A Baker’s Dozen - The Haus of Helfa Journals (part 2)

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):

Tash Brooks
Lisa Carter
Neil Coombs
Remy Dean
Ronan Devlin
Rebecca F Hardy
Peter Haveland
Iwan Lewis
David McBride
Michael Powell
Alana Tyson
Gwen Vaughan
Alan Whitfield

Click on a name above for more info.

More info and directions for Haus of Helfa, can be found on the Helfa Gelf Residencies page.

also check out the Llawn03 website

…and if you are in Llandudno during any weekend in September, do drop by - a cicorc is waiting for you!

Lelia, a very special cicorc, wonders who will take her home with them?

Until next time, bon voyage!

B C N U (in the bar) xxx

[read part 3]

A is for Cow - The Haus of Helfa Journals (part 1)

It was the 70th anniversary of the atomic blast that levelled Hiroshima.

The sound of the ceremonial peace bell still chimed through the world media.

It somehow seemed fitting that my first visit to the space that I have been allotted in the house, at number 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno, was on this solemn day of remembrance, 6 August... Because, along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the firestorm created by the bombings of Dresden ranks as one of the decisive horrors of the Second World War.

RAF Marshall, Arthur William Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, GCB, 1943
(picture courtesy, Imperial War Museum)

Dresden was suggested as a target for ‘strategic’ bombing by British Air Marshal Arthur W Tedder. This was the same man who was instrumental in devising the grid system for the RAF ‘low-level marking methods’ used to coordinate the carpet bombing so dreadfully showcased during February 1945. It was not only Dresden that burned, the very air in and around the city caught fire. The true number of casualties will never be known, but estimates range around 25,000 with some historians putting the figure much higher and into hundreds of thousands. The destruction of Dresden is often explained as a response to the bombing of Coventry... Number 26 Augusta Street is still locally known as ‘The Tedder House’, it was renamed in honour of Arthur W Tedder when it became an RAF servicemen’s club.

The building now stands empty, its interiors hacked back to the brick. Like an evacuated, gutted house evoking the emptiness of those buildings in post-bomb Dresden, or the ground zero monument of Hiroshima.  Now, that emptiness will be challenged by its antithesis: Creativity will transform the inner space once more. This year’s artists in residence are set to occupy those empty rooms and bring the dormant house back to life.

Here is an account of what happened in last year's Haus of Helfa.

Ghost writer in residence at Haus of Helfa?

I have been placed on the ground floor, where big bay windows let the light stream through into the darkness. The room is a blank page, quite a big blank page. So, can they install a bar? Yes they can!

So what does it mean to be the first writer in residence for Haus of Helfa?

It is all about art.

There are to be twelve ‘artists’ in residence, plus one ‘writer’.

So, is a writer not an artist?

Or, are writers a special type of artist?

What is art, and what is writing?

Label Your Words by Remy Dean (photograph of assemblage, 2015)

Lines drawn with a pencil can be just simply that – nothing more than marks on paper – yet, through some intangible and subtle act of transformation, they can become art… and also, lines written on paper can be just simply that – nothing more than a bunch of words – though a collection of words can somehow become more that their collective meaning, sometimes they may transcend their basic code. A diagram is one thing, a work of art is another. A shopping list is all very practical, a piece of literature is something else. Same tools, same ingredients… different end results.

To confuse matters – a diagram can be elevated in status to become a work of art and a shopping list could become a poem… depending on the skill of the creator, the context in which it is experienced, the intended meanings and the perceived meanings. Something to do with, as Charles Bukowski put it, STYLE, or with what William Blake described as the POETIC GENIUS. The style and poetic genius of the creator or/and the audience.

Artists are dealing with something beyond their means, wrestling or dancing with ideas that cannot be fully expressed by the physical tools at their disposal. They are hinting at something, exploring ideas that cannot, or should not, be fully expressed. A piece of art is on-going, never fully finished. After it leaves the domain of its maker, it continues its journey and begins to consolidate its meanings in the minds of the users – a conversation ensues between the work (and its intended meanings) and the viewer (and what is understood from it)… Art, therefore is a PROCESS.

A butterfly, fluttering across a meadow of summer flowers, its colours flashing in the sunlight, stirs the senses in a way that a pinned specimen in a museum drawer cannot, and the memory of seeing it can be more beautiful than the experience. A few words can evoke that scene in a very similar way as a skilled sketch may do. I just caught a butterfly in my mind and I gave it to you – is your butterfly the same as mine? I think mine was a comma, but its flight was so lively and joyous that I could not be sure.

The pinned specimen was different – a blue variety, and something I can also do is carefully blow the pale dust from its delicate, iridescent wings, unpin it from the display tray and hold it in the palm of my hand. Watch closely and… yes! Its wings tentatively move again, part closing then opening like the pages of a book that will not lay flat. It is delicate and shimmering in the light from the open window, little legs grip the very tip of my finger for a moment before it takes flight, the blue of its wings flashing against the blue of the sky as it flies free and far… we smile, until the bird swoops and takes it. Are we now happy for the bird to have something to feed its nestlings? Or are we saddened that a specimen that had sat in a dark dusty draw for more than a century only got to enjoy its miraculous resurrection and new found freedom for mere moments?

