Month: September 2020

September 30, 2020

8.30 am: BBC Wales emailed me to ask whether I’d contribute to a radio program on masked faces in workship and the face of God in art. Was I the right person to approach? Perhaps we’ll talk on the phone later in the week and decide. 9.00 am: An MA Fine Art double-marking meeting with Dr Forster to determine the…

September 29, 2020

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‘Let go, and let’s see!’ 7.00 am: 7.45 am: Teams had been playing up. Some students weren’t either able to access it or receive invitations to meetings via it. (Groan!) 8.45 am: Most of the problems were if not fixed then understood. 9.00 am: We all pitched in to engage the first ever online delivery of the MA Vocational Practice.…

September 28, 2020

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Miles Davis (d. September 28, 1991)‘Virtual is the new real.’ Saturday, September 26. I worked in parallel on completing pastoral admin, developing online teaching resources, and micro-mixing several of the choral-type compositions from the suite. The latter is often a painstakingly slow and an exacting process of ideation and realisation. ‘Wind for fast-flowing water; the crack of dried twigs for…

September 25, 2020

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8.00 am: A prevailing gustiness. ‘Blow wind, blow.’ 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: The inbox was tamer this morning. I let forth my own volley in retaliation for the previous day’s attack. On, then, with arranging next week’s roster of tutorials, and generally touching base with my own postgraduate tutees. (In the background: Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Between Nothingness and Eternity…

September 24, 2020

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‘Interestingly, I seem to be haunting a number of peoples’ dreams recently’ (JH, correspondence (September 24, 2020)). 7.45 am: The promissory: 8.30 am: A communion. 9.00 am: I attempted to finalise the MA students’ requests for studio space before bombing up the hill to meet with Mr Garrett for our annual ‘space allocation walkaround’. We’ve now laid claim to a…

September 23, 2020

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8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Starting another academic year always feels the first day of the new school year, when I was young. There’s a sense of anticipation and dread in equal measure. I got my kit together, charged everything that moved, ensured my devices were functioning (and clean), uploaded back-up for everything I may need today (just in…

September 22, 2020

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Monday, September 21. 8.00 am: A morning walk to the postbox. It felt not like any other first day of the academic year that I’d ever experienced. Melancholy, without hopelessness. Tentativeness, without timidity. A quiet beginning. 9.00 am: The inbox would be like a dripping tap for the next few weeks. Last minute changes were to be expected. Letter by…

September 19, 2020

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WFH: DAY 141. This is my last day of working from home. As of Monday, I’ll be into a pattern of on-site and online teaching and off-site research (if there’s time). Monday will also represent the first day of my final year as a full-time academic at the School of Art. Thus, the last will be the most challenging; which,…

September 18, 2020

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‘Perhaps we’re entering the dark-ages of media’ (YouTube comment). WFH: DAY 140. 8.00 am: There was much to do: letters, charts, lists, and data archives to be sent, revised, filled, and reorganised. As the government moots the possibility of a second national (whatever that means today) lockdown, as a ‘last resort’ measure to stem the ‘incoming second wave’, universities will…

September 17, 2020

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WFH: DAY 139. 7.30 am: 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: No sooner than I set down than its rains ‘things-to-do’ in my head. They must be written down, immediately, otherwise I’ll forget, although not quite immediately. Post-its were scattered across my mixing desk, waiting to be transcribed to the ‘big plan’ that was on my computer. Draft emails posted…

Month: September 2020

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