March 12, 2018

 And the remnant that remaineth of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remaineth, shall hang over the backside of the tabernacle (Exo. 26.12).


‘Raising the Tabernacle’,  print from the Phillip Medhurst Collection of Bible illustrations
in the possession of Rev. Philip De Vere, St. George’s Court,
Kidderminster, UK (courtesy Wikicommons)

The Tabernacle – the Israelite’s portable tent of worship during their sojourn in the Wilderness – was designed by God, and fashioned by two distinguished artisans (whose talent for sculpting, casting, and representation had been supernaturally enhanced for the task), and also by those with natural gifts for woodwork, metalwork, and embroidery, among other crafts. This was a sacred building that was undertaken in a spirit of reverence and wholehearted dedication. No part of anything that they made was superfluous. Even the ‘excess’ lengths of the goat’s hair curtains (the remnant that remaineth), rather than be cut off and thrown away, were put to good use as covers over the Tabernacle. This principle of thrift and economy is also evident in the narrative of the feeding of the five thousand. After the boy’s meagre means of five small barley loaves and two small fishes had been multiplied, and the people had eaten, Christ said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted’ (John 6.12). Even though Christ could have fed the whole world over and over again from that basket of provisions, he didn’t countenance a careless disregard for the leftovers. Those fragments would go towards another meal. (That’s divine ecology and good housekeeping in concert.)

And, so it is in the realms of our lived experience before God too. However, dark, perplexing, hurtful, discouraging, futile, hopeless, and meaningless a situation may be (or appear), not the smallest part of it is, in his economy, either purposeless, redundant, or disposable: ‘And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them’ (Rom. 8.28). Likewise, you may find yourself holding onto only the ‘remnant that remaineth’ of some life-changing and utterly wonderful experience that you once enjoyed. Don’t either despise or cast it aside. Gather up the fragments, and be thankful. Those pieces may go towards something equally enriching in the future.

8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: As ever, the week kicked off with teaching admin. There was much to fit into this one. 10.00 am: Studiology. I reviewed ‘Men as Trees, Walking’. I was returning to my own work, after witnessing (which is a far more active and inclusive description of my engagement than suggested by ‘listening to’) the ‘Experimental Music Improvisation’ event at the Ceredigion Museum, Saturday evening:

Hearing and seeing others in action helps me to define my own practice, in contrast: what it is and what it’s not. I’ve not improvised in public since 2014. In the past, I’ve done so in collaboration with a visual artist. (I enjoy creative discussion across mediums and disciplines, in situ.) I can’t participate on occasions such as Saturday evening’s event, because my current work doesn’t warrant it. Indeed, its nature prohibits improvisation.

The tradition out of which my sound practice has emerged is studio-based painting. Like my visual art work, the sound compositions develop from a slow and deliberate process of construction and revision, following an interrogation, exposition, and redistribution of a biblical text. When I’ve conducted live, public events, it’s been with view to allowing others to access my re-situated studio and me. My objective was not to entertain or perform but, rather, to be seen to be doing.

On Saturday, it was good to see so many people in a full-auditorium representing a breadth of communities, from hard-core experimental music geeks to liberal-minded folk wanting to submit themselves to something out of the ordinary. None were disappointed. These occasions can be frightening. Anything can go wrong (and does, frequently): there’s no guarantee that an improvisation will either lift-off the runway, or engage the audience, or conclude before the equipment packs-up. On the whole, and by far, the musicians avoided all these pitfalls:

11.00 am: I moved on to the track entitled ‘Bartimaeus’, which harmonises two biblical accounts of the same narrative, and added a percussive backdrop derived from the action of dropping the tone arm onto a record’s surface several times, and overlaying and looping the results.

1.30 pm: After email catch up, I listened again to ‘One Blind’ (which is the longest narrative in the set) and to some of the more complex percussive rhythms that I’d constructed last year. Now, I’m ready to commit to the latter as bases for further compositions. Towards the end of the afternoon, I took an initial overview of the ‘Double Blind’ source recordings.

7.30 pm: I set about designing teaching material for postgraduate classes over the next few days. This would be a demanding week on that front.

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