Do not worry, the bird was not really there – I made that bit up – we watched as the butterfly flew away, a diminishing fleck in the vast dome of bright sky… and was gone.

'The Visual Arts' is an often used term of differentiation.

From the very simple butterflies example above, we can see that text and writing are within the visual arts. See what I mean?

A is for 'Cow'
(a manipulated vintage illustration)

Reading, with your eyes, has an obviously visual element, yet in good writing that element vanishes and we see the evoked mind-images, instead of the visual text. Painting and drawing are much more ‘in your face’, yet often it is internal dialogues that have led to the creation of the piece and are then sparked off in the minds of the audience. The image creates words. Many artists will argue that they express only emotion and the response in the viewer is purely emotional – many writers will also claim this – though this is clearly not the case. Art deals with far more than emotions and, probably, if we could sum up everything a piece of art is or does, then it would be reduced to a document and no longer be art.

So, all visual arts are attempting to express something from the artist and elicit responses from the viewer. What differentiates each piece of work is the materials and languages used, and the codes conveyed. Writing began as the drawing of sounds, visually recording those sounds that make up words that are the codes of a language - and through the understanding, or at least an interpretation, of language a meaning is arrived at. Visual art also uses languages, such as theories of form and colour, there are codes, and through the interpretation of those codes a meaning is arrived at. Different interpretations = different meanings.

Let us start at the beginning, when drawing and writing were the same thing...

This meant ‘cow’:

A Cow

We can still understand the visual code here as a simple portrait of a generic 'head of cattle', the broad curve of its horns above the tighter 'U' shape of its head. Originally devised as a means of accounting to keep track of cattle, which were used as currency, and to aid with the introduction of taxation. The glyph was scratched into soft clay, which could be re-wetted and wiped clean for re-use.

“How much does that cow cost?”

“One cow, please.”

“I already have a cow…”

“Well that’s one cow you owe me.”

“Hang on a minute…”

When there arose a need for more permanently accurate records, ones that were harder to tamper with, clay was replaced with stone. It was more difficult to etch curves into harder materials, so the cow glyph was simplified and adapted into straight lines only.

Three Cows

Imagine reading one of these stone tablets upside down... perhaps this was the reaction to that first ever tax bill:

 " A A A "

The letter for ‘cow’ survives to this day as the first letter of the Alphabet - a testament of the central importance of cows to ancient western societies.

F is for ‘cow’

It is the same story for the letter 'F' – adapted from Fehu, the first letter in the Viking Futhark, the ancient Germanic alphabet.

This glyph started out as a simplified pictograph of a bull or cow, seen from the side: a horizontal line representing the body of the animal with two upstrokes for horns. I see it as a cow fording a boundary river, as it is driven from the territory of one owner onto the land of its new owner.

Lucky Cow!

This rune came to represent wealth and prosperity, and became upright when it needed to be used in conjunction with other runes in a row of writing. Later its form was simplified to what we recognise as our letter 'F'.

Words become pictures become words become pictures.

B C N U xxx

PS: The shortest SF story ever, written by Forrest J Ackerman and first published in Vortex Magazine during the 1970s, was titled Cosmic Report Card: Earth and consisted of a single letter…

NB: Due to copyright, I am unable to reproduce the story here.

& so with that, I shall F off ...until next time.

For more info about the Haus of Helfa Residencies, see the Helfa Gelf website

[read part 2]

citations: 

(this is art not academia, but if you are interested in more info on the origins of writing)

Origins of Writing at The New York Metropolitan Museum of Arts's Heilbrunn Timeline

Writing Timeline at the Ancient History Encyclopedia

The Story of Writing at Historian.net

History of Writing at History World

(click here to read part 2)

Remy Dean Joins The Residents

I am glad to announce that I will be the writer in residence at Helfa Gelf’s Haus of Helfa 2015.

Haus of Helfa is part of the 'Lost Spaces' project, a collaboration between Helfa Gelf, Oriel Mostyn and the Llawn03 Festival. It facilitates the use, by creative artists, of otherwise disused buildings. Haus of Helfa is the flagship of this project and is located at 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno AKA The Tedder House.

The Tedder House at 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno
 has been many things... now a home for creativity

Beginning in August, I will be joining twelve other artists who will be working in, and with, this unique and stimulating art space. Every weekend through September, the doors will be opened to visitors who can watch the work in progress and chat to the artists about their ideas, concepts and methods. The residency culminates in the launch of the Llawn03 Festival on the weekend of 18, 19 and 20 September.

I enjoyed Haus of Helfa 2014 and wrote a piece about it here on this weblog. It was a great success and I hope we can, at least, match its success this year.

I intend to develop work in collaboration with the other residents, and also with visitors and the wider communities. It is early days yet, Jack, so watch this space (or follow me on twitter @DeanAuthor) for more details!

In the meantime, YOU can get involved simply by sending me a postcard...

