8.45 am. I undertook one MA tutorial at the School before the beginning the day’s research. While walking home, an idea for a more-or-less instantaneous, machine-aided drawing occurred to me. When something like this arrives complete, you must honour the gift and act immediately. As Captain Beefheart would say: ‘If you got ears / You gotta listen’.  The outcome has graphic qualities that I associate with drypoint, and the illusion of ‘see-throughness’ reminiscent of airport X-ray systems. (The images portray my inner ‘demons’ … perhaps.) The material subject is inspired by an approach to still life advocated by one of my third year painters. As such, the drawings represent an involuntary collaboration on their part:

10.15 am. Verse for the day: Matt. 19.12 — a ‘biggy’, with the expectation that I was in for the long haul all morning. It was completed by the close of lunchtime:

2.00 pm. I began to set up an initial input/output patch between the analogue/digital interface and external effectors in readiness for sound project work, tomorrow:

In parallel,  I dug into the plan chest and pulled out the designs for Image and Superscription — a series of paintings based upon the gospels’ four independent accounts of the wooden plaque (Lat: Titulus) that was nailed to the cross above Christ’s head. The source object integrates Greek, Hebrew, and Latin texts. The conceptual development alone has been a significant challenge:

For anyone who has read or heard me berate students for over-planning the outcome of a painting even before it has begun, my procedure may seem contradictory at best. (‘One rule for you, and one for me.’ A saying that, whatever else it might suggest, has always struck me as being perfectly clear and consistent in the distinction that it draws.) However, my precept is addressed to those who do not espouse a systemic and concept-led approach to image making. In my practice: ‘The idea becomes a machine that makes the art’ (Sol LeWitt).

8.30 pm. After an extended dinner with friends, I returned to the schematics and systems for the visual work, and completed the set up of sound equipment in the studio. 11.00 pm. Closure:

A pillow beckons.