...so, looking back on the year, it seemed a bit 'front-loaded', starting off with three major creative projects: YMYL-2-EDGE was already underway and bridged nicely from 2018 into 2019 with my mentoring of nine artist-makers as they innovated their practice by exploring cutting-edge tech at Pontio's fabLAB in Bangor, culminating in the exhibition and associated programme of events - you can remind yourself of all that entailed HERE...
Then there was the Lead Creative Schools Project at Rhos Street School, in Ruthin, which I helped to facilitate, mostly 'behind-the-scenes' this time as the Arts Council of Wales Creative Agent. I think it went really well and developed naturally from initial concept to final outcomes with the pupil group really taking ownership and steering it all to success with the expert guidance of our Creative Practitioner, Elfin Bow - if you want to see what I consider to be a great example of Creative Learning through the Arts watch the short video below, and if you want to know more about what the Lead Creative Schools initiative is achieving, then you can read all about it HERE...
Around the same time, I was also taking part in a major 'artists takeover' at Plas Bodfa (more on that HERE) and producing work for my solo exhibition INTER⁁VERBA as part of the BBC Get Creative Festival and incorporating a Pop-Up Museum with Storiel at Blaenau Ffestiniog Library and Oriel Maenofferen Gallery. Some of the work premiered as part of that exhibition is now featured in the selected archive of Art Projects HERE,or click on the thumbnails below for some examples...
The Red Sparrow Press published the first two parts of THIS in paperback and then the latter portions of the year were mostly consumed by writing and restructuring the 'final' installments (see top of this post). Illustrations for THIS were featured in the exhibition 'Folklore and Fairy Tales of North Wales' at Oriel Ty Meirion (see previous post HERE) and the books were a focus of several creative workshops and storytelling appearances at the wonderful RSPB Conwy... where there were badges!
...and talking of badges - I was chuffed to be recognised with a 'Top Writer in Art' virtual 'badge' for my work editing, and writing for, The Signifier, an arts publication for the Medium platform - you can check that out HERE
A selection of prints featuring my illustrations for This, That and The Other are currently on show in a mixed exhibition at Oriel Ty Meirion Gallery, Dyffryn Ardudwy, one of the most exciting small galleries in Wales. The show, which runs until 5 January 2020, has the theme of 'Folklore and Fairy Tales of North Wales'.
Folklore and Fairy Tales of North Wales at Oriel Ty Meirion Gallery
a magical, mixed selection of superior quality art including prints and paperbacks by Remy Dean
...that lovely ceramic starling in the middle is by local potter, Jane Williams
My prints are a signed and numbered edition and you can also browse and purchase paperbacks of my current epic fairy-tale fantasy, This Part 1 and This Part 2, as well as my spooky short horror novel, Final Bough, a contemporary tale of the supernatural with a traditional twist, set against the legend-rich landscape of Snowdonia and inspired by local folklore.
Folklore Talk, Storytelling and Book Signing Event
Oriel Ty Meirion, 21 November 2019
free event, but booking required
Event Programme
1. THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER - an introduction to the Folklore of the Three Realms
"A lot of folklore is concerned with other realms. Worlds that exist apart, yet overlap or interact to varying degrees. It is this aspect that aligns many features of myth, folklore and religion around the terrestrial realm we all share… and the idea of the Three Realms has been repeatedly explored through stories, art, psychology, and now the existence of separate realities is widespread in scientific thought. Why does the belief in the Three Realms persist so prominently across multiple cultures spread far and wide, geographically and historically?"
2. THE FOUND HOUND - retelling a traditional Fairy-Story of Wales
"How you care for any animal in need is one way the Fair Ones of Wales judge you & decide whether to bestow epic curses or life changing luck.
I will be storytelling, chatting and hosting creative workshops at THIS live all-day event, alongside Zel Cariad, co-creator of This, That and the Other, and with fellow writer Kim Vertue, author of Welcome to the Dragon Café, which was illustrated by Zel!
Please note that the morning events and exhibition of fantasy illustrations are open to all visitors to the reserve (free for members) and the afternoon storytelling sessions and illustration workshops are ticketed events with limited places, so please book directly with RSPB Conwy
Since June, this year, I have been Mentor for Helfa Gelf's Edge2 Programme
and I am now curating an exhibition at Pontio, Bangor, of the work produced
Mae'r byd celfyddydol a’r byd technolegol yn dod at ei gilydd i archwilio ein profiad dynol yn y byd modern: arddangosfa o weithiau a gynhyrchwyd yn ystod rhaglen YMYL-2-EDGE Helfa Gelf yng Ngofod Arloesi Bocs Gwyn Pontio, o ddydd Sadwrn 19 Ionawr tan ddydd Sul 10 Chwefror 2019. (11:00 - 17:00 dydd Mercher i Sadwrn ac 12:00 - 17:00 ddydd Sul.)
