A morning of tutorials, some with students who are under my charge, and others with those that need only one encounter with someone other than their regular tutor. I wish more students would follow suit. It’s possible to grow too accustomed to the same voice and values. And its good, too, for the tutor to teach those outside their fold on occasion. Some principles and observations derived from today’s encounters and reflections:

• Both fame and obscurity are ephemeral. But infamy can outlast a lifetime.
• The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.
• I would no more wish to know the outcome of the artwork than I would how my life will end.
• A student with vision is never lazy.
• Rarely do we give up on others the way that, too often, we give up on ourselves.
• A student’s self-confidence, ambition, commitment, and ardour for the subject can be enhanced immeasurably by the success of only one work.
• Abstraction is neither a style, method, nor technique, principally but, rather, a way of thinking and being.
• Root-out distractions; determine to concentrate; and aim at single-mindedness. The work demands more than you can presently give, even if it has your full attention.

I messaged one of our recent alumni: ‘Show-fever has begun. Anticipation is in the air. Best time of the year’. Indeed.

Following lunch: an impromptu advisory session on creating visual analogues for sonic experiences. Thereafter, an afternoon of module and postgraduate admissions admin, thesis submission review, and forward planning for the same. At the close of day, the School opened an exhibition by Paul Newland (one of our former external examiners), and saleable works by the late Handel Evans. It was good to see Dr Pierse in the building again:

In the evening, I completed the material for tomorrow’s staff workshop, finalised a number of tracks for the Aural Diary archive, and prepared the ‘Image and Inscription’ mixdown for a former student who has a good ear and sense of judgement. They’ll be the first person to hear and comment upon the whole composition. (This is not an enviable privilege.)