A selection of contributed postcards will be displayed within my exhibition area linked to this year's Haus of Helfa theme: Revisit / Reveal. You can write a postcard linked to any one of the three stimuli below:

1.  send a postcard to your former self (or to your future self, because one day you will be your future self's former self), imparting some significant nugget of information, or asking yourself a few questions - funny or philosophical.

2.  describe a place and time that you would wish to revisit but cannot ever again - poignant, pensive or polemical...

3.  or simply recount an anecdote of something that you have experienced when in, or near, Llandudno - be as straightforward or poetic as you like!

It is up to you what postcard you send, I would suggest one representing your local area (from whatever far-flung part of the world you live in), or your own original drawing or design. Suitable postcards will be selected for public exhibition at Haus of Helfa during my residency in September 2015 (I would recommend including no personal details apart from name and location, if you so wish). Postcards will be considered as donated, cannot be returned and will not be used for any other purposes other than those linked to this artistic venture. Some may be published on-line or in resulting printed artifacts. As I will not be able to reimburse you for the cost of postcard and postage, I will, on your behalf, donate £1 per card for the first 50 received, to local Llandudno charity Hosbis Dewi Sant.

Please send your postcards to:

Remy Dean
Haus of Helfa 2015
P O Box 1
Blaenau Ffestiniog
LL41 3ZB
United Kingdom

I look forward to receiving your contributions!

You can check out my Helfa Gelf homepage here...

A Sunday in London: A Study in Sherlock

“Enter through the bookcase…” thus begins your adventure into the realm of Sherlock Holmes. One of the main missions of the weekend was to visit the major Sherlock Holmes exhibition currently at the Museum of London…

The exhibition is divided into several sub-sections but is broadly divided in two, with the first half setting the scene and focussing on the Victorian London of Sherlock Holmes, the London in which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived and made authentically present in the stories. The London of the era is so well evoked in - and integral to - many of the stories that this has led many (particularly Americans, it seems) to believe that Holmes was indeed a real historical personage and not a fictitious character. Here you can see paintings and photographs depicting various aspects of Victorian London, often with a quote from a specific story next to it, highlighting the relevance of the artwork and the authenticity of the text.

Views of Victorian London - photogravure prints by Alvin Langdon Coburn

Amongst the well-selected works, which include Whistlers and Monets, I particularly enoyed a row of photogravure prints by Alvin Langdon Coburn, the American photographer who was a huge influence on the Futurist. He is one of the first photographers to make bold, balanced compositions of light and dark with the ‘modern’ city as his source material. The Futurists believed that he showed cities in a positive way and managed to capture their light and abundant energy (both physical and cultural). Futurists believed that cities were machines for living and were necessary to build the future, by facilitating cultural and technological changes at an accelerated rate due to the density of population enabling a rapid exchange of ideas. The images in the exhibition are beautiful examples of Langdon’s work and of the photogravure etching technique, with a very distinctive atmosphere. I have seen some of these images before, but looking at the real things closely is a different experience. The surfaces have a certain quality that cannot be captured through modern glossy printing and certainly not conveyed over a screen. 

The immortal Sherlock Holmes
(click image for reviews or to purchase catalog on-line)

The second half of the exhibition is about Sherlock Holmes, the character, and how he has changed and developed significantly, whilst remaining essentially the same. There is a filmed interview with Conan Doyle in which he explains much of his thinking and intentions behind the character and his motivations for creating the character in the first place: He enjoyed the genre of whodunit detective stories, but was frustrated because the crime scenario was always set up and then the detective, or inspector, would solve the case either without explanation - he would just know whodunit - or else there would be a torrent of clues right at the end as the case was solved that the reader had not been privy to. He would rather have had the challenge of ‘role-playing’ the detective character and working out the clues throughout the story, hoping to solve the case before the denouement and then waiting in suspense to see if he had it right. So this is what he always tried to achieve with a good Sherlock Holmes story.

On display are a few ‘holy relics’ of Serlockania, such as the original, hand-written manuscript for The Tangled Skein, with that title struck out and A Study in Scarlet added instead. In a cabinet opposite this, there are also some pages from Edgar Allan Poe’s original manuscript for Murders in the Rue Morgue, featuring the detective, C Auguste Dupin, said to have been the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. So the story of Sherlock begins with the stories, then the exhibition explores how different illustrators have contributed to the enduring visual identity of Sherlock and Watson. It is obvious from portraits of Conan Doyle on display that, from the start, the appearance of Dr Watson was based very closely on the author. The visual identity of Sherlock Holmes developed quickly, though tentatively, until the illustrations for the stories appearing in The Strand magazine were commissioned to Sidney Paget who consolidated the aquiline features and accessories we still associate with the character.

Watson and Holmes as visualised by Sidney Paget for The Strand

After establishing the origins of Holmes, the exhibition climaxes with a chamber showing items form the Museum of London’s collection that would be identical to items mentioned in the stories: coats hats, shoes, canes, chemistry supplies, smoking paraphernalia, a violin, medical equipment, make-up and wigs worn by actors of the era that would have been useful for the master of disguises... There are also authentic props from some of the film and television production, including Benedict Cumberbatch’s unique coat.

