Professional practice

Lucy Nelson  

Lucy Nelson is an artist who has recently re found her practice through education. Lucy is originally from the west midlands, growing up as a creative child in a working class family so she perused this interest throughout her educational journey. She completed A levels in Art, performing arts and English literature then going on to do a BA in fine art at Staffordshire Uni, at this point her practice was paint and mixed-media based. She finished university and left feeling "disenchanted" and felt like there was a lack of opportunities. For a while she did a variety of different creative jobs, trying to make opportunities for herself but ultimately still felt a bit lost. From here Lucy decided to work in further education in support roles, like autism support teams and mental health teams, she worked within these roles for 17 years, she mentioned she found this work to be extremely positive and enjoyed it as she often got to also help in small creative projects with students. She mentioned she began feeling frustrated in her work and felt like it was lacking the creativity she wanted, so to combat this she brought herself a sketchbook and just started sketching and creating. Privately she began to build up a portfolio, not consulting people on her practice gave her the space she needed to begin creating freely again. She began working in 3D forms, the very beginning pieces inspired by the past experience of miscarriage with the work being reminiscent of embryotic forms but this was just a starting point and they've evolved with different ideas, they also began to be inspired by natural organisms and nature. To me these little sculptures have connotations of biological science, extra-terrestrial things and sea creatures.  This new breakthrough of little sculptures was something she was still just doing in spare time, a private practice that was still purely for her own benefit. Deciding where to take these ideas next She decided to apply to take her MFA at Nottingham Trent Uni when talking to us she mentioned how she applied feeling unsure in her decision but continued and then left her interview feeling affirmed and positive in her choice. She spoke about all the cool beneficial things shes experienced whilst doing the course so far, like the studio space, beneficial work placements and exhibitions. When talking about her experience so far with a masters course she talked a little about the work she's produced but mainly spoke about her experience and the logistics of it all. I really enjoyed this about her talk because she was really open about the Finacle side of the course and the workload, but also explained everything so well, showing how despite the difficulties it can still be accessible. Her talk also reaffirmed the message that its ok to take breaks from your practice but resilience is also needed.