WYTHNOS PEDWAR - week four
- Lauren Black
- Oct 29, 2024
- 6 min read
The start to this week didn't go as planned, seems to be something I am saying a lot during the start of this course. I don't think I have quite settled into the new way of life both studying and living at home. I didn't go into class on Monday, my mum had been sick during the weekend and I was feeling a bit off myself so didn't want to drive in or pass it on to anyone else.
I spent the day at home and got to grips with everything in my brain, there are so many ideas and I just needed to dig into them more. I started to look into Welsh crafts and came across so much to do with wool mills, I then remembered I visited the Trefriw Woolen Mill when I was in college and contacted them to see if I could go over again and have a visit.
I then found a company in Cardigan called Hiut Denim Company who have opened up a warehouse that closed and left the town devastated. I watched their documentary and of course, had tears in my eyes the majority of the way through. Here is a short paragraph from their website
Our town is making jeans again.
Cardigan is a small town in West Wales of 4,000 good people. 400 of them used to make jeans. They made 35,000 pairs a week. For three decades.
Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained. Without any way of showing the world what they could do. That’s why we have started The Hiut Denim Company. To bring manufacturing back home. To use all that skill on our doorstep. And to breathe new life into our town. As one of the Grand Masters said to us when we were interviewing: “This is what I know how to do. This is what I do best.” We just sat there thinking we have to make this work. So yes, our town is making jeans again.
I then watched Patagonia with Huw Edwards which is all about the Welsh colony in Argentina. I had heard about this documentary before but hadn't watched it and I am so glad I did. It explained the whole history of what happened with the settlers taking the Ship Mimosa from Wales to Patagonia and setting up their life there and although there is always an issue with settling in a different country, from the documentary it really felt as though the Welsh didn't go over there to 'take over' and 'colonise' but in fact they were so afraid of their culture and language being erased by the English that they sourced a place that no one else was going to to preserve it instead.
We met some previous students again this week, Lydia & Shauna. At first I didn't really think I was going to get much out of it because Lydia's topic was on Eutopia and Shauna's topic was on workplace trauma but oh how I was wrong. Lydia's workflow was so consistent and clear, it inspired me to create these 'to do lists' at the end of my journal posts to keep me on track. I have been previously doing this in my notebook or on my phone but I definitely have a habit of keeping everything in my head and just cracking on with it. I would say this is a blessing and a curse because I know I am very organised but for this course I need to show my thought process and I am so not used to that anymore! Shauna's topic resonated with me because I know now I have just come out from burnout and I felt quite emotional listening to her talk about her journey. She had been going through some pretty tough stuff and used this course as a bit of a break from that and she kept saying she saw it as therapy. I actually feel the same way, especially writing these journals which I know I need to be careful about because this is meant to be reflective and critical and not a diary entry.
When I shared my idea for my project I thought that they both looked quite bored and uninterested but actually they had really good advice and Shauna in particular seemed to light up when she spoke to me. My project has progressed again from the original idea and now I want to add in about giving back to my community. This has come from relooking at my Project Proposal with John and taking the inspiration from Ella last week where her project proposal was something that supported her Final Project. So, adding in the community element to this is a building block for me maybe starting up my own business or side hustle. When I was deciding to move back home I had so many ideas about what I could do for an income and holding creative sessions for adults was something that kept occurring. I have been very inspired by people in Stockholm who have rented out studios and hold creative events and end up leaving their corporate jobs to do that full time. I think I need to visit some studios over here to see how they work because I don't feel I see them nearly half as much as in Stockholm.
We had our introduction to the photo studio with Milos in the afternoon, it was really fun to take photo's again and style a photoshoot. We used our shirts to style an outfit on the stand and then the uni had boxes full of vintage shoes donated so we added them too. We played around with different colour backdrops and I think the outcome was really cool! I need to edit the photo's that I liked the most for the progress of the Shirts & Shoes Project. It's really good to have something tangible that I can show for my portfolio but it also makes me anxious that I don't have anything for my actual project yet, I'm still at the research phase where I seem to have so much information but nothing to really show for it. I hope that's okay for the timing that I'm in of the course.
This week felt like a bit of a turning point where I started to think more about what it is I need to do and how I'm going to get there. For example I created this website! It took me a whole day! I remember when I was a teenager I was creating websites with HTML codes almost daily and now I can barely figure out how to use a premade website.
I also applied for the Shanghai trip which I really hope I get on to. It would be such an amazing experience and I've never been fortunate enough to go to China with work. I spoke to my friend Sean who is the business expert in 3D at H&M about if it is possible to book in a tour with the CLO 3D office whilst I am there so he's going to give me a contact. I've been missing used the 3D programmes but I need a computer that is going to be compatible enough for them still, really hoping my apartment sells off the back of the viewing on Sunday so I can get the rest of my stuff shipped over and either use my iMac or buy a new MacBook! For now I am going to try and loan out a MacBook from Uni so I at least have illustrator and lightroom to edit the photos from the photoshoot
It was beautiful weather on Saturday so although I had planned to do a lot of uni work, I decided to go for a solo hike up Cadair Idris. I needed the head space and to get outside into nature and see the mountains. That night I caught up with a friend and ordered pizza, I think it's important to have these days of reflection so that you can focus when you get back to it.
I prepared everything I needed for the coming week which felt good, although I know reading and writing isn't my strongpoint. We have a reading task on Monday and there were three texts to read and then evaluate. It was hard, it took the whole day again but I guess this is why I shouldn't put these things off.. I know I should have read a text a night and then had the time to evaluate properly, but you live and you learn!
TO DO LIST:
Look into Welsh tapestry
Start to write out my favourite Welsh words
Watch Kneecap documentary
Look into Art Studios in the North West
Take out MacBook and edit photographs from Shirts & Shoes Project
