Mab 2 - The Return - Days 3&4

I was too tired to do this last night. And was staying in a windy and rainy field in a tent, so there we are.

I’m at the point in this trip now that I’m reliant on the photos I’ve been taking to remind me of what I’ve actually seen and done.

Day 3

The start of day three was a return to Llyn Morwynion, just outside Blaenau Ffestiniog. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting this site once before and it’s become one of my favourite places in the world I think. It’s just very beautiful and magical. It’s a glacial lake, up in the rolling hills which, from one end, looks down over a valley.

I’ve talked about it in a blog before, but it was visiting this site for the first time that made me realise how much the landscape had to offer our understanding of these stories. This is the lake where Blodeuwedd’s maidens drowned because they were all looking behind themselves for their pursuer, Lleu Llaw Gyffes. The idea they might be looking back down the valley adds something tangible to this moment in the story.

Then it was off to Ynys Môn, to track down some stone cottages that purportedly sit on the site of one of the main courts of the time. I need to give a big shout out to the book ‘Legend and Landscape of Wales: The Mabinogi’ by John K Bollard. It’s a translation of the stories with photographs of sites mentioned in the tales. This has been an invaluable resource in helping me find these places. In this instance, an extension on the side of the end cottage momentarily confused me, but it didn’t take long to figure out this was the right place.

Then I was off round the corner to the Llys Llewelyn Tea Room for my second vegan breakfast of the trip so far (very good it was too). As I drove away I was wondering what I’d done with my glasses when I heard a clatter across the roof of the car and looked in my wing mirror to see my glasses case bouncing down the road. Thankfully I was able to get them back and the case had done it’s job.

Next stop was an attempt to get to Bedd Branwen (Branwen’s Grave). I’d read online that this was in a closed field, so I wasn’t too hopeful, but off I went regardless. To my surprise and pleasure the gate to the field was open and it just took 5 minutes of wandering around before, logically, I worked out that the un-mown circle in the field had a big rock in the middle of it. Someone else had clearly been along in the past few days too judging by the fresh(ish) flowers placed in the split in the rock.

Again (I’ve said it before), one of the things I love about these sites is that there’s an element of endeavour to access them. Not just physical, but in tracking them down in the first place. These are sites attached to the most important tales of Welsh folklore, but they’re just out there in the landscape, hiding in plain sight. No signage, no pomp, no ceremony. Just quietly waiting for the next visitor to arrive.

Lastly for the day, it was off to buy a new tent, before visiting Segontium, Roman Fort, Caernarfon. The tent I’d come with I’d never used before Monday night. I got it for £11 from Home Bargains a couple of years ago. It did the job ok, but the daylight I could see through the stitching holes didn’t fill me with confidence that it would stand up to Welsh rain should it arrive (and it looked like it was going to yesterday night).

Segontium looks like this…

…and has it’s entrance just a little too far away from the brown sign on the road.

Then it was a night in a wet and windy field (which was fine) and I got to practice my Welsh with the lovely lady who runs the campsite who asked if I’d been to Tafwyl the other weekend (yes, I did), and proceeded to tell me her son had been and arrived home after 4 days absolutely wrecked.

Day 4

This has been a hectic day. Many more sites and lots more driving. I realised last night that one of the sites I had lined up (second on my list for the day) was reliant on the tide being out for me to able to see it - Maen Dylan - so I went there first. That’s it in the distance, the black spec in the centre of this picture, already looking like it might get consumed by the tide.

In my haste to get there I had another tumble, but I’m fine. Honestly. Just a flesh wound.

And I made it with time to spare.

What I wasn’t expecting was what I found when I rounded the rock to the other side…

Someone’s actually carved the name ‘MAEN DYLAN’ into the rock. A strange thing to do to a beloved landmark, but there you go. So, then it was off to two more forts - Dinas Din Lle and Caer Engan - two very different experiences (one’s dramatically on the coastline and the other is full of sheep and sheep shit), but what struck me is that those Romans knew how to pick a spot. From both places the views were spectacular and went for miles around. You’d definitely have a good idea that someone was on their way to fight you if you were watching from these places.

