I’ll dance, when this is over;
When I live for what I have.

Lost world (on the ground, to the right, and just behind their feet, that day)*:

8.30 am: A communion. 9.00 am: (Keep going/think not feel.) I’d a morning (on standby) in which to work, before attending the university Open Day this afternoon. Time, then, to update my various professional profiles and website. It’s a tedious, repetitive, but necessary task. So much time has to be invested in ‘getting it out there’ and archiving one’s achievements (such as they are). In the end, it’ll all be tested by fire. How much will endure, I wonder.

Over the past week, I’ve listened, again, to some of my sound works going back to the late 1970s. I don’t regard the early material (made when I was 17 years of age) as juvenilia. On the contrary, the album entitled The Last Things (1977) was formative in ways that I’m only now beginning to fully appreciate. I can still listen and learn from myself. In the end, we are the best teachers that we’ll ever have.

12.40 pm: Off to the School to interview undergraduate applicants. One of our former MA students had delivered a substantial box of Cadbury’s Cream Eggs for the staff. How thoughtful! Weight will be gained.

1.30 pm: An interview. It’s heartening to know that some applicants receive practical support and systematic teaching in the use of mediums at their schools and colleges. They are, by far, the most confident interviewees. How wonderful to hear someone enthuse about paint, too. Few have this type of passion so soon in their education. My advice to them – always – is to go and see as much art in museums and galleries as time and money will afford. Other artists’ work will be your instructor long after you leave art school. So, sit under their tutelage now. Too many art schools press their students into the mould of 21st century modes and styles. We don’t. The whole history of art is their rightful heritage. That’s one of the reasons why we teach the subject. (One of the duties of custodianship.) Let the student find themselves within this rich matrix. We insist only upon:

quality;
competence;
awareness;
knowledge;
articulation;
authenticity;
integrity;
hard work;
perseverance;
ambition.

3.00 pm: Home. (Keep going/think not — feel.) I fell into second gear: a finalisation of Instagram tagging:

4.15 pm: I’m up-to-date, more or less, with my professional ‘face’.  Is it serving me, or I it? Life needs to be simpler in order to be more efficient and effective. 5.15 pm: Breaks!!

7.00 pm: An evening of ‘Experimental Music Improvisation’ at the Ceredigion Museum, Aberystwyth:

I left at 11.00 pm. Ruminations to follow.

*For Amy Seed