36 Week Pregnancy Update

The past few weeks have been busy to say the least! We went on holiday to Devon for 5 days, had a baby shower and Liam graduated university for the last time!

It is so lovely to have the photos and memories of Baby Fish at these events but my god did he make himself known!

Things have really ramped up recently, let talk about it!

1. Officially nothing fits, nothing. I have been shoe horning myself into maxi dresses and hoping they don't burst at the seems. 

2. It's not only clothes that doesn't fit, now neither do my shoes or my jewellery! I noticed while on holiday that my ankles had really swollen up and I could barely get my shoes on, I wore a Thomas Sabo anklet on the first day of holiday and by the last, I couldn't get it on. I did have a ring snuggie on my engagement ring which I no longer need and I live in flip flops. 

3. A whole week of walking along beaches and non stop activity really took its toll, I have never felt more tired in my life but also never felt better in my own skin! It was so nice getting my bump out in a bikini and taking gorgeous beach bump pics! 

4. I had the best time at my baby shower and am so grateful to everyone that made the day special and got lovely presents for Baby Fish. 

5. Washing baby clothes is a bloody nightmare, the whole time a wash is on I find myself constantly worrying that everything will come out misshapen or the wrong colour. It hasn't happened yet but I'm a washing disaster so I'm waiting for it!

6. I think I have a stretch mark, it is faint and pink but I feel like its getting darker. I'm not too sad about it as I expected it to happen but with only 4 weeks left! How annoying!

7. I am still being sick, I think it is safe to assume now that it isn't going away. I'm fairly certain I will throw up during birth/labour. 

8. His movements are so strong now that they are quite often really unpleasant. His rolls make me feel physically sick but at the same time, if I don't feel like every 5mins I panic like crazy.  

9. I think I have carpel tunnel, my fingers are constantly tingling/numb. Midwife says it's nothing to worry about but it really is driving me mad! 

10. We have had our 36week scan which was a horror from start to finish, the lady who did my blood test and blood pressure I swear was trying to kill me. She did my blood pressure repeatedly until my whole arm went purple and I couldn't move it then she tried to take blood from that arm which obviously didn't have any as it was dead! So she proceeded to wiggle the needle around and stab at me for ages before moving to the other arm. Then the lady doing the scan was so rough that she bruised my stomach but the overall outcome was that baby is fine and not quite as large as they originally thought so thats good at least!

I honestly can't get my head around the fact that he is due to be here in 4 weeks! We are completely prepared though, everything is washed, folded, put away, built and stocked up! The only thing left to do is get a mirror and window shades for the car, so I'm just using my time to sleep and relax my aching body now! 

Please don't be late little boy! I can't wait any longer to meet you! 

Degree Show

My degree is finally over and I am preparing to venture out into the real world and it is a scary feeling! I have decided not to attend graduation as it just isn't something i'd enjoy so the degree show was a chance to share my achievement with my family and celebrate. The show was beautifully laid out and contained some amazing work, it was great to be able to end the era with a look at the achievements of myself and my classmates. 

This won't be a chatty post, just a few photographs of the pieces I found most interesting and one photograph of my work. I have made a few posts which go into more detail of my work if you would like to see more.

My Work

Artist Appreciation: Maryanna Casanta - Eyes Outside Our Bodies

As you should all know by now, I am a Fine Art student. I am nearing my graduation and considering taking my career on a different route to the artistic one but art will always be the thing that I have spent so long studying and enjoying. Despite my change of direction, art will be a continued presence on this blog and in my life.

While researching for my final project I came across the artist Maryanna Canasta and her series Eyes Outside Our Bodies. I was mesmerised. 

Casanta's website has this to say about her work...

Eyes Outside Our Bodies (The Infra-Ordinary) presents new work by Toronto-based artist Maryanne Casasanta. The relationships between art and home, art and life, home and studio, and the interstitial space between image and object are drawn together through photography, temporary installations, and found or fabricated objects. Photographic documents of small gestures, subtle interventions, and material constructions move in the universe of the everyday. Common artifacts are re-imagined as a way to transform a routine experience, promoting an active immersion in, and reconsideration of, small, ordinary events. Her work proposes a heightened awareness of the prosaic, where present moments are transformed into a medium for communication, and objects, actions, and seemingly insignificant encounters are assigned new meaning.

