a weekend in Wales

The Raglan Castle cat - the first I have ever found who did not gaze up into the camera when being photographed!

The area of England in which we have lived for most of our married life - well, for most of our life - is gentle, tamed by man, and once in a while we have a longing for something a bit wild. Sea and/or mountains are our desire, and the west coast of Scotland is a dream destination. However, that is a long way away; too far for a weekend.

On the other hand, it is too easy to forget that Wales is not far away, indeed there are mountains, sea, and culture barely three hours' drive from our front door! So off to Wales for a pleasure-packed weekend. We stayed in Swansea, where my husband the rugby fan had been before, but this is so far not a stadium car park I have stitched in. No rugby on this trip.

Raglan castle

We set off for the Brecon Beacons via Raglan Castle. I had once seen it from the road a few years ago when I was driving to interview a collector of Welsh blankets, and had been impressed by its looks. I was not disappointed. As was to be true for all three days there was hardly anyone there and the site is magnificent. The cat on the website photo was also there to greet us.

Brecon

From there to Abergavenny, a friendly little town where we found a refurbished 13th Century tithe barn in which to have a lunch of local produce. Then on to Brecon. Although Wales has a reputation for being wet, we were blessed with gloriously sunny weather with only the odd downpour which coincided with our being in the car.

Mountains, fields full of new born lambs, no traffic, great weather. Bliss, and this was just the first day. In Swansea we enjoyed an evening meal and a stroll along the shore at The Mumbles.



The next day we explored the city including the refurbished (absolutely empty) harbour area with Dylan Thomas theatre and museum, and Mission Craft Gallery where we caught the last day of an inspiring exhibition of painted ceramics by Nancy and Gordon Baldwin. It is a touring exhibition by the excellent Ruthin Gallery who also produce beautiful catalogues. I bought one of this show - I have always found them worth buying even when as is normal I cannot see the exhibition.

We also saw two exhibitions at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. Supernova is a show of works of geometric abstraction from the British Council collection. It is a thought-provoking collection, but intellectually interesting rather than attractive to me, with the exception of two pieces of work. Both of these are animations, computer-generated, and playing with tone and perception. The works are by Haluk Akakce, and a still from one is illustrated in this link. Essentially in both films shapes move, merge, appear, disappear, and give the appearance of three dimensions melting towards and away from the viewer. These are an illusion created by the movement of areas of tone only. No real shadows. Blind date which is pictured in the link consists of shapes similar to those shown, rendered in three tones: white, white-grey, and grey. The films are mesmeric, engaging, and contemplative as well as exercising the old grey cells as to what the forms actually are. I loved them.

The other exhibition Capturing Light is in fact a display rather than a full blown exhibition. Four of Stella Benjamin's tapestry weavings are at a craft dispay area in the excellent bookshop. These pieces are simply beautiful. They sat so well with the films I've mentioned above. The organic and the digital.

A quick trip out of the city took us towards Llanelli (and another rugby stadium) to the Wildfowl and Wetland centre. I must admit that at this point my crock ankle had defeated me, and I sat in the car reading my excellent newly acquired Real Swansea by Nigel Jenkins. I see now that it was cheaper in the craft gallery than it is on Amazon!

And the day was not over. The little grey cells were jumping by bed time because in the evening we went to a concert at the Taliesin Arts Centre at Swansea University. Neanderthal is a piece of vocal imagination composed by Simon Thorne. The composer was there to introduce the piece to us, and then we were in for a fascinating journey. Indeed I am so intrigued by the whole idea of early language that I have added The Singing Neanderthals to my wishlist on Amazon (I prefer the cover of this edition.)

Oxwich beach - the bay, and an abandoned castle

The third day was dedicated to the sea and the Gower Peninsula. The beach at Oxwich was virtually empty of other people when we arrived early in the morning, and at the extraordinary Llanrhidian Marsh only the cries of birds could be heard.

A view across the marsh

Design ditherings

Perhaps I shall go back to black and white beginnings and start again ....

Talking it over

It never ceases to amaze me how talking over ideas -or a lack of ideas - can stimulate progress. It's the process of formulating the articulation that does the trick I think; not necessarily depending on a response, although that can be inspiring too.