I’ve seen a lot of sheep on this trip and, bless their beautiful hearts, I think they might collectively be the most nervous creatures I’ve ever met. I haven’t come across a friendly, curious, or confident one yet. I’ve not actually been within 3 metres of one, as they scatter like you’re exuding a force field that’s making them move, even if they’re fast asleep as you approach.

Lastly today, it was a sweaty two hour walk through Coed Felenrhyd & Llennyrch, where I got a bit lost trying to follow the ‘red’ loop around the forest. A highlight was coming across this noticeboard, whilst lost…

But, in general, this place was incredible. It felt like being in a rainforest at points, save for the sounds of sheep and barking dogs that echo through the forest at all times. I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area, and make sure you’ve given yourself a good few hours, or a whole day to explore, as you’ll probably get lost. It looks like this…

And so ends this day of my Mabinogi road trip.

Mab 2 - The Return - Day 2

It’s been a hectic day today - I woke up near Narberth (and some sleeping donkeys) and am going to bed in Blaenau Ffestiniog, and there were lots of stops in between. Before I get to them I wanted to start with some stuff I was thinking about all day yesterday.

On this trip, I’m collecting small rocks and stones as I go. These are going to form part of the artwork I make at the end of this process. I’ve been thinking about this trip, and this project, for months and some things never crossed my mind until was off and running yesterday.

As I collected my first few stones, I suddenly had the thought, “Have I got any right to be collecting these?” I’ve done quite a lot of scuba-diving over the years and the mantra with that is, “Take only photos, leave only bubbles”, something I’ve always adhered to (other than an occasional piece of sunken trash or a lost mask and snorkel). This came to mind as I started collecting the stones. Was/am I doing something wrong by collecting these stones? In many ways I’m doing nothing more than what any kid might do - taking a little keepsake. But I’m not a kid. And, by default, these sites are special in some way - they’re purported to be sites of folkloric importance (is that a phrase?)…

I don’t know, is the answer. But what it forced me to do was start making some rules around my collecting, maybe to justify it to myself. Of course I’m not removing anything from walls, or cairns, or anything covered in moss and lichen. The basic rule I set myself is that the stone must be loose and on the surface of the ground. It can’t be in anyway embedded or rooted. I think, in this way, I’m just collecting things that might get kicked or thrown for dogs. My interest in the stones isn’t that they might be ancient, simply that they’re a physical token and marker of a geographical location and my journey. Another thing is that I’m noting the what3words location of every stone. That’s actually part of the work, but it also made me realise that if wanted to I could take them all back to the precise location from where they came. I don’t know. I overthink things, but I guess it’s important to do that sometimes to make sure you’re not NOT thinking about things…

So, my first stop this morning is unquestionably going to be one of my favourites from this trip - Ffynone Waterfall - purported to be the gateway to Annwfn.

Just up from the car park, on the trail, a house is being rebuilt/refurbished. It will be a pretty extraordinary place to live (remote, in an ancient wood, with lots of walkers passing your front door). The workmen have put this sign up as they’re so bored of visitors asking which way to go (I didn’t ask, but got briefly chatting to one of them when he saw me taking this photo).

A short walk away is this…

…and it’s really easy to see why people might have thought this a portal to another world. Even the surrounding trees feed the other-worldly feeling…

This has obviously been a spot people visit for hundreds of years and a tree just on the edge of the waterfall pool bears the scars of those visitors. I should wholly disapprove of this kind of thing but it’s actually pretty beautiful - hundreds of names carved into the same tree over decades. It’s the kind-of long term created object that an artist can only dream of making (or begin today and make for the rest of their lives).

Then came a long drive to Harlech, via a couple of other sites. If you’ve never driven through Wales before, you have to do it. The country is so incredibly beautiful you find yourself wanting to buy every other one of the many very remote stone buildings you see for sale as you meander through hamlet after hamlet, town after town, never getting much above 40mph as the roads are so windy and narrow. The landscape just keeps on taking your breath away. Yes, it all sounds very cliched but do it then come back and tell me I’m wrong.

There’s not much else to tell from today - stories-wise - so I’ll just post a few pictures and let them do the talking. Ynys Môn fory…

And so ends this day of my Mabinogi road trip.

