And so it began...

So it has been over a month since my first post... and I'm really pleased with how 'Taylor Made' is going. I'm not really sure if I'm fully settled into what I'm doing, but I know that it will take a certain amount of time to find my own style. Life has has been mental over the last month. Of course, I chose probably the worst time of the year to finally set up my blog and begin writing.

The summer holidays came to an abrupt end with that usual stress of house hunting. That dreaded feeling of feared homelessness for the year was in the air, but fortunately for us, we ended up finding a apartment literally around the corner from college... 30 second walk, no exaggeration. With that major factor sorted. It was only a matter of moving up and settling back into college... much easier said than done. Moving up was simples. One car, packed to the roof with an excessive amount of unneeded belongings and there I was, plonked back in the big shmoke and ready to start the 2nd year of a 3 year degree. Living with three amazing people made the transition much more bearable. Not implying that I was dreading coming back to Dublin, far from it...couldn't wait to get back, but when it came down to time to move, it was a little daunting. So all settled in, unpacked, perfect housemates, close to college and the city centre. SORTED.

There's the house fam!

Now for the hard part.. college started back...and I was delighted to be back in our lovely little mad house of art and design. Off I went with a miserable attempt of a summer project and no idea of what was coming next. Then we got our main brief. A ten week project to design a collection of 6 finished prints for Interiors 2015/2016. No clue how I was gonna go about it. I always said when I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be a part of NCAD that I would try be different ...try push the boundaries...but I may have took that a bit too literally this time. My starting idea: Cows! yea you read it right...Cows! So I worked and worked, trying my best to make something classy and contemporary with my dairy creatures from my home in the North West... I began to panic and lose confidence as I always tend to do, questioning what on earth I was at. Meanwhile we had been learning pretty cool techniques like screen printing and hand painting screen prints, as well as testing pigments and dyes. There was definitely progression, but without a clear end of project idea, I was freaking out. On top of this I became our class rep. too..(those of ye who know me well, probably won't be that surprised!)

Images were sourced from Pinterest and then I added Animal Print as a sample idea.

Then along came Friday the 17th..  a streak of a few bad days followed. After presenting my project idea to the group, I felt more confused than ever and began doubting myself even more.. I had planned to stay up in Dublin that weekend and get my shit together... but with a key short, to our block and my housemates had left with their keys... (of course I never thought of asking them to leave me a set) I ended up having to pack up my stuff and head home for the weekend. So off I went and left the apartment to go to my car.. Then the next incident occured...I found my car with a smashed windscreen. A deliberately smashed windscreen. With no choice other than to drive my car and belongings away from the area of such said vandalism, I drove down the quays, to meet David, Jenny & Carl.. to finish a pretty shitty day with a high, at Lady GaGa's artRAVE.

The artRAVE was amazing, it can't be denied. From the setlist, to the atmosphere, it was really impressive. I wasn't originally meant to be going, but turns out there was a ticket spare, and I couldn't bring myself to say no. Something was different though...I feel that even since I've started this blog, that I've become more and more concerned about outfits and people's style. I was so absorbed by GaGa's wardrobe that every time she had an outfit change, my camera was out. Overall an amazing show!

So the weekend passed without much excitement and with little enthusiasm for life. General tiredness, stress and pure negativity in relation to what I was doing with my college work. Considering my windscreen was smashed, the car had to stay at home for the week, which resulted in a 5am start on Monday morning, to get a lift with my aunt to Dublin. Back in Dublin, all was going well. Hoping for a fresh start with a new week, no more bad luck... lunchtime came and I put a knife through my finger... now I'm not really that clumsy of a person...so I can only assume it was the third and final bad thing to happen (as 'bad things come in three')

Monday also brought more bad news... the passing of the great Oscar De La Renta. Some may find it a bit funny, for one to feel sad for the death of someone that they didn't know personally or would have never met, but Oscar De La Renta was one the greatest designers of our time and personal favourite of mine.

A few of Oscar De La Renta's Famous Designs - Getty Images

Tuesday came and I had decided that it was time to get out of my little sorry state and get stuff done. I considered my options of which way to progress with the project. Option 1 was to give in, to scrap the whole farm animal idea and surrender, with the lack of confidence I had in my farm friends and start with something completely different, I felt this was really the only option. Then another option arose, Option 2: tone it back, simplify and calm down the colours, for an innocent yet contemporary take on the children's nursery style farm yard. I weighed my options... and being half way through the 5th week of a 10 week project.. I felt I could be doing myself a great disadvantage to scrap 5 weeks of some sort of an attempt at this project. So this is where we are... Farm Yard Animals, Children's Nursery, Contemporary Design, Pastel Colours, Fresh. Now all I have to do is make it happen.

Pretty Accident - Left Over Pigment After Screen Printing

Being the King of Procrastination I thought I'd just have a little rant about my mini life struggles first, instead of doing actual work. I just thought that an insight into a Textile Surface Design project might be interesting, as a lot of people are quite confused with what I'm actually doing in college.

Dancing has took a back seat as usual, unfortunately. Hopefully once I find my feet in this project, I'll be able to make more time for dancing. Our regional qualifying rounds are fast approaching and I've a lot of new steps to learn.

This weekend is a bank holiday weekend too... a perfect weekend to plan a trip to London to see one of my faves, Blaithin, which I was so excited to do... but between waiting to hear from job applications, the stress of my project and the fear of the plane crashing with my bad luck.. caused me to hold off from booking flights for another little while.

So instead I'm gonna spend my weekend, getting my project and dancing in shape, as well as painting my twin cousin's bedroom into an Underwater Seaworld ... and here is the end the result:

That pretty much sums life up at the moment... onwards and upwards!

Halloween: 5 days
Dancing Regionals: 26 days
Interior Project Deadline: 30 days
Christmas: 60 days
My 20th: 74 days

Hope you enjoyed this post, it was little different to my usual stuff. Feel free to leave feedback, it's always welcome.

Thanks,

Barry T.

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