Angela Maria De Nobrega Freitas, BSc Hons., Open University, DipGeog., Open University,
Masters, MA, MLit., Literature, Masters, MA, MSc., MPhil., and Playwriting, studied, Birmingham University
To continue ...
However, to the artistic process in discussion. Really, I am an artistic person by nature and doing things which do not relate to art is almost like trying to complete an essay in Japanese - something that is difficult to do if you only write in English or Portuguese as I do. It is as difficult to do things which are not in my nature to do as climbing a mountain, walking in India, swimming the channel, in short, my life has been rather difficult simply because i made a different decision to take what I considered to be a practical path rather than an artistic path in my life. Living in this way has been like trying to make an engine work in reverse, and you may imagine how difficult that must be. However, It is different with the writing process. I decided to take a playwriting course because I appreciate the writing form and can write plays. However, the course was also an MA course which meant theoretical work to complete, which was not what I wanted to do. I read plays in preparation and wrote a short play as per the course entry requirements. I wanted purely to write plays, I did not wish to engage with theory. I had already completed and acquired a degree course, a bachelor of science with honours which I studied with the Open University, and a lot of theory; also, after having completed my Bsc Hons., Degree, studied an MA Literature for another year. You may or may not appreciate that studying with the Open University is quite an undertaking. Studying with the Open University means you have to be your own course tutor, your own professor, your own course studies monitoring director, your own careers councillor and so on and so forth. Its not that those quantities of personnel are not employed by the Open University, they are, but for independent study I decided to do just that, study independently, in so far as it was possible to do and study under my own tuition and invidulation, with the course materials as the appropriate aids and course study books, that was my way. Otherwise I could have studied at a more conventional university and taken up a place at Leicester University as I lived in the East Midlands, my cousin attended Birmingham University, however for me it was different. So, when I undertook the playwriting course it was to write plays - not theory. However, none of this is lost, i hasten to add, it's like suddenly flying an aircraft without the training - that is the level of attaintent required to complete any course of study, that is the level of comprehension you gain when undertaking difficult degree course work, although it does'nt seem so difficult now, ten years later, which at the time seemed difficult because i was not naturally primed for that kind of intervention in my artist's life, you have to put yourself through your paces and learn from the process as much as you can.
I think it's important for me to write about this issue, well, it's more than an issue, it's like being involved in a marriage - you are either with military rulers, or you are with the budding Dalai lamas, I'm the latter. Ideally, I would now be a trained artist, my older brother would be a practising architect or engineer, and my younger brother would be a homeopathic doctor - my mum would have been a dramatist, a costume designer or writer, and so on and so forth. Instead, as with many of us, and my readers and writers, may concur, we all do things which are not natural to our natures, however, as with many of us too, during our lives we have been very good, solid, workers, worked at our best, however, because of the decisions we are not qualified to take about ourselves because the experiences we are in at the time do not construe us or correspond to that which is in our natures to do, for a magnitude of reasons, which may have nothing to-do with what my readers are thinking, but you may possibly gauge the general idea.
My father, had he been alive would have been successful in whatever area of life he chose, but he is no longer with us. My mum's long , life companion would perhaps have worked on radio as a radio dramatist because he likes to tell those kinds of stories, this is life. We are not all construed do whatever we turn our hand to. We don't all have those kinds of brain cell structures or nerves. Instead we learn to live in confined spaces, artistically if you're not trained, and practically which you have to learn to do, it's like unlearning to be who you are and learning an unfamiliar language, as I have said. Angela Maria De Nobrega Freitas
No comments:
Post a Comment