What am I looking to do?

The Diary of a Young Traveller

- this title, more a wish than truth. 

   I have travelled to some places (more than some but not enough) there are so many countries I want to venture forth to, absorb myself in their cultures and to photogrpah every moment so as not to forget what it looked  and felt like.

   I dream of Venice in Winter and Paris in the Summer. I dream of getting lost in Berlin and finding myself in Rome.

  My ideas at the moment still feel slightly muddled, as over Christmas I have been changing my original  concept. Not vast changes.....but changes nonetheless.

   The ideas running around in my head in conjunction with degree show is to create works as though it were a physical visual diary of the journeys one can take throughout (in particular these shall be an interpretation of mine). I feel that many of us do not see the great wonders that are around us, the vast cultural diversity and  even just the small things that make each place beautiful. I feel our generation believe to find something great we need to travel far and wide, But that in itself is not true. We just  never find the time to look properly at what we have around us. I must admit I do wish to travel but it all comes down to money and that is something I do not currently have going spare but I know and appreciate the Scottish wonders fully.


   The main narrative angle I wish to approach is the impact my travels to Africa have had on me. I am looking into discovering more about the deprivation in the area in which I stayed and finding ways of creating beautiful pieces resembling this. However in contrast, one could look to find the irony in creating something beautiful when in fact what we seem to find beautiful is the resemblance of a great struggle in another persons' life. I have a picture of a beautiful young girl I briefly encountered in the Village of Mkwiro, (Wasini Island, off the coast of Kenya).Mkwiro is a greatly underprivileged village, only a few months before I arrived there had been a cholera outbreak, Malaria is rife and death isn't an uncommon sight.  However there she sat in the middle of the street (if we can call it that) barely  two years old I would  imagine, possibly younger. She just sat there and watched as a hoard of volunteers barged past her, some not even taking a second glance. Not one sound did she make. Those who have seen this picture find it beautiful.Can we make jewellery that will make people take a second glance and make a difference?

My class and I call her 'The Golden Baby.'