An update!

Ohhh it's too long since my last post!  Now that I've fully settled in it seems like I'm just busy all the time, what with working in the studio, working outside the studio, landscape drawing classes, looking for french lessons and yoga classes, socialising and speaking french, going out visiting bits of Marseille, using the library, buying fabric, making plans for doing all of the above in the weeks to come...  I have no time to sleep!

But that's cool, I'm tired but I'm really enjoying myself.  I'm all installed in the Pictura Est studio, where there are really good tutors and the other students are dead nice, I've got a really good space with tons of natural light and I'm HAPPY to be there.  I'm getting on with my work really well - the shrine to Iggy Pop is coming along very nicely and I'm getting a lot of good feedback for it, plus suggestions of loads of new things to check out...  It really does make a difference to your work, being in a different country, you know, there are all sorts of different influences floating about - it's great!  I will do a post tomorrow or friday with pictures of my work, and I'll talk about it in proper detail.

So recently, what's been happening?  Well, I went to a welcome day at Marseille town hall for all the new international students in the city the other day, and it was great - there were about 300 students from 50 different countries and I met loads of nice people.  They gave us sweets and a big coach tour of Marseille, and it turns out that I'm staying in a city with lots of cool things to do!  They've got beaches and cathedrals and loooads of museums and funny little shops and bars and cinemas and all that jazz... it's really cool!  The other Erasmus students at the art school are really nice too, I must hang out with them more and go and see what they're doing in their studios.  There really aren't enough hours in the day!

And this weekend just gone my family came to visit me (minus Gill), which was great as we got to have a little holiday for the weekend and I wasn't filling my time with cutting up fabric and booking plane tickets.  We did loads of stuff and I had an ace time!  And they brought me marmite, which I've been missing a bit, so that's good!  I was quite upset when they left though - but that's all down to the whole being-in-a-new-place thing, I don't think I'd realised quite how different things are over here (different, yet EXACTLY the same!)

Today I went out into les Calanques (cliffs/coves/little beaches/woodland) next to the college with my drawing class, and sat on a mountain and drew the sea in the lovely warm sunshine... then got a bit lost on the way back - whoops!  I'm here now though, don't worry.  This afternoon I worked in the studio, although didn't achieve much as the weather was very nice and it was just one of those days...  Tonight I'm booking a trip to Paris in November with my wee sister, which will be great - I can't wait to hear how weird the Parisian accent sounds after getting accustomed to the Marseille accent!  Oh and then me and Nina are going to get pizza and watch telly and be huge slobs. 

Tomorrow I'm going into town to draw pictures of big grand French buildings and the interior of Notre Dame, then I'm going to draw Iggy Pop's face for the centrepiece of the shrine, and in the evening I'm apparently going to a free concert with half the art student population of Marseille.  Nice!

So, will check back soon with a post about what's happening to my work!

Old Home vs. New Home

Okay, I've finally got the chance to upload some photos - it takes forever to upload anything, so the full album is on my facebook page... but here's a photo of the bedroom I had in halls of residence:

Again, I defend that it was TOO GRIM!  Look how much nicer my new house is:

A lot better eh?  More to come...  I actually had a huge post typed out earlier on, then the bloody cat there jumped on the computer and pressed the off button - I could have killed him!!  Lucky for him he's cute...

My First Day of School!

So yes, today was my first official day at ESBAM!

I think it went okay too, there are plenty of other Erasmus students, so I'm not on my own or anything.  It's quite different to Camberwell!  Firstly, it's nowhere near as nicely decorated (can you believe it) and secondly, it's just really different...  The program is fine art, and then within fine art you have to sign up to which studio you'd like to work in and be a part of, which is basically like dividing everyone into all the different disciplines, although not quite like that.  There's a lot of freedom to do what you like, even so much as you can sign up for a second studio and have another practice on the go.  There are studios for sculpture, photography, sound, crazy conceptualists etc...  Then for painting there are two studios - fields of painting (which I suppose is like the painting course at camberwell - the teaching is based in painting and everyone thinks about painting, but you don't necessarily have to produce paintings as such) and pictura est/ouest (which is actually two separate studios, not sure what the difference is, which are more geared towards painting painting).

