whistle while you work!

Since I got back at Christmas and booking the exhibition room, I have started working on my designs and ideas for the exhibition. We have had a tutorial with Joscelin and Joel they seem impressed by the work we have done, Joscelin took us for a walk around the third and forth year studio's the work that they do there is fantastic, yes some of it is a bit out there for example dipping dead birds and animals in paint is a bit weird and grotesque for me but Joscelin seemed impressed by it. She stood in that section telling us all about the work process and the meaning behind it for ages ( all in french a good percentage of which I fully understood). Other than a few weird pieces the work was brilliant all to a really high gallery standard, most of which put me to absolute shame but I keep telling myself that I am a designer not an artist, but the way in which they work over here does make me more relaxed and more open to ideas than it does in England. I feel that my way of working is changing for the better from having this time here.

Learning about cheese

On the 9th December we went to a pretty little village in the hills getting close the the Swiss boarder. The village is called Mammirole, it is very picturesque when we went it was 8o'clock in the morning and the country side was frosty and crisp much colder than it was in the Besancon which is lower than Mammirolle. We were driven to the village by a mature apprentice to the school, he was very informative speaking very good English, he told us about the region Franche-Comte, spoke intelligently about travelling and the other countries he had visited but mainly he spoke about the village and school we were going to visit. 

The school we visited is called ENIL it specialises in the dairy industry biotechnology and water. We were taken on the tour of the cheese factory, we had to follow all the correct health and hygiene regulations which involved wearing a white plastic apron that covered you neck to toe, then a hair net over every inch of hair, and then just to finish off all that glamour we had to take off all our jewellery and cover our shoes with blue plastic socks. thankfully no photos were taken. The Factory was interesting very nearly put me off cheese for life the smell was appalling at some points making most of us poor English students wretch. After that we got to try some of the cheeses and then we were shown around the school by the students and taken to the local bar and had lunch at the canteen. after that we sat in with a couple of classes and helped the students with their English. it was really good getting some experience working within a school environment. Over all the day was really good. 

This is my group in one of the lessons, we were spilt into groups and we had to decide amoungst us what we were going to perform in front of the rest of the group in English (basicly we played charades) I know it is on one side but my computer refused to turn it the right way round.

Lessons

The lessons are going well this term. Didier is getting us to design and make our own books. We have experimented in with making basic books such as ordinary bound books and a japenese type binding for a book which is very interesting, but this time we are going to make a book by printing and creating our own pages and then we will bind them by glueing them together the way they do when making proper books.