8.15 am. En route to work, I encountered an exceedingly large stick of strawberry marshmallow in a drive on Llanbadarn Road. Who could have dropped it? I shall take this as sign of unknown significance:

8.30 pm. The School of Art: resplendent and magisterial in the cold air and brittle light. I shall miss this place, one day. But today … what will this day bring forth?:

8.45 pm. The computer in lecture theatre 312 is ailing. I needed to route my laptop around the system to conduct the Chapels in Wales lecture. Some success. However, the projector failed to register warm colours sufficiently. Every image looked sickly and tired, as a consequence. The university is currently without internet access this morning. We are too much at the mercy of technology. 10.00 am. On with admin as far as I could … without internet access, that is.

11.00 am. An extended MA Fine Art tutorial with Tali, who’s a productively ‘messy’ artist in embryo. ‘Messy’ isn’t the right word. It suggests incoordination, randomness, haphazardness, and carelessness. This is certainly not the case. But we have too few words to describe different types of complexity in art:

12.00 pm. Tali was joined by Jan for a Vocational Practice advisory session on the teaching experience workshop, ‘Food for Thought’, which they’re organising. Yum!

2.00 pm. The second MA tutorial of the day: Cheryl’s studio wall of wisdom. (Other nomenclature may pertain):

If what you want is pleasure and self-fulfilment, then don’t pursue art — not at a professional level. The reality of fine art practice is like this: you’ll have days when it’s the last thing you want to do; sometimes, you’ll see no good whatsoever in your work; or else, you’ll lose all confidence in your ability to do anything, artistically speaking; often, you’ll be tempted to mistrust either the motives or judgement of those who laud your work; and, worst of all, everything you do will appear to you utterly futile — without worth, direction, or future. To make matters worse, in your eyes everyone else will produce work of quality and ambition, and appear untouched by the insecurities that cripple you. If you think you can swim against that maelstrom, only then be an artist.

4.00 pm. The final MA Fine Art tutorial of the day. 6.20 pm. Practise session 1. 7.30 pm. I reviewed marked-up proofs of my chapter (courtesy of Mrs H) and finalised admin for the Vocational Practice schedule and projects. (It just keeps coming.) 10.00 pm. A second breakfast: coal to the furnace for ‘the night watch’: