Under the Slate Eaves

I never did put a photo album together

2011-04-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

It's now April 2011... and I haven't looked at this blog in a verrrry long time.

I thought about deleting Under The Slate Eaves, but it's probably better than a traditional photo album -which I never did get around to creating, so I guess I'll leave the blog up for awhile longer.

If you're curious to see what I'm up to lately, check out: www.peargirl.weebly.com

Penultimate Chapter in my Adventures Abroad

2008-07-04T04:04:00.000-07:00

July 4th, 2008

I am a self contained animal
balanced as buxom city pigeons
alighting small ledges and drooping lines
all strung out overhead in the sedimentary firmament
the ozone lacking heavens
blazing preposterous phallintropic trumpets
in a resounding theatre of disbelief
my cynic’s armour unpolished
a pastiche of grande bigmac mistakes
media frivolity and spun out episodic truth

holler down the self-conscious corridors
theory of the sapient mind still 60,000 years young*
a wonderment of conviction still angry in enduring youth
mortal rapacity an evolving technology clap-hammer capacity
a cacophonic song ascending every glass ladder rung
brilliant, resonant and replicate
the frogs croak in the lowering swamps:
perhaps it was better left unsung

*(Coughlan, pg 8)The New Scientist, magazine May 2008, article “Thank culture for the modern mind” by Andy Coghlan. “Then around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, the biology and structure of our brains stopped changing and other factors began to take over as the main driver of human development.”

Another month has come and gone and though I am aware that I am entering the final chapter of my year abroad I am still in revelry of European exploration, contemplation and enjoyment.

I’ve also been practicing playing my new hurdy gurdy, Prudence, everyday. I make terrible, terrible, terrible noises, and delight in the cacophony of learning what is a rather complicated instrument. The gurdy should keep me busy for the rest of my life… trying to teach myself to play and to read music is proving a rather slow, satisfyingly painful process as my brain seems less receptive to translating little black dots on the page and relaying the information to my fingers whilst turning a bowing crank-handle with the other all simultaneously while acknowledging that I learn a tiny fraction more everyday (and then often forget it on the next day) has been a fantastic new element in my life.

My sister arrived in Aberystwyth on June 17th and is here to visit and so I get to revisit some of my favourite sites, walk to Borth again and play tourist some more.

I’ve gotten well-ahead on my dissertation and I am now cooling my heels awaiting some feedback from my supervisors… in the meantime I am working on some research into folklore and faery tales. If the circumstances were right, and I could get funding, I would consider doing a PhD in folklore, perhaps in Welsh folklore. But… such are my daydream fancies, there’s nothing to stop me from writing more than one essay, so I’m working on a bit of extra research while I’m here and have access to some glorious old books. The library still allows 150 year old faery tale and folklore books to be signed out… which warms the cockles of my geeky cranium.

I awoke early this morning as the seagulls began to scream and wheel in the sky through the alternations of almost-summer blue, and the thickening cumulus and cirrus greys and whites that continue to whorl above Wales in a tropical discontent storm that has lead to hot days alternating with warm blustery storm winds of 50-60 mile per hour winds, just in time for my sister’s arrival. There was an excellent week of swimming and becalmed sea at the beginning of June. The promise of more of the same was abandoned for a return to unpredictability, freak thundershowers leading to delightful summer drenchings, often only ten minutes after it is sunny. People in general bemoan the weather, but I have been adoring it… apart from wishing the sea would settle a bit as I’d like to swim more; at least the surfers, skim-boarders and the men with paddles who stand upright on their boards in a quasi-Jesus walk-on water illusion seem happy out in the ocean, and often can be seen running in their wetsuits barefoot, board under arm, leaving nothing to the imagination but wonderment at such a passion as that of paddling out to go to try to ride the waves.

I woke thinking about how much I have come to love and admire Wales, how it is a country of determination and tenacity. How the ancient geology, the very bones of the country, so visibly layered in the pangs and throes of creation as the twisted and undulating rocks still show evidence of their rise and fall, the wearing away and fraying at the jagged edges of the cliffs, are skinned by the fundamental antiquity of their persevering culture. The Welsh are proud of their language and stories; will defend it, but not parade it. They look to themselves, their traditions, their honour rather than pushing a façade and parade upon the rest of the world. How well known are the Welsh? They don’t desire fame. Just ‘bugger off and leave us alone, for we are who we are’ seems to be the sentiment.

Of course Wales has frequently been mined of its culture; just as of its metals and stone…Shakespeare has been criticized for his inaccuracies in citing British faery tales, but is quite true to the Welsh tradition. Welsh tales have been altered, adapted and rewritten and claimed by many different cultures, from German to Americans. Tolkien gathered the sources for much of his material from Welsh mythology, and so CS Lewis, his drinking buddy, followed suit… are only a few examples.

And I am just as guilty of being inspired by the Welsh lore. My claim to having Welsh blood in my veins thanks to my ancestors is minimal and perhaps un-provable since the great tree-prunings of the family tree which have occurred. Yet still I’m a stranger in a strange land writing faery-tale type stories with abandon, in an orgy of inspiration. The smell of gorse flowers, the ragged cliffs with small hunting falcons riding up upon the winds, the sound of Welsh radio, reading the Mabinogian and the Welsh faery tales again, but this time when I am so close to all the actual places mentioned in the stories, has been vastly satisfying and inspiring.

June 6th-7th
I went on an adventure and managed to see a great deal in only two days.

I went on a pilgrimage to St. Govan’s Chapel, and went down the stone stairs to visit the cave behind the alter where St. Govan is said to have rested, hid form pirates, and writhed in religious ecstasy (or perhaps the result of eating too many limpets) and you can still see the marks of his ribs and fingertips gouged into the stone walls. I went to the city of St. David’s by the sea, and looked at cows running near the ruins of a great abbey, I went to walk the sea cliffs to the spot where St. David, patron Saint of Wales was born, the first thing he saw after his birth on that rugged coastline, the storm his mother, St. Non had been caught out in. I went to St. Non’s well and knelt upon the stones and saw that the interior of the stone arch above the well was festooned with large snails.

Past the stone painted to remember Tryweryn (troo AIR inn) the town that was drowned to give the English water.

To Castell Henllys, the recreated Iron Age fort where I saw woad growing and wondered how such a golden weedy plant had come to be cooked, fermented and turned into the blue pigment made famous by the Picts and Celtic cultures

Walked widdershins around the old church beside Castell Henllys, trying not to step on graves hidden in the overgrown yard, to look at a curious bell tower and a very ancient bricked over doorway. Admiring the pentagram motif in the windows so old that you could see the liquidity of glass evidenced in the supporting lattice of lead.

I travelled somewhere near the cemetery with the famous bleeding yew.. but didn’t make it to see that particular place. Often things are difficult to find, or are fenced in private property, and one has to ask oneself if one is willing to scramble over an electric fence, rudely walk across freshly sown and tilled land, or to risk walking beside rather large, inquisitive cows to get to standing stones. The former example was the Devil’s Quoit standing stone, and I decided not to tromp on the freshly seeded field. The latter, Sampson’s stone circle, after checking with a farmer, it was OK to go into the field and negotiate with a minefield of bovine offal obstacles in order to visit the ancient standing stones/burial chamber… this was just down the winding made-for a horse-drawn-cart road from Castell Aber –a ruin near a place just called Aber beautifully nestled and secluded on the coastline.

Had lunch in Fishgaurd.

Visited the working mill Melin Tregwynt –and thinking I’ll buy a £200 grey and black blanket after I’ve won the lottery.

Pembroke castle

Pentre Ifan burial chamber

Near Rosebush, where the Preseli blue stones were quarried and then teem to Stonehenge to form one of the circles.

Porthgain industrial ruins.

Huntsman’s Leap

Carew castle ruins and ancient Celtic cross (1033-1035 AD)

Castell Carreg Cennan on the hill with the deep, damp and hand and foot-worn caves underneath the castle that were still open for tourists to crawl, scramble, and bump their way through, and having the caves almost all to myself as there were few tourists, but lots of sheep.

The ruined abbey Talley, once a proud tall building in the 1200s, now a façade and stony echo of its former glory.

The 13th C. was the happening century in Wales as far as erecting stone buildings, castles and churches goes, and then having them knocked down again, and then more being built…

Strata Florida Chapel ruins and graveyard –visiting the grave of the famous Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym (c.1315/1320-1350/1370) under the ancient yew tree in the graveyard next door to Strata Florida.

I’m particularly pleased I went a little out of my way to visit Laugharne, the site of poet and writer Dylan Thomas’ house. Walking along the seaside, the ruins of Castle Laugharne on the hillside, going to see where the poet’s pen had once flowed with almost as much overwelling as the whisky in the jar-o really meant something to me… and it is partly because the land is so steeped in stories and centuries, nibbled by the sea, and the soft lips of the dull-toothed sheep, a land cut and hewn; shaped and moulded by human hands…

Without the story, the narrative, the tales (whether they are sanctified as history, or hammered and lengthened by time into legends and sagas) it is the story that above all else is the skin of culture. Information leads to connection, connection to meaning, meaning to some sense of identity and place, not just external, but internal, which is necessary for us to be more than human, but allowed to be of the understanding that it is the body that comes first; the kinetic actions of the body and instinctive action twinned with the will and consciously compelling components of humanity that build stories, culture, who we are and where we are in a propelled wonderment of wondering where we are going next either in a sedentary passive acceptance, or a propelled kinetic blaze. The living traditions are what we’ve got, and though we’re a technologically rich society, many have grown too thread bare of the importance of being earnest: the importance of telling a good story and having someone to tell it to.

Without the story it becomes an empty postcard that is more like adding a notch in a tourist’s belt…. I try to savour a sense of connection, a slow tourist, absorbing as much as I can in my peregrinations, finding the marrow in the bones; amazed at being in a landscape where the bones are littered so thickly that one cannot walk far without stumbling over something ancient, weighty, symbolic, romantic or thick with the gloaming of ‘once upon a time…’

The Spring Catapult sprung into early Summer

2008-06-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

June 5th 2008

It’s been a bit over a month since I updated my blog and if there is any excuse I believe it is because that for the final phase of my Masters program I now have my head firmly up my dissertation…. I am currently surrounded by books, notes, emails, essays, photocopies of essays, reference materials and am in a new, sublet flat.

Yesterday I spent over 5 hours helping to clean up the old Blaenwern flat, for as is typical in communal living situations, most people left like rats from a sinking ship after the most minimal of efforts… whereas I went back, for although I moved out on May 21st, I did live there for just over eight months and didn’t want to let the few responsible people left cleaning and moving to have to do all the work… and besides, I want my deposit money back!

It was odd to see the place again, even after getting away from it for 2 weeks, returning reminded me of how much I blinded myself to its grottyness. The cracks that had once seemed charming, managing to share one fridge and one stove with 9-11 other people, the peeling paint and mold living on the bathroom ceiling, the marks on all the walls, the single plastic mattress with no box on the wire metal frame, the birds and other things living in the ceiling, the institutional carpet… its no wonder that my eyes were always having a minor allergic reaction in the mornings… but that’s behind me now, and when I hear things such as asbestos being in the School of Art studios –just across the hall from me, it doesn’t surprise me, because I found out some time ago that the wing all the masters students are in was condemned in 1996 as being unsafe to occupy. Perhaps that was why the heat kept malfunctioning all through the winter –but was fixed by mid-May and left on high, just as the temperatures reached 21 degrees, but don’t worry, it’s cooled down again so the heat will probably stop working again….

I now laugh when I hear things such as all the students being forced out of Alexander Hall two days ago, because the private landlord hasn’t paid the electricity bill and the university, in selling off most of its assets, is ever so comfortable not taking any blame for the fact that it puts its students under care of private, slightly unscrupulous landlords as an additional layer of dealing with the moronic, impersonal bureaucratic B.S. of the school itself. (Can anyone tell me why everyone but a few have to move from one building to another a few months before the end of their program…. Why do they bother to claim to have Masters residence for the masters programs if everyone is evicted just before they must begin to write dissertations?) It was all a bit too stressful. I wasted far too much time packing, moving, unpacking, and even more time trying to find a place to live. Thankfully I now have a nice sublet in private accommodation. Oh the joy of having my own little place…

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Overview of latest adventures

Graduate Exhibition and Final Exams Have been completed. Hurrah! Huzzah!

Attended last classes and lectures of the year, completed my essays, reports, teaching experience, tutorial experience and studio portion of the program.

Two of my new textile art pieces are currently being hung in a prestigious, curated exhibit at the Oriel Davies Gallery in Newtown. The exhibit is called Re:drawing.

My new website www.peargirl.weebly.com features my new work, and can also be accessed via the front page of www.peargirl.com

By hopping on trains on weekends, and because I worked over the Christmas and Easter Breaks, I got a bit ahead of my program and so was able to take a bit of time off when Tess came to visit! (plus there were two holiday weekends in May!)

April 25-27th I went to Lancaster for the incredible Hurdy Gurdy Festival. I’ve never played an instrument before, but have always said that if I could learn to play an instrument a hurdy-gurdy would be it! They’re WAAAAYYY more complicated that I expected… the wheel that turns the interior circular bow being almost as fussy as a violin bow… oh, and you have to learn to operate the keyboard upside down and blind with your left hand because the keys need to fall back into place with the help of gravity. But those gurdies… oh so pretty.

There were also events for kids and for dancers and lots and lots of concerts for the public. Overall it was a quite well-run little festival and I met all sorts of interesting people –the girl from the outback who taught herself to play the gurdy and, of course, Morris dancers who happen to know people I know, because it is a small world after all.

May 2-5 The Upton on Severn Folk Festival (aka over 40 Morris sides taking over charming Upton Upon Severn) Tess and I met lots of Border sides, watched the dancing, went to ceildhs and pub music jams in the evenings. I danced at the celidhs and with some of the morris dancers… and it was a grand weekend in folkdance land!

After the Folk Fest Tess and I caught trains on fire (literally) up to Scotland and walked the Great Glen Way –a 73 mile walk from Fort William to Inverness. It was a grand adventure and my first long-distance walk. The highlands and he area around Loch Ness was magnificent, and reminded me so much of home that I know, or knew, that I thought: I could live here! I highly recommend the Bespokes Tour guide company that put together our lodgings, arranged the baggage transport and provided us with detailed info. So we knew if it was going to be an easy day strolling along the loch surrounded by moss and train-line ruins, or seriously hiking up and down the hillsides… and what the options were each day.