There is also a very interesting ‘thread’ to this section of the expo demonstrating, with the use of actual artefacts of the time, some of the observations and deductions made by Sherlock Holmes. Such as the spatters on the cuffs of a typist’s blouse made when re-inking a ribbon for the, then new, writing machine. The cuts and cracks in the sole of a shoe which could be matched to a cast of a footprint left in mud at a crime scene. The discovery of finger-printing techniques placed in context with the contemporary, and the now debunked, concept of the physiognomy of criminal types.

Numerous screens showed the many and varied actors who have portrayed Homes and Watson, including some of my favourite versions - Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely, Christopher Plummer and James Mason, and for me the definitive pairing of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke… The whole exhibition brought back poignant memories of seeing them both perform in the two-man play The Secret Of Sherlock Holmes at the Wyndam’s Theatre back in 1989(!?). I had interviewed Jeremy Brett over his pre-performance steak dinner and he had made a note of my party’s seat numbers… and during the performance he delivered a key line directly to us… a lovely gift and a treasured memory.

(An extract of this interview first appeared in Outlook Magazine and here you can read the fuller interview with Jeremy Brett as it later appeared in The Scrawl.)

A fascinating exhibition that manages to stay focussed on meaningful content and examines the many elements that have contributed to making a man that never lived into an immortal. Elementary, of course! 

Tom Hunter's photography beautifully showcased on this scale model
of Ellingfort Road in the early 1990s

We then had some time to spend in the main collections of the Museum, so we started in the Twentieth Century and I was particularly impressed with the beautiful fusion of model-making and photography that forms the piece titled The Ghetto. This 3D artwork authentically documents Ellingfort Road in the early 1990s when it was scheduled for demolition. It is a collaboration between photographer Tom Hunter and model-maker, James MacKinnon. The walls and doors and shop-fronts of the model, along with interiors glimpsed through windows, are surfaced with photographs of the actual doors, walls and wallpapers. Look in through some of the windows and you see back-lit miniature transparencies showing some of the people who lived there at the time, in situ. This is a loving personal monument - Hunter was, and still is, one of the street’s residents - to what could have become a forgotten part of London life.

From the 1900s, we then travelled back in time via the Victorian Walk, to before that era of Holmes and Watson, exploring the London of the past… the Great Fire, the Globe Theatre and the Great Bard, the Great Plague, the Danelaw, the Romans… we finished with artefacts excavated from the Temple of Mithras discovered in the City. The cult of Mithras was an early Roman religion with many elements inherited from Ancient Egypt, it was a dominant cult at the time of Jesus and there are many parallels with Christianity. All very interesting, though Mithras' traditional Phrygian cap does make him look rather like he was balancing a guinea pig on his head …and did Serapis, the god of the Mithran underworld, balance a pot of yogurt on his? No that is his modius - a corn measure representing the fertility of the earth above him...

Mithras and Serapis - once you see the guinea pig... 

As we were leaving the museum, there was an added writer-related bonus: a mini Paddington exhibition with his famous hat, case and duffle coat as realised for props in the recent film adaptation. The attention to detail was impressive, with the toggles bearing (sic) the scratch marks caused by little fumbling claws. What thrilled me the most was seeing the typewriter used by Michael Bond to write some of the early books. I was born in the year of its manufacture and some of my earliest bookish memories are going to the children’s section of our local library, with my brother, to borrow the latest Paddington adventure. We read them as they were published and then had to wait impatiently for the next.  The first few were out before I could read, so I have cherished memories of listening to my older brother read them to me – oh, how we laughed and laughed at the antics and adventures of the funny little bear... He was as real to me as Sherlock Holmes!

Michael Bond's 1965 Olympia typewriter

A hugely enjoyable and educational weekend in London rounded off with a Sunday spent at the Museum of London before heading back up north, stopping for a welcome KFC at Oxford Services, minutes before they shut down for the night… much needed coffee was consumed.

A Saturday in London: Dickens and the Dawn of the Modern Age

After an excellent full-English breakfast, courtesy of the Goodenough College taken in its grand Georgian dining hall, it seemed fitting to venture on into the Victorian era. Just a five minute stroll from our well-appointed rooms in Mecklenburgh Square we found the understated façade of 48 Doughty Street, former residence of a certain Mr Charles Dickens – an author of some repute…

Despite the busyness of the half-term holidays, the Dickens Museum was an oasis of calm. The townhouse has been mostly restored to how it was when the Dickens family lived there and is also partly a museum-style exhibition, laid out over five floors with shop and small café. The set-up is very evocative and aids the visitor in imaging that they may be a guest at one of Charles Dickens’ famous dinner parties, perhaps rubbing shoulders with the ‘literary lions’ of their time, and to be treated to one of the after-dinner readings in the second floor drawing room, hearing the great writer practice the recitals from his work that he would later take on a theatre tour.

