Creative Futures week 7th.5. 2013 ( Pt 4 of 4 )

The first lecture that I had gone to at 11.30 was called

 Postgraduate student/ completing PHD. study.

Sue Liggett & Steve Keegan

A short synopsis of this lecture is how to go about and understanding how to apply for a Masters Degree and Ph.D. options. Both the speakers are part of Glyndwr University  - Sue is a senior lecturer in Fine Arts and Steve its principal lecturer in Postgraduate Studies.

content 10/10

 Very informative with both areas broken down and explained

delivery 10/10

Although the delivery was at a nice steady pace each person took turns telling us about each topic I did  become a little bogged down and confused in some areas. Personally I think that some of it may be due to University jargon so I would need somebody to explain it to help   my comprehension.

Interest 10/10

It was very interesting to hear a little insight into what you may want to do next within the University and gaining more education in your chosen area.

Mapping the journey of sycamore seed:

The making of bilingual animation "Pipkin"

Pamela Wyn Shannon with Linda McCarthy

Pamela has already lead a very colourful life as she's a professional musician and artist with 3 music CDs behind her and has performed in countries such as the UK, USA and Europe as well as  performed live on radio stations  in UK, Japan and various other European countries. She also has studied ceramic sculpture, artists books and recently studied Fibre Arts and puppetry and has recently had a baby. Originally born in America she told us about some of the jobs she had taken to support herself and has lived in accommodation such as  in-house museums as caretakers, looking after animals in a Scottish mansion to name a few.

Plant-dyed wool is used in her work; the dye is made from all natural plants such as walnut shells and onion skins.This is the media that she fell in love with. A fine needle is used to shape and sculpt her puppets, which is what the animation "Pipkin" is made from.

Pamela had a grant from the Arts Council Wales for "Pipkin". This project was originally going to be half drawing with a small amount of stop-motion, 3-D animation . It was at Glyndwr University that she got to experiment with her work and when she had finally decided on how the final piece of work would look, she realised that more technical help was needed. That was how the collaboration with Linda McCarthy came about. Linda is also an ex-student at the University and has made ceramic puppets and now has her own company .

We were then shown her finished animation entitled 'Pipkin' which is about the journey of a sycamore seed. It  is also available in Welsh -  'Hadcyn' . This came about because Pamela wanted to make the Welsh version in homage  to her ancestory connection. She is also learning to speak the Welsh language. The music that accompanies Pipkin is performed by Pamela and she also went through the process of learning how to sing the same song but in Welsh for the bilingual version.

We had a rundown of some of the processes behind the making and how she learned so much throughout the production and her collaboration with Linda McCarthy. At the end of the lecture there was an opportunity of a questions and answer session.

delivery  10 /10 

I enjoyed the lecture. The way in which it was delivered made me feel like I was sat in  her lounge catching up with somebody I haven't seen for a while. She came across so relaxed and at home talking to us that I was actually disappointed when the talk had ended.

content   10/10

interest   10/10

So much was covered about the production, methods, collaboration and Pamela's life journey.I didn't feel bombarded by technical jargon and was able to follow and learn quite a lot. It's not until the processes of what went on in making an animation do you realize how much time, effort and preparation has actually gone into what you're watching.

LINK BELOW

http://www.girlhenge.com/

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/261306/8c319da34a/TEST/TEST/