Mab 2 - The Return

I’m currently out on an art road trip. It only occurred to me, whilst driving to West Wales this morning, that I’ve done this quite a lot over the years, in the name of art. Mostly I do it with my occasional non-collaborative partner, Gordon Dalton (see Northern Valhalla and Everyone Knows this is Nowhere, for example), but this time I’m flying solo.

I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve been commissioned by Somerset House to make a new work for a show all to do with Magic and its many forms and interpretations, next February. It’s an exciting prospect as I love the way their big, themed, shows always move between disciplines – art, architecture, fashion, archaeology etc. – to arrive at a pretty expansive and intriguing interpretation of whatever the show is about.

I was contacted by them after a RnD project I did last year, aiming to look at one of the stories of The Mabinogi through the Amgueddfa Cymru archaeological collections and experimental folk music. There’s a blog one or two back from here that details all of that. So, off the back of that they asked if there was anything I was interested to develop out of that work, for this show.

Of course there was.

Day 1 

So here I sit on a campsite near Arberth/Narberth, with martins swooping just above the grass, at the end of the first day of a 5-day road trip to visit as many sites from the Mabinogi as possible. One of the main things that fascinates about these old folkloric tales is that – unlike most folklore – a lot of the sites in these stories exist in the landscape. There is plenty of ambiguity, of course, but there’s some absolutely nailed-on definites and many very-educated guesses. I had the pleasure of visiting some of these sites through that RnD project last year and was pleasantly surprised how much they informed my understanding of the story (naïve, yes.) To be able to contextualise those scenes, that had previously only existed in my head, into a real landscape really brought them to life and helped them make sense in a way they previously hadn’t been able to.

So, my schedule for the week starts in the West and meanders North, taking in about 20 sites and locations in total.

First stop this morning was Castell Narberth/Narberth Castle (one of two potential sites of Gorsedd Arberth from the stories). In true road trip style, I arrived only to discover that the site is completely gated off due to the dangerously crumbling state of the ruins.

In many ways, this didn’t really phase me. These trips are never about things going the way they’re listed on the itinerary. I’m reminded of the time me and Gordon flew 6000 miles to L.A., then drove about 800 miles to Twin Falls in Idaho, to track down the spot from which Evel Knievel failed to jump Snake River Canyon in 1974. After nearly 7000 miles travelling, we went to tourist information to find out how we access the site only to be told there was no way we could as it was on private land. Celebrating our failure in a bar that night, several Jager-bombs too many into an animated conversation with locals, certain other possibilities for accessing the site were introduced to us…

As it was, a closed Castell Narberth just led me to wander round the outside to see what I could see. One of the things I could see was a very low and clamberable fence along one part of the perimeter of the castle grounds. Judging by the number of empty bottles, cans and vapes I came across, I’d say this fence gets clambered pretty-regularly, whether anyone is prepared to admit it or not.

During my wander, I also found myself going down a footpath into a wooded valley, where I stopped to take some pictures. The quiet of the woods led me to notice quite a loud buzz-cum-hum, like a swarm of something were nearby. I looked up to find dozens of waspy/hornety things just hovering in the air. I don’t actually know what they were, but they were hornety and a bit see-through, and very good at staying completely still in mid-air. It was quite beautiful to spend a moment with them before carrying on my way.

Then, it was off to the Preseli Hills and a walk between Foeldrygarn – an ancient hillfort with three large cairns on top, piled there by Bronze Age inhabitants 3000-4000 years ago – and Carn Menyn, made of the same bluestone as the inner ring of Stonehenge.

Curious sheep kept me company throughout and, at the top of Foeldrygarn, reaching for my camera, I realised I’d lost the lens cap somewhere en route to the top – a route already too far to retrace my footsteps with any realistic hope of finding it.

Resigned to its loss, after some time sitting and looking across the vast landscape from the same spot as those Bronze Age inhabitants 3-4000 years ago, I carried on to Carn Menyn – a pretty straightforward trudge through about a mile of long-grassed and, at times, boggy uplands.

Carn Menyn was similarly dramatic and, again, provided a nice place to rest and drink some of the water I just remembered I’d sensibly brought.

