Last night was the night I have been waiting so long for, the art exhibition!! It was an awesome night! It was so worth all the time, anger and frustration in the end. It took a lot of time to set up, we spent Sunday afternoon, and all day Monday until 6pm to set up.
The exhibition was great not only to see my work finally coming together, but others to see it as well. We had 2 rooms for the exhibition the large drama room (46) and the small class room behind it (45), I was in the smaller room. Which at first I thought was a bad thing because the main room was the other room, and the spot I was ‘given’ for my work to be shown was given to me because it was the only space left… But in the end I feel that the space actually worked really well for me, as it gave me more space to show my work that I first thought, and it was the first work to see in the room as I was along the back wall (left) as soon as you walk in and then a bit on the right.
The exhibition started a little slow being in the other room, but it picked up after a while. One really strange to see was people actually taking photos of my work, and really liking them, since they were often other year 12 students. Which was even stranger when some of them took photos, when earlier while I was setting it up they laughed at my work… weird huh?
But after the opening speech things picked up for me, I was asked a few times to explain a few of my pieces. And surprisingly some people understood my work with me having to explain it, which was good to know, because I was always not sure if it would make sense to people unless I explained it to them, because my work is so personal and self portraits. So things continued to pick up, I had a group of 3 chinese girls who were yr 11 art students, and they were very interested in my work, and asked what it was about. So this started my first long explanation of all my work. It was a really good experience because one of the girls was really interested in my work and asked questions not only about my work, but how I did certain things, and just being an art student and problems faced through that, I just reassured them about how I was doing at their time, and not to worry and be confident in their ideas, and just do it. So after about 40mins I had finished explaining my work to them, and found my friend Aaron, and told him to find his parents so I could explain my work to them, because it was his dad that made me the 3 awesome frames for some of my work. Then I explained all my work again but to Aaron and his parents, which was a very rewarding experience, because his dad was really into my work and had a lot to say and relate to my work, which was good to see such and interest and understanding of my work. Overall both talks were great for my confidence going into todays exam, because I was able to explain everything, and other people were able to understand my work from just one explanation, in contrast to my art teacher who we often talk to about where our work was going.

Today the art exams started, I was first, I find that a little ironic/funny because I was the last to join the class back half way through last year, but now the first to finish. No one knew the examiner because he visits schools and that so it’s more objective. He turned out to be a old man I would say around 60, but he seemed very nice not strict. He left how the exam folded out pretty much up to me, so I structured the whole thing talking about my work, and occasionally he would say something or make comment allowing for me to further expand on something. But overall very good, I feel that I have done enough to get a 7 (highest mark in IB), and also he has very good sense of time, and letting me know by ending it when it got to about 45-50 mins, so very well done. Now I don’t have to think about doing art, and can focus on studying for my other 5 subjects which exams start in exactly from today.

So things are going not bad. I will get photos of my work up soon, and maybe some photos from the exhibition.