Last Wednesday I attended the Make Share event which happens every Wednesday of each month (so ill be keeping that space clear each month!) I decided to attend this as I am a curious art student and I literally live less than five minutes from the Vision building so why the hell not! So as I entered this building the first thing I noticed was “I have to pay for those snack!” but seriously as I walked in the room there were so may things going on I was really confused I seen two tables of people displaying there work and a big projector screen so since that seemed the flashiest I guess I sat down for that. Now the first talk was about an independent game designer Malath Abbas who wanted to talk about his new game called Kill box which explores drone warfare having played this after the talk I felt it reminded me of the game “battle ship” as one person would be looking for you while the other in the form of a drone would be taking out buildings now I’m more of a platform gamer so this game personally wasn’t my cup of tea but perhaps for someone else they’d enjoy it better (especially because I’m not into warfare!)
The next speaker was Leanne Fischler who is a Dundee based product Designer and has been working with Skills Share which was created in 2012. I was very interested in what she had to say especially the fact that anyone can join in and help the community in any design or art discipline. I also learned since there are so many creative people working in skills share everyone has something to offer. I also learned that making leads to employment and to elaborate on that by making things with the community you are sharing your own experiences and teaching people new things this then will give you experience and the confidence to become an employable person. Another rule that was mentioned is making is sustainability lots of people appreciate the gesture of making and having it handcrafted is also something special and again im gonna refer back to that spectacular book I read ” Show Your Work” by “Austin Kleon” that process is everything because many people do not appreciate what is made until you show and tell them how it is made and how much work is put into the product. By doing this people will respect the product and by educating them the makings of the product will entice them in making it for themselves and thus a chain reaction is created! Lastly Leanne commented that there is something special happening in Dundee since the city is very condensed and therefore so much things are happening and therefore promoting the city of Dundee. I believe this is true because from a Glaswegian art student studying in Dundee (I hate to compare) but i believe there has been more event happening in Dundee art culture wise than in Glasgow I mean ive never been to so may art event in my life and because the city is so small many artistic people gather together in one place to share ideas which is something that I feel is a great thing to have as it makes you feel that your not on your own and there is people willing to help you lift your career of the ground by giving wonderful and helpful advise as they themselves have been through it and they know how dark it and get and how great it can get.
Furthermore I had the chance to talk to Scarlet Erskine who was right up my street doing Jewellery design and her design were incredible to witness as they are inspired by her own skin being a sufferer of eczema she channels that into something positive and applies the surface texture into her own pieces using what looks like a process called reticulation. Her story is incredible from doing catwalk pieces to her jewellery staring in a music video I couldn’t help but ask what her secrets are. She tells me that working in groups is a fantastic way to start off she went down and worked in Vanilla Ink and found a lot of graduates but also a lot of older people working there too and realised collaboration was the way forward. Once she found a group of people she liked to work with she stuck to them and together did a lot of pop up show events and also had her very own kick-starter campaign to get herself down to London to do another catwalk show and by doing this got her pieces a lot of attention. She is currently working on a lot of bridal pieces and wedding designs, there’s never a dull moment for Scarlet!
As a whole I really learned a lot and I never knew there was so much Dundee could do for young aspiring designers. From this here are they key points I took from the talk:
1.Twitter helps advertise yourself as it is free advertising tool for emerging artists in which everyone worldwide can see and it cost absolutely nothing!
2. Do charties especially now is a good time to do it as its good way to build yourself and your career path when it comes to final year, get the community on your side which definably help build connections.
3. Find groups such as skills share
4. Collab (Dundee is a small town were everyone knows each other it would be hard not to!)
Overall I will take there advise and use it I am now very interested in joining skills share and who knows maybe in future blogs you will see me go on about the good times of skills share who knows what the future will bring the only person that can control that future is yourself.
-Kimmy xxx