March 6, 2019

If you haven’t learned self-discipline during days of fair weather, you’ll be hard pressed to do so when the storms come.

7.45 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Off to School to vanquish admin and prepare for the morning’s two-person lecture with Dr Forster, entitled ‘In Our Day: What We Did When We Were Undergraduates’:

The objective was to convey the idea that our experience of art-school education was not so different from the students’ own. We, too, had faced times when confidence deserted us, the teaching we received contradicted our own inclinations, and the path before us disappeared.

June and I come from an industrial and working-class background. We’ve both been interested in the sense of place and abstraction in relation to the context of our youth. For me, the landscape (both visual and audible) of the South Wales coalfields has had a greater influence on the aesthetic and thematic content of my work than I can well tell. We ignore our origins to our detriment.

Ever the pedagog, June emphasised the following principles. Students should:

  • shape-up to responsible and committed studentship early on in their studies;
  • develop a cultivated curiosity;
  • commit themselves to self-directed inquiry. (It’s better to find out something for yourself than to be told it);
  • open themselves up to influence. (We grow by imitating and, thereby, understanding, other artists’ work);
  • endeavour to find the way (their way) by themselves;
  • keep an account of their ideas. (Some will prove valuable only later in their careers).

11.00 am: Back at homebase, I returned to ‘All Scripture’. I stood and listened intently to the work that I’d completed on Monday. The breathing section now sounded very dark and forbidding, and unexpectedly complete in itself:

And therein was a challenge. One must have the wisdom to abandon intentions in favour of the better outcome, when it presents itself. This appeared to be such an occasion. The internal logic of the developing composition needed to be adhered to. I submitted to its leadership. Conceivably, it could take me back to my original intent. The openness is all.

As in life too, one must always be ready to embrace contingencies, respond to the unexpected, and adapt to change. Things that at first appeared impossible may, in time, prove feasible. The opposite is also true. Circumstances change; people change; opportunities arise. It only takes someone to say something just at the right time, for your life to turn 180 degrees. A hallmark of feeling hopeless is the absence of such anticipation. By the close of the afternoon, I’d a composition that held water and was near completion.

7.30 pm: I re-equalised and balanced the components of the composition in order remove unpleasant upper frequencies, integrate volumes and tonalities, and position sounds across the breadth of the stereo field. The finale is quite terrifying. So, to end – some levity:

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