The Open College of the Arts' blog
Here you will find examples of student work from Photography, Fine art, Graphic Design, Illustration, Music, Textiles design, Sculpture and Creative Writing.
So, it was with great excitement at the recent Assessment event in Barnsley that we delved into Amardeep Kaur’s world. As a current OCA Textiles student, she has used her recent course to wholeheartedly embrace colour, pattern, motif, print and stitch techniques in order to initiate a strongly personal journey with a rich signature of bold colour and stylised design with a growing confidence shown through additional surface embellishments.
And when someone in the future asks you to talk about sustaining your practice, you are OBVIOUSLY going to say YES, not just because you have anxiety issues about letting people down… but because you have made so much damn work you have no space in your house anymore: that is ‘sustained as hell!’
OCA tutor Andrew Conroy will be leading the OCA-North group’s first get together on the 2 June in Leeds at the Old Red Bus Station.
“We prepare a face to meet the faces that we meet.”
This hangout is open to all students at all levels who wish to actively engage with their peers in the discussion of various topics/ questions and a place to seek feedback on work in progress whether in its infancy or almost complete. The experience adds an additional layer of learning, feedback and reflective practice, a valuable opportunity to gain insight into other students thoughts, ideas and working practice.
“But the idea of how or why women feel invisible interests me. Is it driven by consumerism that glorifies youth and perfection? Is it that, with age, we are less sexually attractive? Or is it that one really does become invisible with age? I wanted to try to represent this invisibility.”
Knowing that distance learning can be difficult we recently reached out to you, our students, to ask the people who know best what it’s like to study with OCA and what you have found has helped you to study effectively. So many of you came back to us with great hints and tips that we’ll run a mini-series to cover all the suggestions, plus a few of our own from the staff here at OCA HQ.
What makes this particular student’s yarns so exciting is that she has clearly been inspired and demonstrates so well that she has been stimulated by her source material. Whether this is her secondary research in the form of a medieval artwork or her primary research in the colour studies of glass vessels, there are clear links and reference points between her work and its creative source.
OCA students Jeremy Scott and Sarah Youseman are holding their graduation show in June. Students of all levels are invited to the gallery to look at the show and meet the artists on Saturday 9 June who will answer questions on what it means to work at Level 3 and curate a joint exhibition.
I clearly remember my fears and anxieties when I had to face the first assignment of Identity and Place: photographing strangers. A totally new situation for me – and for some fellow students facing such assignment – and that required some ingenious strategy to carry out the mission successfully.
In this blog post I will be drawing to your attention and discussing the work of Textiles 3: Advanced student Jill Hodgkins. Jill has recently completed this unit and as part of the course she exhibited her work in a local gallery.
As part of her Exploring Drawing Media course OCA student Susan Askew is asking for your help in fulfilling her project idea for the exercise to draw a line in a space so that it impacts on the space.