Chocolate thoughts

Chocolate dream 116 x 178mm

Sometimes there's a mood - a desire both to float off into 'lifestyle land', and to do the exact opposite: to be engaged in something positive and brain-demanding. I seem to be in that limbo. Perhaps it's the plateau of Spring, the pause before the perennials truly burst forth - yet the beginning of dead-heading the daffodils. Perhaps it's the couple of rejections plus a workshop I signed up to being cancelled for lack of interest that's got me down, especially as I was hoping the exploratory art workshop would help me to progress. Whatever the cause, I feel a wee bit Lady of Shalott - which is a state I hate. (Being a Pre Rapaelite lady was never a state I aspired to!)

Occasional longing 134 x 120mm

My pervading mood always seems to leak into my work, and perhaps having completed these two pieces I can move on to something more active. It's the fact that I don't know what that activity should be that has me swithering about in this state. However, I'm pleased with the two pieces. The second arose from preparation I did for the batik on paper workshop. I took circles as a theme to play about with, and this popped into my head.

The top piece arose from playing about with an evaluation version of a new painting program I'm considering buying. I produced the background first, in portrait format, but suddenly saw the composition when I turned it to lie landscape. I love the colours - those of chocolate - and thought of those longing lifestyle ads for the substance - despite the fact that although I like bitter chocolate occasionally, it's not an obsession.

I suspect that the work is probably the catharsis, and that today will bring a more active perspective.

Demeter akimbo 171 x 114mm

In glorious warm Spring sunshine, with daffodils and fresh greens bursting forth, and seedlings stretching to the increasing light, it is difficult to imagine what damage we continue to inflict on Nature.

Two solutions - and a bonus

One problem of developing a design on a computer is the limited size of the screen - especially when the finished image is going to be considerably larger than can be accommodated on the monitor. Linked to this is an annoying little habit my Painter program has of sending a straight line from my touch point across the image - so that if I am working in blue paint a line of blue will streak across from wherever I touch to an edge of the image. I usually see this, sigh or curse, and delete it.

However, one of the finishing tools I use is to 'add water' to blend hard edges, and the streak of this is almost impossible to see unless I zoom in much more than normal. Unfortunately the machine at the commercial printer has very good eyesight! So the sighing and cursing when I received my printed fabric was considerable.

This design had already presented me with not exactly a problem as such, but a pause for thought. I like the presentation of the three figures, but they were somehow incomplete - decorative, but not meaningful, and thus vaguely frustrating for me. Now the printed image presented an additional disappointment. So I slotted the problems into the back of my brain and got on with something else.

I don't know which news item, or which troublespot set me thinking about the inanities of nationalism, and how we are really all just the same despite our need to form in-crowds repelling outsiders, but suddenly in flew the solution to both problems: a bird killing two stones!

I would use the pale line which is so obvious when left uncovered, but is in reality the palest of marks, as a guide for placement of 'flags'. At once the piece has a meaning for me, it looks livelier, and ... and this is the glorious bonus ... the piece now has a physical third dimension which makes the whole so much more exciting.

It just goes to show that listening to my initial instinct that the design was a good idea (formed from three pages of pastel - originally just trying out a paper stencil on black paper), and persisting despite niggling feelings to go ahead and have it printed. Then not despairing at the mistake of not checking my design properly, but using that as a possible opportunity.

I am making the flags out of dupion silk and some silk habotai which I painted and steam fixed some years ago. It's fiddly work, but worth it.

Volume 2 completed!

In time for World Book Day I have completed the second volume of John Richardson's excellent biography of Picasso. I think that this biography in its first two volumes must be the book about an artist which I have most enjoyed and from which I have derived the most insight and inspiration not only about the artist's work, but also about my own practice. I have the third volume ready to start, but I'm going to take a short break so that cubism can settle itself better in my mind.

Given how much cubism owed to Cezanne, I want to go back to books I have on his work - at the time of a great Cezanne exhibition at the Tate in 1996 I bought a biography which I did not get round to reading. Now is the moment for that. (I often buy books which have to wait for the perfect moment.) Then I also have the catalogue of the Picasso exhibition I saw in Paris in 2007. Then I shall be ready for Vol.3.

Blue bather

I like to use a variegated thread, or two threads of different hue at once in order that the look of the work is never quite the same from different angles, and in different lights. In this work I have used two blues from Stef Francis. The changes in the dye are very slight this time.

I like subtle changes. But something more bold which I very much enjoy is the strong line of black - or sometimes colour as in this case - provided by cutting back to the back fabric. I generally use dupion silk. In the case of the work above it has a beautiful blue/green sheen.