I’m very pleased to say that my paintings are now on the walls of the Off the Wall Gallery in Llandaff. The gallery is a proper gem of a place close to the cathedral and the High Street and its walls host the work of some of the most sought-after artists working in the UK today.
The gallery really is worth visiting in person, the paintings are exhibited beautifully. If you want a preview click on the image below to visit their website or click here:
Here’s some paintings I’ve been working on for the past few weeks:
I’m not sure if they are finished yet. I like to leave them for a while and take a fresh look, so there is a possibility that these images will change completely and effectively cease to exist except as a low resolution image on this website.
4 of the paintings are the same size, that is A2 or 594mm x 420mm; the other is twice the size at 800mm x 600mm.
(: More painting news very soon š
Acrylic on Canvas 800mm x 600mm
Here’s a painting from nearly 15 years ago – one of the first I did. It was painted on the back of a placard/protest sign that I had previously used in a satirical community play I wrote called ‘The History of Llangennech – Part 2’
Blodyn has become a bit of an icon for me since I painted her. She was used on the cover of my poetry collection “The Words in Me” and will be used again on the cover of my new collection “More Words in Me” due to be published in a couple of months.
Here she is:
Blodyn – 2002: Acrylic on board: 520x670mmAnd here’s the back of Blodyn
Legalise Poo
What do I mean? I mean this is a short story with no style and no substance.
Why?
Why not? Style is taste, substance is an illusion.
Fair enough, but I donāt understand.
You donāt need to.
I mean I donāt understand the point of it.
Of what?
Your short story. This.
Nor me. In fact Iād go so far as to say that there is no point to it.
But whatās the point of that? Why should I read it?
I donāt know. Do you need a reason?
Well, yes, otherwise Iād be wasting my time, my breath, my life.
Look at me shrugging. Read what you like, or not. Who cares?
Well, you should, itās your short story. Donāt you want people to read it?
Yes of course, but I still donāt care if they do or not.
Thatās weird.
If you say so.
So whatās it about?
Nothing. Itās got no substance.
Whatās the point . . . oh, never mind.
Good, youāre learning.
No Iām not.
Yes you are. Youāve learned that thereās no point.
No point to what?
No point trying to find a point in something that has no point.
Clever sod!
OK. If you say so.
I was being sarcastic.
Why?
Because youāre winding me up.
Why?
Because of your stupid story that has no style and no substance.
And no point.
Exactly.
So whatās the problem then?
Youāre doing my head in.
Why?
With all this story nonsense.
Well you donāt have to read it.
Youāre right.
Fuck off then . . . .
***********
Two new paintings, temporarily named ‘The Red One’ and ‘The Green One’, both completed very recently, followed by the classic ‘Bright Environment’ which was painted 13 years ago.
Besides their obvious stylistic similarities there’s a reason why these three paintings are linked and why I am noting their existence now.
But more of that in a couple of weeks.
The Red One. Acrylic on Canvas – 800mm x 600 mm (31 x 23 in) July/August 2016
The Green One. Acrylic on Canvas – 800mm x 600 mm (31 x 23 in) July/August 2016
Bright Environment. Acrylic on Canvas – 1000mm x 800 mm (39 x 31 in) 2003
Myself is in a shell,
Being hung up
And that.
I shed my shell,
From now
And then.
I am being sat;
Upon a wave
Of Freeness.
My shell is shed,
But what
Do I find to be done.
In the phase,
Itās hot
Outside, itās muchly warm.
I am being moved myself,
But be looked
Onto Scorn
We Us-self do change
Our scenes and our shells
And in the interim of truth
Weāve such a much to tell
***
Last Saturday I attended a screenprinting workshop at the Printhaus in Llandaff Road, Cardiff.
The Printhaus is an amazing and unique place which is equipped with comprehensive screenprinting facilities. I have always loved the idea of screenprinting and did a bit a very long time ago when we lived in a shared house in Cardiff associated with an Ashram in the seventies.
We used to print posters and sometimes on canvas bags.
Blodyn – 16″ x 24″ (40cm x 60cm) – approx, on card – border added digitally
This is what I printed – actually this is a photoshopped photograph of what I printed, the original is much more organic and lovely.
Just 4 copies were printed and the stencils were washed off the screens in between each colour. As you can see it was designed in 4 colours – red for the hair/petals, dark reddish-brown for the face and lettering (although it looks more like black in the photo), green for the body and yellow for the features and the buttons.
Each of the four prints is unique because of the slightly arbitrary way the card was positioned under the screen when applying the paint through the stencil. The stencils were made of thin tracing paper and were destroyed during the process of cleaning the screens, so this truly is a limited edition.
all the little Blodyns drying after the workshop
Blodyn is Welsh for flower btw
Apart from the odd shopping list or doodle, there was a time when the content most people created was limited to school work or writing reports at work.
When the Internet took hold a small proportion of people started keeping blogs or journals of their thoughts online. Then Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media platforms emerged, Ā and now everyone tells everyone else every day what they’re thinking, whether that’s by sharing content they relate to from other sources, or whether it’s by the creation of their own original text and imagery.