After the 5 day walk we returned to Aberystwyth and Tess helped me to set up the grad show! We went to a Bretton Dance potluck night and it was good to have a friend in Wales…. It was incredible to see someone I actually recognize for the first time in nine months… instead of just seeing snippets of people in strangers (oh, hey, that looks like so and so’s nose/hair/bodylanguage/ etc.)

Last weekend there was a free community festival in the local castle ruins called Castell Rock. It was fun for a bit of impromptu circus hooping, teaching kids how to walk on mini stilts and listening to some music... a glowing golden fog visited Aberystwyth for a few days so the misty backdrop surrounding the castle ruins and the stage was truly romantic. The sunset through the fogbank and dancing in the broken castle ruins surrounded by a stone circle at the end of the day with an enthusiastic crowd to the nine-piece energetic sounds of The Mighty FUOD is something I'll recall with enduring fondness.

And that takes me to June, and my dissertation. After chaining myself to the desk ten days in a row in an attempt to rough it out I believe I need a little break so I may traipse off to find St.Gofan’s well this weekend as it’s all research for my writing!

If I’m leaving many of the details out, it’s partly because there are just too many to dive into, partly because the pictures will each say at least a thousand words (apparently) and because I need to save some of my stories for when I return, for I should be back in time for Bowfest at the latest!

Ta rah!

Hax

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Visiting a mill, a mine, drowned trees and dancing with horses... just another month in mythical and modern Wales

2008-04-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

April 21st

Another month has flown by and I swear that after February time somehow learns to speed up… the days are noticeably longer and I look in wonderment at the trees which are beginning to branch-tip swell with budding leaves ready for the explosion of new foliage that is the miraculous renewal of life –and a good indicator that I’ve been here longer than I realize, for it strikes me as somehow significant that I was here first when the leaves began to turn colour –or simply fall –off their million perches… which inspired me into a flurry –perhaps a paroxysm of poetry –would be the correct phraseology… Now that collection of poetry has been edited and printed in limited edition as Peargirl V –the poetry edition- and I am already working on Peargirl VI –the online edition which is more reflective of my delving into the many myths, folklore and fairy tales of Wales.

So catching up –memories of Budapest still linger and sing in my memory recall data banks, but a new tumult of experience has come piling in the last month along with realizations that a) I’ve been here long enough to start to feel more settled in, to get to know people and to feel comfortable enough that I worry if it will be difficult to reconnect with my old routines on Bowen. Likely reconnection will be transformative and a development of new routines and associations on top of the old bedrock of my islander identity. b) For a workaholic occasional hermit, I have the capacity to make new friends and to be social –even if I’m still not keen on drunkenness out of moderation or sitting still in Pubs for too long) I’m proud to be a bit of an academic, a geek, an organizer and planner as well as a creative type d) I want to follow more of my dreams, and now is the time…. I want to learn to, or attempt to learn, to play a musical instrument even though the idea and the associated bad noise, steep learning curve, and my own complete ignorance, scares the bleep out of me.

In the last month the muse of writing seems to have taken over from the muse of painting –the two seem to swing back and forth on an internal pendulum for me. Although the muse of textile arts and embroidery seems uninterested in the painting/writing swap-over and she just hangs around and insists that I drag a bit of needlework around with me wherever I go… after an eight-hour Welsh-smocking embroidery marathon while watching the extended BBC version of Mansfield park on a day when I was fighting off a cold (or the vapours?) I wondered, in an Austonian fashion if I was indeed now an ‘accomplished young lady’ or if I was really just wasting my time! Still, the square of embroidery I did may or may not outlast me, so it’s difficult to determine, just yet, the full measure of waste and folly in my life versus my accomplishments and usefulness as a human being on this blue-green orb.

Speaking of orb-awareness… I attended a local food awareness event at the Morlan on April 5th and then went walking in the slate hills of Tal y Bont, approx 800 meters above sea level, with the waters grey and gem-like in the distance… despite being on a guided tour we still got lost… but in the best sort of ways, for in getting one path mixed up with another, we just was different things, and I was more interested in seeing some tall trees and altitude up in the old lead-mining hills, that to look at a few lakes. I got to see some of the forestry practices, what iron water looks like seeping through slate, fenced off mining shafts, more of the rumpled Cambrian mountains, farmers piling boulders at the edge of a field in an almost-pagan style… sheep sheep and then beyond the sheep into some of the more of the rugged and isolated/desolated areas of the more lonesome-beauty of stubborn old Wales.

Welsh Colours…

What colour are my true love eyes?
It’s very easy to see
Whether brown or green or even blue
There is an ease in old Welsh poetry
Whether of sea, gorse, slate or sky
There is no concern to my memory
As long as she’s wick
There’s only one word for me:

For my true love’s eyes are glas,
glas will do the trick
My true love’s eyes are glas
As long as she is wick!

Welsh eyes and Welsh words tell us there is more than one difference in how we see things. I was told there was not Welsh colour for brown, except a recent word, and no colour for green either, until modern times, for there used to be one word, for the living colours, which ranged from grey to green to blue. From the colours of the sea, to the sheen of water on slate, the greys of the sea to the greens of the land including the gorse, bracken and even the greys and blues of the sky.

Glas
Glas
Ynyslas (inn-IS-lass)
Blue hill/island of sand
Mutations in Welsh language frequently occur to the first consonant.

“Modern Welsh is tending toward the 11-color Western scheme, restricting glas to blue and using gwyrdd for green and llwyd for grey. Similarly, in Gaelic, glas can mean various shades of green and grey (like the sea), while liath is grey proper (like a horse), and the term for blue proper is gorm (like the sky or Cairngorm mountains).”
Wikipedia consulted April 6th 2008

Many stories have been told by the long, flat sandy shores of Ynyslas, where the blue island is a tuft of grass at the top of the sand dunes, and those tough, knotted and knitted grass roots are the only thing preventing the edge of Wales from unravelling in the ceaseless, tuneless wind, the tides rise and lower in a swift foam-trimmed slate grey rush… across the flat sands.

Aberdovy, is across the way, sitting idyllic and quaint in slate and paint. Nestled beside the river Dovy. It is so close to Ynyslas, which is no longer really a place to live, but an idea of what once was, a parking lot and set of sandy dunes to traverse to get to the long beach that stretches over the miles back to Borth which is South of the river mouth. To the North is Aberdovy, so close at low tide and yet ever so far since the trains took the ferry away and the tracks go around and up the river before crossing. Once upon a time, if you missed the last boat and were ‘benighted’ in the old fashioned sense of being caught out at night, with the tide coming in –there was a hut on stilts in which to take shelter until the next day.

I went with a jovial local historian as a guide to find the fabled petrified/drowned trees of Ynyslas Nature Reserve and I discovered that the trees are not actually petrified; they’re just old and salt-preserved centuries old stumps that are as often covered by the rising tides as they are by layers of sand. (which ties into the Welsh myths of the Low Hundreds and the town that drowned when the man who was supposed to be looking after the gates of the sea dyke was drunk and asleep…(part of the Taliesen legends) and which may or may not be the location of Cantref Gwaelod (can-TREv goo-why-LOD) the drowned town off the coast between Aberystwyth and Both where an old stone path stretching out into the sea appears at low tide and scientists still argue if it is man-made or natural, and the locals say that they can hear the bells of the drowned church ringing warning when a storm is coming in –in anycase the ancient tree stumps do seem to indicate that the sea has risen, or that the land has sunk… the stumps looked as though they had been chewed down by a twelve foot high beaver! –which I suppose is the mark an old stone or bronze-age axe makes ( reminding me of the Welsh monster known as the Afanc which an American writer interpreted as a twelve-foot high beaver in her retelling of the Welsh tales.

There seems to be a tradition of ‘those from away’ to come to Wales, to fall in love with its myths and then to re-tell them with varying degrees of regard for the original story… I’m not being critical, this is a process repeated around the world to fables and myths. Some of the alterations do not suit me, and others do; but overall I’d rather see the material re-used than left discarded on the scrap-heap. Besides, I find my own writerly muse sniffing around the old Welsh Tales, going, hmmmm, there are some tasty morsels here!)

Rambling around on a miles-long beach where time and space are folded in the perception into a dream-like perspective where a mile or two seems like it is within reach… I learned about the scepticism towards ley lines, but the firm believe in dowsing and the basic theories of how to dowse using a common aluminium coat hanger (cut the hook off, cut in half, bend into 2 L’s, one slightly larger than the other, hold upright in your fisted hands, antennae pointed out, and walk… when the antennae move towards each other, pointing to each other, or crossing, then water lies underneath.)

Back to the colours and how we separate them… vision, perception and culture are quite fascinating. What is the difference between blue and green? It’s a boundary line I think most would place differently. When does grey turn into grey-ish blue, and how to I convey what I see? And what of the Welsh bumble bee, which sees in an entirely different spectrum, or the Welsh dogs that don’t see in pure black and white, but just lack the ‘full Western colour spectrum.’ I wonder if in the future we will evolve our colour spectrums into divisions akin to the palettes offered to us in computer palettes. Oh –you’re still on the archaic 11 part rainbow – -how quaint! -I’m into the 254 I-rainbow version 12.2! Well, that’s it from this glas-eyed lass for today…

And I always think I won’t have much to write each month!

Other highlights of the month:

–getting two pieces into the Imaging the Bible in Art Exhibition (an art show for secular and non-secular artists) and being photographed by the local media. (why do those media dogs love teeth so? It’s not a picture unless you show your pearly whites.)

-Walking up into the hills by myself a few times to see the sheep and to fall more in love with hedgerows.

-meeting energetic photographer Grace Lau after her lecture and discussing the narrative impulse in imagery and community art projects.

-meeting Daniel Meadows after a talk he gave on his ’73 project driving the 1948 omnibus around England taking photos of people in what was dubbed ‘The Great Ordinary Show’ and then 20 years later going back, meeting them and photographing them again and developing a community story –narratives that he produced in a show for BBC radio. Daniel Meadows’ presentation was probably one of the most self-effacing, personal-yet-informative, engaging, well-paced and organized presentations I’ve ever sat through. Who wouldn’t love a man who sewed a huge old battery-run cassette recorder into the back of an old long coat, stitching the microphone into his sleeve so that he could do sound recordings while taking photos!

Afterward the official talk he gave freely of his time and spoke ‘off the cuff’ of his passion of photography –and his knowledge of the ‘There’s no such thing as Society’ exhibition which showcases the work of over two dozen photographers. I especially appreciated hearing what he had to say about Homer Sykes’ work (a photographer who documented British and Welsh rituals including the morris dancers). Daniel Meadows has classic long artists’ hands gesticulating in a dance of enthusiasm, his blue eyes twinkling and his genuine earnestness and interest still shining through him, even in his silver years, as much as it had during his hey-day long-haired hippy days when he followed around in the footsteps of Benjamin Stone. Daniel Meadows is a part of the ‘iconic digital storytelling movement’ and idea I quite fancy.

-going to Henllan Mill too visit David and Aubin’s friends: David Millward and Jenny Nimmo. Jenny is a successful children’s author and David is an artist and teacher –between the two of them they run a summer artschool/B&B in the old mill and the cottage and barns around the lovely old mill…. Despite being complete strangers they welcomed myself and Phillipa, an MA art student who is in the process of designing and building her own Creative Retreat B& B in Wales… we had a few cups of tea, went for a tour, saw chickens sunning themselves under the willow besode the happy stream running beside the old mill. It was lovely. The hour and a half trip there and back was in perfect glorious golden spring sunshine (the first time I’ve been on a jaunt in the sunlight on the roads of Wales) and it was a great day to see the land and take some photos. Phillipa, being an artist herself, was sympathetic enough to stop when I HAD to take some photos of a particularly dilapidated barn!

The visit to the Mill inspired a new fairytale and the stop in ‘Mach’ at the fabric shop to buy canvas and embroidery floss will keep me busy in the studio for the remainder of my time here.

-Last night (april 20th) I went with eight improv-contact-dancers (one of whom I know from Welsh dance who invited me) to the barns of EquiLibre and found a bit of Cirque du soleil Welsh-style. A lady named Jane is a horse trainer and does annual horse-theatre performances. Her last event was a theatre show and masquerade banquet for 160 deep in the heartland of Wales! http://www.equilibre.co.uk/intro.htm

Through local connections I was lucky enough to get invited along to an artist to horse introduction night. She gave us a tour, introduced us to her horses, talked about horse language and then we got to interact with some of the horses after she put them through some paces. The rapture of seeing a Spanish stallion with some war-horse/parade training, meeting a young gelding named Trigger, and then an aging white Lipizaner, a beauty of an animal who felt comfy enough to roll upside down outside of the barn, at twilight. -Quite the spectacle- It was surprisingly easy to forget about the red and orange paint and stage-prop mirrors around the show ring as the horses were the most beautiful, and clearly well cared for, and magnificent gems of the farm!

I’ll admit when I first heard of the scheme I was highly dubious… but after meeting Jane I became confident and impressed that she’ll accomplish what she sets out to do. After looking her up online today the impression of awe and notion that it would be my privilege to participate in a project of hers has deepened.

But last night I arrived back in Aber late, to the familiar lights and confusing one-way tangle of streets with my hands smelling of horse -despite the soap and water -feeling quite happy. I may have the opportunity to dance with horses.

What an idea!

March 22nd Spring Equinox, which means Bunnies, Budapest and Bela!

2008-03-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

March 22nd

Spring Equinox Surrealism

There's a TV in the communal kitchen which is often on... as I was making lunch today I noticed Robin Williams as Mork from Ork in red spandex with a large silver triangle making The Fonz do mime against his will! I thought: wow, that's rather surreal... and then, about the time my thai stir-fry was ready I watched Mork from Ork kiss Ritchie Cunningham! Awesome t.v. moment! and for surreality it beats out the oddness of watching Arnold Schwartzenegger dubbed into Hungarian whilst in a hotel in Budapest that was fromerly an insane asylum after travelling for 24hours...

