Month: April 2021

April 29, 2021

I am austere in those dimensions of my life where excess would be inappropriate (Instagram, correspondence (April 29, 2021)). Wednesday, April 28. 7.30 pm: 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: EGO article dispatched, I conducted some medical research for products that may offset the symptoms of, and consultants that might shed light on, a troubling condition that I suffer. 9.15…

April 27, 2021

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My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going (Thomas Merton, ‘The Merton Prayer‘, Thoughts in Solitude (1956)). Monday, April 26. 8.00 am: I knew where I was going for now. En route to the Promenade: 8.45 am: Business with a builder on the phone. 9.00 am: A review of the inbox/day/week. These three are always causally linked,…

April 24, 2021

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Now that I’ve had those experiences, I don’t need to have them again. My curiosity has been satisfied. The desire, exorcised. Friday, April 23. 7.30 pm: I made my way to the top of Constitution Hill, passed Phoebe’s bench. I can still hear her laughter in my head: This was, for me, the perfect morning: a cool temperature, tipping towards…

April 22, 2021

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8.45 am: A short walk/communion, taking in the cemetery, Plascrug Avenue, and the Vicarage Field: 8.30 am: I made ready for my day of third year painting tutorials held, first, online and afterwards at the School. The temperature was rising. Things were coming into focus. 9.00 am: ‘Camera. Sound. Action!’ Online teaching does have some advantage over face-to-face encounters. Tutee…

April 21, 2021

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7.30 am: A communion/promenade. The early-morning bathers were bobbin’ in the sea, their rubber caps shone like brightly-coloured buoys: 8.45 am: A review of the day ahead, and a listing of those tasks that needed to be undertaken in between the today’s round of PhD fine art tutorials. 9.00 am: #1: Writing about one’s own work presents an enormous challenge…

April 20, 2021

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For Django [Reinhardt], recording was like painting, the studio his atelier, and the wax discs canvases upon which to create (Michael Dregni, Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend). Sunday, April 18. A walk in the forest at Allt y Crib, near Talybont, where the trees are allowed to lie as they fall: Monday, April 19. 7.45 am:…

April 17, 2021

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Friday, April 16. 7.30 am: My foot could now ‘stomach’ a walk uphill. I took-off in the direction of Constitution Hill on a ‘seasonably agreeable morning’, to ape posh 19th-century parlance. Before ascending to the summit, I stood on the spot where I’d made my first drawings and paintings of Aberystwyth, back in 1982. Within my personal mythos, this was…

April 15, 2021

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7.15 am: Proof of presence: 7.45 am: A communion. 8.15 am: I viewed the day’s landscape and incoming missives/missiles. For part of the morning I’d be teaching at home — dealing with students who, for various reasons, preferred online tuition still — and then at the School, for the remainder of the day, undertaking (masked) face-to-(masked) face tutorials. (‘Now ……

April 14, 2021

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My li’l toe is indigo Tuesday, April 13. Last night, I accidently damaged my left foot. Today, I was hobbling. I’d not be in a position to put my feet up over the next few days, but I could refrain from walking, to a large extent. Face-to-face tutorials would have to be substituted by online engagements for the next few…

April 12, 2021

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Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work (Gustav Flaubert (1821-80)). 7.45 am: A communion. 8.15 am: The beginning of the Summer Term. The above maxim was beloved of Frank Zappa — one of the most audacious, iconoclastic, and challenging musician-composers of the 20th century. In his private life, he…

Month: April 2021

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