In making the painting you make yourself. Look at things that have no relevance to your work, because they have no relevance to your work.6.30 am: Rise. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I headed to School to set up the Vocational Practice equipment and prepare for another wrangle with its limitations. For the purposes of a joint face-to-face and…

We’d spent a few days north of Aberystwyth. It was the first time I’d slept under another roof since March. Only when you begin to relax does the extent of your tiredness becomes evident. A restorative period, nevertheless, and one that helped to strengthen my resolve as I pushed towards the end of term. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 pm:…

7.00 am: Dark morning: 8.30 am: Studiology. I returned to ‘John Williams’ and to the tune that I’d constructed from parts of 17th-century Welsh tunes in reverse — a tune that I’d finalised, and of which made a recording on my phone, while walking into the wind down Plas Crug Avenue some days ago. The capture was intended as an…

8.20 pm: Into town and onto School. (Repetition.) Overcast; wind and rain (again). My day for third-year painting tutorials. (Always.) In the spaces between tutorials, I planned out the week to come. I doubt that any staff member has got used to teaching under these conditions. Nevertheless, we have adjusted our expectations. Face-to-face followed by online followed by face-to-face delivery.…

Tuesday, November 17. The morning was set aside for the Vocational Practice surgery. It’s helpful to have pauses in the curriculum to discuss issues that students may be encountering in relation to the module, the MA scheme, and life in general. After lunch, I headed up the hill to P4, Penbryn to teach my full-time MA tutees. Men with theodolites…

‘(Tell me why) I don’t like Mondays’ (Boomtown Rats (1979)). 8.30 am: For the most part, because there’s a welter of accumulated emails and other admin to confront. There were some conference matters from the close of last week to mop-up too. In one of last night’s dream, I was talking to myself about deploying the stethomicrophone in the composition…

8.30 am: Studiology and file filing. 9.00 am: I returned to my whistling black spirit. I recorded myself whistling, not with a view including the capture in the composition but, rather, understanding the sonorities that combine to form the sound. My whistling is pathetic. Wrong kind of mouth, I guess. The sample of the recording made at the beginning of…

8.00 am: 8.15 am: I quickly remastered the sound file that I’d be presenting at the Art & Religion symposium today. The upper frequencies needed to be sharper for internet delivery. This mode of delivery is a first for me; I was thinking on my feet. Emails were dispatched in the background throughout the morning and afternoon. There are too…

7.30 am: Breakfast. 8.30 am: Into town and onto the School. 8.45 am: I set up for the day’s third-year painting tutorials.We’re now well past the half-way point in the module. The conversations have begun to change. I’m emphasising the end-point, the principle of drawing the circle operations smaller, and the necessity of crystallising an intent that stands up under…

Where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music (John Donne (1571-1631), ‘Our Last Awakening’). Armistice Day. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I had a hour to catch up on postgraduate admin, student monitoring, and inquiries before my trek up to P4, Penbryn on the campus for a…