We did it with First Class Honours!

 As per my last post, the Potterer certainly did come back, with a vengeance, albeit not to Blogger. This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for around 2 years now!  But I figured I might as well still publish it - and then we can get right up to date...  (for a while at least).

So here's what I wrote back in 2014...

First things first, first (did I mention the word 'first'?):  yes...  I completed my BA Creative Practice (Arts) with First Class Honours!  No-one was more surprised than me at that outcome, I can tell you.  I'm not saying I didn't feel I deserved it; with absolute modesty, I think I did.  What surprised me is that I actually got my arse into gear to do the work! I look back on it now and it seems like someone else other than me put in all those hours of research and writing, and planning, designing, testing, making...  I picked up my copy of my dissertation earlier, and thought, did I write this?  Surely I can't have done all that... ?

It turned out to be a really good year for me in terms of my academic achievements.  It wasn't just me who did all the hard work though. I was buoyed on, of course, by great support from Newcastle College's School of Creative Industries, especially Dr Celia Holmes and, as always, by AndrewP who was there on the home straits when I most needed him.  I also had the most fantastic support from close friends (Simon (especially), Harv, JohnnyD, JohnnyL) who came to my aid at various unsociable hours of day and night. I got help from complete strangers who freely gave up time and information to help me in researching my dissertation, most notably Richard  Millar, Director of Enterprise, Heritage and Sustainability at Scottish Canals, who gave me a lovely, enthusiastic and inspiring account (over the phone) of the making of the Kelpies.  I even got an email from Anish Kapoor's office providing helpful contacts so I could find the info I needed. 

I am also eternally grateful to my managers at Newcastle University who allowed me the flexibility to continue studying ceramics whilst working in my IT job.  True work-life balance! Thank you!!

Anyway, before this starts to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech with a bit of name-dropping thrown in for good measure (too late!), I think what I'm trying to say here is that I couldn't have done it all on my own.  So a big thank you to you all for your help and I hope you'll feel it was worth it since we achieved such a good result together :-)

So that's all she wrote.

I had intended to write down, in some detail, how I made my final ceramic work.  Maybe... if.. when I get time I will put together something pictorial that will tell the story!  It was quite a feat.  The finished work is at IGM and still holding together despite the odd unruly 3 year old deciding to swing on it...