By Henry Garnett 

What a week. Hugely challenging. Everyone is slowly trying to acclimatise to the pace as it inevitably speeds up ahead of us. For me, it’s been tough trying to understand my process and where I need to place my energy when reserves are low. Its the first week where we’ve had ‘Portfolio Brief’ labelled to our work and the pressure came with it.

Reflecting on the learnings of it all, it became clear how easily I am influenced by the people around me. I’ve never seen that as a good thing. The howling of self-doubt rings through so much of my work and allowing others to negatively influence me is a very vulnerable place to operate.

It works the other way though. Sometimes people inspire you in different ways. Being vulnerable to their influence can push you in a positive direction. Sharing a beer with a friend who’s been going through a far more difficult time can put things in a perspective you could never arrive at on your own.

One of our cohorts couldn’t be with us today and it felt difficult to empathise with the situation he’s been living through the past few weeks. I felt inspired by the strength he’s shown over in getting on with his work in such a diligent and professional manner when most would understandably veer away from it. He’s one of the many talents at the SCA you see a giant future for and the ability he has to channel his focus into producing ideas is something I hope to learn from.

A huge part of this influence was seeing him perform his music last week at St. Martins. Seeing his out-poor of emotion and commitment was absorbing. We’ve been told to collect dots as a much as we can at SCA and they can come from very familiar places. The performance inspired a huge amount in me and I saw a lot in what I want to become as a creative person. Seeing anyone put themselves on a plate like that shows a kind of strength I hope to emulate and in the context of everything that’s happened its awesome thing to see someone expressing themselves so truthfully.

We sent a get well soon message to another deserving student today as we watched our portfolio briefs, but I felt we missed an opportunity to show Darius the same thing. Our thoughts are with you and you’ve made an inspiring return to the fray.