Thursday 30 December 2010

2010... Its been a pleasure, but bring on 2011

As so many people seem to be doing the same and to also make myself realise how busy this year has been I am going to blog about 2010. The more I think about it the more I realise just how busy this last year has been and I feel very proud about everything I have achieved.

January feels like a million years away and I'm glad I have my blog archive to help remind me what actually happened. It was January that I began my Major Personal Project for my Theatre, Performance and Event design degree. It is so interesting to look back on my old blog posts and see how my original idea didn’t change as much as I thought it would. My aim was to create an exhibition that shown another side to Liverpool, my home town and that is what I achieved.

February – April consisted of planning and organising my 21st and lots and lots and lots and lots of research and designing for my Major Personal Project.

I was also lucky enough to be involved in the St Marys Hospice Charity Window Dressing Event in Birmingham. With my team coming in second place. This is where my passion for volunteering came about and I really enjoyed it. Click here for more info about this event.

I also had work experience within World Liverpool Museum which was a great experience. They even let me design and paint a mural on a wall within one of the temporary exhibitions. To see more of this click here. It was also in April that I really started to become confident in Sketchup and my love hate relationship with the programme began.

May had to be one of the hardest, most stressful, yet rewarding months of my life. It was this month that I was in University from 7 in the morning, until we got kicked out and working until 3/4/5 in the morning every single day. My life revolved around making scale bricks, pavements, white cards models and praying my huge sketchup model wouldn’t crash.

It was June that I could finally say I HAVE A DEGREE. It was the most amazing feeling in the world handing all of my work in and seeing it all displayed in our amazing degree show. One of the amazing things about being on a course with only 15 other people is 1, how unbelievably close you all become and 2, how quickly you get your results. Within 2 weeks of handing in my work and also being chosen to be marked by the external examiner, I got given my results. I will never forget the moment Paul told me I got a first. University was the best experience I have ever gone through and when I look back at how hard I worked, I feel so proud at my results and don’t regret anything from University.

My exhibition shows the journey an emigrant would go on during the 19th Century and the problems they would face along the way. As I also enjoy theatre design, I wanted to combine a sense of theatre within my exhibition and wanted the exhibition to become an experience. Allowing the visitor to feel as if they had stepped back in time and actually become an 19th Century emigrant. I chose to do this by creating a fully dressed space using actors in each area to interact with the visitors and make the whole concept feel real. To see my final major project click here.

July – Present ;
Since leaving University I have been lucky enough to get involved in a lot. Volunteering is something I am passionate about and I have been able to get stuck into a lot of this. Since June I have been Volunteer Event and Exhibition Co-Ordinator for Halewood Arts Association. This has been an excellent opportunity for me and I have learnt so much from Carole who runs all of HAA. I assist with the organising of trips, events and exhibitions, aswell as assist in the weekly Junior Artists Club art classes. This is with a group of 7-12 year olds who all love art and it is so rewarding volunteering there. They even let me design the Christmas Grotto for the children, which is something I enjoyed so much! Carole has introduced me to so many lovely artists and volunteers and I cannot wait to get more involved in the next year. To see more of what I have done with HAA look at the Big Draw and Grotto tab to the left of my website. Or browse through my blog.

2010 has reconfirmed my love for working within the Event and Exhibition industry and after spending a week working at The BBC Good Food Show, Borough Market and the Real Food Festival, I have been lucky enough to combine work with my passion for food and cooking. This also allowed me to meet some lovely producers and people who now have the pleasure of putting up with me on twitter :)

I am really looking forward to what 2011 brings. I am to start a design internship in Liverpool Museum on the 10th January which I can’t wait for and thanks to twitter have even managed to get some work on a huge wedding in May, assisting with an amazing wedding design company 'Sweet days and Roses' on making the wedding look beautiful.

If you are still reading thank you, I seem to have written more than I originally planned, but I forgot how much I have done. Hopefully 2011 will be a million times more busy and this time next year I hope to be writing about living in London, with a great job doing what I love.

I know everyone says it but 2011 is really going to be my year!

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