Squillion: one of my favourite Jude-isms. A squillion: the opposite of nano

Real fluffy, hoppity-hop brown bunnies have recently appeared around town... their arrival synchronous with the appearance of a young woman in purple leggings, orange hotpants and a yin-yang painted mime makeup. She likes to wander and waft around – a sort –of off-key cirque du soleil escapee, ethereal-lunatic styled fashion-victim who belts out Celine Dion songs while rhapsodizing with the elements and draping herself over benches along the Promenade. There’s no space on the beach unmarked by tourists and their dogs.
It must be Easter in Wales.

Well, I should get back to working on my thesis outline! Only seven weeks left of this semseter, and there's quite a few things to wrap up... then there's the grad show and then the summer semester which will mostly be studio work and my thesis.

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Back from Buda pest!

School of Art Budapest trip March 9-March 15th 2008

Most of me is back -I think I left bits behind -about half a year's worth of lung health and a good portion of my diet. It was impossible to order sensible food from menus in Hungarian –even items on the vegetarian menu had bits of chicken, eggs, sour cream and sausage bits dropped into it. ‘Lost in translation’ was good excuse to eat goulash! The food was good… totally calorific!

It was a nightmare getting to Budapest –bus not showing up, storm of the winter hitting, second bus showing up, but making sound like asthsmatic hamster –eventually crawling along the side of the highway at 4am, massive lorries hurtling through the darkness looking threatening and impressive in their size and speed… eventually limping the bus in to a highway pit-stop with overpriced triangular food, fluorescent lights and large clocks which ticked away the minutes until our flight left –without us –and then another seven hours- before we re-routed (all 50 of us) to a different airport to catch a flight on a cattle call Ryan Air Flight… and to arrive in Budapest at the overly institutional looking, former insane asylum converted to a hotel -a full 24 hours after we’d supposed to have begun our journey in Aberystwyth… I’d been awake for over 36 hours by that point and everything was a little cartoonish.

Straight jacket for one and straight to bed!

Budapest was FANTASTIC once we made it there. Budapest was a feast for the senses!

I went to museums and galleries, I saw Egyptian, Italian and Eastern European Art works from various millennia centuries. I saw palaces, churches, and saw a contemporary ballet performance in the State Opera house and sat at the burgundy velvet balcony staring up at the painted inner dome. Best moment: when the Harley Davidsons ridden by real bikers roared onto the stage and carried away the prima ballerina. You just don't see that everyday!

I viewed castles, monuments, bastions, sculptures, tiled roofs and walls pockmarked by shrapnel from WWII. I walked across red carpets, on marble stairs, in gutters, and alley-ways, up hills and on the last metro-train of the night.

I ordered what I thought was hot chocolate and discovered the joys of 'drinking pudding'

I learned to say ‘thank you’ in Hungarian in a number of tones which implied: thank you! As well as ‘sorry, I don’t speak your language!

Budapest was an impressive array of architecture, ornamentation, statues, gargoyles, statues, the dirty Danube, relatively reliable transit, no buildings built higher than the domes of the parliament buildings

smog, soot, exhaust... amazing art collections housed in incredible buildings, 40' high statues of women, caverns, turrets, domes, public bathing houses which were cool to visit –but I stayed out of the ‘People Soup’ while three of the Quartet (each of us representing a different decade) visited the baths I wandered around by myself was amused by getting hot drinking pudding in a cup when I thought I was getting hot chocolate, looked at public art, saw mistletoe growing in trees, admired castles, gazed from a safe distance at horrifically ‘new fangled’ modern buildings, tromped around a moat… and under the leafless branches, off the beaten path, under an ivy-splashed stone wall I discovered the neglected bust of Bela Legosi!

Poor Bela.

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FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Béla Lugosi (October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), was an iconic stage and film actor best known for his portrayal of Count Dracula in the American Broadway stage production (1927), and subsequent film (1931), of Bram Stoker's classic vampire story.
Lugosi, the youngest of four children, was born as Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in Lugos, at the time part of Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blasko, a baker. He was raised in a Roman Catholic family, [1] and had a sister, Vilma. Lugosi started his acting career on the stage in Hungary in several Shakespearean plays and in other major roles. He began appearing in Hungarian silent films under the stage name Arisztid Olt. During World War I, he served as an infantry lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army.
Lugosi died of a heart attack on August 16, 1956 while lying on a couch in his Los Angeles home. He was 73. Rumor has it that Lugosi was clutching the script for "The Final Curtain" a planned Ed Wood project, at the exact moment of his death. [3]
Lugosi was buried wearing one of the many capes from the Dracula stage play, per the request of his son and fifth wife, in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Contrary to popular belief, Lugosi never requested to be buried in his cloak; Bela Lugosi, Jr. has confirmed on numerous occasions that he and his mother, Lillian, made the decision. At his funeral it is reported that Peter Lorre looked over at Vincent Price and asked, "Should we stick a stake in his heart just to be sure?"

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Poor Bela! –after snapping a couple of pictures of Bela I was instantly treated to an internal soundtrack for the rest of the day of all the Peter Murphy songs that were once part of my audio immersion that have been stored… somewhere in my audio archive. It’s been awhile since I had Bauhaus and Murphy on heavy rotation on my cd player, but evidently I have an internal musical archive that is extensive. Upon returning to Aberytwyth I poked around online and did some Bela research …and then moved onto Peter Murphy and Bauhaus. I’d still listen to Peter Murphy read a phonebook, or even a tax form.

http://www.petermurphy.info/intro.html

Perhaps because Wales is wonderfully disconnected and occasionally navel-gazing in its focus culturally speaking, and because I’m a student without TV, an established social network (we’re all transient here, it seems,) and other excuses, I had no idea that Bauhaus has just launched a new, and its last, CD Go Away White on March 4th, 2008. What was I doing during this momentous event hmmm…working at the Art School from 9:30am-6:30pm.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseaction=blog.view&friendID=34133313&blogID=338078373

I wonder what the ‘incident’ was that caused the band to decide to not tour the album and to just call it a day.

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LEAP YEAR in ABERYSTWYTH

2008-03-07T13:26:00.000-08:00

A FEW DAYS LATE on ‘Welsh time’ enter the year of the RAT, Feb. 9th

Feb. 9th Aberystwyth breaks out the lanterns and dragon and lion dancers for Chinese New Years! In an odd quirk Chinese New Year was celebrated all over town in style, whilst St. David’s day (the patron saint of Wales on March 1st) was demurrly denoted primarily by wearing daffodils and unobtrusively eating leeks.

For Chinese New Years I donned traditional Welsh garb and paraded with the Welsh dance Group. Cruelly an enthusiastic Samba band was tight behind us… I so wanted to samba, but the Welsh costume just wouldn’t let me.. not to mention I couldn’t really raise my arms with the wool shawl tied on!

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ANTI V-DAY DINNER Feb. 13th

I hosted an Anti V Day dinner murder mystery evening at the Orangery Wed. Feb.13th. The theme:It's V Day so Someone Must Die!There were 6 acting parts to choose from:

Parson Snows -The Village Rector was played by Kendall

Claire Voyant -The resident mystic, was embodied by Ruth

Frau Pumpernickel -the German cook was animated by Gretchen

Slaughter -the Gamekeeper was type cast as Steve

Major Windbag -Lord Shippe's shooting partner was interpreted by myself (because the point of dressing up is to look sexy!)

Lady Shippe -the flamboyant mistress of the Shippe Mansion household was a sensation caused by Aoife

Shawn came to hang out, watch the show and rest from her hectic social calendar

It was a fun…. Different kind of night! A bit of distraction from the regular hallmark celebration of V day for sure!

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Feb. 19-20th TRIP TO CORRIS AND MACHYLLNETH

I hopped on a train and went to Mac to meet Eireen, a lovely kindred spirit who hails from Greece. We went for coffee, and –oh bliss –to a three story fabric shop! I didn’t allow myself to buy anything as I need a plan before purchasing anything…. Oh, the wool remnants were
tempting though. Maybe a little quilt… hmmmm…. I do love textiles.

Eireen’s living a few hours away from Aber in an old slate-quarry town nestled in the Welsh hills. The smell of cow was in the air, along with echoing moos across the valley that almost drowned out the cars in the distance. Corris felt like stepping back in time and experiencing an authentic Wales –walking around the mostly unlit town my almost-full moon light at night and standing on the old stone bridge with the river gurgling by, and the hills in the distance whitened with frost was a treat.

Eireen and I went on a long rambling walk that went on for hours as she showed me all the magical places she has found in the area –long old paths through coniferous trees, old slate walls that supported nothing but pine-needles, old slate fences looking like dragon’s teeth, the house of the old eccentric (now deceased) who had filled his yard with follies that made me envious. Part of me longs to be one of those eccentrics that turns their yard into a playground of whimsy, leaving an irrational legacy of personal indulgence and bizarrities…

We hiked further up into the hills to the old quarry site itself, and the waterfall, where the old eccentric artist who had taken up stone carving, had carved and placed some carvings of hands onto old, large slate pieces at the base of the waterfall. Enchanting.

It felt as though we had discovered that grotto for the first time in centuries, so isolated and golden and perfect was the afternoon… and so free for a bit of larking about, to embellish and contrast the observations of all the weighty beauties and dark history which lay thickly strewn, and abandoned, across the rocky Welsh landscape.

The best picture of Corris exists only in the memory of the moonlight on the owl's back as it flew from the dark old oak tree... it was a lovely visit, I feel privileged to have been invited and treated to Eireen’s hospitality, to be able to sit on a couch under a real Welsh wool blanket at to feel ‘at home’ in a real home…. As a student I hadn’t realized how much I miss things like comfortable furniture, stereos, well-appointed kitchens, wood stoves…

(No longer a coal virgin) I had the novel experience of bringing in coal from the coal bin… and seeing the soot of coal and smell coal and wood smoke mixed in the night airs, and looking at the stone homes, the top-floor frequently being more a half story than a full story, up in the eaves. I felt too tall for Corris, and wonderfully foreign… I felt as though I was walking around in a Susan Cooper novel… something dark, ancient and magical around every corner, if only I could walk quickly enough.

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TRIP TO CAERNARFON Feb. 29th-March 1st

I'm off to Caernarfon (the place with three different spellings that NO ONE pronounces in the same fashion, so I alternate between pronunciations -but get corrected EVERY time!) but c'est la vie, I'm going to see a BIG castle and three of my diminutive artworks in a gallery group exhibition....back sometime on Saturday :)http://www.castlewales.com/caernarf.html

Caernarfon Castle
http://www.castlewales.com/cae...
Caernarfon is located at the southern end of the Menai Strait between north Wales and Anglesey, 8 miles south west of Bangor. During Edward I's invasions of Wales, this was strategically an excellent place...

The Oriel Dafydd Hardy Gallery Graduate Show 08 March 1-28 in Caernarfon is all about unexpected relationships. Sixteen artists graduating this year form the University of Aberystwyth School of Art (SOA) Fine Art and Art History BA and MA programs are part of a curated group exhibition displaying a range of contemporary artworks. Realistic, subtly mesmerizing oil on copper paintings of spoons, accompany hand-made books, landscape paintings, etchings, a conceptual cake performance piece, video installations, large-format photography and contemporary embroidered textiles inspired by traditional Welsh men’s 18th and 19th C. workman’s smock-frocks.

The work of Eloiza Mills, Hazel Money, Tracy Smith, Hester Berry, Zoe Dunn, Bryony Purvis, Michael Nobbs, Jonathon Gupta, Sian Kingscott Smith, Sarah HAxby, Elizabeth Ragg, Dawn Olive, Rupert Lawler, Amy Jane Blackhall, Ruth Hogg and Freeda Lohr is on display thanks to a partnership between Glynnis ----, the gallery coordinator, the support of the Oriel Dafydd Hardy real-estate business (which is also the entrance to the gallery,) and SOA instructor Miranda Whall. Any emerging/young artist in Wales may apply for an exhibiton at this gallery, and artists are not charged a commission allowing for the presentation of work at a very reasonable price in a professional exhibition space open to the public.

The unexpected combination of media, arts and business partnerships make the Graduate show an inspiring and insightful presentation of sixteen emerging artists to watch for in the future!

On the Leap Year day I didn’t do what 700,000 other women did (propose to a man) instead I ended up on the exciting journey of travelling up North to Caernarfon and spending an enjoyable day (after painting plinths and helping with the last minute details of setting up the exhibit) I went for a long walk up the hills and around the ancient walled town.

We stayed in the nicest hostel I’ve ever been in –Totters hostel- it was clean, welcoming, filled with nice things, and right beside the wall and a romantic archway which led to the promenade –so of course I had to walk the whole promenade and imagine what it would have been like in the late 1200s when it was built. The large castle was fantastic! I really appreciated the tenacious ferns and bonsai’d buddleia and other clinging plants that manage to find a root-hold in the ancient stone walls. Much of Caernarfon has a romantically abandoned feel to it, as though the tide of the place is caught in the past because the people who live there now are not of sufficient number or conviction to modernize the place. Apart from the general commercial homogeneity of the shops –the individual characteristics of the place shone out here and there, even if under a layer of historic smudgery. I treated myself to Thai food and was delighted that the food was authentic… equally amazing was that everyone in the restaurant was speaking in slightly heavier northern accented Welsh, except the owners of the restaurant who were speaking Chinese. I really felt as though I was in a different country –it was just a bit difficult to tell which one.

Drinking is a pretty big social problem in the UK –and people were in town on the eve of St. David’s day to drink. A couple of young men were walking towards me, past me, decided to kick and swear at the construction fence near them –and to throw their pint glass my way –the glass hit the paving stones and a few chunks sprayed up my back! It was only 5pm on a greyish unassuming afternoon… I had just reached the door of the gallery… the door was locked… I looked back to see the most inhuman look in a person’s eyes than I’ve seen in a long time. The drunkard began to lurch towards me, but the lady in the gallery got the door unlocked faster and so I nipped inside and locked the door behind me!

The show opening was a success, and a great opportunity to get to know some of my fellow students a bit better. It’s hard to believe that in just less than three months the BA students will all be going home!