On my walk back towards my car from Carn Menyn, as I was lost in enjoying just how much I was enjoying myself, I stumbled and turned my ankle. I’ve had a dodgy ankle for years – it’s floppy-self has been turned so many times my main running partner has nicknamed me ‘Bankles’ – short for baby ankles. Sometimes this lays me up for days, other times not much at all. It always hurts just as much, but is a lottery as to which it will be (I’ll never forget sitting on the roadside on a site visit to Cambridge, trying desperately not to vomit from the pain after a stumble on a lightly-sloping kerb). I managed the mile walk back to the car, so tomorrow morning will really let me know where we are. The main reason this concerns me – apart from being on the road all week – is that I’m supposed to be finishing this week by doing the Yorkshire 3 Peaks with a group of friends from Nottingham – a marathon-length walk through the North Yorkshire Dales taking in three mountains, over 12 hours. Not ideal.

However, what WAS ideal, was that as I neared the gate to the field, just minutes from my car, a kindly dog walker called after me, “Excuse me, did you lose a lens cap?”

Yes. Yes I did.

This gentleman had found it halfway up Foeldrygarn and picked it up. Seeing me with my camera over my shoulder, he’d joined the dots. Maybe this trip isn’t fated after all…

Then it was off to Pont Cych – a small stone bridge over Afon Cych – before heading to this lovely campsite, where I’m sharing my evening with donkeys, goats, rabbits, alpacas and, of course, the martins.

And so ends this day of my Mabinogi road trip.

Hiraeth (working title) - A research and development adventure

Towards the end of last year I was fortunate enough to receive a research and development grant from Arts Council of Wales to develop a project I’d been mulling over for some time.

This started out as a simple conversation in a music-festival field with a close friend, whilst watching Winterfylleth, about how cool it would be to take the Welsh folklore stories of The Mabinogi and turn them into Black Metal songs. This thought developed, morphed, and changed over time, leading me to putting in an application to ACW to explore the possibilities of a project that brought extreme/experimental music together with folklore and site-specific performance.

The mulling-over had been over such a protracted time that along the way I’d begun discussions with Common Wealth Theatre and Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum Wales archaeological department about this project, who were both interested to come along on the journey.

And, so it was, on a cold Wednesday in February, Rhiannon White (Director of Common Weatlh), Steve Burrow (Head of Archaeology at Amgueddfa Cymru) and myself set off on a short roadtrip to North Wales.

Road Trip!

One of the things that’s always fascinated me about The Mabinogi (specifically The Four Branches) is that many of the sites referenced in the stories actually exist, and can be visited, in the landscape. This feels quite unique for folklore which often tends to inhabit other-worlds or landscapes lost to time. These stories, that have been shared in the landscape of Wales for hundreds of years, are still there to be explored in a geographic sense as well as the many other ways they speak to us from the past.

Prior to submitting my application for funding, I’d been given some of the best advice I’d ever received from an arts council officer (Cerys Thomas). We’d met to discuss the project and the application (pre-Covid to give you a sense of how long this idea has been percolating) where I laid out an idea for a site-specific performance that I thought I’d just about pull together with a large project grant. Her advice was to come in for a small grant in the first instance to really research and develop the idea and its possibilities - “This is what theatre does all the time. You visual artists always come in for the project delivery money right away.” (I may be paraphrasing a little, but this was the thrust of the advice.)

In real terms, what this meant was that as we wound our way up the A470 towards Harlech Castle (which is not, itself, in the stories, but the hill/outcrop it is built upon is) we had a general direction of travel for the project, but also a freedom in which to play and respond to things that appeared in front of us. That may sound like a logical approach - it is - but when funding gets involved, so often there can be a (self-enforced) pressure to follow the pre-determined path written into the application. Deviation might feel like failure or that you’re somehow not doing what you’ve said you would do. I learned a long time ago, particularly with project-based work, that things never pan out how you imagine. Invariably you meet problems and unexpected forks in the road that - in my experience - always lead you somewhere better. So, with this project, for the notion of rolling with the punches and following your nose to be built in from the word go, it felt like a space loaded with lots of potential and opportunity.

