FINAL Stings - As You Like It

As You Like It FINAL STING from Isaac Smith on Vimeo.

As it was in printed form, this sting again was far from what I thought I'd have been making at the start of this brief. I tried to get across the contemplative spirit of the scene in As You Like It that inspired it, in which Celia, upon arriving in the idyllic Forest of Arden far from the stuffy court, remarks; "I like this place, and willingly could waste my time in it".
This quote was really the driving force behind this sting, I didn't want to overload the image with something like ten birds flying by and a squirrel hurrying up a tree accompanied by doleful harp music. The simplicity of her words is the very spirit of As You Like It, a play whose title literally means "Whatever You Like", that asks the questions of what wasted time even is, and if time spent doing nothing at all is a relief or a waste of valuable time. She sounds almost sarcastic, but also a little spellbound by the freedom she finds in nature, almost as if she literally doesn't know what to do with herself now that she isn't being told to do anything.

If my stings were to be viewed in any order, I think that this as the final sting would round out my progression through this module as a whole. I've learned a lot about my methods of working and I feel like my practice is totally different to how it was at the start of the year. The increasing freedom in the briefs we are getting is terrifying and liberating at the same time, like the feeling of staring at a blank sketchbook and simultaneously shitting yourself because its empty and thinking of ways to fill it. Its a challenging way of working and its tested my ability to adapt to new methods, facilities and more honest self evaluation and find ways to balance everything on this course.

It's like being taught how to swim by being thrown off Blackpool pier. At first you're pretty certain that you can't swim and you're definitely going to drown, but at the same time if you're going to even consider drowning as an option, what's the point in being here?