We spent a good hour in the modest museum and learnt more about Dickens than most of his friends and family knew of him in his day. He was very secretive about his early years and his workhouse childhood due to his father being in debtors’ prison. He also concealed the fact that he wore spectacles, though here you will find an intimate portrait of him wearing them. The story of his own early years is told through a selection of artefacts displayed in the nursery, where his own children were stored during social functions.  Here you will also see a glass cabinet displaying a rather handsome stuffed raven, presumably one of Dickens’ series of pet ravens (or representing them) but not the famed raven named Grip who was the inspiration for Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, The Raven (according to Poe, he had originally considered using a parrot before the 'Dickens Intervention', though this would never have had the same Gothick import as the big black wound-grouse).

The writing desk those famous words flowed across... (and a waste paper basket where other words ended up)

Although I would not consider myself a ‘huge fan’ of Dickens, or any kind of aficionado, it was a thrill to stand before the actual writing desk of the great author and consider the worn leather surface with its contours that may have diverted his pen strokes. Not sure of the historic accuracy of detail, but the waste paper basket at the side of the desk was filled to overflowing with discarded drafts…

Before visiting this charming museum, with its intimate atmosphere and very helpful staff, I did recognise Dickens as an important author and particularly admired A Christmas Carol and The Signalman, though now have a deeper understanding and admiration of the man. Amongst the many things I learnt during the visit, one of the most memorable was that hedgehogs were often employed in Victorian households as kitchen maids…

Hedgehogs were sometimes kept in Victorian kitchens
to help control the slugs and bugs...

Then a tube journey to South Kensington and a long underground walk via the tiled, Victorian underpass, past the ‘secret entrance’ to the Victoria and Albert (next time!) and on to the heart of the museum district, emerging right outside an entrance to the Science Museum, where we would spend the rest of the afternoon.

It was too busy to really engage with many of the exhibits, but so many of the items on display are of such historical importance than any engagement is rewarding. After leaving the evocation of the Victorian era at the Dickens Museum, we stayed with this narrative and tracked the Industrial Revolution, Watt's Rotary Steam engine, Stevenson’s Rocket, Babbage’s Difference Engine, an original Daguerreotype camera, lovingly detailed models of ocean going steam ships… then suddenly we saw the modern age come into being and above us were rockets and communication satellites… Dickens was alive during a period of great change and political upheaval in the world, he saw steam power and the dawning of the modern age, but in less than a century after his death we had satellites!

This particular visit was of great personal benefit because we discovered the 'flight' room on level 3 - which we had never seen before - packed with huge antique aeroplanes including the Hawker Hurricane and the even more beautiful Spitfire: an engine of death, but also a symbol of hope, and a rare example - along with the Dazzleships - of creative art having a tangible, quantitative effect in the real world. Apparently, the curve of the wings and their rounded tips were added by a concept artist for aesthetic reasons in some sketches and only then did the engineers realise that this would allow the wings to be shorter whilst retaining their structural integrity, enabling the Spitfire to execute its famous tight turns and increase its manoeuvrability at speed… There was also a cabinet displaying lovely detailed scale models of First World War planes and this helped me correct a potential error in one of the current stories I am developing. Time spent in the Science Museum sparks many creative ideas.

An inspiring detailed model of the DeHavilland DH4 (1917)
as featured in my latest novel

After taking in a 3D Imax film of the wonders to be found under the sea – including fantastic, shimmering cuttlefish and close up grey seals that you feel you could have kissed – we reluctantly left the building with an extended list of what to spend more time with next visit.

So, it was time for dinner and we had a table booked at the legendary Mr Kong’s in Soho’s Chinatown. We received the usual warm, friendly welcome from Edwin and the staff and enjoyed the best Cantonese food to be had outside of Canton! It was a table of five, so we were able to sample a good variety befitting a celebration of the new Year of the Goat.

We started with the house special of steamed scallops, served on a half-shell with glass noodles and a fantastic sweet and hot chilli-garlic-coriander sauce that changes every time, adjusted to balance the character of the shellfish according to their seasonal variations – if I had to name a favourite food… The plain fried noodles were a fantastic culinary backdrop to the sizzling king prawns in garlic sauce which cook on an iron skillet as they are brought to the table. The fried, shredded, roast pork with garlic sprouts is another recommended order – the pork delivers the salty satisfaction of good bacon and the garlic sprouts have a fresh sweetness similar to green beans in garlic butter. The duck with mango and spring onion was a balancing act of richness, tang and fresh sweetness… The old standard of sweet and sour chicken is anything but standard… The Chinese tea and Tsingtao beer tasted much better than they should! Perhaps it was relaxing and chatting with friends after a busy and fulfilling full day out in London, in a great restaurant serving world-class cuisine at very reasonable prices – what better way to round off the Year of the Horse and a Saturday in London?

Happy New Year!

Next: A Sunday in London

A Friday Evening in London: The State of Tate

By mid-afternoon, the bookish business was done with, so we looked for somewhere that would stay open late and, with very little discussion, quickly decided to visit one of our regular London destinations: Tate Modern. Recently, it has been the special temporary exhibitions that have attracted us - Matisse followed by Malevich - so this time we decided to have a good look at some of the permanent collection that we had either overlooked or not seen for many years.

