Tracey, Yup I know how you feel. I took a college class in
Three-dimensional Design several years ago that had a required
finished work as a part of the grading scheme. I was the only
person there that was attempting a piece of metal work. Everyone
else was carving foam or clay or making paper mache’ pieces and I
was just hammering away on a miniature armor and weapons set in
brass and steel. Before long the other students were complaining
about the noise or complaining that I wouldn’t hammer in time to
the music being played in the studio. Fortunately the Professor in
the class was a man who’d engaged in quite a bit of metalworking in
his career and he reminded them that I was as much an artist as any
of them and that they kinda needed to mellow out a bit. It was a
shared studio space and there was no real way of deadening the
sound to any greater extent than was being used. I sure got a lot of
nasty looks. In the end though everyone seemed to like the work
that I had finished and nobody threw fruit. The prof reminded
everyone that, in shared studio spaces, everyone really needs to
try and get over their problems if at all possible. He encouraged
the use of portable sound machines and earphones. I stepped outside
when I had some particularly loud pounding to do. Everyone
survived.
Mike