8.45 pm. An elevating light. The walk to the Old College:

9.30 am. I’m teaching the third-year paintings, who are on the final lap of their module. All, to a woman, appear to be on target. We’ve now the luxury of discussing the finer points of exhibition selection and presentation.

Like something chard by fire:

Some principles and observations:

• For the exhibition: Don’t choose the best works. Instead, choose those that work together the best. (These may also be the best works.)
• As they say: talent, alone, won’t get you anywhere. But you won’t get anywhere without it.
• If I had to choose between teaching a student who, one the one hand, possessed an enormous artistic ability but a poor work ethic and one who, on the other, had only a modicum of artistic ability but a considerable capacity for hard work … I’d always prefer the latter.
• There’s a great deal of difference between being simple and being simplistic. The former is a gift; the latter, a pejorative.
• Ideally, a title should be artwork’s textual analogue. For example, if the artwork is metaphorical and allusive in nature, then so should the appellation be.
• Every artwork contains the seed of its own resolution. Solutions that lie outside it are always borrowed.

The Unitarian chapel, Aberystwyth:

Georgia’s palette:

12.45 pm. A visit to Mr Turner, the engraver, to book an appointment to record the sound of a text being inscribed on Monday. 1.10 pm. Lunch in the Quad over emails and assessment timetables.

2.00 pm. Back into the ring to complete the roster of today’s tutorials. 3.10 pm. Back to basecamp at the School to clear admin and await the start of Frances Woodley’s (PhD Fine Art) curatorial talk on the current Still Life: Ambiguous Practices exhibition:

The lecture was followed by an opening of the exhibition at 6.00 pm. After a late dinner, I returned to the homebase desk to revamp the School’s Twitter account: