Shrove Tuesday

8.40 pm. After the storm; walking to School; behind me:

9.00 am. A no-show for a personal tutorial. The space gave me the opportunity to compress two MA fine art tutorials into one three-way tutorial. The dynamic is unlike that experienced in one-to-one teaching. Each student becomes the other’s peer-teacher and audience. The main tutor can cross-reference principles, applications, and critiques, so that each can observe how the same advice changes in its implications in the context of the other’s work. 10.00 am. An MA art history consultation. I’m keen to keep abreast of developments related to those students for whom I’m not the designated tutor. 10.30 am. There was postgraduate admin to review and dispatch. The sun broke loose:

Some principles and observations derived from today’s engagements:

• Not understanding what you’ve done, and not knowing what you’re doing, aren’t necessarily the same dilemmas.
• If you are planning to change your way of working, do so one element at a time, and slowly. Give yourself time to observe and measure the difference each change makes.
• Other students’ art-project problems will always seem to you easier to solve than your own.

11.00 am. Mr Baldwin took charge of the MA group — instructing them on how to take professional photographs of their work. I, in turn, took on one of Ms Whall’s entourage, to look over an MA fine art personal statement under construction.

1.00 pm. Home for lunch. The chance conjunction of two identical reds:

2.00 pm. Mr Blackburn paid a visit. He’s intending to recommence PhD Fine Art studies in September. Wonderful prospect! We talked the rounds of John Cage, chance procedure, intentionality, cybernetics, oblique strategies, and my cousin-in-law — the pianist Margaret Leng Tan, who was Cage’s muse. 3.40 pm. Homeward to engage a postgraduate admin that must now go away. The skies closed-up once again:

6.30 pm. Practise session 1. 7.30 pm. On with postgraduate admin. If I can clear my desk by the close of this night, I can open a space for studio work tomorrow.

9.30 pm. My wife made an astonishing oven-bake pancake to commemorate the day:

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