374. Wishes you a good February

Among clothes and books in the new uni bedroom

Hello January (Goodbye.) Hello Readers. This time round I hope to briefly engage you in some happy narcissism. It feels as if I haven't really wrote about  my life in a while and so lets call this a worthy update on the past year. In the first half of the year I studied art whilst I revised for a resit of an English exam. I knew I wanted to study English literature at university at this point but I still relished in the art making and the creative surroundings of college. And sure, there was a lot of painting, thinking, sketch-booking, growing, artsy people but there was also all the seemingly unromantic stuff- chatting awkwardly with new people, sharing biscuits, sitting in an ugly canteen, being alone at lunchtimes and procrastinating. These mixed but fulfilling months culminated in a surreal examination and final exhibition in which I showed these three pieces of work...

     A pencil and thread 'geographical map' of my relationships with loved ones

Two paintings alongside prints commenting on childhood exploration of sexuality (irl this is at least 3 meters in length!)

Acrylic painting on board about the comfort and terror of habits

This resulted in adults smugly laughing, art tutors questioning and praising, peers complementing, my mother (who I rarely show my work to) throwing wild friendly critique and a friend handing me a letter with his interpretations of the work. I was lucky enough to feel the exciting tactile reality of using art to provoke conversation.Talking about conversation ('scuse the pun), summer also had me finally letting close ones know I was dating my best friend and that whatever I am, it's not 'straight'.

With some snazzy grades under my belt, I moved out to study at Newcastle University and am now tenderly taking on semester two. Among many things, semester one had me tentatively writing poetry and finding a new creative venture to nurture. A new way to say unsaid things. Here's just two poems I wrote...

If you are at all interested in the things I've done/ am doing 'creative wise', then you can look at sofie scholten art. My less narcissistic pursuit (though isn't everything imbued with narcissism and is this a bad thing?) is you are too cool for school were I like to post links to interesting things I'm reading, seeing and watching. It's an online bookshelf for myself, but hopefully also a useful resource for others. The content is generally about gender, sexuality, fashion, art, artist advice, writing, life advice, literature and erm, like everything else...! Let's have a conversation about it! And so I end this bout of narcissism, and wish you a good February, especially if you're pushing through with resolutions.
Love Sofie