Adaptability is creativity

Croeso beautiful being

Two years in the Welsh valleys proved to me again that the impulse to make art survives any circumstance.

I learnt a lot living in Abercarn, practically in seclusion, over the past two years appreciating my talks with Sally the next door neighbour, Nav in the corner shop, and all the incidental conversations and greetings.

My frequent, often precarious walks up the steep mountains, an existing embodied practice, built a deeper trust and connection to the land.

While there, creative constraints shifted my focus away from my existing practice to other modes of expression, very much in keeping with the dictates of environmental and material circumstances which I have and continue to experience but that I do not let hinder me. It's no surprise then that this poem was forthcoming.

Hiraeth (On Leaving The Valley - an impromptu poem)

Cardiff is where I am from
Its streets once paved with hearts of gold

Still everyone calls you love
Across the valley
Invisible lights strung along invisible cables

Radiate a warmth that carries a local love
And in this expansive land
Where coastlines and mountains meet
Welsh is its first language

That speaks of tales of old
A country whose gentle heart beats

With a strength that holds more than daffodils and sheep
It’s its beauty, peace and enduring grit

That keeps these nerves unsplit and stems this foreign heart’s bleeding

Thanks to Arts Council Wales for their continued support and for helping me realise this newsletter through Creative Steps funding, diolch yn fawr.