The last day of the Energy Gift Exchange was busy and varied.
The first group were from Coleg Ceredigion, adults with mild learning difficulties. Most of the group were happy to participate and worked in a focused and concentrated manner. Although not everyone had a go at the easel working with the hand in the projection, everyone drew. One member of the group had been in a previous workshop. He gently asserted himself as the ‘expert’ in the group and encouraged some of the shyer members to participate.
Writer and performer Amanda Rackstraw arrived in the middle
A group from Gorwelion came into the gallery today. They looked at the exhibition and then participated in the Energy Gift Exchange, using each other as exchange partners. This group immediately identified with the movement and the emotional content of the exhibited work.
Some members of the group were hesitant to draw at first but by the end of the session everyone had participated. Comments on the experience included observations on how the process of drawing with the hand in the camera placed the group members in the present moment, which this group agreed is a preferable but difficult place to
There were two exchanges today – the first a virtual exchange, the second a real time one.
Artist Cathy Fitzgerald transferred a copy of her video ‘Transformation’ to me over the Internet. This was saved to my laptop, which I then connected to the video mixer and data projector and mixed my hand into the image in order to draw it.
Cathy’s piece documents the beginning of a process she has instigated to transform a conifer forest into sustainable woodland. She writes ‘This is a slow art practice, in forty years the forest will be ecologically and economically more valuable; the predominant
Julie Murphy, Ceri Owen Jones, Michael Harvey and an eager audience all arrived at the same time this morning. It takes me 15 minutes or so to get set up so everyone else sorted themselves out with drinks and looking at the rest of the show until I was ready.
This wasn’t meant to be a performance for Julie and Ceri – more an informal space to try out their new work together. However, Julie casts a spell over her audiences with her magical voice and there were many moments of intense focus, listening and exchange.
In contrast to yesterday, today was a very busy day. I began by drawing into another friend’s video. Vivian sent me a film of herself making her young child ‘fly’. ‘Kaat’s first flight’ is the result of me working into this short video 5 times to make the final drawing.
The rest of the morning was spent with a group of MA students from the School of Art. They readily participated in their own energy exchange, modelling and drawing each other. I encouraged the students who were modelling to talk to the drawer and the rest of
Today was very busy from the beginning. Ditty Dokter and Simon Harmer performed in the space and four student groups attended sessions throughout the day in addition to members of the public visiting the show.
Ditty began with a wonderful storytelling session. She explained how my interest in the Selkie tales corresponded to her own connection to landscape, story and identity.
Ditty is Dutch and comes from an opposite landscape to myself – the flatland’s and delta plain rather than mountains and seashore. The Netherlands, although reclaimed from the sea, have no equivalent Selkie or animal/human shape-shifters legends.
Dafydd Wyn Roberts sang songs written by Howie Phillips. He sang Drifting Away, Comfort and Happiness, Wounded in Love, Blindside and Tears. Although I only drew Dafydd’s movement, the recognizable image of man and guitar is discernible in the final drawings. The acoustics were quite good in the gallery and drew in students and visitors to listen and watch. Dafydd also performed some scenes from the late Mark Ryan’s play Sean Tyrone. Drawing the music was intense, because the songs are relatively short, but as I have found with drawing musicians before –
