0th Week Blog

I have a new room which over looks The Ruskin. A kind of claustrophobic convenience; Close enough to go to school in my slippers but relentlessly in my peripheral vision as if to remind me of the work to be done this year. Yesterday I watched Terry, the Ruskin caretaker, carry 39 boxes of new books from a car outside. The day before that he was polishing the brass door handles, and this morning I watched Ruskin honcho Richard Wentworth precariously balancing on one foot whilst he held the door open for the postman. I know that by Monday, when term actually starts, the activity on the door at number 74 will radically increase like by 300% or something as the new first years begin their drawing and anatomy classes, and second and third years return to their studios, take cigarette breaks on the steps, and dart between the high street building and our other studios at Bullingdon road. Yep, the start of any Ruskin term is an exciting one, and a new year even more so. This is the big one for me [the third year] and hopes and ambitions are being discussed amongst the second and third years as if we are going to be wiped out before we get to our degree show. Time goes fast at the Ruskin and there are only 81 days until Christmas. It does not seem so long since I was an intrepid young first year, standing on the steps of the Ruskin trying to work out how the door opened. Like there is now. In a red coat.

Oliver Smith 06.10.05