We entered through the 'side doors', stepping directly into the famous Turbine Hall - the biggest art space in the world – that is not including… the world and the large scale earthworks that exist elsewhere, constructed by artists like James Turrell and the founder of eARTh, Robert Smithson …and not forgetting the original Norse Danavirki - but it is a huge space and was once a main attraction of the gallery. Some spectacular, huge, challenging work would welcome visitors and really make a statement that you had arrived at a Modern Art Museum with a BIG difference.

I’m getting nostalgic now, recalling earlier visits when we experienced Anish Kapoor’s Marsyas that filled the space, while leaving much of it empty, Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project, aka 'the indoor sun', that had people basking on the concrete beach of the hall, Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth that truly used the structure of the building and influenced people's movement through the vast emptiness (short video below, courtesy of The Guadian). All impressive, innovative works that really engaged the audience and used the space to best effect. Since those early days, when the Tate was obviously rising to the challenge and making a real effort to utilise the huge void, the Turbine Hall has been repeatedly disappointing.



This time, Richard Tuttle’s huge structure of exotic fabric and marine ply was suspended at the far end of the hall. The sculpture itself was intriguing and a good conversation point - making use of the two viewing angles, from the ground and the mezzanine, but had no harmony with the space it occupied. Perhaps the awkwardness was the point, as it tried to fly yet remained contained? Or was it the aerofoil forms in opposition to the Brutalist, earthbound squareness of the old power station architecture? It did not seem like a sculpture that used this unique space, just one that would not fit anywhere else. For such a monumental work, its dialogue with the surroundings seemed surface and slight. I suppose the difference is that this was a sculpture, not an installation... Perhaps Tuttle was not so sure himself, he did title the work, I Don’t Know. (If the Tate curators are stuck for works that can fill the space effectively, I would be very happy to negotiate! Ohh, get him! The arrogance of the lad!)

Tate Modern houses a truly world-class collection of the Modern that will never disappoint. This time, highlights included re-discovering Giuseppe Penone’s Tree of 12 Metres - the elegant form of a tree reclaimed from within an industrial wooden beam, by carving back from the surface following the knot-patterns in the grain to reveal the branch pattern of a younger version of the original tree. Most sculptors visualise a form within a mass and carve away material to reveal that imagined form. Penone has used a very similar approach, but here the form he has revealed did actually exist within the mass and the materials guided his carving. This reflects his interest in materials and processes: the natural process of growth, followed by the industrial process of the saw-mill and then the artistic process of wood carving, serving here as a sort of time travel. This focus on Process Art led Penone to be linked with the Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and also aligns him with the approaches of other important artists including Yves Klein and Joseph Beuys.

My favourite room in Tate Modern would be the Joseph Beuys set-up including the installation Lightning with Stag in its Glare, but on this visit I discovered what may well be a new favourite room: Level 4: Room 7 - here you can surround yourself with Cy Twombly’s monumental series of paintings celebrating Bacchus. The energetic and enigmatic, brush-on-long-stick gestures of running red paint evoke the blood and wine of a Bacchanalian orgy and the Romantic Peak Experience.

Cy Twombly's invigorating Bacchus paintings (2008) dominate the room.

These huge paintings form a vivid backdrop to the more subdued sculptural work that look as if they have been unearthed from some archaeological dig. They seem both solid and fragile, ancient and modern, very personal and of a wider culture. Twombly’s art often explores an individual response to mythic themes, ancient archaetypes re-appropriated as personal talismans. This Twombly room is filled with the joy and energy of the hugely expressive paintings, and this is tempered by the sculptural pieces with their invitation to calmly contemplate – emotion and intellect in conversation. I can see a very strong correlation between Beuys and Twombly.

The small Nam June Paik room was also worth some time. I particularly enjoyed the twin television set playback of Nixon talking as electro-magnetic tori alternated their power, causing the screen images to distort and split into rainbow interference patterns, fascinating to watch and a poetic representation of media distortions of the ‘truth’.

Nam June Paik's radio assemblage, Bakelite Robot (2002).
Do we see ourselves in our technology?

The ‘centre piece’ was Paik’s robot built of defunct radios that had been gutted and then had small TV screens installed inside them, showing films of toy robots. It has a sense of fun and fascinated the child in us all whilst commenting on our relationship with technology and how we tend to (now more than ever) anthropomorphise the mechanised. Then, the perspicacity problem of the egg and the image of the egg on a screen and a model of the egg placed in place of a second monitor screen, along with the flickering of analogue tellies in the dimly lit space reminded us that it was getting late…

Just off Russell Square in the Neo-Brutalist Brunswick Centre we dined at Carluccio’s. As always, great atmosphere with lots of people chatting to create an informal, noisy ambience that makes your own un-guarded conversation easier – fine for relaxing with friends and for family gatherings. The food is traditional Italian, as you may expect, prepared quickly to a good standard… great value for great quality. There is a good children’s menu that comes with a generous fun-activity pack while you wait. We started with the chicken liver pâté, possibly the best I have tasted! Then there is a variety of pastas and sauces on offer as well as alternatives to pasta… I went for Milanese-style (flattened bread-crumbed and fried) chicken breast, sided with rocket and baby gem lettuce and accompanied by the crisply refreshing draught Peroni in its trade-mark tall glass... a small piece of Italy.

