It's funny that my last post talked about how much I was blogging and now I've seem to have taken over a week long break! A lot has happened though so I will try to condense it as much as possible for you guys =)
First things first last week was very quiet. About half of my program went on a school trip to Berlin including a few of my closest friends here, Hannah, Casey, Mandy, and Shawn. Half of my actual house was gone and even though I missed my friends a lot it was really nice to have a quiet week, especially since Mit-term reviews were to follow. I got a lot of work done and finished one of my portraits.
Once they got back, a few others (part of a different program) went to Belfast so there were still people missing but one addition; Nina was here! She stayed for the weekend, getting here on friday morning and leaving on sunday afternoon.
Friday I met her in Galway and we spent the day there which was really fun. After having a dramatic wonderful running into each others arms experience in the bus station we mostly wandered around the parts of Galway I relatively knew and ran a few errands while I showed her around. It was a beautiful day, just like it's been for the past week actually, and we took a nice walk to the University and back to down town as well as out towards the more suberb-y side of Galway. We headed back to sleepy Ballyvaughan that evening and had a quiet night in, making some dinner for ourselves after doing some introductions.
That night the Berlin lot came home so the morning was bustling with people, something I definitely missed, and not only did Nina get the rest of her introductions in but I got to see some of my favorites again haha. After breakfast and getting to know everyone a little more Casey and I took Nina on a tour of our campus and everyone's studios as well as my own. We went into Newtown Castle (the castle tower on campus) and climbed to the top before we headed down the road to the Fairy/Ring Fort. Again, it was a BEAUTIFUL day, warm with the sun shining, so it was extremely pleasant to be walking around giving her a little tour of the area. I wanted to do SO much more since there are so many things to see and experience out here but time constraints got in my way, haha. Regardless, I gave her a bit of the Burren experience I think and it was really fun.
Nina on top of Newtown Castle
View of the school from the top
Us in front of the Castle
Me and Nina and then Me and Casey at the ring fort.
Later that evening we (me, her, casey, hannah, erica, and later mandy) went to the local pub we visit so often, Logue's, and indulged in their delicious pub food as well as FUDGE CAKE haha, or ice cream in Nina's case. It was a really nice day and just as nice of a night. Also, it was so nice for me to see everyone who was in Berlin again.
Nina left on Sunday in the afternoon so that morning was more of a slow relaxing morning. We were a little worried about the bus system on Sunday since I still am not completely sure how the schedule works on the off season, but it came and we said our goodbyes, and she was on her way back to London. It was so SO nice to have her here and have an even more familiar face around. You don't realize how much you miss everyone until someone comes to visit and you have them back at your side all of a sudden. I'm also really glad she came when she did because the weather has been getting SO pleasant and that was really lucky so we could travel around on foot a bit and not really have to worry about rain or cold.
So that was the weekend. Later on Sunday I went back to the studio to get some more work done before critiques this week but it was very hard to get into the mood. Having someone around takes a lot of you I realized and it definitely puts you in a different mindset from doing art so it made me realize a couple things: one being that I was so happy I got most of my work done before she came and the second being that I am SO happy I came to this program without anyone I knew. Being isolated from the familiar really puts your mind elsewhere and allows you to focus on things you might, on a regular basis, be distracted by back home. I really hope that when I come home I can take some of that with me and remember that sometimes I need to really shut myself off from those distractions if I want any serious work to get done in my art.
This week we have gone through many a critique. It's been Mid-Term Review so each of us has had 20 minutes to present their work from the semester so far and have a dialogue with the students and faculty about it. It's been a long and tiring process but essentially very helpful. I don't want to talk too much about it much right now because it just ended and I'm still trying to absorb everything and I'm also pretty tired but the feedback I got on my work was extremely helpful and encouraging so overall it went pretty well. I'll post some photos of the rest of my work maybe tomorrow since a group of us in art history just found out a couple of hours ago that we have a few responses to a questionnaire due tomorrow and we are now working late into the night to get it finished. Luckily it's only three questions, but the group of us can get a bit silly sometimes so it's taking a little longer to get done than we had hoped. Regardless, it's getting done and tomorrow is kind of a laid back day with just our art history class and the rest being studio time. Friday we have Irish Studies again (we didn't have it last week because of the Berlin trip) and then this weekend we go to Dingle (a coastal town much more south of us on a peninsula). I'm really excited because we have lots of time to do what we want and it will actually feel like a nice vacation since this week has been so long and kind of stressful. Time to let the art students loose in Dingle!!!! =D
So yeah, I'll update with photos soon and maybe some more detailed stuff, but I hope that catches everyone up on my whereabouts.
Also, very exciting. I got my first couple of Moleskines this past weekend in Galway. I'm very excited to start sketching in them soon since I can fit them in my purse =)
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