WYTHNOS DAU DDEG UN - week twenty one

This week begins with me feeling very run down and sleepy, I struggled to wake up this morning to the point I nearly talked myself into not going to class. But, luckily the good part of my brain told myself to get out of bed and get ready for the drive to Liverpool and I am so glad I did because as we know, if you go to class then you're going to get the most out of the experience!

We had a guest lecture this week with a lady called Soph Boobyer. She has just finished her MA which from what I understood was about soil and water and collecting these from different people who have something to do with the museum she was working with. I'm gonna be honest in saying that I was yes, very tired but also I didn't really understand much about what she was talking about. One thing that did help me though was that she had worked at a place called Plant NOMA in Manchester, which after some researching I found out is a creative hub and community space which has grown and developed over the years in one way or another and is pretty cool! The thing that I am most interested in is their workshops, one in particular called 'The Stitching Circle' which is 'A yarn club guided by the cycles of the moon and seasons. Bring your knitting, crochet or sewing and a notebook to explore the gentle magic of crafting coupled with intention-setting.' and is right up my alley! Sewing & moon phases in one workshop? Sign me up! This got me thinking about the kinds of things I'd like to have in my local area, so I've started a little note where I will collect workshops that I think are fun so when I get to that part of my project, I have them saved.

In the afternoon we did an asset mapping workshop where we discussed the assets we have ourselves, as a group, from university, from the local community and then also what we needed/are missing. This was super helpful to do as a group because we got to chatting about our projects and gave each other advice and tips. When asked about my group assets I mentioned that both myself and Ty Pawb will have the same aims and goals but its actually more about what I can offer them and if they want to accept the expertise and support I want to offer. Which again, got me thinking about my project and how it might not actually come to fruition within this semester, but more we a starting point for a future potential career within Ty Pawb or local creative hubs.

On Tuesday we had our first 1-2-1 with Louise. She is really lovely and I like how direct and clear she is when we have the discussions. We don't get that much time with her so I really need to plan out what it is I want to discuss that week and also make sure that I have read up on or thought about things she's discussed from the week before, because she will absolutely check if I have done it or not haha. It was super helpful this week to get my brain going, we discussed starting to narrow down what I want to discuss, which I do find really tricky as I feel like it will narrow down naturally as I'm researching and starting to write, but I will try and do that for next week anyway. Another thing she mentioned was to start to break my ideas out into themes, I think this will help me narrow down my ideas too because if they don't fit into the themes, I won't need to talk about them in detail and instead maybe add them in the end as something that could be further researched or discussed. I asked about what it was that was needed for the draft submission in 2 weeks time and it is quite a lot which scared me. It would be the introduction, which luckily I have started to map out, the literature review planned out and started writing, which I am not really there with yet so that needs to be my focus for the coming week and then the primary research methodologies objectives, which I actually have a few ideas so just need to refine them which I think will come once I have done the other bits. The working title is still messy for me, but again, it will come and I'm not going to force anything.

I am struggling a little bit because my transdisciplinary practice and dissertation are so closely linked that I do get a bit muddled up with which one I am talking about. In one way it's really good they have a close link and the research I'm doing can support either or both projects but on the other hand, I don't want them to lose focus and both be a bit messy. So, that's something I need to be aware of and keep going back to what is the main focus.

The rest of the week flew by, as they always seem to. I had Welsh on Wednesday and it was hard, really hard! I have truly neglected my revision and practice so I am going to give myself 30 mins every day to do some revision again because it really helped. I am also going to start going to Saith Seren Clwb Clebran from March as well as Sgwrs Sadwrn because they're both only once a week for an hour so it's just that extra speaking and listening that I need!

I spent some time working on the task for John's next class, looking at 3 key texts that are important to my practice and why. It was really helpful to do this and again, just gave me that direction I needed for this module. I also spent time making an action plan for my studio practice/final major project research and development because I am very aware that it's been a month since we came back to Uni and I've only done one screen print session. I feel like I'm at the point in the project where I need to take it to the next step and don't know how. So I feel good that I've made this little plan for March at least and then will just continue on with it until May. The goal is to have a full line up of designs and the patterns drafted so that in FMP I can just toile and make the garments, depending on funding of course. This is where it might just have to be 3D, which I'm not mad at of course, it would just be nice to make something by hand.

Over the weekend I had really heavy eyes and felt super run down, I don't know if I've got a bug or something that's not coming out in full force but is lingering because I haven't felt 100% in a while now. I took some time away from my phone and the laptop and got outdoors for some walks and took some naps and I felt better. I've revamped my nighttime routine so that I am not on my phone until 11pm, instead it shuts me out at 9pm and then I aim to be in bed and asleep by 10pm. I also found my glasses so I'm wearing them as I'm writing this. I hope that it's just eye strain and too much technology which is an easy fix. I actually ended up doing a few other jobs like hemming some trousers and what not, but it's all eye strain when you think about it.