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I was sitting at a table in a studio of a student who was not physically present. We were trying to connect and converse across the ether. The endeavour felt like a séance (January 29, 2020). When I was young, the word ‘Corona’ had a very different resonance than it does at this present time. Corona was a local brand…

In your light we see light (Psalm 36.9). The world lurches like a boat upon a stormy sea with no competent captain at the helm. In periods of pessimism, when politics fail, art can provide an anchor of hope (diary, August 28, 2019). Tuesday, June 8. 8.00 am: A communion: I’d enjoyed a good night’s sleep, but still felt exhausted…

The present is but the tipping-point between what was and what is to come (May 31, 2018); Memory is melancholy’s breath (June 12, 2018). Saturday, May 5. 6.30 am: A communion. 7.00 am: To work. I put pay to two pages of the Diary, which would leave me with the remaining two to dispatch by the close of the day.…

How many wonders either come and go, out-of-sight, or take place beyond reach? Our role as artists is to distract ourselves sufficiently, so as to catch what otherwise would be either missed or ignored on the periphery of human experience (Diary, September 29, 2017). The downside of academic specialisation is a consequent narrowing of the field of vision. Thus I…

For me, the past cannot remain in the past. Through diary entries, letters, and photographs, it seeps into the present (Diary, May 24, 2017). 7.00 am: A communion. I returned to Parc Natur Penglais after too long an absence. The first light appeared as though polarised. It’s a quality of illumination that I associate with the onset of an eclipse.…

Much of what happens to us in life is nameless because our vocabulary is too poor (John Berger, Confabulations (2016)). Don’t dunk your biscuit in another person’s tea (Diary, February 23, 2016). Saturday, May 29. 6.45 am: 7.00 am: I determined to put-in two hours on revising the text of the first diary’s posts before returning to module. moderation. The…

7.00 am: A communion. 7.30 am: I committed two hours to reading and revising the first diary before turning to postgraduate admin and returning to moderation. (In reality I’m, more often that not, immoderate.) I posted emails that required tact and sensitivity in my reply. (In the background: Henry Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art (1694).) 11.00 am: I dealt…

Though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished (Proverbs 11.21). Wednesday, May 26. I’d suffered no significant side-effects following my second AstraZeneca jab, other than a sore arm and mild tiredness. 7.30 am: A communion. I determined to get to the end of the diary pages and posts before beginning anything else today. 10.00 am: I’d achieved my ambition.…

My mind inclined to thoughts about endings: an era drawing to a close, transitions, abrupt terminations, distancing, adjustments, alternatives, and new beginnings (Diary, March 26, 2018). Monday, May 24. 7.30 am: A communion. 8.00 am: I returned to my, what now feels like, eternal review of the first Diary‘s posts. At 9.00 am on a Monday, the week stretches before…

There’s a poeticism about the blog writing that, I suspect, is closer to your internal ‘voice’ than is the more formal register of academic writing. Henceforth, how you ‘speak’ through words ought to become increasingly analogous to how you visualise with paint (Assessment feedback to student, May 21, 2021). Friday, May 21. 7.30 am: I took up my final-pass review…