In developing this research and development process we (the partners) had collectively decided that we’d focus on one of The Four Branches, taking one story right through this process to examine it and attempt to develop a framework we could then use to examine the other three branches, should this one work out well. Essentially, looking at the story through a series of site visits and workshops to see what we’d learn and what we might have made by the end.

Each of The Four Branches are fascinating and wild in their own way, but The Fourth Branch feels like the wildest of them all, and I liked the idea of starting as deep in the madness as we could. And so we headed off to the area around Blaenau Ffestiniog that has a number of key sites from The Fourth Branch in easy driving distance.

Our first stop was Llyn Morwynion, needing an atmospheric 20-min scramble across rugged countryside, with snow and sheep, to get there. It’s incredibly beautiful. After we’d been there for a while, Rhiannon produced some pens and paper and set us the task of spending a few minutes writing on-site, about being there, what we were experiencing, and what we were thinking. This gathering of moments as we passed along our way was to become a key aspect in documenting the experience and carrying it with us through the process.

The next stop was in an attempt to find Gronw’s stone - a large stone with a hole in it, alleged to have been pierced by the spear of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, killing Gronw who was holding it to protect himself. We had a vague idea where the stone was but were it not for the kind help of an elderly local I’m not sure we’d have found it - needing their directions across a field to locate the wonderfully unsignposted stone. I love the fact this important relic, purported to be central in Welsh folklore, is accessible but largely hidden from public view with absolutely no markers to point visitors towards it from the road. Again, we stopped and talked and wrote.

Finally, we visited Tomen y Mur - purportedly the site of Castell Mur from the story. This important Roman archaeological site has incredible views across the countryside and down to Trawsfynydd nuclear power station, creating a beautiful contradiction between the old and new, and thoughts of unseen power and resonance existing in the landscape.

One interesting takeaway from the visits to these sites is that I was struck by their scale and their beauty and left wondering what could possibly be introduced, by an artist, into them that would do anything other than compromise their beauty…

A practical outcome from this trip - a way of just bringing together the images, the writing, the experience - was a zine, created from the images you see above along with the writing and drawing we did at the sites.

Workshops…

An important part of this process was, of course, to simply read and discuss the story so, following the road trip, a reading group/workshop was set up, with an open invitation sent out to Common Wealth’s extensive community.

Led by Barry-based writer, Taylor Edmonds, this was a fascinating workshop at Llanrumney Hall, where those of us who’d been on the road trip shared our photos and experiences, and then we went through a series of tasks - devised by Taylor - to get us really thinking about the story, and drawing out a vast range of personal, cultural, thematic, and historical connections we collectively, and individually, made with the story.

Again, as with the road trip, there was a direction of travel with this workshop, but no clearly desired destination. The purpose of it was to allow whatever might emerge to emerge - deepening and expanding our collective understanding and view of the story and how it connects to people now.

Based on the things discussed, the group were then invited to visit the online portal for the National Museum collections (an amazing, free, publicly accessible resource), to identify objects and artefacts that they felt connected to the things that had been discussed. This wasn’t an exercise in finding Mabinogi-related artefacts, but more the idea of casting a wide net to identify a series of things we would then go and see, for real, in the museum stores, in a follow-up workshop.

So, on a Saturday morning, two weeks later, we found ourselves in the basement of the National Museum faced with a range of priceless artefacts dating back as far as 5000 years!

This was a really extraordinary experience - to be behind the curtain at the National Museum and to be sat, in a small group, in a room with these priceless artefacts and - after a very clear briefing from museum staff on how to handle the objects - being trusted to physically hold a piece of history.

Steve had devised an interesting way to manoeuvre through the objects, by using them to tell the story of The Fourth Branch. Whilst the objects weren’t specifically related to the story, the fact that people had drawn thematic or visual connections with the objects meant that they all tangentially related to the story in some way. This proved a really interesting and useful way to retell the story in the space and also to engage with the objects. Most of the morning was spent in this way as it was simply so fascinating being around these objects and, of course, being told their specific histories by the staff from the museum.

The last task of the morning was a bit of drawing, where everyone there was encouraged to make a simple drawing of their favourite object from the selection on the table, before we retreated to a different room for samosas (from Pooja Sweets on Albany Rd. Highly recommended if you’ve never been), conversation, and a final bit of drawing.

