Month: January 2019

January 31, 2019

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7.50 am: Dawn: feminine, healing, soft, reassuring, beguiling, sensual, surprising, awakening, and yielding to the day. 8.15 am: A communion. 8.40 am: Into the frosty air, travelling towards Old College. From 9.00 am to 11.00 am, I conducted two contrasting PhD Fine Art. The discussion ranged from archaeology to theology to blood-pressure tablets and Viagra (which women aren’t allowed to…
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January 30, 2019

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When you’re a busy person, there’s little time to entertain self-doubt about your practice. You just get on with it.  8.30 am: A slight flurry of snow that dissipated into rain. There was a sprinkling on the hills to the south. A grey blanket of cloud erupted into baroque cumulusness, before returning to its former state: 9.00 am: The annual undergraduate Exhibition 1 & 2: ‘Introduction’. This is,…
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January 29, 2019

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Tuesday, January 29.9.00 am: Old College, West Classroom: The sound of sanding, foot steps approaching, the hum and rush of a radiator, rain against the window, waves against the rocks. MA tutorials. ‘Not a crisis … just a frustration’.Tired people, talking together.We look for something that we’ve already seen before, in a different context.Even if we don’t understand why we…
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January 28, 2019

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8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: A review of the week ahead, the preparations thereunto, a cull of my inbox, and an adjustment to attitude in anticipation of a return to teaching tomorrow: A disturbed night’s sleep. There’d been a power cut that’d set of alarms, and powered up the photocopier on its return: a ‘wwhhhhhh r r r r…
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January 26, 2019

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8.00 am: A communion. And I looked up at the shelf by the skylight; in that moment, there was slight shift of sensation. I’ve experienced it before. It’s as though I’m in another place and time, one that’s familiar and reassuring. Such a feeling disappears just as quickly as it arrived. But I’m grateful for the occurrence. 9.00 am: I…
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January 25, 2019

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8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: A second cup of tea with which to oil the onset of the day, and watch updates upload unhurriedly. Last night, I managed to secure tickets to see Philip Glass’ opera Akhnaten (1983) at the ENO in March. It’s a masterpiece. I recall hearing a radio broadcast of the UK premier, one afternoon in 1984,…
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January 24, 2019

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During the final half hour of last night, I made a piece of whimsy in support of the Visual Theology II conference. This will be held in September, and celebrates the bicentenary of the art critic John Ruskin. If he could’ve gone there to collect rocks, I’m sure he would’ve: Ruskin on the moon 8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am:…
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January 23, 2019

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8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: Studiology and an opportunity to test out my latest ‘toy’, at last. The Korg Mini Kaoss Pad 2 effects modulator is a miniaturised version of the Kaoss Pad and Kaoss Quad. I’ll be using it to process samples of readings from Proverbs over the next few days: To begin the morning, I listened to…
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January 22, 2019

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Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3.24). Sebald Beham, Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, from Martin Luther’s prayer book (1527). (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) 8.00 am: A communion. It’s not the role of the teacher to either flatter the student, or improve them, or massage their sense…
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January 21, 2019

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Saturday evening I visited our local Arts Centre cinema to see Stan & Ollie. The actors embodied their subjects in a remarkable way. There was a poetry, tenderness, and delicacy in the work of Laurel and Hardy. Their slapstick has always seemed to me to be about something more than it appeared. They were our representatives: hapless and bungling humanity,…
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