Yesterday. The last day of essay marking. Among the ‘batch’ were some of best undergraduate essays I’ve ever read. That which distinguishes a good, first-class essay from a good, upper-second class essay is the student’s capacity to make substantiated and persuasive judgements, deductions, and interpretations.  Mere summary, however well executed, doesn’t cut the mustard. By the end of the day, all essays were marked, and the admin for their release, tomorrow, prepared.

9.00 am. The periods of rain persist, like a curse that’ll not abate:

Yesterday’s incoming mail received my attention. Then, I waited for the appointed time to dispose the marks for the Abstraction essay component and the module in toto. 10.00 am. A readying for my return to the School:

The seasonal handing-in of undergraduate portfolios had begun before I’d arrived.

The accumulation of many, minor changes doesn’t amount to a single, significant change. Significant change is consequent on, and in direct proportion to, the degree of effort that’s directed towards it. Significant change is both a process and an event. Significant change can be either positive or negative. Significant change can occur either suddenly or gradually or imperceptibly. Positive and lasting change often comes gradually.

My office clock always runs out of battery when I’m not present to observe it. 10.30 am. More ‘turfing-out’: old papers, books, files, folders — either disposed or destroyed. This is the preparation for change. On, too, with curriculum handout upgrades for next semester’s modules.

2.00 pm. More of the same, in a domestic context. In the study, I dismantled and cast off; in the studio, I connected and assembled. (These two activities are necessarily complimentary.):

The array of effectors was designed (over the Christmas holidays) to generate industrial-type sounds that can be captured, manipulated, and repeated in live performance. The capability is one response to a, as yet, vague desire to sonify visual images of industrial Wales.

3.30 pm. I started collecting evidence and receipts for my tax return and accounts, with a little defiling (un-filing(?)) and refiling in between. 7.00 pm. The chore continued. While rummaging through my old research folders, I came across:

It would have been taken in 2000 during the preparations for The Pictorial Bible I: Settings of the Psalms exhibition that year. Then, I was the masking-tape king. It took another fifteen years (and many miles of masking tape) to complete the project.