I come from a fine art background, fine art printmaking to be specific, at L.S.A.D. which is part of LIT. The campus is in the old Good Shepard Building which I always thought of as a Hogwarts type place minus moving staircases but equally full of surprises. I completed my degree back in 2008, permanently saturated in white spirits, ink all over everything and putting bits of carefully curated rubbish in labelled jars. When I found that these tasks had not entirely prepared me for the real world, I decided to go on and pursue my other love, photography. I completed a 2 year course in advanced photography at the Limerick College of Further Education where I learned lots of useful things and spent long hours in small, dark, chemical-filled rooms.
Along the way I started up a mini portrait drawing enterprise, (examples of my work here) and worked in technical support so I didn’t starve. My technical support experience led me onto an exciting role as a social media representative. I was always champing at the bit to make things and see how I could use my inherent creativity in some way. There have been numerous creative projects in my social media role and in helping out other areas of the business; animations, videos, design, Photoshop, photography. At home I painted shoes, printed t-shirts, designed cards and frames for events. Finally I decided that I needed to do something more about this impulse to create. I’d dabbled a bit in web design over the years, but my knowledge was patchy at best. A friend told me about the HDIP in Creative Multimedia and I went for it.
This has been incredibly challenging, especially as I have kept up a part time job alongside the course, (not recommended) but I have amazed myself at the sheer amount I’ve learned. So many new possibilities have opened up and though it sounds corny, I have to say that I have grown hugely as a person and in my abilities and technical knowledge.