2nd place! It's been an exhausting day but it's been so worth it. That's £250 prize money that's going to go towards funding this platform and taking it off the ground! Funnily enough, it was an artist that got first place! Joe Edge, who's created some very talented artwork to say the least. In fact he even made to be one of our Artists of the day. Very happy though for everyone because we were all winners (Very cheesy line right there yet true all-the-same). All got prizes and all got valuable experience in presenting ourselves in a professional environment. For me personally, I developed upon my presentation skills and weak verbal communication skills, things I can always do with improving!

The presentation in itself though was great, couldn't fault it. My speech took slightly longer than when I practiced, only just managing to finish before getting cut off for questioning (Phew!). The questions themselves were great and not too difficult to answer, though I did ramble a little in my poor attempts to answer a question clearly. I blame that on my weak verbal communication skills though. Now that it's finished I may release the presentation online for marketing content, I know Slideshare for example is a very popular platform for content sharing of this nature.

I love the style Joe takes on with his work!

So yesterday I said I would talk about my idea that I wanted created into a piece of art. And here it is. A depiction of two different ways of life. The environment to the work is a somewhat gloomy street based scene. Where the focus of the artwork is on (At the left side) the prominent feature of the piece, with a man in a fitted suit walking towards the viewer, his head down and watch glistening. The other side of the piece shows a couple in arms walking the other way (Their backs to the viewer) with their heads held high.

It's a depiction of two primary paths in life people take; a good life or a successful life. It's two big stereotypes to lifestyles and relates to the question often asked to people "Are you a career man or a family man?". And (While it obviously doesn't strictly apply to reality) it brings up a good question, should we live successfully or happily?

I think you can tell a lot about a person with this kind of question, what are their priorities, their wants, their needs, how they perceive life and how they want to live life. Personally, I chose the man in the suit, I would like to be successful. Contradicting the nature to the piece though, I would use my success to live a happy life. Perhaps I should elaborate because that can easily be taken the wrong way! Well what I mean by using my success for happiness is that, I would like to break free from what I see are chains to life. Money is the biggest and toughest chain, by not having it the doors to a million opportunities close.

For example, I would love to travel. Get a sweet looking yacht and just sail the seas, find some beautiful isolated/secluded island (Something that resembles the Cook Islands for example), drop anchor and just spend a month or two there (Even with one special lady if I'm lucky!). I find that kind of dream beautiful, the problem is that for so many people that kind of dream is pure fantasy and it'll never happen. Why? Well I think you already know, the yacht, how many people do you know who can afford a yacht? Not many I imagine, you need money for that kind of thing and this is just one example to what I consider chains to life. This is what I mean by using my success for happiness, like using money to get all the things I want.

Obviously this kind of interpretation to life is different to most, for a lot of people to have a happy life involves falling in love and raising a family together in that beautiful house together they always wanted. And there are many other ways people would like to live their lives. For me though, I want the kind of life where I can do anything I want, take the yacht example for example! If I want to go out one day and travel, then what's I could do, not stay stuck to a day-to-day job doing the exact same thing day-in-day-out. In a sense, I guess really I just want the freedom away from a 'normal' life (If that doesn't sound too insulting).

So referring back to the idea of the artwork I wanted, there's so much you can learn from a person by talking about such a piece, a thousand kind of conversations, a thousand kind of thoughts, theories, feelings, interpretations, conclusions, a thousand everything's. That's the beauty to a lot of art actually, how it's just so much more than a illustration (Or whatever medium of art we refer to).

Spoken with my business partner after the success of the competition, he's finished all his deadlines now so he has a lot more time to work on the company. I'm going to try and encourage him to take on a more active role, more of an actual business partner than something that resembles more of an adviser. I'm going to think more about how I can do this tomorrow though. The obvious benefit we're having though is double the manpower!

Now, I said that today I would cover the 3rd part to the 'A little reflection series' and a general catch up on everything (In other words a report on everything), unfortunately I'm way too exhausted. I'll cover this tomorrow!