#WeAreOCA
The Open College of the Arts' blog
Browsing Category:
Study tips
In Conversation: Nina Milton and Lizzy Perkins
Posted: 10/12/25 09:33 |
3 Comments
Reaching the final unit of your stage 3 (HE6) studies is a thrilling moment, but filled with some trepidation. In the Creative Writing Department, The final unit, 3.3 asks the student to create a self-directed outwardly facing project, by clarifying what they want to do as a creative practitioner, so that they graduate knowing where their writing can take them, and how to approach readers, agents, editors, publishers, audiences and producers in a professional manner.
Read More
Getting Published, and Finding an Audience
Posted: 12/05/25 05:14 |
0 Comments
OCA Creative Writing Tutor Rab Ferguson talks to us about his journey to publication, finding an audience, and receiving a national award for his children’s writing.
Read More
Creative Intersections: Music, Photography and Teaching
Posted: 17/04/25 12:22 |
4 Comments
Creativity rarely exists in isolation—ideas flow between disciplines, shaping and reshaping artistic practice. This blog explores how Chamfer emerged as a response to the limitations of the contemporary art world, finding a more immediate and flexible outlet in music.
Read More
Sustaining Practice: Find funding for your work
Posted: 20/02/25 05:06 |
1 Comments
Fund Your Work: 30+ Top Opportunities and Harnessing AI for Success” is designed to guide artists through available grants and awards, demystifying the process and showing funding is an option—all while exploring how AI can make applying easier.
Read More
OCA Creative Arts: Unpicking Couture
Posted: 09/01/25 02:51 |
4 Comments
In an ongoing quest searching for more examples of interdisciplinary practice for our BA (Hons) Creative Arts students, I recently came across an interesting exhibition in Manchester. The Costume Gallery has now merged with the Manchester Art Gallery and subsequently has various fashion-related exhibitions that can now be seen in the city centre until November 2025.
Read More
Can Constraints Improve Our Creativity?
Posted: 09/01/25 11:36 |
9 Comments
The romantic idea of the divine nature of artistic inspiration still commonly influences the way artists are perceived today but has very little to do with how most creativity happens. Most of us have jobs and personal commitments that make living a life of artistic freedom impossible.
Read More
Interior Educators conference 2024
Posted: 08/01/25 07:01 |
2 Comments
The main reason to seek out opportunities such as these is that it helps you keep up to date with current thinking (around whatever the subject matter is) and exposes you to new ideas that you may not have thought about before.
Read More
The seven stages of rest
Posted: 07/11/24 11:00 |
0 Comments
National Stress Awareness Yesterday was National Stress Awareness Day, which also happens to fall within Men’s Health Awareness Month. If you’re doing anything to support Movember as well, you’ve got a triple whammy of activities related to supporting mental health. It’s a difficult time of year as well. Here in the UK, the weather is […]
Read More
Writer’s Block (From the Perspective of a Composer)
Posted: 16/11/22 11:09 |
4 Comments
The creative process and the editorial process are completely different things. When you are creating things, encourage the editorial part of your brain to take a nap, so you can work fearlessly, with no inhibitions. Then, when it is time to edit what you have done, make amendments, and focus on the detail, wake the editorial part of your brain back up.
Read More
Interior Design: Reflecting on your work
Posted: 09/06/22 11:56 |
7 Comments
As tutors, I realise we ask you to reflect on your work and your feedback a lot. Thinking back on my own experience, being asked to reflect on my own work was often the last thing I wanted to add to my constantly growing to do list as a student. However, it quickly became apparent that this idea of reflecting on one’s work is actually something I’d need to do for the rest of my career as a designer.
Read More