I spent the morning of St. David’s (March 1st) day running around in spooky dark castle hallways, holding onto ropes to get up into old towers, daringly taking a good digital camera with me... accidentally erasing all my pictures just minutes before I had to leave... so I could take one more photo -of a stuffed goat. It was the ROYAL goat –a tradition established by Queen Victoria (presumably because a sheep is unable to be royally solemn enough?!)

OOPS! I had to laugh, because otherwise I would have cried... thankfully my crumby old digital camera still had the mediocre shots left from the day before.... adventures are often in the unexpected things we would have wished to avoid, but will never forget!!!

And, on the bright side of things, I did get a picture of an old goat!

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SMELLS OF THE MONTH

The night before last one of my flatmates decided to cook eels for the first time –in the microwave –which unfortunately for me, is located opposite from my bedroom door in the half kitchen….in the main kitchen she was cooking eggs in a pan filled with a quarter inch of olive oil which was burning –as it was on the highest heat- (I’ve had the talk with her about oils and heat too many times to recount) –suffice it to say that the small kitchen smelled like nuked eel, the main kitchen like burnt olive oil, and when she was finished cooking she went directly to her bedroom -safely a floor and a half below!

Microwaved eel is not an odour I would choose to experience ever again…

However, on the odiferously positive side: I smell like a burnt marshmallows tonight, and saltspray from the rapidly incoming tide blown in by storm winds the art school students were valiantly ignoring in order to celebrate Angharad’s birthday on the beach. They had an excellent set up of chairs, stuffed sheep, and a bonfire, a BBQ with burgers, prawns and marshmallows to roast! I was going for a sunset walk, but stopped to join them for a time.

February has been a month filled with adventure, and much soul-searching after hitting a bit of an artistic impasse/mortal blow to my muse of painting that I shan’t subject you to, nor myself for much longer hopefully, as I have a trip to Budapest March 9-16th with the School of Art to distract myself with.

Budapest, am I really going? …. Eeek, in a plane? Time to start packing and flapping… off on another adventure…

Besides, this is enough for now…. Amusingly each month I think ‘well I won’t have much to say this month!!’ and then I have to edit and select what to highlight of my ONGOING ADVENTURES IN WALES… until next month!

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February is almost regular month-sized this year -couldn't another month spare it an extra day?

2008-02-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

FEB.3rd 2008
and I’VE SEEN CAMELIA BUSHES IN BLOOM and hillsides covered in snowdrops!

Predictably this blog has suffered the slowing inertia that comes of cooling off… it is one of the universal laws: Big bang, the explosion of the creative muse, and life itself begins with a spark, with heat, and as life unfurls eventually the heat dissipates… we stumble through obstacles, ditches and doldrums trying to maintain velocity. Some manage to feed the furnace and keep up a consistently good pace for the long haul, others stumble in and out of the race… but eventually it all tapers off. Slackens. And stops -unless violently, unnaturally truncated. I tend to by cyclical in my efforts… Sisyphus had it easy –he only has one rock to push up hill. I always feel like I’ve got a half dozen on the go, and when I ignore one I have to go running back down hill after it -in a comical fashion…

'WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?' –someone is bound to be thinking by this point.

Well, I’m using obfuscating metaphors and references to Greek myths as a crutch to limp along a pathetic dog’s breakfast of excuses for not updating my blog since Dec. 18th 2007 -when today is Sunday February the 3rd, 2008.

Enough with the excuses! No one wants to hear them, no matter how clever or abstruse they are.

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COUNT DOWN

I would say there are 207 days until I return home, but I believe I may be home a little earlier than that. Possibly the beginning or middle of August. Partially because my dissertation topic may use Ione Betty McIntyre’s art work as the focusing lens to look upon my subject matter (an idea that is recent, or else perhaps I would not have travelled to Wales to decide to study a local artist’s work from back home…. Or perhaps it could not have occurred in any other fashion, as there is nothing like travelling to another country to give one perspective on what one has left in their wake.)

If I arrive home at the start of August that means that I have approximately 179 more days in Wales. The sands of time are running through the hour shaped glass just as the money is pouring out of my bank account… I am satisfied I will be tired, but happy when I come to the end of both. I’m not yet certain what my next chapter will be, and am reticent about trying to prematurely pre-write it.

I am as settled as I am going to be here. It is a strange thing to be in a place for a year. It is cloaked in a variable sense of impermanence. Constantly conscious of the finitude I find myself refraining, or resisting from nesting or putting down roots. Of choosing some discomfort over the future discomfort of having to dispose of/leave things behind. It is not a way to live for long. But it is a terrific way to live for a time! Ah –the adventure! Then I can return home to mundanity and the comfort of the illusion that when one buys something it owns you just as much as you own .

I have given in to buying a peace lily that sits upon my wardrobe, happily blooming. Mostly I enjoy the flowers, but sometimes I look at it with guilt and think –it won’t be long before I leave it behind. As I will leave behind a great many things. I have plans to put together a care package at the school for the next international student to come in, so they will have a start-up kit of art supplies etc. to get them going. The plants and other things I will either find good homes for, or install on the windowsills in the art school with the other plants. Anything else can be taken to the art school and tagged with ‘Free’ and will most certainly be raven-ized. Art students are nothing if not scavengers!

I should know! Just look at the accumulation around me –from beach stones to a new suite of paintings (it was a bit of a shock to me to discover that my Portfolio Review Power point Presentation contains 55 images –all new paintings- and that it does not include every painting, or any of the drawings I have done –and only a few of the embroidery pieces, or any of the 60 or so poems, or half dozen or so short stories, or the –very rough- sad scrawling attempt of mine to begin to map out a graphic novel.)

For better or worse I am prolific! (I say with a measure of chagrin) For what am I going to do with this abundance of creativity? I’ll be lucky if anything sells in this somewhat depressed economy where the finance minister openly uses the words ‘recession’ and ‘economic depression’ which leads to very cheery thoughts when repeated hourly on the BBC radio.

You know what they say about repetition. And people who create art with the expectation that it will sell. I paint to please myself these days.

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BACK TO THE BEAN

I’m extremely perky at the moment. I’ve just had my first cappuccino of 2008 at Little Italy –the only restaurant of any note in Aberystwyth. (they hand make every dish and then send it down a little food elevator from the top floor to the floors below).

FIRST COFFEE????? Well, I went full-bore for the New Years Resolutions –with the caveat that they would –for the most part –be just for January. (I was trying to keep it manageable while at the same time do some sort of penance to balance of the completely un-regretted and much appreciated excesses of Christmas –more about those later)

My New Year's Resolutions were (for the long grey month of January) were: to stop buying milk and to consume as little as possible when not at home, to stop eating all land animals –except for a few free range local eggs- and to limit or eat no sea creatures and then to see how I felt at the end of the month. I also decided to give up caffeine for January.

I also resolved to get back to palates/exercise classes and dance classes as soon as they resumed after the holidays. (The holiday season lasts much longer here than I am used to.)

Well, January has come, been and gone and I am happy to report I stuck to all my resolutions and not only lost my Christmas indulgence weight gain, but have lost an unexpected inch (unexpected inch? –just pretend my peculiar phrasings are poetical and roll with it) –I lost an inch from my waist –which I know from social conditioning must mean I have become prettier. Skinny= pretty in this culture, right? But too skinny= scary. I recall talking to one of my fitness teachers once, she was somewhat shocked to discover that I like my curves and though I desire to be strong and healthy I have no desire to lose my distinctly female hips and thighs. She actually stopped and stared at me as though I had uttered some sort of blasphemy. She shook her head at me, stating that she loved her ‘hardbody.’ I could appreciate her pride in her hard-earned looks… and envy her for her well-defined triceps, but… there’s got to be variation in the world. Someone has to hold up the tradition of beauty that was big back in the 1600’s.

Now: the dilemma –do I return to meat eating –my previous ‘social carnivore’ status, or do I draw some sort of line in the sand (a vegetable purity demarcation). There’s such a problem with pedestals, plinths, declarations of absolutes. I generally try to avoid such things. I guess I’m not ready to call myself a vegetarian again. If I see a rack of ribs that ‘has my name on it’ I don’t want to deal with the guilt of ‘falling from vegetarian grace’ again just because my inner cave-man sometimes comes alive –and demands BBQ sauce, bones and gnawing.

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THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT FROM BACK HOME and RANDOM NOTES

-not once have I worried that a tree would fall on me -or my home

-no power outages (just lots and lots and lots of internet interruptions)

-buying beets that are already cooked and packaged in a macabre fashion in vacuum packs (they don’t sell raw beet root –as it is called here- as far as I can tell.) It looks like a set of four hearts in a bag

-rugby is a very big thing (though a little confusing to me –I do like it when there’s the circle of men lifting a man up in the centre –how did they come up with that?) and rugby players must be awesomely tough –the game looks rougher than American football –but without the padding!

-large men sing loudly in pubs during sports games

-the words are hard to make out, but you can hear them a block or two away!

-going to a pub to watch TV –especially sports- is a v. big thing

-if you ask for sour cream you may get a bowl of salad cream

-sour cream is properly called soured milk (yum)

-a cel phone is a mobile etc. etc.

-the way I say castle is endlessly amusing to Brits. As is my pronunciation of the letter h

-people who like to go for walks are Ramblers

-I haven’t had to chop any firewood, shovel snow, carry water, gotten stuck anywhere due to weather, etc.

I haven’t been bitten by a single mosquito, spider, etc. (no complaints there!)

-haven’t been sick enough to miss out on anything (only a couple of mild head colds since I was here –knock on wood!

-you have to chase after teachers if you want attention otherwise they leave you alone to get on with your own thing

-education is a much more organic, laid back structureless structure here

-there are fewer hoops to jump through

-as a post-grad I can go to just about any lectures I want (again -no complaints here!)

-one can purchase canned BEANZ and BALLS

-my Chinese flatmate received a care package box of pig’s feet and chicken parts preserved in vacuum packed msg flavoured goodness

-what do I miss most from back home food-wise? Sockeye salmon (cooked on a BBQ) and SUSHI sushi sushi sushi sushi…. And the Shao Lin Noodle house

-they are only just considering giving UK police the right to take alcohol away from minors who are drinking in public!!

-UK police do NOT carry guns

-precooked hotdogs are available in cans, jars or vacuum-packed

-fruit and vegetables are best plastic-wrapped onto Styrofoam trays

-people really do eat beans on toast –and the beans are sweetened with sugar

-almost everything has sugar or worse –artificial sugar- added to it (which means a great deal of label reading even on foods that I would normally think were safe)

-bags that have ‘I am not a plastic bag’ on them are very popular

-I have a notebook that has ‘I used to be a plastic bag’ on it

-The next level of Ugg boots have just come into fashion –in plaid, floral prints, stars, etc.

-‘Oi! You’re really getting on my tits!’ Is a maternal expression used loudly in grocery stores to calm eight year old kids as is ‘shut it, or you’ll get a smacker!’

-Hot pants are back in style –even in January

-If you’re a female and you don’t wear heels and don’t have a man with you when you go out to dance at a night club with friends then you’re called a lezza and drunken girls in 3”stilt-high heels wearing 5” skirts and metallic sparkly tops want to pose with you and have their photos taken. ‘She’s Amish’ –‘-no a lezza’ ‘definitely a lezza’ ‘maybe an Amish lezza?’ giggles (I know I wasn’t supposed to hear this part of their conversation, but they were very drunk)

-A closing-out sale allowed me to buy dance shoes for £10 instead of £110 –and the business really was going out of business instead of just setting up for the next sale.

-Aberystwyth Christmas trees (if not artificial) have probably been dragged down to the beach or thrown into the sea from the seawall -which seems to be the tradition around here. It’s February but the now needle-less Christmas trees keep returning to shore like large pinecones, or some sort of Xmas-skeletons

-20 people showed up at Welsh dance last week!–almost half of them there because I can’t keep my mouth shut… It was fantastic having four full sets for some of the dances! …and then, a little late, 4 more people (I had never seen before) came in. They were Goths in velvet trench coats, black lace, leather and chains. Pretty, pale-faced, Welsh Goths with soft hands. There’s nothing like Welsh folk-dancing with a 6’4” Goth wearing chain-ladened black bell bottoms and 3” high stomper boots with steel toes –giving him a total height of 6’7”! It was like dancing with an armoured flagpole who wasn’t certain of his right and left. During the polka I feared for my poor wee feet!

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THE TREE’S LONG GONE
-THIS IS XMAS TAKEN OUT FROM UNDER THE HEAT-LAMPS AND RE-WARMED

I’m now going to plagiarize myself as I’ve written about my Christmas adventures in various epistles, and I don’t think that I could do the memories any more justice by rehashing them.

My apologies to anyone who is offended by the re-use of my words - instead of reworking them to serve them up fresh. I find it easier to write letters – the impulse to write while ‘speaking’ with a specific person in mind is more compelling than the idea of blog writing, where I know I will be more careful as I’m less certain of who will read it. So, perhaps dragging stuff out of letters will keep the blog a bit fresher… Perhaps.

Dec. 30th 2008

So… I'm back at Aberystwyth in my own wee room after an adventure… I spent almost a week in the Wilmslow area –specifically the even smaller townsite of Styal (they never actually built the town) but eventually the Manchester airport sprang up beside it and ate a good chunk of the farmland.

After sleeping on a fold out cot wedged between a filing cabinet and a computer desk in the Woodley house computer room for 5 nights my student residence single bed and ability to swing a small cat seems like luxury!!!

I’m also glad to hear the sea again, and to see it foaming about in a Winter stormy froth, flinging stones up onto the promenade and drenching me in a moment of witnessed public hilarity this morning when I put my foot up on the metal railing to tie up my shoe in a not-as-sheltered-as-I-thought spot!

Xmash dinner.....

I stayed at my Aunt and Uncle’s home which is directly adjacent to the Manchester Airport. An empty plane body sits just over their back fence –occasionally they airport staff light the segment of the plane on fire and do emergency training and drills. They had one on the 23rd. It was very festive!

