Reading Week
Today was the last day of reading week and I rarely spent time with my head in a book. As much as I would have loved to curl up on the couch with a big cup of Earl Grey and settle into The Hobbit, unfortunately "no school" meant "more work".
Outside of my regular ceramic responsibilities I had another list of places I needed to be, work that needed to be done and thoughts that I needed to be thinking. The least of which included:
1. Go to band practice and learn new songs for gig on Saturday 2. Go to This is Hamilton: After the Steel Rush 3. Go to The Artist Project 4. Go to work at your part-time job, more often than you should, because it is reading week. 5. Attend Niagara Youth Conference staff meeting. 6. Pay attention at all of these events.
Though my intentions for reading week are always to get myself ahead so that I am under less stress in the coming weeks, this week I spent relatively no time making work. Instead, I spent 5 hours photographing my fired work in preparation for our upcoming shows.
There are seven of us with studios in the loft of the Ceramics department. On regular school days, the air is filled with laughter, discussion and sighs of frustration and exasperation. The energy in the studio is at its max on Monday mornings in particular. All 31 students have class, and therefore everyone in the department is present. I've given up any hope of working in common areas during the day - the plaster room is often used for slide talks or demos and the glaze kitchen feels cramped with only two people working in it (and there are often half a dozen at a time). I try to avoid common spaces at all cost, until the evening. On Friday evenings, most people choose to leave as soon as possible, and during reading week the majority of the studio spends extra time at home, paying attention to their family and friends. Many nights I spent by myself up in the studio, listening to Spiritualized and working at an efficient pace. I absolutely LOVE being the only one there. In fact, I will seek out times of the week when I am guaranteed to be one of the few people there, to work in my space. Though my studio is a private work area for myself alone, there's something equally eerie and magical about the larger studio being available and vacant.
Tonight was no exception. As the last person in the studio I was granted the novelty of silence (aside from the constant hum of the ventilation system) and allowing my mind to wander, if only for a few short hours. I will post more photos, soon.
