...and I regretted it
It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had so much of it and it was all tied up with memories I wanted to move on from.
In secondary school/high school, Art lessons were pretty much the only good thing to go
for, that and I quite enjoyed my Geology GCSE (rocks and crystals etc). Otherwise I hated school, possibly because of coming across a bit odd because of my upbringing and I'm pretty sure, undiagnosed ADHD. I avoided going to school the best I could. So, I didn't want any of the art from that time. I took a photo of everything before throwing it away. My harddrive later corrupted and it was all gone. This is the one drawing I have left from possibly the first year of school. My teachers were Mrs Wooldridge and Mrs Prilezky, they were great, definitely
made school more bearable and the art room gave a quiet refuge at lunchtimes which I was so thankful for. I love that the school was pulled down the day of GCSE results collection, best end of school gift ever.
I'd been to study and Art & Design Diploma in college 2008 after leaving school. I stopped going in the summer of 2009 due to the horrible near death of a friend and consequential PTSD. I made so much work during college. One in particular stands out, a big collage of a church with tiny pieces of paper and news paper, but it is long gone.... I took a photo of everything, scanned other things and nearly all disappeared, I don't even know where I lost them. I don't even know when I threw it all away. I have 5 scans left from the first week of college and no memory of anything else I made.
A few years after doing others things; jobs, life and other courses. I went to do an Art Access course and yet again... I threw it all away a few years and proceeded to loose all photos. Nothing bad happened this time, apart from realising I didn't want to go to uni at the time. It was actually fun and I met some lovely people. Some I have found online to have gone to Uni afterwards and done really well as artists. I have 10 pieces from this time and that's only because at the time of the throwing... they were rolled away in my attic. Lucky escape from the recycling bin!
I suppose for me, most of the Art I made for a long time was during college. Most of what was at home in sketchbooks I also threw away because I didn't have space to keep it all, but now these are backed up on 4 different hard drives. 4 is perhaps overkill but every few years I buy a new one encase the old ones have stopped working.
So why do I regret throwing it all away? It is because I can't remember it. I don't know if it was any good. I know at the time of making it all I felt like I had talent and it all made me happy. I was happy when I made something. I felt like it would go somewhere if I kept going and I'd get even better. For a long time I made nothing much, just a doodle here and there so I didn't forget how to draw. PTSD effected me for many years, during that time trying the Art Access course to get back into, but it didn't work. I just needed time and therapy. Finally, in 2019 I started to feel better. I had an awesome lecturer at uni called Matt Jones who was so supportive and made me believe in myself and thought I was an artist! We then had a module called Professional Development and a person came into to look at my work and tell me what he thought, and he was an artist. A real artist I thought at the time because he made a living off it and did a lot work seen publicly, wow! Now I think you can be an artist and not make any money off it, but that was what I thought at the time anyway. But this guy took me seriously too and loved my work and I was so happy. That was a big shift. I realised after that, something which hadn't occurred to me was that when I was in school or art college, all my friends knew I was good at art or made art but by 2019 I didn't know any of those people. Everything had moved on and I knew all different people, and none of those people had ever seen my work. There was nothing online, I wasn't sharing anything and there was nothing old to show. I couldn't just make a Facebook or Instagram post saying, 'Look here, I used to draw and make stuff, isn't that cool!'..... But there was nothing to show. This made me sad and made me spiral and doubt myself. I felt like I had a pressure on myself, to prove myself to myself. Well, that didn't feel good either. Then the pandemo came and I couldn't finish my big uni end of 3rd year project, the pinnacle, it would have been beautiful. Well, I did push through and make more art and I've made loads since 2019. So although I regret throwing it all away, it has made me make more, perhaps more than I would have otherwise. I can't be sure, but perhaps it was for the best. 'It is what it is', said my therapist.
In 2019 I was told I was an artist but it wasn't until I applied for an early career artist's mentorship program (I Fyny with Oriel Myrddin Gallery) in late 2022 that I really believed it. After my life became more stable and peaceful in the 2nd half of last year, I had space and support to grow and become my best me. I suddenly believed I was an artist, I then got accepted onto the mentorship program with a cover letter and show reel, not as a drawer/painter or crafter, but a video maker and community artist. It happened in a way I would never have guessed as a teen.
I'm not going to throw any more away!
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