My 12 year old nephew, Mattie (occasionally called Rattie) is batty about plane spotting. The only time I could get him off the couch to do anything that wasn’t plugged in or Wii related (there’s nothing like a young man obsessed with his wii to add a few smirks to the face. It was my wii this, and my wii that.) I got him to go for 2 walks… he wanted, of course, to go to the airport fence to watch the planes, which is a fun thing to do if the person you’re with is psyched up and full of plane stats. Amusingly Mattie wore one only sock all Christmas and played with his new remote control cop-chase cars, and his remote control mini helicopter (which landed in the goldfish bowl eventually).

Between Nana –age 96, and Gertrude and Teddy Edwards -85, and 84, Great Uncle Jim at 85, my various aunts and uncles (in their 50s), aside from Matt I was feeling quite youthful and in awe at having a traditional Xmas dinner with over 7 centuries worth of wisdom and experience around one table. It really made me think about what a life is for, and what sort of person/situation I would hope for in my later decades.
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When in doubt… eat.

Christmas at Woodley house was memorable; it was a treat to be invited to share in the traditions and life of another family. To see the 50 year old plastic ornaments on the tree, learn how to make trifle…. I did wonder aloud where the eggnog was at one point, and got a blank look.
No loss, there were puddings, brandy sauces, gravies, mince pies, chocolates, Christmas Cake, a million types of vegetables, with new wonderful condiments to try in a mix and match flavour fest.

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FAVOURITE MOMENTS

- seeing the full moon rising between the forked, truncated limbs of an old dead tree in the middle of a pasture. It looked like a 20 foot high wooden tuning fork with the moon nestled in it like a pebble.
-Old oaks frame the sky in leafless black linear patterns, that when seen in isolation against the grey cloudy sky remind me of patterns seen in biology books –the molecular branchings of vision and, somehow, if only I could get the mathematical formula sorted out, I could somehow unlock a key to how things grow, and why we are separate and yet connected, and what rate growth is possible in the trees occurs somehow on a more universal level. The microcosm reflecting the macrocosm etc. etc.

- making a homely wreath for the Woodley house front door using blooming pussy willows and other twigs I pulled out of a pruning pile from beside the old Mill. Who would think of Pussy willows blooming just after the Solstice? Some daffodil bulbs are already pushing up from the ground, perhaps they are confused. I keep waiting for winter to arrive in the UK. I’ve seen frost a few times…. yet everyone keeps complaining about the cold they are and how miserable the weather is! I feel like a Polly-anna as, form my point of view it’s all been GREAT. The weather changes rapidly and dramatically and I’m never bored.

Back in Aberystwyth –which is a bit like a holiday greeting ghost town -I wandered through castle ruins yesterday, soaked from the wave that caught me on my left side, but grinning like a happy fool –for one is either a happy fool in adverse weather conditions, or miserable. I tend to grin, because I know that getting bashed about in the rain and wind a bit only makes the cup of hot chocolate taste even better. Or in my case today I’m trying a new grain drink –no preservatives or caffeine –made from barley, chicory and rye. It’s most excellent and may become my new virtuous vice now that I’m charting a path back towards healthy New Year’s resolutions.

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EPILOGUE: FULL CIRCLE

I’d say I would resolve to update my blog more frequently, but it’s gone on to Welsh-time now!

Until next time, stay warm and hwyl!

Hax
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Dec. 18 2007 the pre-Holiday Blog

2007-12-18T04:50:00.000-08:00

NADOLIG LLAWEN

Nadolig llawen means Merry Christmas in Welsh

But have you ever heard the expression Merry Crimbo?

Apparently it’s slang around here for merry Xmas, and one may say happy instead of merry and presents are called pressies –with 3 s’s

Cariadlawn means ‘filled with love’ which is a good holiday sentiment whilst surrounded by family.

For my Xmas plans I’m looking forward to heading to Manchester to spend Xmas with Uncle Kevin and Helen, Great Uncle Jim and others in the large Cooper clan.

I’m also hoping to visit Milton Keynes and Jeff and Carol Birch.

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PRIMAEVAL and GAS

On Dec. 14th at the Morlan Centre a terrific band of 4 played a mix of medieval and modern instruments… and rocked out the house with their amplification for four hours!

Extended jams between hurdy gurdy, bass, and accordion player also on kick drum and a man in a beret wailing away on a traditional horn –which appeared to be made of horn –whilst the dance floor was filled with free styling and interpretations on the dances we had learned during the first part of the evening which was a Breton dance work shop that had begun at 7:30pm

Yes, more pinky dancing… and an amusing grape stomping dance!

I caught the hang of a waltz and the polka –but have yet to grasp the lovely oscillations that are involved in the stately mazurka.

One of the nice things about the Breton dance evenings is that there is always a potluck of free food, snacks and coffee to keep the dancers going. And the kids had pretzel sticks to use as swords and covered themselves in the inked bee stamp that was used to establish paid admission.

My desire to learn to play a hurdy gurdy was once more enflamed –even if a good hurdy gurdy costs approximately $4,000!!!

Maybe I’ll stick to dancing!

I left the dance at about 11:30, emerging, breathe visible into a world of frost and minus 2 or so. Crisp, clear, the stars and moon looking removed, but polished.

I was walking back to good old Blaenwern, with Xiao Fen and Christina whilst looking at my mobile -4 missed messages?! Who could have been calling me?

As I was trying to figure this out we ran into the rest of the Blaenwern gang –they had been evacuated from the building because of a gas leak!

We’d be let back in… in an hour… maybe.
I dragged them all back to the Morlan, where it was warm. Some of them were in p.j.s under their jackets, which perhaps made them unwilling to go to a pub –even if going to a pub in your pyjamas is par for the course in Aberystwyth –the seaside town supports TWO costume shops.

Only a week ago I saw an entire football team dressed as cowgirls in blonde pigtail wigs and ill-fitting gingham tops tied tight around their torsos… it seems it is always Halloween in Aber.

X and C went off to a pub with ‘large couches’ to try to snooze and the rest of us went to Simon’s to while away the time trying to figure out a card game tired students from Britain, Canada, Germany, India and Wales could play.

CRAZY EIGHTS! Slogging through old memories I tried to cobble together enough of the rules for a coherent game. I’m pretty sure I missed something crucial –something to do with the 4s? –we came up with a nice variant with the ace blocking the 2… and Lauren beat us in both rounds.

Rohan and Jude staked out Blaenwern after a certain amount of time and called us when the coast was clear.

It was close to 2am by the time I’d aired my gas filled room out and I haven’t completely closed my window since… I don’t usually close my window completely unless there’s a storm wind.

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SLEEPING WITH THE RED DRAGON

It’s difficult not to think about the red Welsh dragon, and about ideas of identity and how we, and I, define ourselves individually and collectively.

Symbols of Canada and Wales have crept into my art work… and my writing.

the Red Dragon (the national emblem of Wales): y Ddraig Goch
the red dragon will show the way: y Ddraig Goch ddyry cychwyn

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ONGOING POETRY AFFLICTION

PEARGIRL V is going to go to print soon as the Welsh poetry edition. A limited number will be printed in Wales and then the complete run will be produced and launched when I return to good old Canadia.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------POETRY

I, like the Welsh starlings,
At the sunset’s eve
Return to the idea of the homeland
To which I cleave
Speaking in Babel’s tongues
I remember
I remember

I remember
aelwyd

Invariable as twilight
A mathematical constellation of flight
(dive, ascend, weave)
By instinct
I gather my selves
Under the slate eaves

(Aelwyd is Welsh for home. )

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AND SPEAKING OF ART

“I was temporarily dragged into the theoretical Great Art Sea and forgot how to swim. Thankfully I seem to have surfaced again and am heading back to the studio.”

Waves of critique, from external, but mostly internal sources have assailed me and will either make me stronger, or break me. I think I am stubborn enough that the former will occur, but old enough to realize that a few things are bound to get broken along the way. I just don’t know what.

Rather than ask why we produce art, a different angle on the idea of creativity is: whom are we producing art for?

Why do I paint?

How has something as mundane as applying pigment on canvas to make pictures I make up, that have no inherently ascertained market value, social redeeming qualities or other such promises or some form of merit… how has making silly pictures landed me on the other side of the world?

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RADIO DRAMA

I’m enjoying the Archers –an ongoing radio drama on BBC Radio 4… soap on the radio!

I usually have a radio on in my studio and it’s always fun to hear a bit of the Archers –even if I still have yet to discover what exactly is going on…

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NATIONAL IDENTITY

So far V’s been my good ‘let’s hang out and eat and go for long walks and get lost trying to follow directions on walking paths and try Welsh dance class’ friend in Wales… but sadly she’s leaving tomorrow to return to her homeland –the very cool Iceland-. She’s taking a pile of notes back to the Icelandic president on my humble notions on ‘how to make a country sexy’

The short version of this lengthy media image make-over scheme is that countries (such as Iceland and Canada) need to have cool animals on their flags. It makes tourists happy and makes locals proud. Just look at the Welsh flag with the dragon on it. What could be better?

Canada needs to get rid of the Maple Leaf- it’s far too reminiscent of the fig leaves used to cover statues’ genitalia. A mark of over prudishness that leaf is!

We need to replace the Maple leaf with a Winged Beaver immediately. Canada’s cool quotient would SOAR!

Iceland needs to get those cool creatures off its coins and remarket them as the Storm Bull, Ice Dragon, Stone Eagle and Wise Giant… and get them on the flag. By using all 4 symbols (one for each cardinal point on the compass rose) Iceland will offer a choose your own image form of patriotic identity. With 4 magical creatures to choose from there’s something for everyone.

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DEVIL’S BRIDGE

Because V is leaving tomorrow I agreed on Sat. to go on the trip to Devil’s Bridge quite enthusiastically. Who wouldn’t want to go to Devil’s Bridge?

The event was organized by a Christian social group (I found this out later –but perhaps I should have been suspicious about the ‘free ride’ part – a free ride at topspeed along winding narrow –yet well tarmacked- roads). I realized that though the roads are narrow, they are quality instead of quantity. In Canada we need the extra width to make up for the lack of quality aka: so we have enough room to dodge the potholes.

We met Sunday Dec. 16th at the public parking lot at what is colloquially called St. Mike’s Church (Saint Michael is what is on the signage). I figure if you’re going to be cool enough as a Christian to call it Saint Mike’s, one might as well call it the House of G. G has a lot of houses. He’s big into real estate. Ya –let’s meet at the house of G, yeah, man, Mike’s house of G.

Gee wiz. The dozen or so people were very lovely and I tried to be tactful as possible. I may have pointed out the irony of going to Devil’s bridge as a group of Christians, but I did not wear any pentacles, horns, or flower headdresses, and tactfully answered questions about the (in) frequency of my church going and completely avoided all religious topics.

The bridge was originally built by monks -by there was a fable about an old woman going home with her cow and dog who needed to cross the river. The Devil said he would build her a bridge -but would own the soul of the first to cross the river.

The clever old woman sent her dog across the river first and then led the cow across -so the devil got the dog's soul instead of hers...

Of course this story upset me to no end. She should have driven the cow across first!!

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MILVUS MILVUS

... as the sunset the sheep on the hillside turned PINK!!!! And the Red Kite, also known as the milvus milvus, back from threatened extinction, wheeled in the sky over the valley catching the sunset light with its distinct red and white underbelly, forked tail allowing it rapid manoeuvring…

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HOW TO MAKE A WELSH PERSON LAUGH

Explain to them that the reason you came to Wales from Canada is because Wales seems romantic to Canadians and that the post-colonial identity crisis we exist in makes an international degree be held with more value than a home-grown Canuck degree.

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CANADIA?
Me: Nope. Canada.

Do you say aboot? (asked with snickering)
Me: maybe on the East side of the country? Does ANYONE say aboot?

So you’re from Vancouver -Do you know Mr. Greenwell in Toronto?
Me: May I ask if you know someone in Italy? It’s about the same distance away.
Canadia’s not THAT big is it?
Me: It’s bigger.

Say Crik.
Me: I reckon the crik’s dried up dear Ethel, time to move the RV unit. No one says Crik either. But we do say VASE not Vahwsz and we don’t say
al-YOU-min-EEE-um, and we think the expression ‘someone’s getting on my tits’ is almost as amusing as seeing the young man walk past in the shirt with MANWHORE 22 printed on the back.

You sound like an American
Me: unfortunately I do to some people. Yet over half a dozen people have asked me if I’m Irish. And I can usually tell the people who have BEEN to America, or are from there, because they always ask me if I’m a Canadian.

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GUINESS NO LONGER TO BE SOLD IN DRAFT FORM IN THE UK??!!!

Sales are down and in the future it will only come in a can…. Apparently the real reason is that fewer pubs are able to deal with a beer that is complicated to serve because staff turns over so quickly that they don’t bother to train anyone anymore and so many wait staff will lie and say Guinness isn’t available because they don’t want the difficulty of pouring it, getting it wrong and getting yelled at…

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TWEE?

According to my supervisor my artwork is ‘at its best’ when I am being Twee and I should be more twee… and what precisely is twee?

I have a vague sense of the word… but twee? She deploys the word several times each time we meet –which is only once every 2-3 weeks. Apart from that I am left to my own devices to fill the 287 hours of studio time that is a graduation requirement for Portfolio development.

Art History class –I mean Visual Culture- and Professional Practice are the other set classes, and then there are all the optional lectures, most of which I enjoy.

IN THE WORKS: to produce a Traditional Welsh Smock Frock
To research the links between Canada and Welsh textiles

On Sat. Dec. 1st 2:30pm at the Ceredigion Museum after taking notes and documenting the Smocks textile exhibition (I have an interest in creating a Welsh smock to accompany my Welsh Border Morris Dance kit as I’ve never been certain what to wear shirt-wise under the Morris jacket and after reading that the Welsh smock was traditionally worn for centuries (by men and women) until it began to disappear in the early 20th C (as noted by Gertrude Jekyll around 1814). I’d like to create an ‘authentic’ Morris smock –as ‘Although originally a practical garment it started being used for more formal occasions such as rural weddings, funerals (particularly for pallbearers) and festivals such as Plough Sunday.’

The majority of the smocks were linen and (twilled) cotton in beige/off white tones, however there was documentation of different coloured smocks being associated with the different trades associated with the wearers. The embroidery patterns had as much in common as they did with being unique patterns created by the embroiderers, personalized for the wearers.

