Y is for… Your story too

In this world we often feel alone and until we hear other people’s stories we might continue to feel that way.
I have spoken to a number of PhD students and soon began to realise that my sense of confusion in trying to determine my direction was not completely unique.

Today I attended the PGR conference (Post Graduate Researcher) at work and presented my poster – I shared the abstract for it in my B post and below is how it looks printed in the abstract booklet.

The graduate school offered to print the posters but for one reason or another I didn’t manage to get my poem ready on time. I decided to ask if I could be a little more creative with my poster – go old school and hand make it. I was a little anxious about doing so but thankfully I had positive feedback, including a mention by the keynote speaker who was talking about public engagement. So I’ve decided to share it here with you in the hopes that you might recognise aspects of the story and not feel so alone. Scroll down for a brief review of the process of making it  if you are interested (click on the image to zoom in).

The poster is made from four pieces of A3 watercolour paper hole-punched and knitted together with wool (with extra tape on the back). This symbolised the bringing together of lots of ideas into a whole. The title indicated the format, circles (in purple pastel mixed with water and lavender acrylic) with square 1 in the middle. Blackness shows the frustration. The fact that I used gold paint made me use the image of prospecting in the poem. The circles didn’t quite reach to the edge on the left hand side so I made a gold ‘book spine’ for my circular PhD story.
When I cut out the lines of the poem there were too many to fit in single lines so I grouped them. Most are in the top half of the circle symbolising the period of confusion start on the outer circle, read the top line and the line below – move round that circle and then back to the next circle).
I decided to spread the rest out at the bottom – as I started to see the light and find my direction.
Looking at the poem itself I had fun especially when talking about the different methodologies I’ve explored. I also used the bookish links because of my creative writing topic focus.
It’s not perfect but I think it reflects how I was feeling at the time – I also enjoyed playing with the glue gun and laminator.

Just one more post left to go on Zen and the Art of Writing.

So does any of this resonate as your story too?