8.30 am. Emails and appointments for the day dispatched, confirmed, or otherwise redirected, I used the first hours of the working day to completing the text for the public ‘talk’:
An interesting comment was posted to the dairy from one of our former PhD Art Historians related to my feeling and experiences and the events of yesterday: ‘Dear John, interestingly I too felt at odds with the day 08/12/2015, I too had Christmas lunch with my art students, I too had problems logging onto search sites … perhaps this was a day of synchronicity? ‘
10.30 am. Off to School. 10.45 am. I made a Skype call to a temporary withdrawer from the PhD Fine Art degree. 11.10 am. An MA inquirer arrived a little earlier than anticipated, which helped my timetable enormously. It’s always encouraging to encounter folk who have had the courage to return to education later in life and against the odds. Many get to this point because, beyond this point, there is no the point. The decision may be a matter of necessity and urgency, often.
12.00 pm. A School of Art Management Committee. 2.10 pm. I returned to homebase to take a flying lunch and complete the ‘talk’:
6.30 pm. Practise session 1. 7.20 pm. Off to see the annual Winter Show at the School. The blurb:
A one night, pop up event of twenty seven interdisciplinary student projects that have been selected by Miranda Whall and Greg Bevan via proposals. Teaching rooms, offices, studios, corridors, corners and cupboards in the beautiful Edwardian Edward Davies building are transformed and illuminated for two hours only by projections, audio and video installations, performances, drawings, sculptures etc. Over the weeks leading up to the exhibition students have carefully considered how their projects can subtly and dynamically intervene with the character and architectural features of this elegant building. The result is a magical evening of exciting creative work from across the school of Art and TFTS.
This show always has an edge to it — a sense of danger, daring, and unrest. It’s more in the spirit of Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitables than, say, a Fluxus event. It was good to see some of the School’s alumni back under its room once again. They’d come home, if only as visiting members of our ever-extending family.