Thursday 3rd September 2026

The End of One Journey, The Beginning of Another

Tomorrow, Friday 4 September, is IT — final assessment day, followed by the Private View of our final degree show. After two years of questioning, experimenting, making, failing, learning and, more recently, beginning to understand where my work is taking me, it is difficult to quite believe that the end is finally here.

The last two pieces came out of the kiln this week, much to my relief, although one hadn't fired quite as I had hoped. There was little time to dwell on it. They were quickly photographed and added to the collection of work from which we would select the pieces for the final show.

The quiet excitement, accompanied by an overwhelming sense of nerves, has been palpable over the last few days as we painted and positioned plinths, moved work around and tried to work out how best to present the culmination of two years of making. After much thought and discussion, the final pieces were selected and placed ready for their reveal at 5pm tomorrow.

Nine pieces.

On paper, nine pieces perhaps seems slightly insignificant when set against the enormity of the process that has brought me to this point. But the significance isn't really in the number of pieces sitting in the gallery. It is in everything I have learnt along the way.

There have been so many significant and pivotal moments throughout this journey — some exhilarating, some frustrating, some which left me completely bewildered. I have questioned almost everything at some point: why I was making something, whether it was authentic, whether I was saying what I wanted to say and, perhaps most importantly, whether I would ever find a connection to my own work.

I now understand that connection.

I have a much deeper understanding of the work I want to create, why I want to create it and the language I want it to speak to others. I have finally recognised my own path. I don't believe I have reached the end of it — quite the opposite. This feels like the beginning.

Tomorrow I will stand in the gallery surrounded by the work I have made as a result of the last two years. I am sure I will feel nervous, emotional, proud and probably slightly overwhelmed all at the same time. But I hope I will also be able to stand beside my work without questioning whether I have a right to be there.

Because I have learnt that the difficult days matter.

The uncertainty matters.

The failures matter.

They are the moments when I have learnt the most and when my practice has moved forward.

So as I close this chapter as an MA student, I am looking forward to seeing where the next one takes me. I want to embrace the difficult days, knowing now that they are often the points at which I learn and develop, and I will definitely celebrate the good days — because I now know that they are hard won.

This isn't the end of the journey.

It is the point at which I finally begin to walk the path.