Although feeling slightly disappointed with my grade for my studio practice, I've accepted that it was a bad semester and have decided to learn from it. After speaking to Sarah and talking about the semester, it's become clear to me that something has happened along the way that has made me 'lose my way', in a sense. The work generated, although not all of it is worth dismissing so quickly, has fallen flat, and it's just not what I was hoping I would be creating during the beginning of my last year of my degree. I think that there's several reasons as to why the semester was so bad for my practice, and I'm trying to unpick exactly what they are so I can be aware of them so as not to make the same mistakes again.

I think part of the reason is that I feel this year so far, we have been left to it, and although we've had tutorials, they've felt very few and far between. While I can work independently with ease, I guess I needed the support regular tutorials, or tutor presence, more than I thought I did. Of course this isn't always possible, but I can't help but feel we've been given the short end of the deal this year, with space being taken away from us, and despite level 6 students being given priority before, sometimes it feels we've been left on the sidelines occasionally this time around. This is to do with the university and how it's being run, so it's nothing we can do anything about, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it myself. The contact I've had with the tutors has been tremendously helpful though, and I feel that I need to try not let these external issues impact on my focus and my practice.

However, I feel the main reasons lie with myself, I know that I haven't done as well as I should be. I think that I've narrowed my focus down too much, in many areas, such as my research, artists I'm looking at, what my work is commenting on etc. So much so, that I've somehow gotten myself trapped in this process without even realising I was trapping myself. The tutorials I had were helpful, and I've been given some great advice I can act upon now, however at the time I was simply using that advice, and the ideas given to create that work, not apply my own ideas or developments onto it. I didn't really know how. I also think that I was trying to force the work to be about the subjects I have been researching, despite not having a solid idea on what to do with this research. Although I was researching genuine interests of mine, such as scientific theories like evolution, Sarah suggested that my work needn't be about that at all, or even reference it. It can however, inform the ideas I develop from the subject.