Art meets tech to question our human experience within the modern world: an exhibition of works produced during Helfa Gelf's YMYL-2-EDGE programme in Pontio’s White Box Innovation Space, from Saturday 19 January – Sunday 10 February 2019. (11:00 – 17:00 Wednesday to Saturday inclusive, and 12:00 - 17:00 Sundays)
Details from the Edge2 exhibition at Pontio's White Box
For more info on the Edge2 Programme and to read the original call-out and brief, CLICK HERE
The Edge 2 mentoring and exhibition programme has been a great opportunity and a fascinating process for the mentor/curator and artists involved. To hear more about their experiences using new technologies to innovate and push boundaries in their creative practice, do join us at Pontio, White Box/Bocs Gwyn, Level 2, Prifysgol Bangor, Ffordd Deiniol, Bangor,LL57 2TQ
I will be adding an archive to highlight a selection of projects, both past and on-going, including information and sample images that are representative of the associated works.
“In this exhibition I have selected recent works that consider the differences
between intended meanings and interpretations. This is a continuing exploration
of poetic landscapes, both real and imagined, searching for common-ground for
writing and visual art to cohabit.” - from Artist's Statement
ARTIST'S TALK on Wednesday 10 January 2018 at 17:30
Remy Dean : Dysphasia : Partial List of Works
‘Land Poems’ (2017)
Digital prints made with a photographic process using colours sampled from landscape. Compositions are guided by the interaction of lines using poetic rhythm and metre. Although the 'poems' are linear in structure, they may be ‘read’ in multiple directions, beginning from any square. It was my intention to capture the essence of the land through its colours and transient moods. My initial approach to this photography series was informed by the famous ‘lozenge’ paintings of Piet Mondrian.
This set of 'Land Poems' was produced as part of this year’s Creative Residency at Plas Tan y Bwlch, the Snowdonia National Park Authority's Environmental Study Centre, in Maentwrog, Wales.
‘Writing to Escape…’ (2015 – 2017)
Ongoing series of prints resulting from written drawings of visual and narrative stimuli. Expressing emotions whilst avoiding the deliberate formation of words and so, perhaps, circumventing the cultural dogmas often attached to words and languages. One perceptive viewer described this as, "a tiny form of dance, recorded visually". Precedent for this kind of approach can be found in the calligraphic scroll paintings of China and Japan, and in the modern works of Joan Miró, Cy Twombly, Franz Kline, Hans Hartung, and others…
‘The Stars, at Our Feet’ (2016)
iron : leaves its mark upon the slate in nebulae of rust in a starscape of tiny pits and scratches left by the footsteps of quarriers. The slate, once above their heads, now at their feet, reflecting the infinite night above. Ancient mineral memories… of the blood, of the land, of the stars : iron
The poetic image of slate miners returning to their barracks on a rare, clear night, their heavy work-boots splashing in the puddles, mixing the reflection of the stars with their own. This and the recent classification of the Snowdonia National Park as a Dark Skies Reserve were the seeds for this series of photographs, its title suggested by an old poem by an anonymous Cwmorthin miner. Produced as part of my 2016 Residency at Plas Tan y Bwlch.
You can read an article about The Stars, at Our Feet in EGO MagazineHERE
‘Cicorc Conwy’ (2015 – 2017)
Before setting off on longer than usual voyages, sailors would have ‘one’ last drink in their local pub before embarkation onto their ships and boats. They would enjoy a favourite tipple, smoke a pipe and sometimes they would make a small model dog with corks and match-sticks. These tiny cork companions would travel with them to distant ports in exotic far-off lands and upon their safe return would be gifted to their children. A limited edition, hand-made series of these objet-avec-courte-histoire will be available for adoption, each with accompanying information and story booklet.
‘The Questing Beats Back-Catalogue’ (2017)
A selection of re-issue CD covers from obscure, or non-existent, bands signed to the legendary 1980s art-rock/alt-punk label based in Stoke-on-Trent.
‘Sugar Rush’ (2015 - 2017)
A series of objects, photographs and information commenting on the shaping of the local landscape and culture... taken with a spoonful of sugar. From sugar and slaves… to sheep and slate…
'#Moelwyns' (ongoing, since 2007)
Selected prints from the series of photographs documenting my attempt to capture the ever-changing moods of the Mynyddau Moelwynion mountain range, the transient atmospheric conditions that only people who are lucky enough to live here, in Snowdonia, really get to know. I see the Moelwyns and walk their slopes almost every day of the year... They remain the same, yet continually change. They never get old. To keep up with this series on twitter, click here. 'Illustrations for THIS' (2017)
Illustrations for the forthcoming illustrated edition of This, by Remy Dean with Zel Cariad, Book One of the This, That and the Other trilogy - imaginative fantasy, on an epic scale. The story follows the special friendship between two girls who embark on a magical adventure together, across the three realms. It is a modern fable inspired by Welsh fairy tales and folklore, in the tradition of The Neverending Story, The Box of Delights, The Chronicles of Narnia… This is published by The Red Sparrow Press
The current exhibition in the Stable Block at Plas Tan y Bwlch, Maentwrog, includes a selection of my responses to the Creative Residencies I have undertaken there. More related works will be shown later this year, in a solo exhibition at the Canolfan Maenofferen Centre, in nearby Blaenau Ffestiniog.