This final bit of drawing was a bit of representational fun, playing with the idea of how the stories of The Mabinogi have been shared over the years. For hundreds of years these stories only existed aurally, being shared by bards and story tellers across the land. Personally, I’m interested in the idea of how any story shifts and changes in its telling. In the case of The Mabinogi, we have an interesting arc in that they were only shared person-to-person for this extended period of time before being compiled and written down in the 12th-13th century. Then, the first English translation of these manuscripts occurred in the mid-19th Century, done by Lady Charlotte Guest. So there’s this strange anchoring that occurs to the shifting sands of an orally shared story, initially in the 12th-13th century when they were written down for the first time, and then again through the act of translation (translation itself never being a precise science).

So, as a visual representation of this journey I got each person at the workshop to pass their drawing of an artefact to the person on their left, who then made a drawing of that drawing. They then passed their drawing of a drawing to the person on their left, who made a drawing of a drawing of a drawing. This happened a couple more times until we had multiple drawings of drawings of drawings of drawings - becoming slightly more abstracted or distorted or finessed each time.

These were all compiled into a zine with the outcomes from the writing workshop too, bringing this information and research together into a visual and shareable form. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love zines. I think they’re the perfect vehicle for making sense of a bunch of information that might otherwise just seem a little disparate - in many ways a halfway house between a sketchbook and a fully resolved artwork.

Music!

This led us to our third and final part of the process - a three day workshop with a group of musicians whose task was to develop a musical interpretation of all of this research and conversation - no small task.

Again, what was nice about this part of this process was that it was pressure-free. As this was a research and development process i.e. there was no performance or specific outcome needed at the end of this process, the musicians had a freedom just to play and experiment and see where we might end up. I think this is an important part of any creative process. Whilst a deadline or performance or exhibition can be invaluable in focussing one’s mind, if there’s a pressure to arrive somewhere too early in the process then this immediately cuts off a lot of potentially interesting alleyways and dead-ends that are useful to explore in a more organic creative process.

(Side note: earlier in the year I read Rick Rubin’s book ‘The Creative Act: A Way of Being’. He talks about exactly this sort of thing in the book…

“In the first phase of the creative process, we are to be completely open, collecting anything we find of interest. We can call this the Seed phase… We’re searching for potential starting points that, with love and care, can grow into something beautiful. At this stage we are not comparing them to find the best seed. We simply gather them… In this phase the artist’s work is to collect seeds, plant them, water them with attention, and see if they take root. Having a specific vision of what a seed will become could serve as a helpful guide in later phases. In this initial phase, it may cut off more interesting possibilities.”

It’s a really great book and I’d recommend anyone involved in creative activity to read it. And whilst I’m drawing specific comparison with this approach and the musician’s workshop, the same essence can be said to have run throughout the entirety of this research development process).

So, on a Monday in early July, I gathered together at The Canopi/Sustainable Studio (a great place/organisation that, again, if you don’t know them or have never been, and live in Cardiff, you should pay them a visit), with…

Jessica Ball (vocals), Jo Sheehy (drums), Eugene Capper (guitar/banjo), Sian Owens (Welsh Harp) and Richard Llewellyn (bass).

It was the first time some of the musicians had ever met, though Eugene had been generously-instrumental in recommending people and making introductions, and it really felt like we hit the jackpot with the people we brought together. There was an immediate creative chemistry between them and it’s no exaggeration to say that from the very first note they played together, something of wonder started to emerge. Following a discussion about The Fourth Branch and everything that had happened, been gathered, and learned through the process so far, the musical process became one of them looking at the story in sections and beginning to improvise around the mood of that particular section, whilst recording everything.

A day or so into the process, we were joined by poet, Patrick Jones, to work with Jess on the lyrics for the piece, and also Nez Parr, a BSL Interpreter, as one of the focuses of this research was how BSL can be embedded, creatively, within the project, alongside Welsh and English as a third language.

