8.30 am. Sultry; overcast; leaden; slow. (Both the weather and I.) To begin, I set up a seminar room for the morning’s Vocational Practice presentations. These, I always look forward to with relish. It’s an opportunity for me to observe work in either progress or finalisation across the whole MA contingent, and useful in anticipation of the students’ assessments in the next few weeks:

A lesson to be learned. Always test your presentation software on the device that you’ll be using on the day. The morning was full of candour, illuminations, conspicuous confidence, and variety. Some students begin with certainty and journey towards uncertainty. Others travel in the opposite direction during this first period of the degree. But certainty and confidence are not synonymous. For one can be in an uncertain place and yet still be confident that a way forward will be found.

After lunch, I was back on the shop floor. The hang began at 9.00 am today. The temperatures in the studios will lurch from high to low during the course of the week, so fixing works to the wall, other than with screws, requires serious thought and application:

Would you trust your work to Velcro? Hanging is often a four-handed enterprise:

In between excursions to  the studios, I undertook varieties of correspondence related to finance, future research projects, and student affairs (of the non-illicit kind). Today has been one of small but certain beginnings for the show. Over the next few days, a colossal momentum will slowly build.

Evening. The dulling cloud bank above the town has persisted from dawn beyond dusk. It felt as though the day never really got off the ground. The Art in Wales projects beckoned me to mark them, like Sirens enticing a ship to the craggy rocks. I completed the upload of Show Sounds — the collage of last week’s sonic events in the studios — for release on Saturday, to coincide with the Opening.