I posted the images of my final degree show and my my work a week or so ago, explaining that my work is about the infra-ordinary. Infra-Ordinary is term used to explain small, seemingly unimportant details that usually go unnoticed. My work was about capturing these details and looking at them in a different way, Casanta's work is also about capturing small details and seeing beauty in the things we see everyday but do not pay attention too.

I have chosen to mostly show you the photographs which depict shadows because I find them the most beautiful. Shadows are either ignored or found scary in my opinion, you read stories and see on tv the tales of children scared of shadows and horror movies with looming murderous shadows, this is what I think of when I think of shadows. These everyday shadows are merely dismissed and their beauty is not seen. 

That is what these photographs say to me.

These photographs show a harmony between the man made and nature, the sun is reflecting itself onto our world/our possessions. It is a magical thing in my opinion to be able to see nature being a part of our world.

If you would like to delve further into Maryanna Casanta's work you can find her website here.

Final Degree Show

As I have mentioned before, I am a Fine Art student or should I say was... I have just handed in my final major project and it is all set up ready for my degree show. It all over! I am relieved the project went well and is over but I'm dreading what the future holds. University really doesn't prepare you for the real world! Applying for jobs, trying to decided what I want to do with my life and somehow earning a living in the meantime, i'm so stressed out its unreal but at least this is one stress over!

I thought the best way to explain my project to you all would be to share with you my artist statement for the project and some photographs of the work set up for the show. 

Statement

Infra-Ordinary World

My exploration began with animals and they way they are seen by humans but I soon came to realize that my interest was more in the way animals see the world, our world, a world made for humans. When I think of animals I think small animals because I own small animals and they are a huge interest of mine. I thought of cats, foxes, birds, mice. The animals that live in our space and have to learn to live in spaces made for us. My idea was to get down to floor level at the level of a small animals eye line and take photos of our world to experience how it feels to be small in a huge world. 

I realized that I was seeing details that I had never known existed. The colours in the pavement, the things people had dropped, the remanence of human life that has been unknowingly left behind. This led me on to the theory of the Infra-Ordinary by George Perec, Perec discusses the important of the things that are seemly unimportant and unthought of. What is under our wallpaper, how many steps does it take to dial a phone number, we no longer find daily things such as walking, talking and sleeping extraordinary. But they are. 

My photographs became an exploration of the world animals live in, our world that we choose not to live in ourselves. We are always in a rush, thinking about something else, simply no longer caring about the daily things we encounter to the point we no longer encounter them at all. 

My work became an exploration of details we don’t see in a world we see everyday. The work forces you to get down on the floor and not only look at the photographs but also see your surroundings in a different way, feel your surroundings differently. They are a simple push in the direction of the details we usually ignore.

Please get down to floor level and view the photographs, think about how you feel at that level and take in your surroundings. Think about your space differently. 

Close-Ups of Final Photographs

The box in shown is full of research and exploration, it contains all the thinking and designing behind the work. All students had to have this. As you can see hanging on the wall, I also decided to include a professionally printed flipbook which contains roughly 40 exploration photographs or photographs which didn't quite make the cut for the final show. I felt that I have a lot of images that I didn't want to become lost in a sea of research but weren't quite final piece material, I decided that the flip book would be great way of getting them seen and creating a solid foundation for the rest of the project.

Final Projects are meant to be stressful and this experience most definitely was but I am happy with the outcome and feel that the work perfectly conveys my ideas and reflects the way I saw the work developing in my head. I'm overwhelmed by the prospect of entering the real world but I am so relieved student life is over! I had a unique experience with gaining a degree and the university experience. If you would like a post which discusses this, please let me know! I would also love to know your experiences of university, comment below!

Final Major Project

If I haven't already mentioned, I am a Fine Art student in my last year and I am nearing the end of my course. For my final major project I am looking at the infra-ordinary, the way animals see the world and the way humans see the world in comparison. 

Infra-Ordinary is a term used to describe the things that go missed. The things that people ignore or assume to be pointless and therefore overlook, what is under our wallpaper and carpets, who else has walked on the floors we have. I wanted to look at the details that an animal might see because of the level they live at in a human world and in turn force humans to see the things they ignore everyday. The markings on the floor, the details that are so small that we really have to work to see. 

It is all about seeing our world differently and learning to see more of that world.

Below are some of the images I have taken for this project...

I will be posting photographs of my final show and how the project is displayed soon!