Hopes, Fears and Opportunities - Part 2

   I fear that I'm never going be any use at the Adobe stuff.

   When I say fear, I mean know. My mind cannot absorb the complexity of the procedures. I have wasted untold hours trying to accomplish some procedure or other that a more polished operator could deal with in minutes. It cripples my creativity. I hate it with real feeling.

   So I'm never going to be a graphic designer.

   There, I've said it. Three years of education wasted.

    Or is it?

   Well, maybe not. This course has opened my eyes to all manner of things that I knew, and cared, nothing about. Before I started this course I actively disliked the art world. The famous line "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my pistol", often misattributed to Hermann Goering, could have applied to me. If I'd had a pistol.

   But art, like Ebola, is extremely contagious.

   Another by – product of this course is the demolition of my conviction that I'm 'not very good with my hands'. Years of failed repairs to cars and bicycles, collapsed shelving, askew cupboards, blown fuses, leaking pipes and lost components had made me shy away from anything involving tools. But it would appear that I've changed over the years. I seem to have acquired analytical skills and tenacity from somewhere. Not to mention patience, of which I used to have precisely none.

   So I'm convinced that my future lies in the 'Craft' world. Even more so after my visit to Textbook Studio, where thanks to Vicky and Chris the way was finally made clear. I do images. The image, to me, always comes first. The text is an afterthought. Though it's actually the typography I struggle with: the wording is straightforward enough.

   And as I'm far too old to take the usual career path, and have always assumed that I would be self – employed again rather than in a 'proper' job, it's not such a bad direction to take.

   I'd heard about Hotbed Press from Kiran, who does some work down there, and had contemplated stumping up for studio space when I lost access to the College's facilities next year. I asked Vicky about their facilities and she said they have the best anywhere around here. So I'm going to call on them over reading week and check them out. The downside of printing is that you need expensive, cumbersome and, in the case of presses, very heavy equipment, which wouldn't fit in the flat even if I could afford it. So becoming a member looks to be my first step on graduation. Looking forward to using an Albion press.

   So, image making it is. Someone else can do the type.