Wooden Boulder, the ground-breaking landscape ‘drawing’ by David Nash recorded a journey from the mountain slopes above Maentwrog, down into the river Dwyryd that finally carried the hunk of wood out to sea via the tidal estuary at Portmeirion. As it went its leisurely way, drawing a line through space-time, it recorded the rainfall run-off in the tributaries it travelled.
Spheres and more in the temporary artist's studio of Briony O Clarke...
It has been fifty years since The Prisoner was filmed at Portmeirion. Patrick McGoohan, as Number Six, was chased across the sandy expanse of the estuary at low tide by a wobbly white orb known as ‘Rover’. Perfect white orbs feature in the work of Briony O Clarke, who is in the final year of her low-key residency as the Village Artist. I visited in 2014, when she explained her desire to work with the land, how she wanted to devise a way to produce drawings from the swell of the sea. Last week, I was back at the historic holiday resort and popular tourist attraction to see how it has all developed. What I found was a piece of art that rivals Nash’s ‘Boulder’ for innovation and invention in the field of landscape art.
Briony O Clarke took up residence in 'Number Two's Dome'
Drawing upon her recent research experiences in Oslo, where she worked with the University’s Department of Informatics, Clarke has produced art that merges the mystical folklore of tide and time with information technology and digital data collection. In one corner of her temporary studio, situated in ‘Number Two’s Dome’, she has built the Scrying Pool, a continuous vortex of water contained within a black Perspex bowl. The swirling mini-whirlpool distorts its surroundings in ever-changing rippling reflections. It is an elegant installation that recalls the 1960s lava-lamp Rover nursery that could be seen in the circular Village Control Room. It is also part of a printing process that Clarke has developed from the ancient art of Japanese Suminagashi, where hand-ground pigments and clear oils are floated on the surface of water. Instead of laying paper onto a still surface, pages are carefully introduced into the flow, taking prints from the fluid patterns.
Scrying Pool and the Sea Fax
The culmination of Clarke’s four-year residency is Sea Fax a machine that allows the sea to send us messages of its beauty. A buoy, far out in the Atlantic, measures the levels of the tide and the rhythm of the waves, wirelessly sending this data to Clarke’s contraption, which reminds me of 2001’s Monolith, having a lie down.
Is it a modernist monument, or an understated tomb marker? A pool of water contained within this pure black, table-sized rectangle, is mechanically set in motion to reproduce the conditions out at sea from the live data it is receiving. Clarke then uses pigments ground from locally sourced stones, slate, granite and marble, to produce prints in the Suminagashi tradition. Miraculously, these automatic drawings, transmitted from the sea, often resemble the most beautiful and elegant watercolour landscapes of zen painters. The sea sends us pictures, drawn with the land itself.
Gently. Carefully. Mysteriously.
Two delicate drawings made by Briony O Clarke's Sea Fax
ALL the very BEST for the New Year ...and hoping 2017 is better in every way! WORKS ON SHOW... 2016 was ushered in by my solo exhibition Entropy/Extropy at Oriel Maenofferen Gallery, with other works simultaneously on show as part of the In-Sight 7 Exhibition, at Oriel Mostyn Gallery, and then Oriel Ynys Môn Museum and Gallery. The work was mainly lens-based, with a peppering of drawings and print-work. A couple of works were included in the 'Send Us A Postcard' open exhibition at Storiel Museum and Gallery, Bangor, including a charming cicorc named 'Charter'.
'Charter', the cicorc on exhibition at Storiel Museum and Gallery, Bangor
I enjoyed a Creative Residency at Plas Tan y Bwlch during September, in which I immersed myself in the locale and its myth-rich past, resulting in three, linked articles on the associated legends and folklore:
You can scroll down to read my blog posts from the Residency. I also hosted a few writing workshops and performed several preview readings from my new epic fairy-tale fantasy novel THIS (part one). Visual responses inspired by the research undertaken as part of the Residency are to be exhibited in the Stable Block Gallery this spring.
