Firstly, I found that the past few weeks have been absolutely mind opening and thoroughly enjoyable and engaging and have proved to me that a foundation course was definitely the right step to make! Although I have found the decision quite difficult to make I have looked at the positives and negatives of each rotation, in chronological order.
The first rotation i was introduced to was fine art and I don't know if it was because it was the first rotation and i hadn't fully settled in, but I found it very hard to engage with the brief, "Carnival of the street". I couldn't find any interest in the title nor could I find any starting point which possibly was the result of the project being to broad and not focused enough. Which made me think that in order to produce my best work I need some kind of direction that I think fine art doesn't really offer as it is highly dependent on the concepts you come up with your self. In order to overcome this problem I ended up forgetting about the title and just making things which related to my own interests and which inspired me. The end result was a sculpture made from musical scores and looked very appealing to other people but didn't really mean anything to me. I like my work to be personal and to mean somthing, but maybe thats something I need to overcome because of what I found when doing Visual Communications.
In Visual communications i was very excited and challenged by the projects set and really liked the end result of my work especially the second week involving the project about communicating a message. The project allowed me to be personal and I was satisfied when I had produced work that did mean something to me. However one of the tutors did comment on it saying the quality of the work was very good but she did not understand it, therefore not for filling the task of communicating to an audience. I think i would find visual communications hard because your always responding and empathising to a brief from a client and mostly focusing on what they want rather than which direction I want my work to go in. I Wouldn't have many opportunities for personal meaning in my work if it doesn't communicate with people so if i wanted to do Vis com i would have to overcome this problem by making work that other people could relate to but had less value to me.
The third rotation was 3D which I felt at home with and surprisingly produced the most work for, a sign that I was enthusiastic about it and willing to try my hardest. I was also very excited by other artists work when researching for example Thomas Heatherwick. In other disciplines I found that I didnt get excited as much or engaged as well with the work of professional artists. Looking back at Alevel work I now see how 3D would be a good option for me because i was always making quite spacial 3D models for work that had the possibility to become something bigger e.g. a piece of architecture, furniture or jewellery. On the rotation, tutors all remarked that I had a very 3D way of thinking, and that my work had the potential to become jewellery which i had never considered before but would quite happily explore as a future option. The only thing I would worry about by choosing 3D is that I think I may end up crossing over with fine art or textiles quite a lot and producing work that may lie between what is considered art and what is considered design. As a whole I think 3D would suit my way of working when thinking about the work I have produced over the past and in the two weeks at chelsea and also in terms of how much direction I need as a starting point (Its not as broad as fine art but not as focused as vis com). I also think that 3D offers the most scope out of all the rotations because there are so many possible areas to go into for the future but at the same time they all relate to each other.
One of the things I regret about Fashion and Textiles is that I entered the rotation with quite a negative attitude, having already done textiles for A level and wanting to explore something different. There were points I hated and points that I found very interesting ways of working and I cant really place whether i like it or I don't. So, I have come to the conclusion that its the idea of process and letting that guide the direction of your work that I like but the possible outcomes for fashion that doesn't interest me as much. I also found that when doing this rotation many parts I did like involved making 3D models out of various materials and experimenting with scale, part area treatment and shape that relate to 3D/Spacial.
Overall I think I have leaned towards 3D/Spacial, and certainly writing this essay has helped me do that. I am also very excited about this choice because it is an area I did not expect to go in to when I first arrived at chelsea but I'm also glad that this has happened as I did not want to stick with 'the safe option' of doing fashion/ Textiles which I did at A-level.