Okay, so that's good.  But it's not just a matter of choosing a studio and working in it - first you have to present your work to the tutors for that particular studio, and they have to give their approval.  The reasons they may tell you no are that either the studio is full, or, they feel that your work doesn't really fit in with the theme of that studio.  Hmm!  But if they tell you yes, then great, you can find yourself a space in the studio and get on with it.  Tomorrow morning I'm presenting my work to one of the tutors from Pictura Est/Ouest, and I'm hoping he'll let me in, as I'm pretty intent on continuing to work with fabric collage and I'm not 100% sure if that's what they're into in that studio...  But I've chosen that over fields of painting as I've heard the tutors are much better, and I really need good tutors around me so that I can develop as much as possible!  And also I'm desperate to start making work, because I haven't even been here a fortnight and I'm already very aware that four months is not a long time at all...

Anyway, after I'm signed up for a studio I have to choose a few other things, the first being my sort of workshop/elective type thing.  I've read about the different options on the school's website, and none of them really do anything for me... aside from DRAWING - yesss!  Apparently this option includes life classes, so I am very pleased indeed and will be the first to put my name down for it.
Then I also have to choose a theory course...  This I don't fully understand yet, I haven't been given a list of options or anything, and the best I can find online is a list of first year lectures.  I'll have to check tomorrow what's going on there!

It seems very complicated!  Probably because I don't speak the language fluently, but it could just be that they're all mental here, haha!  No, I'm just a bit concerned because we were given a list today of all the separate things we have to do, and how many credits we'll get for each specific thing, yet there wasn't a lot of info on how to get the ball rolling with all the different classes, that's all.  I'm sure I'll figure it out tomorrow.  Oh, and fingers crossed me and my lovely new French chums are moving into our flat in Marseille tomorrow - I'm so excited!  It's in a really nice area and it's all painted in nice bright colours, and it'll just be great to finally be able to settle in.  I've got a back of brazil nuts in my case that I'm really looking forward to cracking open in celebration!

So, wish me luck for tomorrow and I will be back with an update soon!  Oh, and some photos I hope - at last!

Hi, I'm an artist too!

Hello, I'm in Aix-en-Provence now, can you keep track of me?  I certainly can't...  I left Mariem's the other day, and now I'm staying with Fy (a future flatmate) over in Aix, which is a VERY nice town!  If Marseille's like East London then this is the really smart bits of West London...  Dead posh!  I went out to explore this morning, and it's all fancy shops selling macaroons and jewellry and things, and loads of cafés and (probably) organic fruit & veg markets...  And I'll be here until we can move into the lovely appartment we've got in central Marseille, hopefully on monday or tuesday.  The sooner the better - Nina and I went to school yesterday on public transport and it took TWO HOURS - grim!

Anyway, blah blah blah, now I'm emotionally stable again I should stop talking about how I feel about things, right?  What do you think?  Do you want to hear about the art school?  It's very nice, in the middle of the countryside with loads of trees and mountains and things, and it's loads of separate buildings all spread out and connected by covered walkways and stuff.  And the course is Fine Art, but there are several different studios for different disciplines and the like, such as sculpture, photography, sound, mental conceptual heads etc...  And you choose a studio to be in for the year, and there are different tutors for each one.  So I'm going for a painting studio.  There are two, one for painters who paint, and one for painters who think about painting but do other things.  I could spend forever making the decision and deciding what I'm going to profit from the most, but I think it's smartest to just jump in with the painters who paint.  That's what I like at Camberwell, and I do want to learn to PAINT above all things.  So that's that.  This is one sixth of my degree, I don't want it to go wrong!

Apparently it'll take about a fortnight to find a studio space though, which is pretty uncool - what am I supposed to do in the meantime?  If I work at home then I'm not in school but if I go to school then I can't work???  I dunno, I'm Fantastic Mr Fox, I'll sort it out.  On monday morning school starts officially for the Erasmus students, I have to take in my portfolio and sketchbooks and all that to wow the masses... (har har)  Then hopefully I can get some info on things like student travel cards and where to buy paper and canvas and stuff.  I've already found some fabric shops in the town centre - and they're really horrific like the ones in Goldhawk Road, so I'm very excited!

As for the work I'm going to make, I really want to carry on with intergalactic textile collage...  It's just too new and too good to drop right now.  I'd like it to be a bit figurative as well, as I really enjoyed making the portrait of Brian Eno in paisley and velvet and lamé stuff...  And because I haven't made a really good picture of a person for all of a few months and now it feels like time!  As well I want to do some more drawing - apparently I can go to life class at school, which I will totally exploit of course.

I've had a lot of ideas for stuff whilst I've been floating around these past few days.  First of all being how I could make a shrine to Johnny Halliday, because he is basically a demi god to the French...  Although I'm not sure, as unless I get really really interested in him (which could happen, but probably won't) then I'll get bored and won't finish it.  I'd be better off making one for Iggy Pop, I reckon.

