Dear friends
It’s been a while
since I last wrote.
Quite recently I’ve
watched a video crit on the film, “Spirited Away”. In that video I came across the term liminality, which describes a
transitional phase you could find yourself in, as with the main character of
the aforementioned film. I realized I am
in such a phase. Things I could use to
define myself before, I can’t anymore.
I’ve lost a lot of things, and people the past two years.
My grandmother passed
away at the end of 2017. She had a great
influence in my life and I missed her dearly.
I used her life story as the foundation of my project, “Weerkaatsing”,
and her sudden death left me heartbroken and directionless. I did not know in which direction the project
could or should turn next. I didn’t know
if I could still tell a story if she was not here to read it.
At the same time our
department got shut down and my colleague and I were suddenly without
jobs. They ‘let go’ of me, but I
couldn’t as easily let go of the idea of not being a lecturer. I loved my work with the students and
believed I would be an educator for a long time.
There were other
losses too. Internal ones. Things I realized that with time, I could no
longer be.
I couldn’t draw for a year.
It was a rough
time.
My colleague and I collaborated
to launch an online graphic design school.
It was a great project, and a lot of hard work. We had big dreams, but amidst this time, my
colleague and friend got diagnosed with cancer.
It was difficult news to digest, because I walked a road with her the
previous two years when her mother and then her sister both battled with
cancer. And now it was her.
Many of our plans for
marketing for the online school, had to be put on ice until she was strong
enough to work. By the end of last year
she seemed to be out of the woods.
During December her sister’s condition worsened and she passed away by
the end of January this year. Before the
family could mourn her death, my friend started to experience terrible
headaches. At first they thought it was
TB, but it became clear that the cancer spread to her brain.
She’s been in and out
of the hospital for weeks. Friends
prayed for her and visited her in hospital.
Every time I went to visit her I could see how the cancer was eating
away her life. She didn’t want us to be
sad or teary around her. How difficult
it is to smile for your friend’s sake, but then cry when you’re sitting in the
car at the hospital’s parking lot. Or
when you’re sitting alone at home and it suddenly hits you - She is talking about herself as if she won’t
be here anymore.
Her memorial was held
on Friday. She’s been my colleague and
friend for nearly a decade. We shared a
lot of secrets together, and a lot of dreams.
You might have seen
previous posts this year on the blog – specifically videos. I created a Youtube channel, aptly named ArtGerminate (to correspond with this
blog), mainly to release some of the videos of the course I developed last year
(Effortless Website Design). The purpose was to showcase some of the
videos so prospective students could see what product they would buy.
I don’t think I will
be able to continue the online graphic design school without her. She was the one who spearheaded the marketing distribution, whilst I contributed to course content and blog posts. I have completed the development of the online course. As I mentioned, it was a LOT of hard work - research, script writing for each video, voice over work, video, photography of photos used in the sample project and of course final editing - all done by me. I have learned so much, but it is dreadful to think that no one will benefit from the course. I’ve decided to release the whole course on
my Youtube channel, ArtGerminate, for free. I will
spread out the upload of the videos.
The course is aimed at
graphic designers or people with a creative background who want to learn more
about the foundation of HTML5 and CSS3.
If you want to be able to understand a little bit of the code, and not
be constrained by template based website design, this is an excellent
introduction course. It is developed to
be very practical. Step-by-step we
create a website together, from start to finish. And a little bit of theory is sprinkled on
top to provide enough understanding of what you’re doing.
So if you’re
interested, or you know of someone who will benefit from such a course, you can
direct them to my Youtube channel, ArtGerminate,
and make sure they subscribe so they can be notified of a new video once it is
uploaded.
Here is a link to the latest video I uploaded: Resizing Images for Website Design
I don’t know what is
next for me, but I am drawing again.
Thank you for your
continued support.
Grace & Peace,
E