I viewed a monologue play written by Liz Jones, performed by Jez Danks on the life of local photographer and painter, Alfred Worthington, many of whose paintings are on display at the museum.

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BUTTONS STRING & WHAT TIES CHARACTERS TOGETHER

At the museum I was compelled to speak to a striking woman who was wearing a peace sign pinned to the top of her hand dyed headdress with a massive pearl pin.

She seemed a matriarchal character… and indeed, she is. We chatted after the play and she gave me her sticker, as she does not have a card. Olwen Davies, recently celebrated her 85th birthday and.. is always a peace activist. Later I read about her a bit more in the local HEDDWCH free paper –part of the CND –campaign for Nuclear disarmament.

I also met a friend of hers named Susan and her partner who have since dropped by the art school twice to visit –once while on the University of the Third Age lecture (U3A) and a second time recently to give me bags of old buttons, embroidery threads and other sewing oddments that belonged to HER mother.

I am THRILLED to discover traditional chalk fabric marking fragments –used in traditional smocking as well as BONE BUTTONS –I’d been wondering how on EARTH I’d find some traditional Welsh bone buttons for a smock, and debating how traditional I need to go with the project and now the buttons have come to me. Oh Happy Raven dance of found treasure joy!

I showed Susan the picture I’m working on –using some of the heritage embroidery wool she’d given me to trace the outline of Wales around the image of the mythical Woman of Wales. I explained how at one of the lectures I was at I learned about this character –which can be seen in the outline of Wales –with a bit of imagination- and she exclaimed ‘I’ve been living here for over 60 years and I never heard of the Old Woman in Wales –but I see her now! Imagine that.’

Tactfully we avoided discussing the dragon and its –um –attributes –which I display in the painting.

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CARDIFF

On Tues. Nov. 27th I went to Cardiff with the Artschool, but broke away from the main group to pursue personal interests: viewing the Cardiff castle, various art exhibits around town as well as the Industry to Impressionism: What Two sisters did for Wales exhibit at the National Museum of Cardiff.

It was a grand tourist-ish day! With all the joy and freedom of random exploration in a strange land.

Six hours seemed like a good deal of time –but it all sort of flew by.

I regret not making it to the area they film Dr. Who in, but there were more than enough distractions in the area we were in. Art shows, carnivals, old buildings, markets, bypassing the slightly surreal 45’ high Santa’s spray painted Grotto… dodging Christmas shoppers…

The Cardiff castle was very inspiring and fun to hang out with V and to meet Max the Russian student physicist working on developing diamond tools for use with lasers –if I recall correctly??!!

It felt like one of those days I’ll always recall fondly. Hanging out with a Russian and an Icelander surrounded by the panoply of European accents on a grey early winter day, map in hand, a fistful of ‘wood roses’ I bought for myself and all the silliness and exploration that we could cram into the day, and still make it back to the UWA school bus, allowed.

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MERRY CHRISTMAS

HAPPY CRIMBO

MERRY SOLSTICE

NADOLIG LLAWEN

&

HAVE A MAGICAL NEW YEAR

MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU

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Ye is pronounced 'the' not yee... the y was used by typesetters who didn't have a 'thorn' letter (sort of a lower case p and b conjoined...)

2007-11-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

NOVEMBER 18th 2007
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HOLY MELTING MOTHERBOARDS BATMAN!!

There’s nothing like being in a foreign country to make one aware of the passage of time… not that that's a bad thing
I've had more time to watch sunsets than I've had in a long time -andthe flexibility in my schedule to make sure I catch as many as possible :)
I like to walk on the beach, the tumbled stones on the beaches are the best in the world for skipping, I'd say. Not that I can skip stones, that is a mostly masculine talent from what I can tell… I envision I may end up painting rocks and trying to sell them to tourists on the Promenade in the summer.

“hey gov, want to buy this ‘ere art rock? Only 2 quid.”

There’s not too much to report news-wise, I’m still recovering from the damn Toshiba motherboard melting down and going a week without really having a computer which has thrown my novel writing in to a Plutonian orbit temporarily… but I’ve been compensating by writing too much poetry –which I am –only barely- able to refrain from copying and pasting in here. It’s not the diary kind of poetry (I keep that to myself) but is actually me attempting to enter the post modern poetical discursive with some penned lines... but I won't inflict them on you unless you're interested. (ask and you shall receive)

When I am back in Canada I will return to being a devout computer Mac-o-phile.( I should have taken my ibook to Wales… should-a would-a could-a...

Damn you PC overlords and curses to the fried motherboard, which I’m not turning on until after I find an external hard drive to try to download the rest of my files to –since my wee pendrive won’t hold it all. (once upon a time we had pen knives -to sharpen quills, now we have pen drives... the better to promote the transportation of powerpoint presentations.)

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WALKING

On Nov. 3rd I walked from Aberystwyth (aber –ust-with) to Borth (borth)… three and a half hours along the coastline, up and down the grassy Cliffside following an old path. We were lead by Peter, a member of the Walking Club and an expert in the trails of Wales (happy trails, in Wales, better bring sensible shoes…)

Vilborg form Iceland and David from China were also on the expedition, the latter providing the occasional outburst of Chinese opera to lighten the mood! The hour and a half walk to the bus stop along winding blind-cornered narrow roads designed for a single horse-drawn cart was made spectacular by the Welsh driving small automobiles towards each other, weaving in and out, -I still have no idea how they know who is going to stop, when it is necessary, to let the other by...

The walk to the bus stop to get home wasn’t quite as much fun as going up and down the sheep trail, along the seaside, but led to a greater appreciation on my part of the existence of sidewalks and the effectiveness of shrubbery as a barrier.

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POTATOES

You can buy baby potatoes in a can… or porkscratchings.

Postage over here is so horrifically expensive it’s best to either not speak to people via paper letter, or to send a carrier pigeon.

Fruit comes in fun sizes and is prepackaged for you so you don’t have to look through to find the ones you like best, and then get it weighed. You just buy the fun size of your preference.

Eggs don’t need to be refridgerated in the UK, and milk often doesn’t need to be refridgerated either.

On the news they call left-overs 'eco-food' and there is a movement to try to diminish the quantities of left-overs that go in the refuse bin. My willingness to eat left-overs is viewed with general suspicion.

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INTERNATIONAL TEAS:

I had tea with a achromatically haired gentleman from the Orkney Islands. He brought maps and photographs and we had a good chat about island.

Today I had tea with a young woman from Greece and learned that the Greek tradition is to wear the ring on the left hand during engagement and then on the right for marriage. I also learned that one shouldn’t trust olive oil from Spain and that she only trusts olive oil from her family’s estate –but she’s not allowed to bring it on the plane due to all the anti-terrorism laws.

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ACADEMICS:

Sarah says (to Tess on IM:)

well, in a way it is too much fun to be called school, but then when you're wading through books on semiotics, hermeneutics and the academic side -all the tautological hegemonic bureaucratic patriarchal praxis that suffuses the fun side of things, one begins to understand that it really is work -sometimes!

They make certain that an arts MA has just as much academic work as any other MA -as well as the 287 hours you're supposed to spend in the studio 'producing' -it's bliss for me, because I love the academic crap as much as the studio wanking….

“ …modernism most aptly describes the attitude that propelled most of the forward-looking art produced from the turn of the last century, that that attitude was generally one of reaction, and that reaction in any given decade since the 1890s was not already against the same thing, or set of things. Often there was a reaction against a reaction or a reaction within a reaction. One of the most interesting in the 1970s as ‘postmodernism,’ a term describing as aesthetic position that denies the validity of modernism at the same time that it seeks definition as a reaction to it –thus validating the movement it denies.” (pg 8-9 Barbara Buhler Lynes, Postmodernism a Virtual Discussion edited by Maurice Berger)

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IRONY (Alanis Morrisette style; that is to say: inaccurately applied)

Ironically, (after ribbing a friend for going on Christian conversion camping weekend) I accidentally ended up in a full church service yesterday whilst going to the Remembrance Day ceremonies. Actually the massive organ in God's house was really something to behold. It sounded cool too.

Going into one of the old churches was on my checklist of things to do whilst in Wales and the light coming through the stained glass windows was a sort of religious experience to me, providing revelations about the role of artistry in the world and what it means to have created something 200 years later… what remains and what it means. What is the life of the art and what is the life of the artist? If one doesn’t become connected to the story, to become part of the cultural narrative dialogue, be it history, urban myth, pop culture, or the story that is told by x or y in some form or another… then what occurs to you (and your art?)

Relevance to the self will only endure as long as the self does. After that it’s either an easy fade away on the cultural compost heap being mulched by the edge-softening forgetting that will occur in a generation or two, or you survive… in the matrix of the narrative (now available in digitized format, which works so many more wonders than masticated berries spat upon the back of a hirsute hand placed on a cave wall as a stencil.)’I was here. This is my story.’

The modes of expression may have gained complexity and multiplicity, but has the basic urge evolved?

Do I want to fight/wrestle/holler/shock jock my way into wrestling with the media dogs and try to wedge my way into the art history books, or be passive and hope miraculously be recognized, that I and my art will randomly become relevant somehow to society…. or am I content just to work on my work, being relevant to myself and then let the measure of my life be made by others?

I went to Remember and ended up thinking about Forgetting.

Hard not to think about forgetting as a list of hundreds of names are read off… T. Jones, B. Jones, M. Jones, S.L. Jones… and endless list of names without faces. Ancestors, perhaps without offspring, killed young in WWI, and then the list of those who died in WWII… and on, and on…

What is death? There’s leaving the corporeal self, and then there’s the post-mortem cultural death, when all your connections are gone and you’re forgotten… Erased.

There are artists who died 400 years ago who feel more alive and familiar to me than the passing of a relative I didn’t know…

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PURPLE

I spent the day painting today and enjoyed the day, feeling occasionally competent, but on the walk home, after the too early sunset, was wondering ‘why DO I paint?’ it’s such a peculiar thing, and such an odd affliction that perpetuates itself as a persistent proclivity…pah! Who know? It just strikes me as peculiar that such a thing as pushing pigment around on a palette could cause me to peregrinate to a new land.

But how else do we move around in the world, but by chance, happenstance, whim and desire? For example: I hear a Gogol Bordello song on the radio, looked them up on line and now may be basing my Xmas vacation around catching one of the last concerts on their tour…! Go figure!
START WEARING PURPLE NOW! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_81l4DXlwM

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November 5 Guy Fawkes Day

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah hoorah!

I went to a Guy Fawkes Bonfire night in Macyllneth and was pleased to discover it had been taken over by the local pagans turning it into a fire show with music and darkness instead of the usual wiz-boom fireworks (though they had a variation of those as well.) I enjoyed the spinning fire-umbrellas and the bat lantern that wasn’t supposed to catch fire as much as anything else. I was hoping to see the traditional catholic burned in effigy, but alas, no straw Guys in sight.

There was a grumbler in the crowd, every few minutes he would mutter ‘I came for the fireworks, regular fireworks’ as the percussive band paraded to a haunting beat and men in black wearing devil’s masks ran around igniting things on fire… It got better with each repetition as the pyrotechnics climaxed running up tall metal frames that went on fire, rockets that ‘flew’ across a hundred foot stretch on an invisible wire to crash into the far end spectacularly… and then undulating ground based fireworks that climbed into the sky for the finale…

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COMPUTER BLUES (blue and black screen blues)

Sigh. The technicians at school appear (after four days) to have determined there is an issue with the Toshiba’s motherboard –which they’re going to quote me a replacement price for, which I probably can’t afford.

Right now I have my flatmate’s father’s spare laptop (so none of my files are on it yet)… Thank you Rohan!!!!! I’m lucky to have awesome room mates who have things like spare laptops, fresh Oreo cookies, and extensive collections of animation on dvd.

I’m also very glad that the roommate who allegedly didn’t know how to use the bathroom or the shower in a civilized fashion has moved out, one room is now empty; and the other spare room is now occupied by a Celtic studies student who is learning Welsh and came to the Bretton Dance night last night (hurrah! A convert.)

Unusual people turn up to the dance nights: saltof the earth locals and students from Iceland, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Boston, Holland, and Canada! I have to say that so far I’ve found people who like to folkdance are usually very interesting and affable. (It’s hard to imagine linking pinky fingers with an angry person…)

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BRAGGING:

I’m silly-happy that I made a mention in a little paper and increased public silliness by a small measure:

http://www.wilmslowexpress.co.uk/news/s/1020145_gnome_place_like_home_is_moved_on

http://www.crowtoesquarterly.com/ issue #3 contains a poem I wrote, issue #4 has 'The Long Road Home' on the front cover... hurrah!

2007-10-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Oct 28th 2007

BIG NEWS: I just changed the lightbulb in my room (driven batty by a 40 watt bulb I installed an energy efficient bulb that’s supposed to last for 8 years and discovered, whilst balancing on a rotating desk chair) that lightbulbs here aren’t threaded… I’m now enjoying 100 watts, as the days get greyer I may have to buy another light!

Overall, the 'I'm in Wales' dance of joy feeling hasn't left me yet, although there have been mild bouts of homesickness... mostly missing my dog and my studio supplies -it's tough to pull things together from scratch on a budget, but a good test to see what I REALLY need to paint with.

The university department is great, small, intimate, but large enough to have that creative buzz.

Since school’s been in session for a month some of the other students are actually starting to move into their studio spaces so I sometimes have company!

One of my supervisors bought me a drink after a school art opening which included a show of prints and art purchased on eBay for as little as 3 pounds, which include some Hockneys a Goya (gargoyles clipping their toenails! - I go to visit it every day) and a real Reubens… right on the way in front of me…. and only one cctv camera in the room!.... erm, just looking, really! Actually, if I could choose one to own it would have to be the Goya gargoyles!

Halloween is still a new concept around here and still back in the protozoan format of girls dress like sluts (although that seems to be the theme with the first year students EVERY weekend)… I missed the parade of Lost Souls! I had a sudden craving to get up on stilts… which I WON’T be doing here, even if I did just get my National Health Services card in the mail.

There's a stomach flu going around in the residence (there's always some illness going around, I'm turning into Mr. Burns) so now I'm not touching anything and just ate 2 cloves of garlic with dinner.

