Bam bam bam. The journey continues. The days/weeks are flying by. Am i managing to keep up ? The problem with studying this MA full time is that tho' there is the advantage of having studio space and the project modules can lean into each other i feel like i am travelling on two tracks rather than a single one. I've never been ski-ing but i have a cartoon image of Goofy on skis with his legs getting further and further apart and that will be me if i'm not careful. 
There is distance too between the part timers and full timers because the courses are in many ways quite different. It feels like we are three groups travelling along different roads to the same destination. Second year part timers now have months to work on their masters projects and seem to be quite laid back while full timers know the masters project is coming but cannot really give it space until May. And first year part timers are just getting started. Some of the first year part timers complain about not having studio space but having studio space was one of the considerations that swayed my decision to go full time. I guess that our studio spaces allow us to pit stop in our one breathless year of learning. Maybe part timers need that less as the pace of their MA is different. I wonder how it is for teachers juggling the different needs of students. 
I have stalled a little on my stations of the cross work for my ASU project focusing more on technical exploration related to SNU rather than creative movement. I think i am right in doing this as technique is the bedrock but its un-nerving and i'm having to keep a mental timetable in my head, and also allow for the university being closed for the holidays just before our hand in meaning work in that period will need to be made at home. This is probably quite good preparation for building a work practice that is sustainable after the MA is over. I rely heavily at the moment on Jess in the print studio and will need to be at a point where i feel confident enough to do the do without her intelligence to turn to by the end of the course. 
Last week i spent making the CMYK screen prints in half tone and diffusion dither. The results were surprisingly different. Knowing differences bodily is how i begin to understand. If i look in a book i may pick up some of the feel but prints made by myself change my knowing. Ideas come up as result of mistakes or just thoughts that happens during the making process. I find screen printing quite meditative when i get into flow. Tho' a bump on my head on a hard corner of the lifting up bit of the table (find word) made me swear and lose flow somewhat. I am hoping i have picked up a tiny scar to mark the moment and to serve as a reminder to stay soft and maintain focus but whether i have or not only time will tell.
I think i mentioned in my last blog that I am using personal photographs in my SNU project and a part of me is chafing at the bit to draw more. To draw more, on copper, on paper, in ink, with ink, with  paper, wire, anything, in movement, in words, to learn more about physical mark making rather than copying. I will have to do this soon as the desire is beginning to tear a hole in me but learning is not a short path. Using the photographs is allowing me to learn fundamentals, details like registering, and remembering to pick up my paper out of the water it is soaking in with a piece of paper so that i don't get fingerprints on it or else to make the fingerprints a decision rather than accident. Printing looks messy but keeping the work space as clean and tidy as possible makes it easier. Often the creative process suggests flamboyant abandonment but taking a scientific approach yields different results to the looser parts of practicing. I think i need both elements to make work. In many ways they represent my back, my parents, which i mention because the SNU project is driven by my life story and clearly my parents are part of that. 
This week has started a bit scrappily. I finished etching three further plates with photographic images on and i have just begun to try printing these. The one of me and my sisters and our next door neighbour during a formal photographic session came out very badly yesterday evening. I was printing at the end of the day, using up ink i didn't want to waste and wanting to know how they printed but not really having the energy to give the process time. Its stuff like that that is part of my learning process, knowing when to stop, knowing how much ink to put on the table so i don't waste it, such basic learning but still learning. And as i am learning i guess it is not wasted learning, tho' it is annoying, when i find i have got it wrong, printed with "tired hands". I actually also yesterday had a breakthrough printing from the Jon plate with a different type of ink. The first print i did i had over wiped and so lost some definition and Jess suggested i try wiping the plate blind, so i did, inking, then tickling (not rubbing) the ink off the plate with scrim/tarletan and lastly gently brushing the last of the excess ink away with flat tissue paper all with my eyes shut, the difference was startling, much better. I'm going to do this again because even the doing it was dramatically different. It also nicely fits with the creative impulse behind the work which is memory. Memories need to be felt to be met, they need the tenderness and vulnerability of eyes shut and an open heart and mind to be coaxed from the unconscious, feelings and connection can be lost in glaring light or if handled too heavily or over thought. 
I have to stop now in this blog as college and the 3d studio calls but there is more i need to make note of so i mark this page as ... to be continued