Year Three

Bonjour

So today marked the beginning of the end of my time on the BA Art and Design course. Exciting but scary, as Paul reminded us it's roughly 38 weeks until THEE END.

So it began with the handing out of the brief - about a pencil - you're understanding or interrprtation of a pencil. I screamed in dire pain inside as my head went into overdrive thinking stupid things, deep things and plain boring things to do with pencils. After I stared at the blank wall I decided to start with the meaning of a pencil, and decided it was... a mark making object.

 I began with a parody article 'Ten reasons to ban pencils' by Katie Stansberry mindshift.com who took the idea of unnecessarily banning things in schools and ran with it. Although a joke, she made some good points (excuse the pun) about pencils - such as:

pencils are distracting

pencils are dangerous

pencils can be used to bully through the creation of notes

pencils cause bitter and scary jealousy

A few more google searches and internal sobs I came across an articale on theatlantic.com by Steven Poole about the pencil (the mechanical one moreso) being polite, provisional and earsable compared to a pen. This got me thinking about how a pencil relates to life.

This idea of a pencil relating to life made me realise just how much us humans have in common with pencils. 

We can be broken and worn down but sharpened back up.

We can be useful in many ways.

We need guidance in life, we perform best with it.

These are only some of my ideas which then led me onto 'Cogito ergo sum' - I think, therefore I am, as this idea relates to my pencil philosophy. A more modern take on this latin phrase is Barbara Kruger's 'I shop therefore I am' 1987. I love this idea and it has strongly influence my development part of my brief.

My pathway is hopefully going to take me down a route into creative advertising which means that I shall do all I can to build knowlodge and skills in this field of work therefore my inital idea for my final piece of work (albiet I havent figured the design) would be a series of posters called 'I am a pencil'.

love from one stressed-out student.

x