We failed our residence hygiene inspection #1 and passed on #2

I'm doing my part but refuse to become everyone's mother/personal cleaner

My computer is acting funny and I don't understand PCs! Last week it started beeping and then shut itself down... the battery won’t recharge. So I took it out. Now the computer mostly works, except when it randomly loses power as though the electricity was cut –and I don’t jostle or move the thing it just goes off. Very quickly. I priced out a new power adaptor … at 49 pounds it’s not in the budget. Maybe the connections between the computer brain and power source are not connecting properly? I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem to be an OS problem…. definitely something to do with the power supply.

I'm not missing the Bowen Island ferry!!!!! And I’m not missing having a car. Anyone know if the blue Taurus is still running?

Some things I’ve noticed around Aber:

Smokers! I didn’t realize smoking was still so fashionable, not just men, but (young) women. The stone gutters fill with cigarette butts, I could string them on fishing line and use the to decorate the rails of the Seafront, or turn them into jewelry, except I’ve never been a fan of that sort of obvious ‘art statement’ except when done particularly well, which as I was bored with the idea 2 seconds after having it, I would more than likely fail at it… I could collect them all and create a Butt Pyramid.

Willowy women take on a whole new meaning over here! Never have I seen so many tall willowy women (six foot plus!) who are thin, elongated and lovely. What I don’t see is their male counterpart. There aren’t very many tall men that I have spotted. And still, none wearing kilts except on my oatmeal box.

Sheep really do dot the hillside, they don't roam in flocks.

The sheep here used to be radioactive after Chernobyl. Perhaps that's why they're all startlingly white.

There are some ‘interesting’ characters about, which is nice. I enjoy spotting the Goths and punks of Aber (there are more mohawks and tribal hair cuts in town than in Vancouver!)

And then there's general people watching:

The young, lovely woman in the wheel chair with her baby on her lap, wheeling down Main Street.

The ginger male with a long mullet.

The girls who have short mullets.

The man who dresses in a laced up full length leather trench coat.

The 6’6” tall man with four foot shoulders and 12” hips, his arms so built up from bodybuilding that his elbows were over eight inches away from his sides and seemed incapable of relaxing. He was swinging his rather large arms around in exaggerated shoulder rolls, lifting his shirt up high and showing off the top of his boxer shorts. I crossed the street, partially to give him room a sit was early morning and we were walking at the same pace and there was no need to crowd! He crossed the street, seemingly oblivious to everything and was again in front of me. Nothing unusual, he looked like your ordinary, extra ordinary tough. And then he began to sing, not in a: I’m going to belt out a tune now way, just in a personal, there’s a song in my heart sort of way. Being that I’ve been known to burst into song on the street occasionally I appreciated hearing snippets of his song. And that his voice was so… I don’t want to say delicate, but it was emotive, as though he cared about the words and what lay behind them (as they were Wlesh I can only guess at their profundity). As he turned to head up a side street I noted that his feet were completely turned out as he walked, as though stuck in (2nd?) position in ballet.

Discovering I may be one of the eccentrics of Aber:

I was taking photos of the rose tree which is my thorny Punctum (thanks Barthes) beside the old stone house. Feeling like I was trespassing (as I was) in the neighbor’s driveway, just a little, camera out. Trying not to be noticed. Took 2 quick snaps and then as I was about to back away there was an old man behind me on the walkway, stooped, using a cane. “I hope you’re going to buy it.” Says he.

“I wish I could.” I replied lightly, more because I’d like to own a home, not necessarily this one in particular, although I do like the Welsh stone buildings... I'm not planning on staying here!

“It’s been empty for years, it’s for sale. It needs some one to live in it.” The old man admonished, as though ‘what was I waiting for?!

“It has a beautiful rose on the side of the building.” I said.

“That too. You should buy it.” The man said, and then he was off, moving more sprightly with his cane than one would suspect.

I walked home toying with notions of houses, what I want/need in a home. I stopped in the window of the local real estate building to see what prices are like in this town. Not that a house with a rose on the busiest street in town would be my first choice, but I was curious. 150,000 pounds and up... about the same as Bowen, perhaps not quite as inflated.

I’ve been told that people either love Aber or they go stir-crazy and leave or it casts a spell over some people and then they can’t leave.

I don’t think I’m likely to go stir-crazy, nor have I been bespelled, not like I was in Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia. But I like it here.

Last night I went to an India dance Wales show called Kalidasa. A 2 hour performance put on by a small dance troupe, only one male, more than compensated by having the energy of five men and with his red painted eyelids, curlicues on the side of his face and his ability to leap up in the air and hang there for longer than the average mortal should be able to he was quite impressive. The performers were gorgeous yet all were quite atypical of the Western perception of beauty.

The show was quite incredible. They all danced like living statues. Every element either poised, lively or, incredibly: both. Every feature was controlled, whether in holding a pose involving complex balance, dancing on brass bowls, or moving eyes, eyebrows, etc. Sometimes the facial movement seemed a bit comical, initially, but really quite an extraordinary display of mastery of gaze, every facial feature, hand positions, costume movement…

At one point the lead male turned his back to the audience, and I thought that he had been dusted with a diamond glitter makeup, but it was perfect pearls of sweat catching the light and sparkling like a constellation of effort.

The women with their dyed fingertips appeared to move their hands like water or wings at one point… lovely. The costumes were lavish and flattering. I found it interesting that the only male in the story (not played by a female) was bare-torso for almost the entirety of the evening. At points he seemed vulnerable to our gaze, and then after a time it just seemed natural. The women were modestly attired; their sensuality was in their dance and grace. There was no cliché belly dance at all.

I could basically follow the storyline, even without the poetical English translation provided.

I liked the line that light is the true heart of darkness. When you think about the ratio of light to dark out in the universe the poetical notion has a cogent visual metaphor of celestial proportion!

I quite liked the costume/traditional clothes they wore (although because of their colour etc. I think costume is the correct word) particularly the practicality of all the folds in the front of the skirt and the pants made sense after seeing them in motion, and the freedom and range of movement permitted in conjunction with clever modesty being maintained.

I also rather liked that the sets of bells they wore around their ankles were mostly held in place by large leather straps so that when they spun around they rather looked a great deal like heavy bondage cuffs. They all wore them. Of course I want a pair now… to Morris dance in.

It’s Sunday again. Last Sunday I walked up Pen Dinas (a hill that might be called a mountain locally) with Vilborg. There was a little hole in the base of the war memorial at the top. I thought it a good place for treasure… but there was nothing inside… so I decided treasure was required. There’s now something hidden up there… at the base of the memorial… don’t stick your hands down the badger holes!!!

This Sunday I tried in vain to find a café that was open. Nada. Zilch. Pas de café culture on a Sunday. .. So I went to the castle ruins and played around with the timer on my camera and then made my way home through the storm winds to update my blog. And here we are.

Ta ra!
That’s it for now.

HAX

Update number 2. No flies on the gnomes.

2007-10-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER 6, 2007

“Press release”

Story: Canadian Art Student Kidnaps Local Gnome

University of Wales Master of Fine Art student Sarah Haxby recently visited the Gnome Barns at Gnome Corner in Styal, Wilmslow whilst visiting with relatives in the area. She denies any “gnomenapping” charges stating:

“I’d written a letter to the gnomes earlier in the week after being impressed by the local gnome culture. When I returned to check the mailbox to see if the gnomes had responded I noticed a sign above Mesen (Acorn in English) stating that he and his friend were from Wales. After a long chat Mesen about what it’s like to be in a new country Mesen confessed he was homesick and decided to come to Aberystwyth with me to see what university life is like. Mesen is planning to study mythic civilizations, gnome-ku poetry, the influence of gnomes on historic architecture, and eco-gnomics.
A note was left for his companions so that they would not think that he had been gnome-napped, as was the fate of Neville on June 27, 2007 (Wilmslow Express article July 18th 2007.)

I don’t know what to say about the fate of Neville, except that I think it is a tragedy that he is still missing and that I hope he is returned to his friends soon, and that he is well.
Would I say gnome-napping is on the rise? Possibly. The media could be influencing the popularity of gnome-napping. The movie Amelie really portrayed gnome-napping and gnome travel-adventures in a romantic fashion. I don’t condone the kidnapping or abuse of gnomes. Mesen deciding to travel with me is definitely a unique case. Mesen doesn’t have a travel passport, but my Artistic License does allow me to transport gnomes from England to Wales.”

Sarah Haxby is completing a one year master of fine art and art history at the University of Wales. As an artist she is interested in painting, mythology, local culture and gnome-ology.

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Oct. 14th

One month since I left dear, dear, ol’Canadia (as the chavs like to call it,) I’ve been reminded that hanging with chavs is just a state of mind, but since the local chavs are into purse snatching and breaking into the campus to steal computer monitors (but not the computers) I’ll curtail any foreseeable association with the hyena-ish disgruntled local teens. Due to general inertia their territories seem quite small during daylight hours and once one walks past them, the ‘banter’ seems to cease. I’ve only run into chavs twice whilst here… Mostly Aber seems like Bowen, a friendly place, on the small town side (only with 15,000 instead of 5,000 plus)… plus another 7,000 students!!

I’ve been trying out various fitness classes and after trying an Ashtanga yoga class... I felt pathetic instead of ohhhm after it! I REALLY miss Christine as a teacher, and the Bowen recreation classes. The class I went to was taught by a super flexible Richard who went far too quickly, didn't offer any modifications and the class went on for far too long. (one hour fifty minutes!!!!!) The nice relaxing bit at the end only lasted 2min... and I don't think I'm going to go back again!!! The next week I tried the Hatha yoga, which I enjoyed, but it was still too much for my neck injury, so I’m going to stick to pilates… Trying out things locally really makes me appreciate the size Bowen is. Classes are small, which makes them more personal. Large classes where the teacher wears a headset and booms out over speakers because there’s 40 people in the large room is a very different experience.

Also, people line up at the post office an hour before it opens to get in. It’s an average 20-40 min lineup to get into the local post office!

Mostly things are going well. I got a studio space finally (they were 2 spaces short and offered me a sort of med. sized closet that was being used as a computer room. I said no. You would have been proud of me! Now I'm in my 2nd choice for a studio (which is probably better than the #1 choice in that there's a sink instead of a velvet seat to sprawl in.) I have been (finally!!!) able to move in and get behind the easel again. As predicted, after a few days in my studio painting I feel much more grounded. It’s hard to travel such a great distance to do something and then to get thwarted!!!

I gave into peer pressure and have joined facebook.

I'm feeling really lonely for 'adult' company sometimes... being surrounded by sea of 17 year olds can bit a bit overwhelming sometimes.

My flatmates are fun to hang out with, we're all MA students. Novelties abound. There was a belching contest last night, and the night before that a leg waxing demo done to a boy on the kitchen table, and we’ve been taking turn making group meals, which is really nice…

I'm missing everyone lots... but trying to stay focused on the job at hand... and get myself a little bit busier. I've decided to apply for the postgrad technician studentship position which runs Oct-May (won't interfere with the dissertation) and if I get it, having a little bit of poundage coming in might make me feel a bit better about all the studio costs...

I'm SO missing having all my mass accumulation of art stuff. It's really frustrating not even having a HAMMER …if I get the tech job I'm hoping for access to all the workshop space and tools. I like tools... even if the Head of the Work shop didn't quite look as though he believed I have my own compound mitre saw...

:)

Later… I didn’t get the job, perhaps it’s for the best. School is more than a full time job in and of itself, besides, when was the last time I took a break from having a job?

(I have had the occasionally panic over the no-income thing since being here, but I'm getting over it. As long as I stick to my carefull budget, I will be o.k.)

The art school is separate from the main campus. It is a very old building that has been taken over by the school. It is small, funny, quirky and partially built into a tower. On the way to my studio space (which I LOVE) is a closet and some filing cabinets. Being nosey I opened both. The filing cabinets have a terrific random collection of slides of artwork. The closet... I'll let the photo speak for itself. No one but me could be so pleased to see what's inside...

It's been three weeks with no Corro, and no Thanksgiving turkey now as well! (They don't do turkey here at all. Perhaps I'll cook my own (not that it would fit in the oven) and make some of that powdered gravy everyone here loves to go with it!!!

More than turkey.... I must find pumpkin pie.... there must be some somewhere in Aber!!!! It’s always interesting explaining local customs to a new group, when they ask why do you do that? Think about almost any social custom, they’re not often logic-based. I hope everyone on the great West Coast and will savour pumpkin pie and turkey.... I may have to attept to make pumpkin pie from scratch (oops, no I won’t, there’s a pumpkin shortage this year apparently)....I haven't seen a welsh version of pumpkin pie yet, but after trying welsh cheese, welsh cakes, and welsh punch.... I'm really not sure I'd want to! (shredded butter, stale sugar pancakes and paintbrush cleaner/anti freeze)

No turkey for me.
so sad.
no pumpkin pie.
I weep.
Might as well go look at megaliths, castles and frolick with sheep.

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My Flatmates and the extended Blaenwern gang are great! For my birthday they made Shepherd’s Pie, bought me a caterpillar cake, sang Happy Birthday, and gave me flowers, a book of art quotes and a little Welsh sheep figurine!

We went for a long walk along the seaside promenade after dinner and discovered where on the beach stairwells we could stand and have the waves crash up at us, but not hit us… it was nice.

For a group of strangers thrown together into the same place, I think I lucked out and got a good bunch.

I’m learning more about international politics, terrorism studies and rock climbing than I ever thought I would! Jude’s studying hermeneutics and semiotics as part of her course, which makes dinner conversations interesting as the theories are included in my Visual Culture studies. My other favourite conversations have involved ‘Why is the Mona Lisa thought of as so great’ and which Willy is the Greatest: William Shakespeare, or William Blake. My vote is on Blake. One would think he had actually fallen in love and had his guts ripped out, instead of just toying with the Idea of Love.

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Last Sunday I played tourist to the hilt and I went to Taliesin’s grave (one of) –a minor megalith, saw a Bronze age cairn, the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), visited Merlin's Labyrinth (an underground adventure in an old mine. Part of the caves were flooded and we had to wear hard hats and ride on a boat...it was amazing! and just cheesy enough.

