4 fresh oils on canvas 60cm x 50cm – £TBA each (unframed)
UPDATE: Now framed and on the wall at the Off the Wall gallery in Llandaff: Just £250 each for completely unique and original oil paintings (price may increase after Summer Show)
Tân Gwyllt I: AKA Perplexion of the unfinished mind
Tân Gwyllt II
Tân Gwyllt III
Tân Gwyllt IV
see previous posts for explanation
An accidental recipe
cut potatoes and sweet potatoes into chip shapes and deep fry in plenty of oil until soft but not crisp – add some half chopped chestnut mushrooms
wait until it’s obvious that the ‘chips’ are not going to get crusty but are in imminent danger of collapsing into mush
scoop the potpotmush into a frying pan and shallow fry to attempt to make at least some of it crispy
Bloody gorgeous it is and goes well with vegan burgers and green salad
Oil on canvas – then photographed and edited in Gimp
Self-Portrait electronic file version, original is oil on canvas 20″ x 24″
New research has indicated that people should eat 10 portions of fruit and/or vegetables every day if they want to achieve a longer and healthier life.
I wondered what 10 portions would look like so I raided the fridge and fruit bowl and added fruit and veg until it weighed 800 grams, which, according the the NHS, is what 10 portions weigh at 80 grams each.
Prices are based on the costs of the fruit and veg from local supermarkets and greengrocers’ shops, not the cheapest places to buy, not the most expensive either.
Bon Appétit!
Half an Apple wrapped in clingfilm, on a wall in Library Street near the arts’ centre
Half a banana over a wall in the gardens at Chapter Arts Centre
A row of urinals in the toilet at Chapter
Close up of a single urinal at Chapter
Happy Birthday To Me
It’s a scratch on the wall
a step on the path
It’s my birthday again
another year’s passed
If years were seconds
there wouldn’t be many
not much more than a minute
I’m told I ate the dog’s biscuits and drank a lot of water. I dunked my blond locks in a bucket of lime and nearly died of pneumonia at a few weeks old. The pneumonia and the bucket of lime are unconnected, at least in the normal linear way we deal with time.
The truth is that after nearly sixty years of being me, (and being me involves a lot of thinking about these things) I still know nothing about myself. I am here – that’s all I know. I accept that here may not be ‘real’. I accept that reality is the biggest myth.
“We are all in touch with everything at all times. There is no separation in reality. This life is an illusion created by a random collection of sub-atomic particles and no doubt sub-sub atomic particles. Because we are conscious we have to make sense of it so we make up stories.”
I’m s
ure the story of me will all come out in some way or other at some time or other. Here on the road this is a signpost or a post or just a sign. So the point is that if I was to represent the sun with a full stop . like that, then there are stars out there that are the size of this page – this room even, and we all know that the earth is tiny compared to the sun and we are tiny compared to the earth and if I could look into my fingernail or any other material thing I would see that it is composed of sub-atomic particles which really don’t exist and I can write my own story but even then you could say it is already written because there once was nothing then there was some sort of bang or expansion that emanated from some point in the middle of that nothing, nowhere, and the force that propelled that and created those stars the size of a hundred million Earths also created me and I am just a consciousness on some sort of trajectory through time and space and all I’m really doing is observing as I zoom past and I don’t have any choices except perhaps which dot to focus on.
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.
IngredientsI thought I’d written about this before but can’t find it anywhere. I know I did write a poem at least, and I know it ended with the line ‘But there’s always burnt jam.’ I can’t find that either. I wonder how many other poems or snippets of writing I’ve 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 – 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 – 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 – this is a self-indulgent ramble *
When I was young I was told I was very clever. ‘You are so intelligent,’ they used to say. I was also a very nice kid – generous, gentle, helpful and uncomplaining. I was full of life – ‘Fond of play’ 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 – 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 – a private school around thirty miles from my home – it would have meant boarding I believe.
But, my parents didn’t 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, I’m glad about this, I don’t think I’d like the person I would have become if I’d spent those important years of my childhood in such a place.
Now, I’m approaching my 65th birthday – my mother is disappointed in me. I can see it in her eyes – and anyway, she says it often enough. ‘You used to be so clever,’ she’ll say. ‘You could have done so much.’ 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.
Neville Street, Riverside, Cardiff
Hello
