It’s been quite an exhausting few days, Thursday I took the excuse to pop to Glasgow and visit Tramway – amazing space! Not so sure about the film I saw there though, somewhere between artsy video essay and docu-drama, hmmm, reserving judgement. Then back to Edinburgh working at the Toby Patterson exhibition at the Fruitmarket. I love the Perspex maze, standing in it is a bit like being in some kind of early nineties videogame. His paintings layer themselves up around you; a web that you slowly and laboriously work your way round trying to separate one image from another. Gallery assistant work is not the most interesting of jobs, you spend a huge amount of time staring into space then pouncing on anyone who looks like they can be bullied into talking to you. If that fails there is always the task of shouting at small children as they head work-ward brandishing sticky hands. This exhibition has the added bonus of looking like a kids climbing frame! In summary, not much work made but got a few ideas now. I’ve found a nice shelf design, maybe I should make that first and then decide what to put on it!

Another Year... This time I WILL keep this updated (in the 13 week countdown). Progress on degree show ideas = 0. I started to make a research wall today to photograph - in a panic I started writing research directly onto the wall and soon realised that the quantity of blank wall space in relation to the lack of research to fill it was rather larger than anticipated. I've been mulling over the idea of doing something with pastel lights since I saw a girls performance in Prague where she moved white foam boards in front of pastel lights to create this weird cushioned, pulsating space. I think the memory was triggered by the Karla Black exhibition I visited at Inverleith House this weekend. The repulsively sticky, makeup colours in soft shades - like swimming in candyfloss! I'm bored of minimalist, monochrome text, on cheap photocopies taped to walls with masking tape. In Black's exhibition there was paint on the floor, foot prints in the plaster, mud, crumpled paper. If I remember rightly the fun thing about art at school was the legitimate mess. Now the studios look like offices, bring back the mess I say!

So I found a great book today 'The Poetics of Space' by Gaston Bachelardwhich analysis the house, once inhabited. A space that shapes all other life experiences, an organic space effected by what goes on beyond its walls. "Always a container, sometimes contained, the house serves as a portal to metaphores of imagination." There is a wonderful chapter discussing how a snow storm outside makes a house seem cosier, a hurricane makes it feel safer etc. By this train of thought I have come to the conclusion that the reason I can't get out of bed is not laziness, but merely the fact that the baltic circumstanses in my flat at the minute are resulting in an exagerated version of the symptoms described above, and as a result I should stay where I am or risk cutting off the 'portal to my imagination'!

Returning to this blog after a little time out I feel some documentation of a final year art student is in order. So 20 grand in debt I have returned to final year after a vague attempt at a summer trying to pay off some of the Prague indulgences (quite how I managed to spend so much when beer was still 70p a pint I will never know). So what did I do? I got the only summer job that would vaguely relate to my degree - gallery assistant. May I add that for this prestigious post you not only have a formal interview with not one but two members of staff, but you are also required to do a presentation on the artist. This would all be great if I then hadn't spent the summer as a glorified (yet underpaid) security guard - my most challenging role being to rugby tackle small children as they ran full pelt at priceless pieces of... well paper mache! And so I return to fifth year with the satisfying knowledge that this is what the last four years were about (five if you count the foundation year I had to do to get on the course in the first place), I am not officially a qualified bouncer.

I have now been back three weeks but avoiding the depressing task of admitting my waste of a summer, after all there isn't much creativity left in the brain after three months staring at a wall. So instead I spent the day napping and trying to read some books on Installation (more napping than reading it has to be said as we're all too mean to put the heating on in the flat so therefore the only place to read is in fact in bed). This may have been a more successful task had I not discovered that my library card has an extortionate fine on it which I am refusing to pay out of principle as I think these people should be legally obligated to let you know when the fine reaches more than the price of the book! I therefore refused to pay it and moved libraries in a fit of self-righteousness. This library however didn't have the long list of apparently popular and highly publicised books I was looking for so I had to contend myself with three of the ten. How I even thought I would be able to get through three when I read at the pace of a snail (and nap in between) was quite a mystery to me and so feeling most discontented I sat myself down and... looked at the pictures.

I had the wonderful idea of going into college this evening to potter around and maybe try my hand at a bit of paper mache myself in a lovely empty studio but oh no, it now seems that every art student has become a creature of the night, all feeling very smug that they are in past the obligatory 9 to 4 first yr hours and so peace was disturbed, people want to know what your doing (which I don't know), what you have been doing (I usually make something up that sounds a little more intellectual tht staring at a wall) and basically make themselves feel better that they are deffinately working harder than you (which they all are unfortunately). I am going to stomp home and start again tomorrow, I can probably come in at 9 and leave at 4 and avoid everyone in the studio that way.

I like the contrast of the mathematical paper with this strange thing weaving into it. A friend has just explained fractals to me so this may be a way forward for these pieces and work with this unexpected interplay between art and science!