8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: To the Old College via the promenade. The subdued light, the last of night, imbued the landscape with a mood that was neither comforting nor dispiriting. I recalled the title of a painting by de Chirico: The Melancholy of Departure (1916):

One ought not to be fearful of endings, especially of those that are either unavoidable or necessary. We are made stronger by letting go. An ending of one thing is, simultaneously, the beginning of another. To suffer ‘the loss of all things’, the Apostle Paul wrote, opens the way for something far far grander, and which cannot be taken away.

9.00 am: The beginning of MA Fine Art tutorials for the morning. Elli’s grid:

11.00 am: Vocational Practice. We dealt with the vexed issue of using social media on a professional context.

3.00 pm: After an extended lunchtime meeting, I held a PhD Fine Art tutorial. 4.15 pm: Homeward as evening inclined towards night:

5.00 pm: The final Abstraction essay tutorial for the week.

7.30 pm: Admin catch-up.

Some principles and observations derived from today’s engagements:

• Just working can give rise to new ideas. So when you are lost for an idea, just work.
• Past precedent shapes future expectation.
• After ‘experimenting’ one ought always to evaluate the outcome against the intent.
• Don’t resist abstraction when it bids.
• The problems of your work are tailor made for you, now.
• It is chiefly by our response to the problems in our work that it advances.