8.15 am: I reviewed the few emails that had been deposited overnight and prepared for the day. 9.00 am: The first of today’s several MA fine art tutorials. Afterwards, I attended to admin while beginning the annual clearance of old and redundant papers: ‘Prepare ye the way!’ 10.45 am: On to the Old College for a second MA tutorial with one of our finalising students. The weather has been uncomfortably humid and muggy. Curiously, the sea was lighter than the sky; it glistened like the underbelly of a salmon:

Becca’s table

I returned home to prepare the new sound equipment, which the School had purchased, for transportation, following my operational tests last week.

After lunch, I held two further MA fine art consultations in readiness for the second exhibition’s hanging, next week. Then I convened a briefing meeting related to a PhD fine art submission that I’m external examining in October. For the remainder of the afternoon, I undertook postgraduate admin. Creativity is about making a dull task engaging. One way is to work on a significantly more interesting task, in parallel, and oscillate between them. On this occasion, I tried to trace some old art school friends from my undergraduate days.

Evening. 6.30 pm: Practise Session 1. 7.30 pm: I set up a pair of monitor speakers in the study in order to create a near-field reference facility in order to hear sound mixes in a context other than the sound studio. (See point 3, below):

John’s table

In the studio, other monitors were trialled in a new arrangement on the ‘large-white table’ and the ‘small-white table’. However, I discovered that my cables’ male plugs wouldn’t fit into the female sockets of the mixers. (The sexual connotations of electrical equipment are so unsubtle.) A pair of gender-bender adapters were required.

Some principles and observations derived from today’s engagements:

• Our ‘duds’ are always instructive, and certainly more profitable to us than our successes, when it comes to bettering our practice. But only if we have the eye to see, the willingness to learn, and the humility to apply such lessons as they teach.
• Your works will be your teachers when you leave art school. Therefore, start developing a pedagogical relationship with them now.
• Practice encountering your work in contexts other than that in which it was made. Fresh and encouraging insights are guaranteed.
• If an artwork looks as though anyone could have done it, why, then, is it so darned hard to do?
• The resolution of an artwork depends upon recognising the internal logical and language of the image, and applying them consistently throughout.
• When the image is 70%+ complete, then the solution to what is outstanding must already be in the work. Rarely does a new idea need to be incorporated.
• A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer.
• The more we believe in the validity of our cause, the more committedly we’ll work at it.