October 1, 2020

8.00 am: A communion.

8.45 am: ‘What’s up with the email download this morning?’ (The university network had begun to fail.) We’ll be returning to ‘blended’ teaching for postgraduates immediately, and for undergraduates on Monday. I gathered my thoughts for my first session with this year’s third-year painters (online). They’ll be my last cohort. Having never before taught any of them, the first session would be dedicated to ‘getting-to-know-you’ (as the song goes) — the person, the student, and the artist in embryo (possibly). 9.30 am: But, first, an MA fine rt tutorial. ‘You painted until 3.00 am this morning?!’ [I was more than mildly impressed, edging towards alarmed.]

10.15 am: I had a hour before the first undergraduate tutorial, and filled it by preparing for online teaching next week. 11.20 am: The first of twelve tutorials (potentially). I moved tentatively, not wishing to either impose my own sense of what they ought to do or overwrite their own ambitions. Finding the way proceeds from a discussion and negotation between the student and tutor. When the student’s domestic bandwith is overstretched, their image disintegrates in intriquing and painterly ways:

‘How can we unravel the world of real appearances?’, I asked one student:

With another, I shared a webcam’s last image of Aberystwyth’s seafront, as seen from Terrace Road. The camera has not refreshed its image for the past three years. The image — corrupted by the grime upon the lens and the low-resolution of the capture — reminded me of early French photography, and evoked another place, that was like Aberystwyth, but either elswhere or nowhere:

In the tutorials, I was trying to forge connections between various dimensions of each student’s life’s history, past and present experience of art, and (where they were studying for a joint-honours degree) their other university subject. Their best work, to my mind, is likely to emerge at the juncture of maximum integration.

2.00 pm: The afternoon shift. Observations and principles derived from today’s engagements:

  • Painting is, in essence, a conversation between the subject (if such there be), the medium, ourselves, and the history of images.
  • Begin by painting, and make your way towards the idea. To begin with an idea risks merely illustrating it in paint.
  • Ensure that your subject matter is definite, limited, focussed, paintable, and relevant (to you).
  • Begin modestly, but in the spirit of great ambition.
  • ‘I don’t prescribe, I advise.’ ‘I’ll provide you with questions, but not with answers.’ ‘I’ll show you what needs to be done, but not how to do it.’ ‘My role is to challange, rather more than it is to rescue, you.’

4.40 pm: A short walk:

7.30 pm: BBC Wales would phone tomorrow morning to discuss my potential contribution to the forthcoming programme. I needed to mug-up on my anticipated response to the interrogation.

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