#unknown alphabets

Yesterday was the final crit for the Unknown Alphabets project, and let me tell you something, it was brilliant! People came in with stories that stirred you away from reality, or fed you another reality that felt terribly real and plausible. That you actually wanted to be real. It was simply brilliant, the best crit I've attended at CSM so far. I mean, seriously, how often do you get a German student dressed up as a Russian thief with fake tattoos and Russian accent?! Or a kids' book explaining 4D in the cutest way? Or somebody that casually lectured you about History but a History that fits their project?! Brilliant I tell you! And Sheena was amazing, giving or eliciting very constructive feedback. She kept us on our toes and really tried to push the projects one step further, giving brilliant advice and a real space for peer to peer feedback. I'm really really glad I picked this brief and to work with her. She too is brilliant! As to the crit regarding my project, it was great! I only received very positive feedback, Sheena called my project beautiful again and I actually almost made her cry (sorry about that) when I read Miss Acacia's letter out loud! I was told that the project is complete and nobody really knew how I could push it further, so we'll see! I might re-write the letter and the chart with a tool I don't have to fight with. I'm not sure yet. Sheena was generous enough to offer additional feedback next week, so she might come up with a new path I could explore. But that's it for now. We don't have any new projects for a little while now, we have our assessments coming up. Our tutor group is meeting on Friday next week with Joshua for a portfolio run through then we have the portfolio hand in the next Monday (so in about 2 weeks' time). So I'm now going back to my previous projects. I want to complete as much as I can of the Perfect bake project and really do a lot on my Self-initiated brief, so there'll be more on that later. And if any of you who worked on the Unknown Alphabets brief are are reading this post: Thank you so much for making yesterday such an interesting day! You rock!

So, yesterday was the interim crit and I have to say, I love Sheena. She's brilliant, it's that simple. Her crit was great, really, really great! Everybody came up with really interesting ideas, we all worked hard to give feedback and ideas which made for a really stimulating crit. It was a breath of fresh air when you know that some of the crits feel like they last for days on end. I really look forward to our final crit on Tuesday, it is going to be so great to see everything done and polished. It's going to be awesome! As to what the crit has brought me, well not much new (as in help or new directions to explore) to be honest as I have my concept pretty pinned down and don't/didn't really need any extra help with that but it was very very positive and my question about coherence, which was my main question, was answered. Everybody seemed to like my writing system and understand its concept. And I really appreciated the fact that people called some of my symbols clever and that Sheena acknowledged the fact that some words/concepts are pretty hard to translate into symbols but she definitely gave me the thumbs up. Yay! The one thing that was really helpful is that I asked about punctuation as I wasn't too sure how to tackle that problem and it was suggested that I shouldn't bother about it, that my system is intended for only 2 people who know and understand each other so they don't really need punctuation at all. So yeps, that's for the crit. And I just got back from buying a few supplies for the final crit. I went to Camden Passage, in Angel. I absolutely love that little market. I found my old wooden box there for £2.50. It is exactly what I was looking for so I'm really happy with it. Then I got myself  new calligraphy set, nothing fancy, but just what I needed. So I have the pen set with several different nibs as well as some nut brown ink to go with it. I can't wait to try it all out. But I'll do that tomorrow, I really want to finish my table of symbols + find out what love notes I want to write, how to present the table (as in what size, layout, etc) + figure out what/how I want my guide to be. So today is more about finalizing the ideas and tomorrow and Monday will be all about making it all happen. I have pictures of the box and calligraphy kit, but you know the drill, still no adapter! (yes, I know, I NEED to get one!). So that's it for now and back to figuring symbols out.