This is all welcome of course, it gives those whose voices were previously unheard a way to let the world, or at least their extended social networks, know whatās important to them. It doesnāt stop there either: if you want to publish a book itās easy, just open an account with Createspace, upload the text and cover image and it will be available worldwide almost instantly. Itās free and you donāt even have to buy a copy yourself. Fancy getting your artwork onto T-Shirts or mugs or greetings cards? ā just as simple. And if you havenāt got the time or skills to do it yourself thereās always some student willing to do it for the price of a pizza.
As a bonus, now and again a seemingly random scribbler is raised from the ranks and elevated to the status of superstar vlogger or best selling writer of tacky fiction, thus giving us all hope that one day, as long as we continue with our prattle we might be discovered and earn those millions we have always deserved.
But what does it mean to all the people who previously defined themselves as professional writers or artists or photographers? Those who spent time and money studying, and dedicated most of their lives to improving their skills and producing āworkā? I mean nobody wants to pay for anything anymore, least of all for the witterings and snapshots of some stranger when they can get all the above and more from their āfriendsā for nothing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
If youāre someone like me who has been writing since long before the advent of social media then itās tempting to believe that all the noise now being created by every person and their companion animal is somehow diluting the literary or artistic merit of published work. I mean, without the traditional gatekeepers, who knows what kind of hideous barbarians will enter the citadel?
On the other hand you may think that the privileged few who were allowed entry in the past have finally got whatās coming to them, and now have to be judged by the whole hive mind rather than just protected by a small cohort of praetorian guards.
Iām not sure, but I do believe that most people, whether they define themselves as writers or artists or neither, are capable, with lots of practice and a little guidance, of creating work that is every bit as good as that which was previously created by the few patricians lucky enough to have had the opportunities in the dark ages before the Internet.
I fancied making a pizza the other day but was fed up of those pale lacklustre crusts available from supermarkets so decided to make my own dough.
I chose wholemeal bread flour and quick yeast since that’s what was in the cupboard, made the dough and used half of it to make a pizza base, rolling it out into a large rectangle to fit the oven tray. I made a round loaf with the other half of the dough.
Unfortunately the pizza base didn’t rise and then I burnt it in the oven – probably because I’d flattened it too much with the rolling pin and cooked it too quickly.
The bread turned out lovely – and a tasty, if dense, loaf emerged. So I cut that into rounds and used them as pizza bases.
I made far too much topping, stacked it on the rounds of bread and baked it slowly until the cheezly made an attempt at melting.
Ingredients
Well, I did it, I won the Best Ever Book Award.
The BEBS is a very prestigious award made just once – I mean how could it be awarded more than once – it’s for the Best Ever Book after all.
My latest book ‘To Me’ beat all other competition from all time, past, present and future hands down.
I would just like to express my thanks to the BEBS and to myself for writing such a marvellous award-winning tome.
Thank you
I found a canvas in the street. I had some scraps of garish acrylic paint.
Whenever I see appeals for money or support for animal rescue charities the first thought that comes to my mind is āWhat do they feed the animals they rescue?ā I suppose in the case of naturally vegetarian animals the answer is vegetable material of some sort, but what about carnivores like cats, or omnivores like dogs?
For example, just today, on a vegan Facebook group someone issued a plea for donations to save a charity in Cwmbran, apparently if they do not get funding they may have to kill the hundred or so animals in their care since it costs Ā£5000 a week to run the place. According to their website the list of animals they look after includes: Horses, Shetland Ponies, Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Ferrets, Guinea Pigs, Rabbits, Rat, Cats, Birds and Dogs.
Now, excuse me if Iām being daft but donāt cats eat birds and ferrets eat rabbits?
They also say on their website that one of their staff has an interest in āgoat husbandryā, which is the keeping of goats in order to harvest their milk and meat. They are also planning a horse tack sale, which I presume is equipment used to control and abuse horses?
On the same Facebook group I recently asked the organiser of the so-called Welsh Vegan Festival, why is it that the Farplace animal rescue charity they are raising funds for keeps rescued chickens yet has included dog food containing chicken meat on their Amazon wishlist. He ignored me.
So how about this animal rescue centres ā feed the rescued carnivores with the rescued birds and rabbits, and a bit of sheep, or pig, or horse-meat if you like ā that way you would have a lot less animals to look after and you wouldnāt have to raise so much money to buy them food.
Win win!
The path to the cabin was choked with brambles; that was good. It meant that no one had been near the place for months at least.
Jack laughed.
āSsh,ā Emma said.
āNo, itās all right now,ā he said. āLook ā thereās no sign of another human being ā weāll be safe here.ā
āBut itās not human beings weāre hiding from, is it Jack?ā
āOf course theyāre human beings; youāve been watching too many episodes of Doctor Who.ā
āOh shut up. I know what I saw. You saw it too. If that was a person then it was still a monster ā more than just a normal person.ā
āYes, but itās still got to move around, whatever it is and it would leave traces.ā
āWhat if it can fly?ā Emma asked.
Ā The sun was blotted by some shadow.