Next: A Saturday in London

Two Decades of 'Scraps' by Remy Dean

As we approach the finale of 2014, I looked back twenty years to the publication of my 1994 debut novel, Scraps - you can read the interview in the Yuletide edition of The Scrawl. (I would like to thank Winston Dominic and my colleagues on The Scrawl editorial crew for granting me this opportunity.) In the conversation, I mention the author's note that I added to the 10th anniversary edition of Scraps, which you can read below:

20 years of Scraps - a novel by Remy Dean, from left to right:
the 'First Impressions' limited edition, a 1990s paperback, and the current edition

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Music was an important part of the writing process for this novel – it helped me to create and capture certain moods and atmosphere. I was writing as if describing a film I had dreamt, and I had music in mind for the dream soundtrack of that film. The sounds that were playing as I wrote, and in various ways filtered through into the text, included music and lyrics by the following artists, to whom I wish to extend my gratitude for their positive influence upon this piece of writing and upon my life, then and now: Dave Graney (The Moodists / The Coral Snakes), Lydia Lunch (8 Eyed Spy), Gavin Friday (Virgin Prunes), BrainDeath, Slab!, Eric Serra, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Go Betweens, Hunters and Collectors, Scott Walker, Gordon Lightfoot... If you really listen to this book, you will hear them all.

Meet the Residents of Number 26, Past, Present & Future...

You may think it looks like an empty house, but we found out that such an assumption would be incorrect. Venture inside and there is not a lot to see at ground level: bare floors, walls hacked back to the brick, some architect’s plans on the far wall showing the layout of the building back in its Victorian heyday… and some paper aeroplanes suspended on slanted nylon chords in the bay window, almost too white in the sunlight and carpeting the dusty floor with their patchwork shadows.

Number 26 Augusta Street, Llandudno, has sheltered many diverse people in its life, including hostel boarders, hotel guests and former RAF servicemen (ah, the paper planes...) and is now a temporary haven for artists, and their art... part of the annual Helfa Gelf Art Trail.

Go up the first flight of raw wood stairs, still smelling of the sawmill, and the dereliction starts to give way to things of interest… in one room there is what looks like a collection of Victorian vitrines awaiting badly needed restoration by some careful museum expert. The ‘bell jars’ contain specimens that appear to be part of an ongoing experiment involving the reactions of fungi with wires and different materials. This is an installation-in-progress by Morgan Griffith aka sonomano. The walls are hung with a few collages that look like they could be from the scientific sketchbook of whatever amateur naturalist, or ‘mad scientist', is conducting the experiments. Their imagery is related to the contraptions on floor and tables, including some more mushrooms. The mushroom metaphor could be a comment on the house, fungi are part of the cycle of decay and new life – the house is stripped down to its ‘bones’ awaiting its rebirth in another form for another purpose…

In the small room opposite, we find Pea Restall and her team constructing a primitive clay cavern, big enough to get inside – this, she explains, is the early stage of an installation that will be enhanced by a low frequency sound sculpture. It is reminiscent of a wood-fired clay oven and also has very wombic, earth-mother connotations…

The big room at the front that links these two spaces has an exhibition of junk sculptures displayed on rough wooden chests and unpainted shelves: bits of broken things and charity shop toys arranged in an abstract way that become more than a sum of the parts.

Upstairs again, and you enter a different world, perhaps we have stepped through some sort of time-space portal, a la Doctor Who, into an alien domain where a stranded stranger attempts to reconstruct his space capsule in order to return home – this is the alternative universe of Mark Eaglen (or at least a quantum fragment of it). In one chamber a circular disc pulses with psychedelic patterns that look like time-lapse bacteria multiplying in a petri dish, until you look closer, then the installation assimilates you into its process. Your shadow is captured and, through the inventive use of a video feedback loop, is split and multiplied in an ever changing mandala of light. It is technically baffling, but that does not stop it being huge fun to play with. Toddlers, that have to be steadied on a chair by their parents to reach the beams of light, chuckle with delight whilst the adults impatiently wait their turn.

Welcome to the alternative universe of Mark Eaglen

In the anti-chamber a large light box displays an image of a sphere with an intricate surface. When viewed through the red/green 3D glasses provided, the sphere seems to float free of its surface and inhabit a space a few feet from the wall. What is it trying to show us? A diatom? A grain of pollen, magnified, thousands of times? A cheerleader’s pom-pom? An image of the entire cosmos reduced, billions of times?

You can read my review of an earlier exhibition by Mark Eaglen here...

In the room across the landing, there is the beginning of an on-going response to the building itself from Lisa Carter. War-time photographs are displayed on one wall and a plumb-weight hangs from a long line, suspended inches from the floor, looking rather like a tiny bomb halted moments before impact... Apparently, the house was once home to Baron Arthur Tedder, who devised the method of saturation bombing, known as 'carpet bombing', where large target areas are systematically bombed using grid coordinates.

