8.00 am. The busyness of the last few days has precluded my daily ‘diarations’. All but two prints are mounted. The ‘phantom painting’ (Diary, January 31, 2015) disclosed itself yesterday evening. For days I’d been thinking about a red rectangle. (I had a vision of the installation — and there it was on a far wall … something which was mine, but which I’d not made.) However, I’d neither a text nor a system to govern its creation or outcome. Then, one fell effortlessly into place at the close of work. There may not, now, be the time or the appropriate materials to hand with which to complete it. (They’ve been ordered, though.) One can only try … just so as long as the endeavour doesn’t jeopardise the finalisation of those works which I am assuredly committed to showing.

One of the MA Vocational Practice students shadowed my second year painting tutorials yesterday morning. A three-way interaction introduced a rather different dynamic to the discussion. It was invigorating. This was team teaching in the proper sense of the term. And everyone learns something from everyone else. I’d like to repeat the exercise. We have a duty to train-up the next generation of teachers.

Exhibition admin. One must always keep everyone in the loop, but particularly during the week leading up to the opening. Something will catch me out. This is almost inevitable. It’ll be the thing I least expect. The thing that is hiding on the periphery of my vision. The thing that I’m most complacent about.

Hoorah! Secured two tickets to see King Crimson with my elder son at Salford in September. The fulfilment of one of life’s ambitions:

9.30 am. Into the studio and on to ‘Sindebt’.  I’m developing a faster method for piggy-backing the bible paper onto standard A4 copy paper. ‘Try Pritt Stick rather than invisible tape!’ Perfect! Bible paper print, well-prepared, and then  … I sneezed all over it. Ruined! A heavy digital wah-wah pedal makes an entirely adequate paper weight:

The old Bruceism: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’, was my lived experience throughout the entire day.

2.00 pm. I called into the School to choose half a dozen of the old standard frames to house my mounts. Back at the studio, I hit another patch of successive failures. But with every defeat, one’s understanding of the fundamental problem (and its solution) is clarified. However much one prepares, mentally, for a task, the reality of the materials and their resistance and the limits of one’s own competence never fail to surprise and unseat.

My waste-paper bin now looks like a mini Merzbau:

6.20 Practise session 1. 7.15 pm. A cautious fitting together of the five units that make up ‘Sindebt’. I’ll do the glue when I have the backing board to the frame, tomorrow. I wrote a short text for the phantom painting’s information sheet. All I have to do, now, is paint the thing. A tube of red arrived in the post. (Optimism mounts.) I now await a sheet of veneer. But when will my cable ties arrive?

Rumours of further and, possibly, compulsory staff cuts at the university are getting louder of late. This plague wind will no doubt touch every department to some measure. These days it’s tempting to live as though each semester is one’s last. (The old Puritan saints advised that we should live each day as if it were our last. There’s wisdom in that attitude. Tomorrow is one of the greatest uncertainties.) Come what may, one should always endeavour to go out on a high. And so we apply ourselves to our responsibilities and charge with gusto and vim. And, I discovered before the close of work, there are others among our number who face far more weighty challenges … and that valiantly.

9.10 pm. Practise session 2. I read this month’s copy of my learnéd journal at bedtime.