sustainingdiversion

another diverse and exciting week - work at NUCA saw me getting to the core of PDP running sessions with the 1st and 2nd years around innovation and reflective thinking. the reading list focused on weird ideas that work – 11 ½ practices for promotion, managing and sustaining innovation by Robert I Sutton. i also gave a seminar titled mapping textiles and the city as part of the site body text unit on the MA Textile Culture. away from college i worked with Leiston Middle school on pattern for the Leiston bench and created an exhibition for Leiston Long Shop for Leiston Day

firstpatternsemerge

some of the first drawings are developing into designs/patterns to sandblast into the stone. we have been looking at how to collaborate on creating repeat patterns focusing on clarity and the idea of the symbol

firstdrawingsemerge

the work on the bench commissioned by suffolk coastal district council for leiston is well underway. I have been working with leiston long shop museum and pupils from leiston middle school. the first day was spent with all of year 8 creating drawings of the magnificent objects in the museum. the visit was wonderfully supported by julia mael from the education department at the longshop and neil hanger from the school. also without the input from helpers and parents it would of been impossible so thank you.

morereading

recently hours/days of time my have been spent reading about/around a concept called PDP - personal development profile - for my teaching qualification. i think that i am going to focus my action learning on this section of the course i teach on at NUCA - its really about reflection in ones practice - stillness and silence - moving forward - the image is from my ever growing archive of textile buildings collected from a trip to Port de Pollenca

learningandthinking

last week saw 3 intense days at Woodland Grange Training and Conference Centre on the first residential section of the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching. it was good to spend time with like minded people talking creatively about issues one cares about. some interesting ways of considering what I do was represented in interesting ways – constructive alignment – transcultural disciplines – massification of higher education – threshold concepts – troublesome knowledge – context of ambiguity – enhancement led institutional review. I am looking forward to trying out some of the concepts presented with a new rigueur and clarity.

mixedbag

assessments - building a student show at STEW – finally finishing off a body of books around some walks in the autumn and more images of smoking architecture to add to the collection - an eclectic time

temporarysmokearchitecture

i have been documenting the construction of temporary architecture around pubs as a result of the smoking ban - here are some examples - i have been on jury service for the past 2 weeks so have been a little pushed for time - will post them onto my flicker site next week