Very excited to hear that Aime (The Rainbow Project) and Niamh (Belfast City Council) have secured an exhibition space at The MAC this coming Sunday (21st May 23). Niamh Kelly, Community Engagement Lead for Belfast City Council says:

“Storied Objects, A Conversation Café with The Rainbow Project BeU group

Come join us on Sunday 21st May, when Storied Objects will be at the table in The MAC.

Over 6 weeks, a group of trans and non-binary people were introduced to still life drawing, ceramics and decal printing. Each of them ran away with their creativity, mapping out a relationship between homely objects and the stories they tell.

The group explored in many forms – playing with clay, curating their own object scenes, collaborating in a zine and through an unexpected kiln malfunction.

The exhibition takes the form of a conversation café, where the participants will be there to celebrate and discuss their processes and their work over a cuppa at the table.”

So very proud of designing and facilitating this series, the verbal feedback from some of the participants really made the hard work worth it (and reminds me to ask Aime and Niamh for the official feedback!). But, I’m even more proud of the participants. To achieve what they have in a short space of time, most never having worked with clay before, and working with such a random brief, each and every person delivered beyond what I expected. They also dealt with a kiln malfunction in the most dignified way when I nearly had a breakdown when I opened it to find it had over-fired and melted the work! Everyone just ran with each session and it was such good fun; lots of belly laughs! Really looking forward to the group feeling some love this weekend.

It’s that time of year! The third years are working their socks off as they’re getting ready for their degree show. Exciting, tiring, scary, but full-filling time of year for the group. Can’t wait to see the results!

I really appreciate Julianna sending over some photos from the private view of Reflexo at Echos Studios, São Paulo, Brazil. Very much looking forward to virtually meeting everyone and hearing the feedback on Sunday 6th November.

I have found it so useful editing my website. It’s funny how so much changes as you’re ploughing through your work. I haven’t had the time to stop and think about how the work has evolved, or even how I have evolved as an illustrator. I mentioned before on a recent Instagram post that I haven’t made as much as I should have, or wanted to. I get so taken with the reading and research that goes on in the background; I hear in my mind the words of Rachel Gannon and Mireille Fauchon “Everything is your practice” (an introduction to the manifesto for illustration pedagogy: a lexicon for contemporary illustration practice, 2018). This is so very true. Despite not creating as much as I would have liked up to this point, I was easily able to chop work from the website knowing that this is not how I practice anymore. Saying that, I think it is important that there is space for WIPs, quick responses, ideation, sketchbooks and material exploration on our websites, it shows how we think and move through our subject matter. I guess it’s a sign of growth and I’m not attached to my old skin. Future illustrator me will be just as brutal to present illustrator me at some point.

What I have enjoyed is stepping back and realising how much I have actually done over the first two years of this research journey. I have heard the second year can feel like trudgin through mud, but as an ADHDer, the lack of structure and slippery timeframe can be difficult. It takes real discipline to keep going towards this this no-end-in-sight goal. For the ‘studio | academia’ section of this website, I started to look up visual evidence of all of the things I had done. Again, as an ADHDer, it’s ingrained in my very being to have to prove myself, prove I can and actually have done something, and it’s the same with forming opinions and knowledge; always looking for the source of what I’m saying. Probably why I get into the reading and researching so much! Finding links to achievements like being awarded the Mary Ann McCracken award gave a real sense of pride. To be the first to be awarded by the foundation, and have my work recognised as aligning with such a revolutionary force for justice and equality is, well, I find it hard to use words that do the feeling justice.

And to have my photo on the same page as Professor David Olusoga OBE… I’m torn between doing a dance and having a lie down. Might do both.

Mary Ann McCracken Foundation