Summa: diary (January 17-22, 2026)

January 17 (Saturday). 7.45 am: An ambulation across the Promenade and to the summit of Constitution Hill. From here, in September 1982, I first surveyed the town that would become my home for the next forty years. In all that time, the tide has — like my breath — never ceased to ebb and flow.

Near the foot of Constitution Hill: Supernova (epithet). At the close of some stars’ lives, they shine brighter and further than any other in the galaxy. And, at their passing, generate elements from which new stars are born.

9.30 am: Studiology. I pressed on with the outstanding compositions for the 144 Variations album. Joseph Parry wrote the tune ‘Aberystwyth’ when he was Professor of Music at the, then, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and living in the house opposite mine. There’s something both strange and appropriate about reworking a source so close to its point of origin. 12.00 pm: The last of the 144 variations was completed.

I’d been invited to lunch by one of my former students and friend: the artist and teacher, Karen Pearce. We talked about: her forthcoming classes; the difficulties of settling into a new studio and engaging the ‘undiscovered country’ of a different landscape; and our respective and desultory experiences of secondary school. I’m persuaded the many artists — who are commendable educators, too — were either unteachable or else found it hard to learn anything about anything prior to their art school training. I was such a one.

As an art school teacher, I’ve never held to a particular philosophy of art pedagogy. My approach has been, rather, eclectic, adaptive, and responsive. It arises out of a conversation or dialogue with the student. That said, there’s one technique — which I was on the receiving end of as an art student — I’ve continued to apply … because it works. One of my Foundation Course tutors summed it up, thus:

My approach is to dig a pit for the student to fall into. After that, it’s up to them to find a way out.

His pits were bespoke: designed to be just the right depth, shape, and circumference for each individual at their particular stage of development, and entirely possible to escape (with effort, on their part). The emphasis was on developing a student’s strategic thinking, independence, self-reliance, and imaginative-problem solving. No teacher worth their salt would’ve ever sent down a rope-ladder into the pit.

January 18 (Sunday). 9.00 am: An ambulation to the harbour.

2.15 pm: As the composition of the Aberfan projects draws to a close, I’m allowing myself to think wide of my present position. What activities should I re-instate? And, what should I abandon? The urge to do something other, something immediate, something short, something with someone else, perhaps — if only as a temporary respite — presses upon me.

January 19 (Monday).

Evolution

6.00 am: Writing, correspondence with friends afar-off, and a review of the week ahead. (The anticipation of enriching conversations to come.) I’ve not made many new friends over the past decade. The roots of those to whom I’ve remained loyal (and vise versa) over the years, go very deep. Better a few well-established friends than many fair-weather acquaintances, who won’t stay the course when the dark clouds gather on the horizon. 9.00 am: Studyology. A paragraph on the digital-conversion failure photographs, was required.

10.00 am: A too-long-overdue chinwag over coffee in town with the writer and photographer, my friend Dr Christopher Webster. One such friend. We’d began our academic careers at the School of Art around the same time. Often, he and I were paired at the information desk, during undergraduate registration week at the university. We’ve many academic and personal interests in common, including photography, movies, supernaturalism, and religion. I’ve missed his curiosity, honesty, empathy, humanity, and openness. He’s one of the best of men. Chris was my, and the School of Art’s, first PhD Fine Art graduate.

11.15 am: Back to writing. Progress was slow and ponderous. Sometimes the task is such a joyless chore as would make even Sisyphus buckle and weep.

January 20 (Tuesday). 7.30 am: ‘O, Fox Talbot!.

Studyology. Writing. 9.00 am: Studiology. ‘Cross-check!’, as the captain directs the crew before the plane takes off. In my context, I need to ensure that all the children’s and teachers’ names were present and correct, in text and sound. 9.45 am: Now begins the finalisation process for each of the 144 sound compositions and their accompanying ‘illustrations’. How loud — in terms of decibels (a measure named in honour of Alexander Graham Bell) — should a quiet piece of music be? An increase of 3 dB on the present baseline established a perceivable difference and an optimum. Only 143 compositions to go. I’m not averse to either wholly re-modelling or subtly modifying some of the early compositions in the light of later and accrued experience. At the same time, I respect the decisions that were made at the outset. I suspect that the later compositions will sound a little slower and sadder than the early ones. But this would reflect the progress of my internal motions of the heart, as much as any imperative recognised within the music itself.

