This subject rationale was to do with the change of career and a start of a new chapter in the student’s life back in covid year 2020.Signs and symbols have always been a big part of my life, and I tend to listen to them, they have not always been good, but the majority have steered me in the right direction. I feel this is a personal story for me from the “death” of my business back in 2020 due to covid and having to make the hard decision after 6 months of Furlow to close our business down; as it was either pay wages from our personal account or pay our mortgage, unfortunately we had to make all our staff redundant and we still used our personal savings to pay everyone as this was a world pandemic and nobody’s fault. This was an extremely emotional time for us as a family as there was a bumpy road ahead financially, emotionally and mentally.A month after the redundancies we were given the very sad news that one of our ex-staff members had taken his life due to circumstances and mental health issues, this hit me hard and made and me sit down and have a good think and shake up of what my future looked like. The main objective was to be happy in my life with our little family and to be happy with work for the next chapter of my life.Working with children and being creative was where I started and one day I applied and was offered a job working at a local secondary school as a Support Assistant and I loved it, the only downfall with this work position was the lack progression opportunities and I wanted to do more, the decision was then made to jump into full time education and complete my HND in Media Make-Up and Hair Design then go on to achieve the Media Make-up and Hair BA (Hons) degree.This has always been a dream of mine to complete a degree to the best of my ability and have this achievement in my life, also to show my kids it is never too late to do what you really want; my end goal is to work part time as a tutor and have a studio doing make up, wig making & design, prosthetics along with workshops for kids, teens, young adults and adults.This is why the topic selected means a lot to me, as signs and symbols can come along at any time (sometimes in a form of an animal) and just as stated above, having this sad news hit us very hard and for me it was a sign that life is short and to make the most of it and be happy with your life choices.I liked the idea of how symbols represent different things and was originally going to choose semiotics within Film and TV, however this was so broad the student narrowed it down immensely and decided on ‘animal semiotics’ and will incorporate this in the art of wig making and prosthetics. The main aim for this career change is to specialise in wigs and prosthetics; with wigs being the main craft and to be a supplier to the film and tv industry.
The topic is a light-hearted one and hopefully will be fun; but also give an insight to people’s thoughts and opinions about animal semiotics and what they represent to them.
The reasoning for the animal semiotic choices is from death to transformation and renewal and lastly finishing with regeneration using animals as symbols to create a story over time, from ravens, to butterflies, ancient India where the peacock originated and finishing with pollution killing our marine animals recreating regeneration of starfish.
