Where did it all begin?? I actually can remember roughly the very beginning of what would turn into my artistic career. I had finished secondary school and started at a local 6th form and hated it, every single minute of it. So I enrolled at a local college who happened to start the term just after the 6th form and again, surprise surprise hated it. I was shy and had no friends and spent a lot of time by myself either in class or bunking off because bunking class was literally just something to fill time with.
One holiday during the first year, most likely Christmas, I happened upon deviantART and started off posting my poetry which gained quite a few comments/feedback. Naturally I fell in love with the digital art which people posted up and wanted to emulate them and so spent many hours, days... months... years building up skills in Photomanipulation and gained quite a reasonable reputation in the fantasy/macabre scene.
I loved digital art so much I literally googled art college classes in my local area and happened upon City of Bath College and their ND BETEC Graphic Design course which included an A-Level in Photography. So I left college after my first year, long enough to gain my AS-Level qualifications and started college again. I forced myself to talk to people which was no easy feat having spent the past year in basic solitude and made a small but lovely circle of friends. I had the most amazing lecturers and ventured through many possible HE course paths. I explored digital illustration, traditional illustration, photography, graphic design, 3D design etc and found I was reasonably good at Photography. After applying my Photography lecturer told me something that has stuck with me since, "You're good in this class but you are going into a course where everyone is good at what they do."
I won't lie, I'm a home girl and leaving for Uni was HARD... super hard. I ended up crying in a Tesco Carpark in my mums car begging her to take me home but she made me stay and I am so pleased to was strong enough to do that. The first year sucked, I hated it but I think I hated it because it was so challenging... and so the second year I pushed myself and produced a springboard of work, a level up from before but not quite where I wanted to be. The third and final year study wise was my best, socially wise was a giant nose dive into oblivion but is one of those retrospective learning curves. I produced my Final Major Project [FMP] which I still base a lot of my work from.
[From series 'Elysian Fields' © Laura Ashford]
My FMP is entitled 'Elysian Fields' due to the mythological take on it but brings in an Art Nouveau edge. I got some good feedback from it and still do 3 years on. That series was followed by 'Ethereal' and has just recently been followed by 'Macrocosm.'
[ From 'Macrocosm' © Laura Ashford]
My work centers around nature and mythology/folklore, basically it is quite organic in tone and feel. I would say I am very aspirational with regards to my work, I want to go places and see things and as someone who pushes themselves I know I will eventually get there... I say eventually... I am a 'wanderer of life' [as my mum would say]... I take many, many different paths but I think in the end I get good results.
As a first post this is probably a ramble but hopefully I will get better at this 'blogging' thing and maybe be inspirational to someone. I just think you have to push yourself in life but pushing yourself is relative so whatever it is you wish to achieve try to do so with each breath.
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