October 15, 2015

9.00 am. To begin the day: Old Colleging with a third-year fine art student:

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9.40 am. I returned to the School to finalise admin with Helen related to yesterday’s Liverpool trip, and to prepare for what the day may bring forth. 10.50 am. The beginning of second year fine art tutorials. Some principles and observations derived from our discussions:

  • Sometimes, we do not know what to do because we know not who we are. Sometimes, we discover both together. That is one of the blessings of art.
  • Leave your presuppositions and assumptions about how a painting ought to turn out at the foot of the easel. ‘Let it Be’, as the Beatles would say.
  • Painting is not capable of conveying every thought or perception or feeling. Its field of competence is circumscribed. Get to know the limitations as well as the virtues and capabilities of the discipline and medium.
  • If you don’t manage time, time will manage you.
  • At this stage of development, the key is to establish a step-by-step methodology for dissecting the creative process into its varied and sequential parts before assembling them again in the finished work.
  • To see our way forward we must look backward; the clues regarding where we ought to be lie in our past — in where we’ve already been and in what we’ve already done.

1.10 pm. The Professional Practice lecture on ‘Time Management’. Lunch was taken around and about it. Not ideal. 2.00 pm. A return to tutorials. For some students, I waited and waited. Emails regarding the new timetable regime have either been unread or undelivered:

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I’ve, now, a white board of my very own and, therefore, become a proper teacher for the first time. Very Robert Ryman:

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5.00 pm. An Abstraction essay consultation before wending homeward.

7.15 pm. Teaching admin, followed by teaching prep for Monday’s Abstraction class. Essay writing is a hard-won skill. One can know the principles, have the requisite subject knowledge, and be reasonably articulate in writing. But only with practice does the skill become instilled. In fine art, the closest equivalent to the process of learning how to write is life drawing. Both can be a humiliating experience.

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