I think the collages are going to have more text in them this time round, which is down to the fact I'm in a country where they speak a different language and I'm not fully able to get across what I want to say, so I'll have to really, really express myself through art.  How romantic, eh?  Oh yeah, and I must make sure I get to Paris next month...

I guess I'm just going to keep doing what I always do, which is making stuff and making it spectacular, but it'll be different because there's different stuff around me to influence the way I'm thinking...  But of course there's still Glam!  Music, threads, and a total lack of platform shoes (they wouldn't fit in my case) to contend with.  Oh, and art nouveau, yum yum!  Also, art deco and Egon Schiele, and Pierrick Allemand and Chris Ofili...  And countless new French artists for me to discover.  And I can read the Doors of Perception and think about the universe, and I can read Simone de Beauvoir and think about making boys look good...  I can borrow loads of French films from the Alcazar library and get better at the language and in doing so learn loads more about my own language (cheers Oscar)...

I'm just desperate to start doing stuff!  As soon as I'm in a room I can call my own I can finally let my cases explode everywhere and find my camera, paints, pencils, sewing kit, sketchbooks, fabric, peanut butter and glitter and start doing STUFF!  And maybe come back to London cultured enough that Debz won't laugh at me anymore.  Ahh, but the weather is so much better here!

Anyway, I've got a mosquito bite on my face(!) so I'm going to go now and try my best not to scratch it and make myself look weird...

CIAO, TSCHUS, SAYONARA!

We're not in London any more Toto...

I've never even seen that stupid film.

Anyway, bonjour again, I'm in an internet café especially so I can update this - it's THREE ENTIRE EUROS an hour here (can you believe it?) and there are world of warcraft cards all over the walls - what planet am I on here??

So, since we last spoke, I emailed the Erasmus coordinator at the art school over here and explained the situation to her, emphasising the fact that I didn't want to have to leave this soon, and she's helped me out loads.  In fact, loads of people have helped me out loads, and boy am I grateful!  Since Thursday I've been staying with a student from the art school, Mariem, and her family in central Marseille, which is amazing as they agreed to take me in without even having met me - woah!  And the plan was that I stay with them until school starts (on the 12th) and I meet some other students to move in with, which was great, because I was out of the halls, but a bit mental as I'm staying with a very busy family and even though they're being really nice, I am quite badly in their way - eep!  The lady from the college also arranged for me to meet up with a girl called Nina, who was looking for someone to live with her and a couple of friends, and things there went pretty well so fingers crossed I should be moving in with them as soon as they find an appartment.  Hopefully that'll be very soon as I just found out I need to leave Mariem's on Tuesday as her sister's coming back from Morocco and there won't be enough space for everyone - I think I'll be calling the art school again tomorrow to see if they can help me find some more temporary accommodation!

At least this has turned into a proper adventure now.  As in a more exciting, less suffocating one.  Loads of people have responded to the stuff I posted and have sent me really nice messages and stuff; and OF COURSE I don't have to stay here but OF COURSE I'm going to.  I cannot pass up this opportunity, even if it's a bit intense in places.  If I can survive in Peckham, I can survive anywhere, and if I'm brave enough to wear half of my wardrobe I'm brave enough to do anything.  That's it!  And I know maybe it was a bit sad to post all over the Internet that I was having a crap time, and look a bit like I was making a cry for attention, but you know, I really just needed to be told Come on Kate, you can do it.  And I 100% can.

So that's that - I'm staying, and soon I'll be living somewhere more permanent.  I think I'm going to get a lot more out of living in the city centre with French people rather than in my room out in the sticks.  Yeah, it's going to be a long commute, but after a year at Winstanley it's not exactly like I'm a stranger to that kind of thing, is it?

Let's talk about Marseille...  Uhm, it's crazy!  I think I like it though, from what I've seen so far.  There's some seriously stunning architecture - the fine art museum is the most tasteful wedding cake of a palace I've ever seen, and typically it's closed for renovation for the next year - gutted!  There's a big giraffe made out of books, an arthouse-original-language cinema (went to see Taking Woodstock today - not bad!), a fashion museum, various parks, les calanques (cliffs and coves and mini beaches and woodland apparently), AND a vintage shop called spACE.  spACE, like Space Ace - do you reckon the proprietor is a Brett Smiley fan???

Oh no, I've got to go, I've just found some more clips of myself of the plinth - I definitely have to sit and watch these for a couple of euros!  But don't worry, art ideas are already flooding in and this morning I went to sit by the sea.  Things are looking up, pretty much vertically.