I thought Iād written about this before but canāt find it anywhere. I know I did write a poem at least, and I know it ended with the line āBut thereās always burnt jam.ā I canāt find that either. I wonder how many other poems or snippets of writing Iāve lost, many of them on paper from my teenage years, and many more on broken computer disks since. Ah! Sometimes you just have to let things drift down to the dim depths of the Akashic Records.
It was the late sixties, possibly 1970; I was seventeen or eighteen years old. I used to hang around with a group of young people from around the town of Llanelli, where we behaved in ways that defined that period if you believe the myths that have arisen since. The truth was there were not that many of us, no more than a few dozen ā a hundred or so at the most, and that from a population of around 77,000.
Llanelli Beach – Stradey Woods in the background
We were a small group, but we were highly visible because of the way we dressed and the way we behaved ā roving around the streets, openly smoking joints and tripping on acid, as well as squatting the grass opposite the town hall, playing guitars and engaging in free love, well free foreplay at least. Continue reading
The Artistic Imperative
* Warning ā this is a self-indulgent ramble *
When I was young I was told I was very clever. āYou are so intelligent,ā they used to say. I was also a very nice kid ā generous, gentle, helpful and uncomplaining. I was full of life ā āFond of playā as my form teacher wrote on my final report from the primary school. I was top of the class, number one of thirty-four, and that was in the A stream in the final year at that school ā so at that time I was the top pupil of the whole school.
Me writing in the chalet/shed at the allotment. pic by Rhian
To be fair my teacher recognised this and wanted me to apply for a scholarship to go to Llandovery College ā a private school around thirty miles from my home ā it would have meant boarding I believe.
But, my parents didnāt have the wherewithal, either in monetary terms or in imagination to pursue the idea and the teacher realising it was an impossibility, let it go. As it happens, Iām glad about this, I donāt think Iād like the person I would have become if Iād spent those important years of my childhood in such a place.
Now, Iām approaching my 65th birthday ā my mother is disappointed in me. I can see it in her eyes ā and anyway, she says it often enough. āYou used to be so clever,ā sheāll say. āYou could have done so much.ā Continue reading
We visited Llanelli Beach yesterday. There were little piles of material along the tidelines. The piles contained a mixture of natural and man-made material. After decades of humankind’s neglect and selfishness God knows how much of this crap is in the sea.
When viewing the images, scroll down and click to view images full size then zoom in on the images for a closer look.
Iām just leaving the Co-op Shop and Iāve got a bag of āAll Original Starburst Chews, Bursting With Real Fruit Juicinessā, a Grab-Bag of Walkers Salt and Vinegar Crisps, the last manky copy of todayās Guardian newspaper and one Silk Cut cigarette. Iāve got more cigarettes at home, of course, loads of them. Thing is, Iām not going to get home. Iām going to die before I get home. Iām going to die; I know I am.
Somewhere in the fifteen minute walk home, Iām going to die, I donāt know when exactly, but I know Iām going to die. Thing is, what am I going to do with the last half-mile, or less, of my life? Itās a difficult question. Perhaps if I run as fast as Flash, I can cheat death, slip past on its blind side maybe? Get home before it gets me. Continue reading
OK, so that last bit was a bit rushed ā a bit fake, a bit gratuitous, but Iām back already and I want to write about something in particular but I want to put that on hold now, in an instant, for a bit, to digress into something that happened twenty-one words ago.
The words were flowing out through my hand and the pen at an astonishing rate and I knew exactly what I was going to write about next (but as it happens ā funnily, I did not write those words next) ā the feeling was one of some kind of communion ā the words were forming in my gut or even lower, like a kind of chakra writing they moved up into my head and down my arm like a river of light and fire ā painful and blissful at the same time. I donāt know if I can describe it properly maybe later. For now back to the thing I was going to write about.
There is a spider in the corner of the bathroom ceiling above the toilet. The roof slopes down there so that corner of the ceiling is just above head height and is easily within armās reach as you stand peeing into the bowl. The spider has been there a week at least. I have been peeing a lot lately so I see it quite a few times every day. I always forget about it until Iām standing there ā in the act ā and look up casually. When I see it I always think āGod, itās still thereā. Iāve often thought of cupping it and putting it outside but then think āDonāt interfere boyā ā leave the creature alone ā besides, spiders eat flies and they are a pain.
The spider is a long-legged-tiny-body variety and it sits upside down on the ceiling ā immobile. Iāve blown on it a few times to see if it reacts ā and it does ā but only by a slight adjustment of its legs. There is some sort of haphazard web around it and I saw it fussing with a small package once ā like a little fly cocooned.
Iāve taken to thinking about the way it perceives me ā every couple of hours I appear before it ā a huge shape emanating whatever kind of energy it receives ā shimmering perhaps ā or vibrating in some way. I wonder if itās scared ā probably not, since it doesnāt even budge ā even though a simple swat with a newspaper would end its conscious existence ā but then maybe it will reincarnate in a more interesting life, but then who am I to say whether my life or anybody or anything elseās life is more interesting than the life of a long-legged spider who lives in a corner of the bathroom above the toilet.
***