And this culminated in a sharing at the end of the third day with an invited group of creative friends. It’s important to say that this wasn’t a performance as such - that was never the purpose of this process - but the musician’s generously shared what had been created with this collected group of supporters, collaborators, and interested parties - partly just to celebrate where we’d arrived, but also to provide another point of discussion and feedback for how this project might develop. It was a wonderful few days and an absolute privilege to work with the musicians and creatives we brought together. Here’s a video of the sharing:

It’s been an amazing journey and one that I, again, give credit to Cerys Thomas (ACW) for sending us on. Having the time, space, and resource, to head off in a general direction and then allow the process to lead it has been incredibly rewarding and valuable. All the partners are excited to push this along to the next stage and see what emerges, so watch this space…

I must say a huge thank you to all of my collaborators through this research process - the musicians, everyone involved in the workshops, my institutional/organisational collaborators (National Museum Wales and Common/Wealth) - specifically Steve and Rhiannon - everyone who has spared the time to talk with me about this project (particularly Professor Sioned Davies) and Arts Council of Wales for funding this journey, without whose support none of this would have been possible.

Goodbye Mr Boshier...

Last Wednesday I was privileged to attend a UK-based farewell to a friend and inspiration - Derek Boshier - in his hometown of Portsmouth. It was arranged to coincide with a naming ceremony for a newly refurbished gallery in Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery - the Derek Boshier Gallery.

I was lucky enough to know Derek for, more-or-less, the last decade of his life. I remember the specific day we first met, when I was invited for breakfast at his house through a mutual friend during a visit to LA - June 24th 2016, the day of the Brexit referendum result. An irony that this date will forever be associated for me, with Derek, as he was so fiercely global and outward-looking in his life and work. The postcard he made, below, gives you a pretty good idea of his perspective on that.

On my return from Portsmouth my wife - ever wise - said to me, “What did you learn from knowing Derek?…”

A difficult one to answer succinctly, as there was so much, but I can also give a pretty straightforward answer too. I think the main thing I learned, at least the main thing I’ll carry, is that as an artist you need to be committed to your work and to always keep moving forwards, always being open to what’s coming next.

The body of work Derek has left behind is extraordinary in, both, it’s scale and its range. At the memorial it was commented upon that even people who knew Derek his entire life probably aren’t aware of all the versions of the artist that have existed. He was quoted as having said, “Look at Picasso. He does one thing in the morning and something different in the afternoon!'“

I’ll never forget talking to Jonathan Griffin - the mutual friend that led to my breakfast invitation - and Jonathan saying, “Derek’s the most successful emerging artist you’ll ever meet.” Of course, he was making a joke, but he was also perfectly summing Derek up.

What he meant - and I can confirm as true - is that, right into his 80s, Derek retained the drive, ambition, openness and energy of an emerging artist. He never just settled into a signature style or media, then spent decades making versions of the same type of work. His work is instantly recognisable - his style is clear, evident, and everywhere - but he was always changing and always trying new things. That reference to emerging artists references the drive and energy that young artists tend to exhibit - the constant thirst for opportunity and always looking for the next thing. And Derek retained this in bucket loads.

I’ll never forget on the run up to the opening of the exhibition we had together at MOSTYN in 2019; the day before the launch Derek arrived at the gallery with a drawing he’d done in his hotel room the night before - another critique of Brexit.

“Mark, look at this. Maybe you could do a drawing too and we’ll get them printed up and sell them as an edition? What do you think?”

He then proceeded to head off into Llandudno town to find somewhere that could print up an edition of these drawings. He signed them all, then put them on sale for £15 each. £15! Can anyone point me towards another world-renowned founder of Pop Art who’d be prepared to knock out a last-minute edition for £15 each?!? (yes, of course I bought one).

But, it’s not about money, it’s not about sales, in some ways it’s not even about art - it’s about remaining interested and ever-open to innovation and change.

I feel privileged to have gotten to know Derek - someone who first came twisting into my life in Black and White sometime in the 80s, when my school art teacher (obsessed with Hockney - sorry Derek) had shown us ‘Pop Goes the Easel’. To spend a second in his orbit meant flying close to the source of the most important art movement of the past 75 years. But, as I’ve already said, Derek was anything but a relic of history, remaining vital, engaged, and forward-looking right to the end.

See you later mate. x