Love and peace, in a bit xx

Not the greatest start to things...

Well I'm here.

I arrived yesterday afternoon, was met at the station by a French student called Jean-Phillipe who took me on the long trek out of the city to my campus in the middle of the countryside.  The campus is absolutely nothing like I expected, yet I should have expected it really, considering that I know French schools look like prisons!  I was expecting quite a small campus, one relatively modern block of student halls, the art school, and the other university buildings.  And I expected at least some amount of information about the campus/rooms on arrival, but all I was presented with was a key.  My room is disgusting.  It's dirty, it's dated, it's more than basic, and the words "FUCK ISRAEL!  PALESTINE'S SUPPORT GROUP" are scrawled across the wardrobe and shelves. 

The bathrooms aren't exactly pleasant either - toilet stalls that contain nothing but scummy little toilet bowls (no seat, no paper holder), swimming pool style showers covered in limescale, enormous sanitary bins next to the door, and the whole thing's done out in dirty white tiles.  The kitchens are done in the same white tiles, and in there all you get is a big tiled worktop (that I wouldn't put ANYTHING near), a big sink and two nasty looking raised hot plates.  That's it.  Then there's a fridge which houses about 8 individual padlocked compartments - definitely not enough for all the people this kitchen's supposed to cater for!

Then there's the campus - 5 huge Camberwell-council-estate-style blocks, plus one half demolished one, and apparently the different university faculties are dotted about along with a library and a post office, but I can't say I've found any of those because if I stray too far from my building I'll never find it again!  Nothing's labelled, I have no map and this is a VERY big campus.

So of course, I think it's understandable that I was completely gutted when I arrived yesterday, and had a huge cry almost immediately.  Maybe it was the full realisation that I was going to be away from home for a very long time and that I'd really miss people, but I think it was mainly the shock of how horrible this place is.  I was all for turning round and going straight back to the train station to come home, but Jean-Phillipe said it wasn't so bad here, that I could go walking in the countryside every day and that there's a lot of solidarity amongst the students because everyone lives in the same horrible conditions.  Then I was introduced to a few people who told me that every Wednesday night at the campus' cultural centre there's a party for Erasmus students, with a meal and a film, which sounded nice, although I made a point of eating my soggy Sainsbury's sandwich before I went as no way were these French kids going to cook something vegetarian! 

So it was all okay, and I met some other English people, which was a HUGE relief, as so far I can barely understand what anyone's saying - the accent is so difficult to get my head round.  Apparently the English girl I haven't met is vegan, so at least there's someone who's going to struggle to eat a lot worse than I am!  The other Erasmus students were very nice, and it seems like there's always a lot going on on campus, which is good, because the less time spent in this depressing little room the better!  Annoyingly though, I was warned that if I dress how I usually do in the centre of Marseille, I'm likely to get hassled by some pretty undesirable types...  And that French boys are very slimey, so be EXTREMELY careful. 

So I have mixed feelings now.  I am still devastated, as I proclaimed on Facebook, and the prospect of leaving and just coming back to Camberwell instead of doing an exchange is still really appealing.  Though how can I just turn round and go home before school's even started, especially considering that I've wanted to do this for so long??  And maybe it won't be so bad as there are some okay people around and I'm sure to meet more...  But on the other side of things I just feel really trapped and unsafe, and when I think about everything it makes my breathing go a bit weird and I feel desperate to get out - what am I supposed to do??

After a long talk with Mum and text conversation with Andrew last night I've decided that I need to take each day as it comes, try to avoid feeling depressed and lonely, think about how Adam Ant and David Bowie wouldn't have given up, try to upgrade to a better room, get in touch with the English kids to hang out, go to the supermarket, clean up a bit, get some plants, decorate my room a bit (how stupid am I for not bringing a single poster??), find out where things are on campus...

I do really want to come home though.  I know I should stay and give it a chance, and I know that it's not like me at all to give up on something, but this whole thing just doesn't feel right.  It completely reminds me of being at Byam Shaw you know.  I felt sad and alone there too, and whereas I'm glad I stuck it out for the whole year, it was NOT a creative time at all, and I've come on in leaps and bounds since being happy at Camberwell.  Now my time spent here is one sixth of my degree time at Camberwell, and I don't want to waste that time by being unhappy and uncreative - and I know from experience that when I'm unhappy I get stuck and can only make small amounts of very bad work.  So perhaps I wouldn't regret it so much if I came home tomorrow....

AAAAARRRGHHH!!!

Pilot Episode

Bienvenue.  Tune in from the beginning of October to stalk me!