September 16, 2019

Monday, September 16, 2019: It was good to see the entrance to the School denuded of scaffolding and sand-blasted back to its original glory:

The fortune cookie motto, which I’d alighted upon over the weekend, proved particularly apt today. The assessment of the MA Fine Art second exhibition began:

Principles and observations derived from today’s assessments:

Tutor: ‘The MA scheme is but an empty vessel into which each student pours the wine of wisdom, experience, and maturation’.

Student: ‘These works are who I am!’

Student: ‘I’ve wanted to be swimming in this stream for so long!’

Tutor: ‘As with jazz, improvisation through painting can take place only in the moment and on the canvas. There can be no rehearsal or prior anticipation.

Tutor: ‘Perhaps the development of a well-grounded self-confidence has been the most conspicuous and important achievement of your MA studies’.

Tutor: ‘An artwork cannot be about just anything, without also being about absolutely nothing’.

Tutor: ‘Sometimes one cannot talk about what the work is about; the best we can hope to do is determine how it does what it does.’

Tutor: ‘An unpromising start to the MA scheme does not preclude a glorious end.’

Student: ‘I learned that you have to practise if you’ve any hope of developing a practice.’

Tutor: ‘Some artists have a well-defined audience. Others never find an audience for their work’.

12.30 pm: Dr Forster and I put down our clipboards after the morning’s discussions and headed to the Town Chambers for a pre-semester ‘Committee Meeting’. It’s useful to consider the year that’s been, and to determine our plan of action for the one to come.

After lunch, and for the remainder of the day, I began pruning down my inbox, creating hierarchies of tasks, trying to complete admin tasks, and making arrangements for a conference weekend, before setting my face towards next week’s period of registration … and beyond.

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September 14, 2019
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September 17, 2019

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