1.
How long
Do works endure? As long
As they are not completed.
Since as long as they demand effort
They do not decay.

Inviting further work
Repaying participation
Their being lasts as long as
They invite reward.

Useful works
REQUIRE PEOPLE
Artistic works
Have room for art
Wise works
Require wisdom
Those devised for completeness
Show gaps
The long-lasting
Are always about to crumbleÉ.
.....

2.
So too the games we invent
Are unfinished, we hope;
And the things we use in playing
What are they without the dentings from
Many fingers, those places, seemingly damaged
Which produce nobility of form;
And the words too whose
Meaning often changed
With change of users.

3.
Never go forward without going
Back first to check the direction.
Those who ask questions are those
Whom you will answer, but
Those who will listen to you are
Those who then ask you.

Who will speak?
He who has not spoken.
Who will enter?
He who has not yet entered.
Those whose position seems insignificant
When one looks at them
Are
The powerful ones of tomorrow
Those who have need of you
Shall have the power.

When I was interviewing one of the graduating students for their year with me I was asked by his head of department, 'Will he get some time for his own work?' This did not shock me as it was the same question that had been addressed to me on several occasions - 'Do you ever get time for your own work?' It bemused me to think that what I was doing could ever be construed as not being 'my own work' - it was, at the time, the only thing I wanted to do. Of course, I understood where these questions were coming from but it is interesting to note that it is probably a question that would not be posed today. Art had moved on.

In the mid seventies Tom McGrath had founded the Third Eye Centre in Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. It was a wonderful place in those early years, breaking new ground in all the arts. As a playwright and jazz pianist himself Tom was like that. His concept of an arts centre with a shopfront onto one of the busiest streets in Glasgow was entirely new. It is not surprising that he wanted to show what was going on in Glenrothes. We decided that we should show the whole spectrum of arts going on in the town. Work from the artists and craftspeople at Balbirnie; the photographs of the Goldsmiths; the illuminated poems of Alan Bold; my own work and that of my assistants. 'View from Glenrothes', took place in March 1977. 8000 people saw the show and it was covered by supportive reviews in The Guardian and the Glasgow Herald among others. The exhibition was also shown in Peterlee and in the gallery of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland in Belfast. It was an excellent showcase for the cultural activity going on in the town and a tribute to John Coghill, the driving force and facilitator behind it all. As he said in a catalogue essay, 'Dreams fade' - a reference to Lord Reith's hopes in 1945 for the UK new towns as, 'an essay in civilisation.... and the means for a happy and gracious way of life.' Coghill went on, however '....that was our goal. Hence the need to seek the involvement of the people in the arts for these are the visible and tangible and audible signs of a life that is above mere survival or the satisfaction of animal comforts or the mere acquisition of wealth.... Perhaps someday Scotland will follow.'

David Harding
Feb. 2006