a school for textile arts. But a huge thank you to all those tutors and administrators who stepped into the breach and rescued those of us who were about to qualify.

It wasn't until I had to collate all the work for the final assessment that I realised just how much ground I'd covered and how much I'd learnt. C&G is a great skills based course and the nature of it is to teach you processes by which you can interpret the ideas in your head. I spent so much of this course kicking against the ordered exercises that I didn't realise that the process was embedding itself in my brain, despite my best efforts to thwart it.

My proof of this presented itself when I started working on my next project, this time on my own without the exercises to prompt me, and I found that I was doing what I've done for the past 2 1/2 years without even realising it.

That brings me neatly to my next challenge.

A few weeks ago Pippa asked me if I was going to enter the Charles Henry Froyle Trust Stitched textiles competition. Well I'd never heard of it, but decided to enter anyway and posted off four pics of my C&G work plus one close up, and to my utter amazement I made it into the finalists list. Now my new project is to create a piece on the theme of Freedom, so that'll keep me busy till August. And as finalist I will also have a Master Class with Alice Kettle, fantastic.

Unfortunately I won't be able to show you my progress as the piece will go on exhibition in September, with the sketch books as well.

To finish up I thought I'd show you my favourite piece of the whole course and the story behind it, my apologies to those who might have seen it on my web site when I had it up and running.





The story behind the gauntle is as:

It has been designed to impart power to the wearer. It has strength and magic within the entwining snake. However the wearer must be careful to use the power wisely. If not the false fragility and beauty of the dangerous and carnivorous dragonfly will become transparent and his true aggressive and predatory nature will be revealed.
The wearer must wear the gauntlet with pride and strength and only use its protective devices when mortal danger threatens.

I did a photoshoot with one of my GD's, Bethany, some of you will have seen her on my blog and Ben acting out a little tableau in the woods. I had visions of them being the backdrop to my exhibition in The Mall, where Opus held the Pathways exhibition for the C&G students, so I thought I'd show it here instead.





So once again a big thank you to all who helped me get this far :-)

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Congratulations Sharon on finishing your C&G, after 4 years doing parts 1 and 2, at the end it I felt like I had been running down hill without brakes, but wanted to go back and do it all again :)
Congratulations for reaching the finals in the CHFT. its usually featured in Workbox, so let us know when you are in it

Pat said...

Congratulations, Sharon. It must be a huge release. The piece is stuuning as are the photographs.

Françoise said...

Congratulations Sharon!

chrissythreads said...

Well done Sharon. After all the recent problems you must be so relieved.

Unknown said...

YOU DID IT!!!!! congratulations!

Julie said...

Congratulations Sharon on all counts! How exciting to be in the final and to have the Masterclass with Alice Kettle. That will be amazing. The gauntlet is wicked!

Heather said...

Well done and congratulations. I did wonder how Opus would continue without Julia Caprara - she was such a vital part of the whole organisation. What a wonderful legacy she has left all her students in the comparatively short time Opus was operating. Your gauntlet is magical and good luck with the Henry Foyle entry.

Shirley Anne Sherris said...

Congrats on all counts from me too and on gaining your 'freedom'!!!
Cheers
SAS

Helen said...

Hi Sharon. Congratulations on seeing it through! Well done indeed and esspecially on getting through on the Henry Folye competition. I hope you really enjoy Alice Kettle tutorial and will look forward to seeing anything you post up on it.

The gauntlette looks great on your GD :D

Anonymous said...

Congratulations from me too, Sharon!

Val said...

Many many congratulations from me too Sharon - for the all round achievements ... onward and upward now - as they say!!!