Wednesday, January 16
7.10 am:

For the remainder of the week, I’d participate in wall-to-wall assessments of the second and third year BA Painting, Research and Process in Practice, and Art/Sound modules, and the MA Portfolio module. Morning, afternoon, and evening are taken up with the business. All other considerations (and most of life) will be held in abeyance for the next few weeks. One is not only encountering the students’ work but also, in an increasing number of cases, the various encumbrances (personal and circumstantial) that they’ve had to negotiate in order to deliver the goods. They each bring into the assessment room a portfolio and a story.

Thursday, January 17
1.20 pm: After a morning of undergraduate and postgraduate feedback tutorials, my colleague and I took solace at a local eatery. (Our preferred and usual chambers had run out of chips. ‘What!!’) We ruminated upon the nature of friendship, and its dangers, disappointments, and failures; student perceptions of the academic profession (which are often wide of the mark); and Scottish and Irish holidays. It was a welcome and therapeutic interval during a busy period in our lives.

Thursday, January 18
9.00 am:

‘Listening to the object’
‘Trust the process, the acquired learning, yourself’
’More Jesuit than Calvinist’
’There’s you and there’s it; gradually, the distance and distinction disappear’
’Jump without a parachute’
‘Reality is shocking’
’Bambi in Paradise’
’Economies of shape, colour, line, and pattern’
‘It’s the devil’s joke’
’Let the work determine its own medium and technique’

Dr Forster and I completed our timetabled assessment obligations, having worked from 9.00 am to 2.00 pm without a break. We looked like two soldiers returning from the trenches. There’s a further three days of this to come. Before returning home to write up my assessment reports, I held a pastoral tutorial with one of our PhD students via Skype.

Back to the challenges of the home, other dimensions of my life, and their ambient concerns and uncertainties. Events will need to play out, while other things must fall away, and the past allowed to recede, before the way ahead becomes more evident. ‘Let us lay aside every weight’. I played some loud electric guitar tracks to clear my head before beginning my write-up. Hard words, encouraging words, were written.