Brian Norman

 

I am currently working as an Art and Craft Tutor, and Internal Verifier for Learn Devon. I also work as a Mental Health Mentor and Specialist Tutor providing support to Open University Students. Previously I worked for City College Plymouth (2009-2014), West Suffolk College (2007-2010) and Suffolk MIND (1993 -2010). I hold a  BA in Fine Art; specialising in Printmaking, from Sunderland University, a Postgraduate Certificate in Online Education from Open University and a PGCE in Post Compulsory Education from University College Suffolk.

 

Having been taught the craft of Printmaking from Master Printmaker and Artist Pris Forrest in the late 1980’s with a focus on Linocut, Screen-print, and Etching, I continue to develop these skills focusing on Collagraphy, Linocut, Monotype and mix media processes. More recently exploring the creative potential of bookmaking.

 

 I have run printmaking workshops at Bovey Tracey Craft Festival for several years. Rarely exhibiting my work, its focus being more about ‘play’ and the process of making.

 

Creativity should be about ‘play’, and is an intuitive process; trying and pushing ideas to make new forms and allowing ideas and images to evolve into being.

 

John Cleese (1991) said about creativity; “This is the extraordinary thing about creativity: If just you keep your mind resting against the subject in a friendly but persistent way, sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious”

 

This idea encapsulates my approach to my creative practice.