Building Debris

In the bigger room that fronts this floor of the house there is nothing but bare boards and an empty plinth, on which I elevated a humble piece of the plentiful builders' rubble.

On the top floor, beneath the exposed roofing rafters, we find a room containing some work by Emrys Williams, whose studio is just a few doors away. Here a world of childlike exploration is evoked, model galleons, toy zebras and games are in dialog with his characteristically naïve paintings of quixotic figures and surreal houses. A model duck looks very much at home sat on its nest of straw in the painted fireplace. Text butterflies liberated from the pages of old books are attracted to the light of vents and windows…

Come and play in the wonderful world of Emrys Williams

The room encourages imaginative play, an exploration of an abstract world – we can visualise travelling to far away, exotic places that we may have heard of, but never seen for real. From this bare, unfinished interior, we can know the world in the way we used to as children – our own world inside our heads, almost as real as the world we make up from the memories of places we might have actually experienced…

Crossing the landing, we find a room with some inert audio-visual equipment. A projector, a monitor, some headphones. Still being set-up. For now we can but imagine.

Another small room has a collection of brass fittings and a circle of model railway track laid out in an almost ritualistic way. A light bulb hangs at shin-level from a cable wrapped around a rafter. It could be anything… perhaps some sort of psychic compass to communicate with those spirits that may yet linger in the bricks and mortar… only the artist, Angela Davies, knows what this may become.

In the corner of what would have once been the attic, we find Helen Jones working away on a huge swathe of white material. It looks a bit like a traditional quilt, though she is using distinctly non-traditional methods involving tile-spacers and cable-ties. It resembles a long christening gown, or perhaps the plentiful undergarments of a Victorian lady. There are also some rather ‘inquisitional’ metal structures hung from the ceiling. What is it all about? Helen explains that the metal pieces are based on chastity belts, and the material is meant to evoke Victorian dresses, underwear and the laundry that would have been dealt with, day-in-day-out, by the servants that would have lived in these attic spaces. The white drapery will provide a backdrop to a projected audio-visual piece that will explore and clarify these connections… So for now, I shall think of it as the ‘christening gown’ of the new work, and look forward to returning further along in the residency to see how it all develops.



So, what appears to be an empty derelict house, is actually the birthplace of some fresh and fascinating art installations. The contemporary, high-tech take on materials and processes is beautifully counterpointed by the ‘building-site’ aesthetic of their surroundings. Works by fresh and fascinating local artists that will grow and develop over the next few weeks to become what they will be... in time for the Llawn02 festival.

Reflecting on this, I find my thoughts exploring the many other closed-up empty spaces in Llandudno. Business are closing, buildings stand empty – what a huge waste of resources! Wales has - always has had - a burgeoning creative community. This is showcased by the Helfa Gelf Art Trail, when local artists open their studios and welcome people in to witness their process, and even have a go themselves. It would make sense, would it not, to use more of these spaces creatively? What better way for an estate agent to draw attention to a large property than to allow its space to be used, temporarily, to display locally produced art? Or, even better, to allow up-and-coming (sorry, emergent) artists to work and display in such places… So, kudos to Mostyn Estates for setting this fine example. Surely, there must be other estate agents and property developers that are not really as lacking in imagination as their popular image suggests…

Perhaps we do not have to make space for art and creativity in our lives - the space is already there, standing empty, yet filled with potential, awaiting some creative thinking.

Some Summertime Scrawl

Well, it has just gone summer solstice and the last entry here was at the vernal equinox… I’ve been busy with a few things, teaching and trying to climb the mountain of paperwork that piles up this time of year (“Let the teachers teach!”) and also co-editing the re-launch issue of questing beast’s Scrawl e-zine – I must say I think the quality of the content matches, or surpasses, previous issues!

I was privileged to talk to Jonathan Meades for the lead feature – a fascinating fellow. We resurrected and revised Laurie Dale’s earlier interview with Sir Christopher Lee – just in time for his 92nd birthday! Inspired by the Vikings exhibition at the British Museum, and a visit to the British Library, I wrote a new article about the Beowulf saga – or should we sympathise with Grendel? We also caught up with an old friend of Scrawl, Thomas E Sniegoski, who will not leave Vampirella alone – and who could blame him? I had the pleasure (a kind of fan-boy thrill) of interviewing Graham Masterton, one of my very favourite horror writers and Aaron Stainthorpe, singer-songwriter of one of my very favourite bands, 'My Dying Bride', and Liesel Schwarz was also brought to book by co-editor, Kim Vertue. Thanks to all involved!

You can read all this in the Summer Solstice issue of Scrawl...

Contents:

Jonathan Meades en catamini

The Horror… The Humour… of Graham Masterton

There’s No Stopping Thomas E Sniegoski…

The Prince of Darkness Himself: Sir Christopher Lee!

Brought to Book: Liesel Schwarz and Aaron Stainthorpe

Beowulf versus Grendel – the Rematch!

…enough for you? You can expect more, this Yuletide, in the up-coming Winter Solstice issue of the questing beast Scrawl…