The highlight of the day was visiting Castell y Bere. Sitting up on the castle ruins looking over the landscape, seeing how every inch of it has been touched/altered/shaped by man (and his sheep) was quite a revelation. It may have been the elevation, or the light breeze wafting through the valley but I felt at peace for a bit. I could have sat there all day and just felt content to be still like the stones in the ruin. Timeless. I took some photos, but the link below is informative and documented the heck out of it!

http://www.castlewales.com/cybere.html

Hurray! it looks like my bank transfer just went through, and me down to my last 6 pounds! I guess that means I WILL be able to pay my tuition and not get kicked out… and I can buy more groceries. There are big scary box stores, but I go up the hill to the Tree House Organic shop where the white haired Welshman is quick with a quip and there are real green olives stuffed with garlic and the Welsh farmers pull up in the mornings in battered trucks to deliver organic greens….

Yesterday I went to the local museum and then to a café with Vilborg, a young woman from Iceland who has befriended me. She has the best stories… like going to Poland for an intensive theatre training program and worrying about wild dogs as she walked the 2 miles to her homestay in the dark…

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Last Sat. night one of my flatmates (the one who hates pigeons) set off the firealarm.
She's in the room next to mine. We all had to evacuate the building at 1am and stand outside in the cold waiting for the firemen to come… the firemen were not pleased with the false alarm (each call out costs approx. 400 pounds)… and it was only three days after our ‘Fire and Safety’ training. Do you want to know HOW she set off the fire alarm? -there were 4 flies in her room and she couldn't manage to swat them with a magazine… so she took a can of aerosol deoderant and tried to use the armpit spray to kill them!!!!! She just kept spraying and spraying and spraying hoping she would gas them to death... at least her room smells hygenic now! (And probably will for the rest of the semester. )

She was very embarassed, but it was hard not to find the whole thing rather amusing... the firemen weren't amused... but that's only because there's 113 or so false alarms a year. Still, this one seemed pretty original to me!

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Follow up to the Press Release (shockingly the story wasn’t picked up by the local paper)… as there was a BIGGER story: today I learned that Gnome Corner has recently been evacuated because it was causing too many accidents as it was distracting to drivers!!!!

Uncle Kevin and Aunt Helen and Mattie came to visit me today. We went up the hill in the electric tram and had lunch in the observatory restaurant, walked along the beach, had icecream and then said farewell. It was a good day-visit.

:)

Next Update in two weeks or if Something Exciting Happens.

Hwyl!

Sarah in Wales.

321 days left.

_______________________________________________

The First 1 1/2 weeks...

2007-09-26T10:13:00.000-07:00

THE TRIP

Sept. 14th 6pm Vancouver time, to Sept. 15th 11:05am local time and then staying up until 8:30pm local time to try to ‘adjust’.... I left on Friday the 14th surrounded by a glow of good will, best wishes and all the farewells. The community support and going away parties were lovely, terrific, touching and made me not want to leave !

*It was a long uneventful plane ride (thankfully the man trying to smoke unlit cigarettes in the airport by hyperventilating through the rolled tobacco product who was threatening to ignite his lighter if someone didn’t tell him where he could smoke was NOT seated beside me. I didn’t stick around to see if the RCMP were going to let him onto the plane.)

*And I got through security without having my overweight carry on bags weighed –doing my best to mime ‘this is really light, it’s not ripping my shoulder off at all!’ & ‘ignore the blood and the shoulder blade on the floor!’ *I sat beside a nice older woman returning home to Manchester who wanted to sleep most of the time and only ate fruit during the 9 hour plane trip. *none of my baggage got lost, just a little hole-ier

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MANCHESTER
Sept. 17 (warning –still in a bit of a jet-lag, sleep-deprived daze!)

My mind is amazed, not just at the differences, but of the sameness of it all.

There are places where I could be anywhere in the world that has embraced the character erasing neon packaging of capitalism….

“Another load of bunff!” old uncle Jim declares of the mail just shoved through his doorway which lands with a loud splat on the floor. I am in my Great, Great Uncle Jim’s 12 foot wide, 42 foot deep, two story, side by each brick house.

It is so similar to all the other brick houses built up in circles upon circles upon circles that I am a-feared to wander out by myself that I should get lost in the homogeneity of it all Brick, brick, brick…. I’ve never seen so much brick. There are no wooden homes. I rather like the brick. It’s solid and fireproof and feels very permanent.

Even the new homes look like the old homes and so a foundation of visual culture is established. Brick is King. I have ‘slept’ upstairs for two nights now… we are near to the airport take-off runways. The turbulence created by the planes is so intense that the airport will pay to have the slate and clay tile roofs replaced on a regular basis!

The window-rattling proximity of the planes, so low that the wheels are still down as they blast overhead have lead to some interesting dreams! I don’t need an alarm clock, the 6:45 quadruple launch pattern works quite efficiently.

I am surrounded by blue and white doilies with old china figurines carefully placed, probably purchased by my great aunt Irene and kept in place by my great uncle Jim… Lovely Irene has been dead for 14 years now,The last time I saw Jim and Irene was 15 years ago

There’s only a few roses left in the neat dirt planting border that is meticulously weeded, but unplanted.

It’s hard to imagine that all this time since I last saw them that Jim has gone on alone, all on his own in his tidy house he has had for over 45 years. The place he raised his children. Beside the airport he spent his whole life working at, with the planes that made him deaf. Life is so short, but there can be so much to endure in that brevity that a lifetime surely can feel like an eternity There is something about being in the home of an 85 year old that the sense of how time can slow down once more, when there is all the time in the world to eat tea and toast. Will I accept the peace of my end days?

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I got to meet 'Nana' on her 96th birthday!!!!

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I may ramble a bit, (NO ! -REALLY????) after all I did not sleep much before my departure, I was too caught up in the work getting ready to go...

Currently I am on the getting to know the relatives leg of the journey, which is a strange middle part of the plan, an unorganized 6 days of possibilities, and attempting to get over jet-lag: a mysterious nagging ghost of an affliction. I’ve been preparing for Wales for so long now, as much as one may prepare for an unknown future. I can only hope that I have chosen wisely for myself once I am there and that in reaching for what I have wished for that I have chosen wisely.

Glossy brochures really are just that. School really is school. I hope that the marking is reasonable and that I am as enthralled to be in school as I was at Emily Carr, I’m sure I will be just as jaded at some points, but hopefully, overall, just as happy.

In leaving Bowen Island I was overwhelmed by the amount of support I received from the community. Not just the well-wishing, and the cards….it was extraordinary how much support I got, but all the people I know well, know a little and who know me but I’m not sure what there names are, although their faces are familiar… waving and well-wishing me as I went around and about Bowen… all the hugs and excitement for me, and those who were jealous and wishing that they could do something similar.

--------------
MANCHESTER
Sept. 20th

so.... hold off the painting pants! I don't need them mailed to me! After I couldn't find any thrift-store pants that were inspirational enough to paint in, I decided to make a quick quilt for my bed (well, you know me ...) I went to a thrift store and they sold me a bag of rags meant for the ragman for 1 pound (but I wasn't allowed to see what was in the bag until after I dragged the 45 pound garbage bag home) (hoping it wouldn't be filled with PINK! (or orange or yellow or pastels, or weird prints –not that I am picky!-) It was mostly denims... and I found a perfect pair of painting pants, a pair of snow-pants, a pair of light sports pants that fit perfectly!I managed to operate Uncle Jim's electric sewing machine -an ALFA from 1952 that hadn't been used for 20-30 years.

I oiled it, put a new drive band on it and wheee.... for half an hour and then I blew the house circuitry twice and the third time I got it going again the machine itself blew up in a puff of black smoke with a loud pop! Uncle Jim was all right about it, as I told him, at least it had a good gallop around the field before going out with a bang! I finished the quilt at Uncle Kev's and Helen's on a newer, reliable Singer sewing machine.

I'm fine and things are progressing in their own slightly unscheduled way and I'm trying to just let the days entertain themselves and not worry about scheduling things -as soon enough my schedule will be very busy! Everyone has been wonderful and generous with their time and everything else -I may be kitted out with a full set of second hand items before I even make it to a charity shop! Every time I mention going to one someone says -oh, I've got something like that, it's 2nd hand but you can use it!

I've been out of contact because I don't have my computer hooked up to the internet yet.

There's no available wireless service at Uncle Jim's. Tomorrow we may go into Manchester City... as mostly I've hung out at Uncle Jim's and poked around Styal and Wilmslow. I've figured out enough to be able to walk into Styal by myself and that the horses in the field will come running if you sing a bit of a tune... and discovered Gnome Corner. ...and I now await to see if the gnomes are going to write me back! I spent four and a half hours trekking around the ancient woods/parks by myself…

I followed the River Bollin and walked through Arthur’s Woods and over the Giant’s Castle Bridge. It’s after tourist time and I was on the ‘lesser used paths’ so I had the entire forest to myself –apart from the odd cow, sheep and 3 joggers.

In Arthur’s Woods, in a glade under massive old oak trees I bounced around on many layers created by hundreds of years of falling acorn shells. Grey squirrels (squizzles, my nephew Mattie calls them,) zipped around in the trees.) Don’t worry mother, my map reading skills have improved (not that signage is popular over here) and Uncle Kevin gave me Mattie’s old cellphone and stuck a pay as you go card in it, so I have a mobile in case of emergency.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ABERYSTWYTH
Sept 26th Wed. 8:30am

IT’S AS BEAUTIFUL AS IN THE BROCHURES!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally have internet connection! The STUNET disk wouldn’t work until after registration which was yesterday.

I’m hanging out in my wee upper floor room… the ceiling is partially slanted owing to the pitch of the slate roof I am under. I have a small window that peeks out from under the eave that looks out over the sea so I can stand in the dormer and admire the horizon and the STUNNING VIEW!

My window is an old wood one on a weight and pulley system. I asked to be on the upper floor with a window view and was lucky enough to get what I asked for, (many of the rooms look at a hill, or worse, into another residential building!)

The four and a half flights of stairs will make me a stair-master by the end of the year!

It’s very romantic, in all variants of the word. The beauty, thrill and adventure of being in a new place is lightly shadowed by missing all that I have left behind, the job I loved, people I care for, my dog and my island… the cabin I built with the nice, big bed…

Student beds are only slightly smaller than the bed in a nun’s cell and I keep falling off in the middle of the night!

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Sept. 29th 2007

Just past the 2 week mark, of being in the UK, and almost at a full week of being in residence and it’s hard to believe that I haven’t been here for months.

Things are different here, yes they are.

After a week filled with induction meetings, information meetings, being driven mad by chasing all over town for bits of paper to sort banking out, NOT getting a studio space, being overwhelmed by Fresher week!

Last night I went to the Breton dancing evening (another type of folk dancing, less vigorous than Morris dancing, more like medieval dance,) at a church hall beside a 14th C. stone church up on the hill, on the map it looks as if there’s ONLY a church up there, I guess the school didn’t feel the need to put anything un-school related on their maps! Standing in the church archway comprised of over fifty tonnes of arched stone shaped like a massive koi's maw about to gulp one up is enough to make me feel something inspiring, even if a belief in God still isn't on the menu for me.

Nigel , a silver-streaked, black haired gentleman who was one of the event's organizers- was nice enough to give me and Ziggy a ride to the Aber Residences. Ziggy is a tall, blonde, black-denimed Celtic studies student from Germany who had the coordination of a 1 wheeled alley way shopping cart pushed down a cobble street. He was there to 'study' the Celticness of us, I guess. To be fair, he’d never danced before, but he also almost pulled my little finger off. During one dance my right hand and my left hand (the one on which the experienced dancer was) were doing completely different things so I felt like a manual turn crank with one person making coffee and the other grinding meat, instead of a folk dancer, which made me lose track of my feet altogether!

Oddly enough, many Breton dances involve linking pinky fingers. I thought perhaps it was some subtle form of eroticism allowed to them. Pinky fingers only on the first date?

We danced from 7pm-almost 11pm with one break for potluck nibblies.

Some of the dances were quite a bit of fun and I picked them upeasily, others challenged my sense of right and left and ability to follow directions so I alternated from grace to looking like a one-eyed lame pigeon trying to cross a Welsh road on foot...

Speaking of pigeons -2 of my flat mates have a sort of terror-revulsion of pigeons! There was talk of keeping water balloons around to throw at them (instead of the inebriated, indiscriminant defenestration that was occurring last night when I returned home !

I’ve never met anyone who disliked pigeons, I don’t mind them, many of them are larger than the local pigeons and have lovely markings.... Although one did fly into the kitchen yesterday... Pigeon Pot Pie anyone?

I keep dreaming of Bowen, and of course of being at Betty's farmhouse (I've had farmhouse dreams since I was a young child.) This time my dream of being at the farm house was set in the future, another woman was living there, but still I’m looking for something at Betty’s farmhouse in my dreams! This time there was a sale of only the saddest and most neglected leftover items of Betty’s and yet still I was still picking through them, looking for some connection to Betty, something that shouldn't be lost... and I was still walking about the place as though I own it.

Perhaps I dream forever of the farmhouse because I have never been in a place where I have felt so at home. The painting studio upstairs, the old funky house, the ability to walk to town or to friends, yet still feeling isolated enough in the fields and the woods… perhaps one day I can get my cabin to be a bit more like that. The living space WITH a studio space and more than one room. I don’t need too much, but I need a bit more than what I have at my cabin right now....

...and a bit more than I have in Wales as a student! But I am content to be a student for a year.

Fifty weeks until I come home! I am enjoying every moment of Aberystwyth, really soaking it up. I'm walking everyday, looking at EVERYTHING and LOVING it. But I don't think I'm going to fall in love with the place, not like I have with the island, or did with a certain special town on the East Coast.

It's a THRILL being here right now, but I don't think I'm going to be one of the people that try to stay here. It's a bit too city, and a bit too much like a university town... I hope to find more of the locals though... I'm planning to try the Welsh dancing and the Scottish dancing!!!

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: on my way to my first pilates class I saw Sam Wakeling on his 36" unicycle beginning his attempt at a Guinness World Record. For more info: http://www.aber.ac.uk/aberonline/en/archive/2007/09/uwa11707/

GO SAM GO! only 18hours left to go!

Right, back to my Art History homework now!!!

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