Bones of the Land (i) from the series, A Poetic Exploration of Cwmorthin
As 2016 drew to a close, some more cicorcs were on show at Galeri Betws y Coed as part of the Helfa GelfLocal Artists Selection, and remain on display in the boutique there. To ‘book-end’ the year, the In-Sight 10 Exhibition, at Oriel Mostyn Gallery, included seven of my drawings and prints (continues until the end of January).
oh, yes... and THIS happened:
Four-years-in-the-making and now we are excited to be sharing THIS journey with y'all... an epic fairy-tale fantasy adventure full of magic and intrigue and action and mystery... Well, you can share the first part of the journey, because my (fledgling) publisher, The Red Sparrow Press, have wisely decided to publish THIS as a part-work, leading up to its planned publication, later in 2017, as an illustrated print edition. Those of you savvy enough to jump on the unicorn from the outset, can ride for free! Part One of THIS came out Halloween 2016, at the very reasonable price of zero pounds and zero pence - yep, it was free! Part Two is to follow for Valentine's Day 2017 and will, no doubt be launched priced at nothing for the first few days, too!
You know, THIS is exactly what you need...
[ Please Note: The taster extract below is not the beginning. It is taken from later on in the book, about a quarter of the way through: a story within the story, told to Rietta and Carla, the two young girls whose story we follow, by Rietta’s Nanna, Ivy… and Scrufty is a dog. The extract appears here courtesy of The Red Sparrow Press. Please read and enjoy - it is ideal for a bedtime story... ]
This summer promises to be very 'British', but regardless of the climate - both political and atmospheric - and whether we have a proper summer this year at all, here are some dates for the diary:
I have recently been working on a final version of This. This is my new novel, and first of the This, That and the Other series of three... Hey, that would be a trilogy! The books are my first for children and young adults and I am writing them in consultation with Zel Cariad, my resident expert on all things fairy and dragon related. So with Zel's invaluable help, and by channeling the veteran child within myself, I have written a fairy-tale fantasy that winds its epic yarn between the world of the 'Fair Ones' and that world where we now dwell...
"She did not know that before the next day dawned, she
would have seen things that she never thought she would ever see, and that soon
she would change forever. She would be changed from being a fairly normal
little girl into being a very special and extraordinary person. It began a long
time ago… but for Rietta, it all started when she met another very special and
extraordinary person."
I will be responding to the house and its environs using texts, images and artefacts... producing new work, signing copies of my books (Final Bough and The Race Glass) and reading from This on the second, third, and fourth weekends (those dates are 10, 11, 17, 18, 24 and 25 of September)
Plas Tan y Bwlch ...steeped in history and seeping with stories
Plas Tan y Bwlch overlooks the village of Maentwrog, named after Twrog's Stone, the ancient stone supposedly hurled there by a giant to smash a pagan altar, and now sited in the Mediaeval graveyard of a church surrounded by a grove of ancient yews. The site is mentioned in the Mabinogion as the place where king Pryderi was defeated in magical combat by Gwydion, and is where, centuries later, the Bible was translated into Welsh-language, and more recently where iron age dwellings and unique bog-iron foundries have been excavated. So, the place and the Plas, are seeping with stories, both ancient and modern.
Recently, I have 'bravely' delved into the haphazard chaos of boxes that is my writer's archive and have already been reminded of some old, though still relevant features and interviews that have never been digitised. So, in my 'spare time', I intend to rescue some choice examples from their dusty obscurity and put them to work again, by uploading them to this weblog. So watch this space for occasional blasts from the past related to film, cult-television, mainstream rock and alternative music...
This year's Yuletide Exhibition at Oriel Maenofferen (Blaenau Ffestiniog Library and Community Centre) showcases a selection of works by Remy Dean, including recent pieces produced during his term as Writer in Residence at Haus of Helfa 2015. Alongside these photographs, prints and drawings, there is a display of 3D work by local potter, Jane Williams - who we are all currently 'rooting for' every Tuesday, on BBC2's Great Pottery Throw Down.
Entropy / Extropy exhibition poster
The following is taken from the Artist's Statement of Remy Dean:
"I am an author and artist… I also teach. "Folklore and hearsay interest me, how the myths and legends of the past affect our world today. I love telling stories that hover somewhere in the hinterland between fact and fantasy, whilst scratching at the surface of a truth. "This exhibition includes some photography, drawings, objects and the outcomes of two recent projects: "In my artist’s statement for NIGHT / LIGHT, my 2011 exhibition here, I wrote: “The weather, natural light effects and moods of the mountains can change in a moment and I would like to attempt to capture more of the transient conditions that only people who are lucky enough to live here, in Snowdonia, really get to know.” This on-going quest has resulted in the #Moelwyns series which I regularly add to via twitter @DeanAuthor#Moelwyns and the book of the same title that collects a selection of 52 photographs to create a portrait of the Moelwyns mountain range through the seasons. (To coincide with the exhibition, the images from Project #Moelwyns have also been compiled onto a Pinterest Board HERE) "During September this year, I was the writer in residence for Haus Of Helfa. This residency of a dozen artists in ‘The Tedder House’, a semi-derelict building in Llandudno, is often referred to as the ‘flagship’ of theHelfa Gelf Art Trail.
Writing to Escape the Words - signed prints by Remy Dean,
framed and waiting, before the exhibition
"As part of the Residency, I experimented with the gesture of writing as a form of drawing, trying to find common ground for writing and visual art to cohabit. Using the same pathways from mind, through brain, to hand - utilising those same conditioned (hand-writing) reflexes to create a unique visual language of mark-making that shares many formal elements with writing, without the encumbrance of literal meaning… Expressing emotions whilst avoiding the deliberate formation of word-language and so, perhaps, circumventing the cultural dogmas often attached to words and languages. One perceptive visitor described this as, "a tiny form of dance, recorded visually". The results are gathered into the book, Scanner - Printer. "Please come to have a look... and enjoy!"
Over the weekend, the Helfa Gelf Residencies for 2015 in Haus of Helfa, opened to the public, and considering the Haus was competing with Festival Number 6, it was not a bad turn-out. The visitors were, in turns, intrigued, disgruntled, interested, confused… What were they doing there, in some half-empty, semi-derelict house in the artists’ quarter of Llandudno?
They were all exploring, with different expectations. Some were expecting to see mini-exhibitions for each of the thirteen artists listed in the guide book. Others realised that, in the first week of a four-week residency, there would not be much to see in the way of fully-finished installations and expected to meet the artists ‘at work’.
The work on show is definitely ‘in-progress’ and in varying stages of development. Some rooms still have only the beautifully bare brickwork on show. Half the listed artists were absent on either day, whilst others were on hand to chat with visitors about their concepts and processes in rooms already full of stimulating… ‘stuff’ - Stuff which is well on its way to becoming… ART?
Welcome to the Writers' Bar in the Haus of Helfa
On entering the Haus of Helfa, the visitor is met by two rooms, one on each side of the raw-wood staircase. To the left, is the ‘Writer’s Bar’. This area is now furnished with bar-counter, tables and chairs that have been reclaimed from the nearby grand, though tragically now condemned, Castle Hotel. (Renovate not rebuild!) This year’s Writer in Residence can be found, as you might expect, in the bar! Of course, that would be me!
Every Saturday and Sunday through September, I will be on hand to chat about my work and yours. The wall hangings you may have seen on display reference traditional Japanese calligraphy scrolls and each have images taken from my sketchbooks and notepads - some of my early responses to the residency. I am interested in the relationship of writing and visual arts and, in some of these pictures, I have explored the visuality of writing… presenting the very unique gestures and formal elements of hand-writing without the encumbrances of literal meaning. There are also ‘spring-board’ quotes from one of my jotters that may help to inform my approach to writing about these residencies.
There is an interactive element: If you have chance to sit and chill with a (non-alcoholic) beverage in the Writer's Bar, there are postcards on which you can write some words of your own to leave on display there - read this earlier post for more details.
The first piece of original work I have completed, specifically for the residency, is also displayed in the Writer’s Bar: Cicorc Conwy is a story told with the use of artefacts, involving a limited series of 10 hand-crafted Cicorcs, numbered, signed and available for adoption. (I think the correct Welsh pluralisation might be Cŵncorc.) You can also meet old ‘Corky’, the inspiration for the piece, and find out about the 'traditional' Cork Dogs of County Conway [click for more info]. I will also be very happy to sign either of my recent books, The Race Glass and Final Bough - both available at the bar.
Monarch (left) and Governor Fenner (right) two of my cicorcs up for
adoption... perky and - to quote curator, Marc Rees - "curious little fellows"
By way of explanation, my submitted artist’s statement reads thus:
“Folklore and hearsay interest me, how the myths and legends of the past affect our world today. I love writing stories that hover somewhere in the hinterland between fact and fantasy, whilst scratching at the surface of a truth. Most of all, I hope to write stories that are not boring, tales that will entertain the intellect and stir the senses. I do not know what discoveries I am about to make, or what form my poetic responses to them may take. I do not know what will happen next, but I look forward to turning the page.
“I will be working on fictions based on research, undertaken as part of my writer’s residency, into the history and past associations of the building itself… the memories of number twenty-six Augusta Street. I hope to explore different methods of storytelling and express my findings through texts, images and artefacts.
“In addition to texts that you may find in this space, you can follow my commentary on-line via my weblog: remydean.blogspot.co.uk and on twitter @deanauthor
“I will publish accounts of my interactions with the works and their creators, here in the Haus of Helfa, creating a personal on-going commentary during September. This written account will emanate from within these walls via e-media to the wider community and so create a globally accessible document of events.”
…enough about me (for now)…
To the right of the stairs, as you enter the old Tedder House, is a large space scattered with old cathode-tube televisions in the process of being set up to show short films relating to the ‘making-of’ Marinella Senatore’s community project, Re:Verb. This was not up-and-running, so I will Re:Serve judgement (for now)...
Right, be brave and venture up the stairs to meet the other Residents:
In the long and large room that fronts the first floor, Alan Whitfield has been hanging gold ‘tinsel’ curtains that conceal and reveal the dusty bricks behind as the breeze from open windows rustle through the strands, making them sparkle in the sunlight. There are tables set up in rows and boxes of bingo dabbers – clues to what this magically and gloriously cheesy ‘grotto’ may become.
Alan is a veteran of the Haus of Helfa and in previous related works, he recorded reminiscences recounted by those who knew the Tedder House when it was a private RAF servicemen’s club. These snippets of recorded memory were then played on a fabulous reel-to-reel tape machine, placed in the house, filling the space once more with some of the same voices that had echoed within the walls many years ago. Of course, those voices were few amongst the many who had once spoken and laughed in the rooms - representing just some of the shared cultural experiences of a generation that experienced the war.
The listener, in the empty room filled only with aural memories, may well have considered all those voices that were absent, all those experiences that have been lost or are now meaningless. Ghosts come to mind… and the emptiness of a once busy club (now a humble, empty husk of a once grand house) becomes even more eerie. The wallpaper, which absorbed those voices along with the exhaled smoke from their pipes – where has it gone? All we see is bare brick and crumbling mortar – if not for those ferrous voices, we could be in any one of a hundred similar abandoned buildings.
This year’s response is again based on research and anecdotal history gathered from those who remember bingo nights at the Tedder House – and we are promised three bingo sessions, for real, on the weekend of Llawn03.
Adjacent to the Whitfield Bingo Hall, is the chamber of Rebecca F Hardy who works with assemblages and interventions, collating photographs, material, objects and texts that carry, often personal, memories – of people passed away, of places now gone or changed, of rooms in houses that she knows well and will never visit again. By gathering evocative and emotive realia into these accumulations, she presents the viewer with evidence of what has passed - into the past - and now remains only in memory.
At this point, I feel that it must be said - and celebrated - that Rebecca’s residency was interrupted by the birth of her child, which makes her the most creative artist in the residency, having actually created life itself! How can we compete with that!? Yet, she still managed to find time to progress her work…
A carpet taken from her grandparents’ house with a circle cut from it, placed aside and ringed with plaster casts of brain-shaped ‘jelly moulds’. In creating such assemblages, she remains conscious of the more intimate aspects of the materials used, evoking experiences of touch, texture and smell. She selects items that, though they are intensely personal, are able to resonate with the common experiences we share. The circle is a strong and clear symbol of the cycle – birth, life, death – and so it puts a great positive angle on her work, which more often seems to deal with grief and passing, that she is personally restarting that cycle!
"Chippin' around, kick my brains 'round the floor..."
Rebecca F Hardy has been 'cutting a rug' -
perhaps to Under Pressure? The cycle continues.
I guess that the room opposite this is the space of Iwan Lewis – there is an easel in one corner upon which is a painting in progress. Iwan is an abstractor who challenges the established notions of what is currently the state of painting. I think he hopes to flout fashion in favour of a direct and honest relationship between the artist and the painted surface - whilst keeping a sense of humour. His work has been described as ‘abstract’ and ‘surreal’, but Iwan’s struggle seems to be to escape the imperialism of such critical labelling. We eagerly await…
…and up to the Second Floor where, in the big front room, we find Neil Coombs, another Haus of Helfa veteran. He is an author and multi-media artist who is known for photo-collage and montage, often with striking surreal elements that raise a smile. There is definitely humour in his work, along with some process of personal, psychological association. “Tell me about your dreams…”
Neil tends to produce work that has a recognisable personality, but is not predictable. So, the finished installation will be a surprise… and he has been very busy indeed, slaving away with saws and power-tools, constructing something like a stage set. Some of the column-like structures he has built are to support light-boxes… he has promised to show me infinity.
In the next room, Tash Brooks contemplates her existential explorations of the human condition. Her installation consists of images projected onto, and through, layers of diaphanous veil. The images are of herself submerged and holding her breath: a body, which is mostly made up of water, within a body of water. Almost becoming at one except for that thin surface of skin that contains her - and beneath that thin surface of molecular tension that separates water from air. In the darker antechamber, off her first room, there are large ‘fish-bowls’ that will also capture projected images within them.
The work seems to explore: Awareness of one’s physical self as a contained essence. Separation form others and the wider world. To be part of, though remain separate. What it is to be aware that we all inhabit what the existentialists referred to as “the inescapable prison of the flesh”. Our only experience of anything other than the self is a purely sensual one...
Gwen Vaughan will explain her fascinating painting process
The third artist on this floor is Gwen Vaughan who works with mixed media to produce surfaces that are sometimes intricate, and sometimes supremely simplistic… surfaces mapped by diagrammatic patterns reminiscent of mind-maps, scientific diagrams or even the tree of life.
Gwen is working with direct drawing, paint, print and layering of transparent acetates. Most of her works in progress at the Haus are beautifully balanced compositions made up of repeated gestures that cover the ‘canvas’ to achieve a quiet complexity. The patterns are not truly abstract, but are created using patterns found in nature, maths and music. There are repeated geometric motifs relating to the molecular structures of minerals and crystals, patterns derived from mathematic analysis of musical scores, algorithmic mark-making echoing the complex beauty of nature that arises from elegant simplicity. Like her work, Gwen is quiet and complex, and will happily chat at length, about her concepts, materials and processes…
…onwards and upwards, to the top floor and former attics:
Michael Powell’s room in the Haus looks like a room in his mind. On first entering, through the ‘magical’ portal of natural wood, we may think we have stepped into the drawing room of some Victorian, down-at-heel gentlemen, or a father’s study in a fairy tale.
There is a large, wooden cabinet against one wall, its draws are turned inside out, stacked in a seemingly hap-hazard manner that allow us to see their contents. Some contain tiny model tableau, assemblages of toys and ephemera that would not look out of place on a Quay Bothers animation set. Some are lined with pictures – narrative images and/or illustrations. There are stories behind some of them. Some of them are behind stories. You see, the text often illustrates the image. It is a chicken and egg and omelette conundrum…
Art over-flow! Welcome to Powell-world!
The space shouts of a fertile, or ‘over-active’, imagination. A mind overflowing with quirky little stories, each one battling for supremacy over reality, waiting to be plucked from the state of flux and set down in a more fixed form. Lively, little story snippets trying to avoid the hunter that will capture them and pin them down. For now, they enjoy their freedom… but, there is a manual typewriter waiting to perform the task, and a big book on a lectern that hints at their final destinies. Is this another writer in residence – yes! Or, perhaps he would prefer the title, ‘story-teller in residence’... as most of the ‘art’ appearing here is telling a story.
We are back to that question I posed in part one: What is the difference between, art and writing? Between words and pictures and picture-words? What exists between artist and audience? Where, and at what point does the, so called, ‘art’ happen? Increasingly, I find the answer is simply, “the individual’s response from within”. Art is what you make of it.
Across the landing, we enter the realm of Peter Haveland, where he has suspended projection screens, to carry films of the immediate environs, around Llandudno, accompanied by associated narrations… I am sure there will be a story behind this, though I have only managed to listen to the tiniest snippet so far, which somehow reminded me of Jonathan Meades – which can only be a good thing!
Test screening of Peter Haveland's audio-visual installation
encouraging emotional engagement with the land...
Peter is particularly suited to this residency, and if Peter is particularly suited to the residency, why is the residency particularly suited to Peter? Recently, his projects have been focussed on the exploration of what he calls ‘Debateable Landscapes’ – forgotten places that occupy a hinterland between urban and rural, between used and abandoned, places that are no longer in use, at least not for their originally intended purpose… Artificial places that are in the process of being reclaimed by nature, or natural places that were in the process of being claimed by humans when that development was arrested. Many of these places are abandoned, derelict or left undeveloped because ownership is in dispute, companies have gone bust, industries became obsolete, finance ran out, people protested, people died… many reasons. His photographed and filmed responses to these environments are a form of exploration and archaeology of people, places, past and present. The Tedder House is right up his street!
David McBride batons down - working directly with the fabric of the house
In a nearby room, David McBride is at work with wooden batons, paint and photographs he has taken of details found inside the house – patterns in the stone, brick and timber - uncovered evidence of original construction and subsequent alterations. He is responding to the very structure of the building itself.
David is an artist who primarily uses photography to investigate our abstract landscape. He is known for strong and simple compositions that evoke the Modernist icons such as Malevich, Klein, Albers, Stella… In a very real sense, his work here at the Haus of Helfa is ‘new constructivism’, the perpendicular framing structures he is installing are painted with subtle – and not so – colours ‘lifted’ from the images of the stones and mortar that they will serve to frame. This will be a sculptural response, as well as a photographic one.
Lastly, but not leastly, in a gabled corner of the house, Lisa Carter is working on another of her installations that responds elegantly, and at a deep level, to her research findings. She is another veteran of the Haus of Helfa and last year, she produced The Tedder Carpet - a room occupied by suspended plumb-weights, hanging from ceiling to almost touch the floor. They referenced the architectural limbo of the site, with the plans to develop the house themselves suspended, but they were arranged in a grid pattern to echo the Tedder ‘low-level marking methods’, used to plan for saturation ‘carpet’ bombing during WW2.