1.00 pm: Lunch in town with my former colleague at the School of Art and friend, the artist Dr June Forster. We’d not had an opportunity to trade stories about our past-lives on the studio floor, teaching, for over a year. June is now retired. The students loved her to bits, and with good cause. She went the second, third, and fourth mile with many of them. Love, empathy, humour, and commitment are the bedrock of good teaching. She had all of them, in buckets.

3.00 pm: An appointment with a local ‘practical audiologist’. (As distinct from a ‘theoretical audiologist’, I assumed.) With age, come deficits. My eyes began to fail when I was 9 years old. (I should’ve either claimed on the warranty or swapped them for a better model.) That my ears have kept up their end of the bargain for over 60 years is to their credit. Now, the upper frequencies are dropping-off and being replaced with tinnitus. As an ‘artist of sound’ (among other mediums), good hearing is a requisite. Today, I was tested in a sound-proof box (which reminded me of the cubicles I stood in to audition prospective vinyl purchases at record shops during the late 1960s). Today — under headphones and against the backdrop of an absolute dead silence — I could hear my heart pound loudly and disconcertingly. Over the last eighteen months, I’ve asked audio-researchers what musicians wear to offset hearing loss. I’ll need a sophisticated pair of AI-driven aids that can be controlled from a phone app. They’ll cost me an arm and a leg (and two ears). But, needs must.

I asked the ‘practical audiologist’ what the building, in which I was being tested, had been before its transformation into a sight and sound emporium. ‘A haunted toy shop’, he replied. Inexplicable events and sounds still occur, apparently. On my way out, I kept my eyes open for children who carried teddy bears and walked through walls. Real-life ghost stories haunt me wherever I go.

January 20 (Wednesday). 6.15 am: Writing. 8.30 am: Studiology. Back into the fray, finalising the pairs of sound and illustrative compositions, while revising the album’s text (again). ‘This is taking too long, John!’, the inner-tutor moaned.

12.00 pm: I returned to my favourite watering-hole, for the third time this week, to take coffee with my friend, former PhD Fine Art tutee, and artist, Wayne Summers. He was visiting town to deliver artworks, in preparation for his doctoral exhibition next month. Like several other mature postgraduates whom I’ve taught over the years, Wayne has known what he’s looking for even before his search began. He has a cultivated instinct for where, and how far below the surface, he needs to dig to recover treasure. Throughout his candidature, Wayne has maintained a fixed and focused trajectory, wavering neither to the left nor to the right of his mark. The excavation, recording, and analysis of the site of his enquiry has been undertaken with rare intelligence, coupled with a developed aesthetic and knowledge of the relevant cultural and historical contexts.

1.15 pm: I returned to writing and modifying the compositions’ illustrations. There can be no lapse in critical judgement at this juncture. However, making changes to 288 separate elements (144 compositions and 144 illustrations), pass-by-pass, while maintaining a sense of the whole, is challenging.

January 22 (Thursday). 6.15 am: Correspondence, in parallel with further work on the illustrations. In the course of one epistolary exchanges, the topic of erotic life-drawing classes arose. It’s a burgeoning market, so I’m told. Striptease artists and pole-dancers have extended the boundaries of their habitual contexts and professions to become life-models. ‘Model’ was (and may be still be) a euphemism for a prostitute or an escort (another euphemism). The title was often seen crudely written on door signs outside certain premises in London’s Soho, before it was gentrified. In the context of erotic life drawing, the disciplines of looking and rendering take on a level of intimacy that’s not generally assumed, traditionally. The model (who can be either a man or a woman (or somewhere in between), and pose either solo or as part of a pair, is subject to both the male and the female gaze of the students. The nature of the dynamic between the model and students would, I suspect, need to be experienced to be understood.

As someone who has drawn the model and conducted life-drawing classes, I’m very aware of the importance of studio decorum. Respect for the model is paramount. (Posing nude is an act of tremendous generosity on their part.) Modesty must be maintained throughout the lesson. The only humiliation permitted is the students’ confrontation with what they fail repeatedly to be able to do through drawing.

12.00 pm: Illustrations completed. 1.30 pm: I packed my bags in readiness for a weekend away in London, beginning tomorrow. 2.00 pm: I returned to sound composition finalisations.

See also: Intersections (archive);  Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice