8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Off to the Old College under a neutral sky that would, within the hour, yield to blue. The window eats away the building like a cankerous worm:

The sunlight raked across the crests of the incoming tide, and illuminated the interior of the building in sometimes surprising ways:

My MA students are, now, seeded throughout the building. This gives me an excuse to explore beyond the boundaries of my usual furrow … upwards and upwards. (A lesson for life.):

Mr Monaghan (one of our MA Fine Art alumni) talked informally about his work to the assembled Vocational Practice group. He presented a realistic, honest, frank, and helpful account of his professional experience:

We took lunch together afterwards.

2.00 pm: An afternoon of further MA tutorials, beginning at the School and moving back to the Old College:

7.30 pm: I continued with the revised volume profiles for the I. Nothing. Lack tracks.

Some principles and observations derived from today’s engagements:

• The absence of image makes a space for the presence of enigma.
• The outcome of the artwork often confutes our intentions.
• Ideas generate process generates ideas generate process … .
• We may betray an insecurity about our security.
• Devise an explanation that isn’t exclusive and comprehensive but, rather, definitive and provisional.
• It’s not always a good thing to let the work pull you by the nose.
• Some artwork’s titles are as arbitrary as the names given to battleships.
• Titles direct the viewers to experience your work in a particular way. And, as such, they may prevent them from seeing it in other ways.
• Establish a fulcrum (or centre point) for your modus operandi, and determine to work both at and either side of it. (Explore subtle differences within a narrow frame of reference, in other words.)
• The teacher often identifies and validates what the student has already realised, but not yet articulated to themselves.
• Integrity, before all else.
• S: ‘I am so far out of my comfort zone!’ T: ‘Good! Stay there’.
• Intensity is sometimes at the expense of longevity. ‘The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long’ (Blade Runner (1982)).
• Try not looking at the dartboard when you throw the dart.
• Don’t miss-read what the work needs.