These plum-lines with weights that resembled bombs, took up very little volume within the room, though the installation almost filled it and rendered the heart of the space inaccessible, a very understated comment on the results of such bombing. As the audience moved around the structure, the nylon suspension lines swayed and the weights moved slightly, bringing to mind that instant before impact… serene yet chilling…
Lisa Carter's systematic use of spaces and gaps... in the house and in the memory...
This year Lisa, has developed another idea from her war-related research findings. Again, she has occupied and truly responded to the space, utilising the actual spaces and gaps. White envelopes are placed in a grid pattern, wedged upright using the gaps between the floorboards. Other wooden wedges compress stacks of envelopes along one side of the floor area. The envelopes are arranged so that when the sun slants in through the window, they cast shadows and also reveal their back-lit translucency – they are empty. Envelopes immediately indicate correspondence and their emptiness raises questions. So the emptiness becomes poignant. Are these envelopes representing letters that were never written, or thoughts that could not be put into words?
Not a microscope photo of brain neurons....
not a war-time aerial reconnaissance photograph...
but the dust-laden web of a spider in the space between wall and window frame (photograph by Remy Dean)
Her artist’s statement talks about the ‘eloquent brain’ – a region within the cortex that holds language and controls speech. So given this clue, we are led to consider many things… the ability to speak, the difference in languages, and what happens when this area of the brain is damaged. Physical trauma to this part of the brain affects the physical mechanics of speaking, but not writing. The envelopes then hint at a more psychological trauma that affects the ability to speak, to communicate… to remember. This year, Lisa has produced another piece that is deceptively simple, subtle and deep, one that rewards quiet contemplation from the viewer.
- and this empty space must be the room of .................... ?
This year’s role-call of residents at Haus of Helfa, 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno are (in alphabetical order):
🔥🐲 🌌
#ThisThatAndTheOther #WebNovel
Chapter 25 published today!
“Yes, ghosts of a sort. They drift… little more than empty, troubled thoughts without form, easily influenced by the will of others and a bit of dark magic”
🎠 threerealms.substack.com/archive?sort... ✨
📗 #booksky #fantasy #books 🐉
🌝 祝福中秋佳节快乐 🐇 月圆人圆事事圆满 🥮
Hoping for an elegant, ethereal evening - so, it’s time for the perfect accompaniment & suitably celestial song + MV from 🧸 #咬人猫 🪷 #Yaorenmao aka Ririchiyo the Biting Cat 🐾 playing the dual role of Chang'e & Jade Rabbit
月白 Moon White ⚪ youtu.be/PihiXh5VNbM?... #music #中秋节
#RemyReviews
'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (1951) 75 Years old!
"sleek retro-futurism & iconic golden-age imagery colliding with 1950s film noir ... but its carefully considered allegorical flexibility has ensured its longevity"
my #movie #review @framerated.co.uk
🛸 medium.com/framerated/t...
🪻 🧙 🌳 🎠 🐉
#ThisThatAndTheOther #WebNovel
Chapter 23 published today!
“we all shared one world. They say magic made the world go round. But magic became the currency of power & this eventually led to conflict"
🔥 threerealms.substack.com/archive?sort... ✨
📗 #booksky #fantasy #folklore #books 🐉
🌳 🪻 🪷 🥪 🐎 🐉
#ThisThatAndTheOther #WebNovel
Chapter 22 published today!
“The girls were too shocked to speak. They were both elated at seeing a mythical, magical creature, and at the same time, absolutely terrified..."
🔥 threerealms.substack.com
📗 #booksky #fantasy #folklore #books 🐉
#RemyReviews
'The Saragossa Manuscript' (1965)
new 4K restoration of the full uncut print on @filmsradiance.bsky.social UHD + #Bluray
"...is this 3-hour philosophical #fantasy romp a sprawling mess or surrealist masterpiece?"
my #movie #review @framerated.co.uk
💀 medium.com/framerated/t...
#RemyReviews
'My Man Godfrey' (1936) • 90 years old today!
"...will certainly appeal to fans of P.G Wodehouse’s & anyone who enjoys a top-hole classic screwball #comedy. But I don’t think its appeal is limited to nostalgia."
my #movie #review @framerated.co.uk
🎬 medium.com/framerated/m...
#RemyReviews
'The Inugami Family' (1976) • 50th anniversary 4K restoration @filmsradiance.bsky.social #Bluray
"Kon Ichikawa fuses intellectual mystery with melodrama about a fractured family confronting its war-tainted legacy."
my #movie #review @framerated.co.uk🎞️
🎭 medium.com/framerated/t...
#RemyReviews
'A Knight’s Tale' (2001) • 25 Years Later
Brian Helgeland’s postmodern medieval classic still rocks
"spectacular, thrilling, witty, romantic & possibly the best example of deliberately deployed anachronism on film"
my #movie #review @framerated.co.uk 🐎
⚔️ medium.com/framerated/a...
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