My Walk this Week 151 – The Music of Storm Hannah

Posted on 22/03/201920/03/2019 by Alastair

My walk this week was short, cold and through the remnants of Storm Hannah – it was part of a sound and weave workshop I was running over the weekend. The first stage of the workshop was to go round Swansea Marina and listen to the sounds which featured what is known as the Marina Orchestra.

The leading orchestral instruments are the masts and rigging followed by the percussion of clanks and bangs, thumps and gloops of other maritime artefacts and of course the choppy water of the marina itself.

It was wild and cold and although we found a relatively sheltered spot to listen to the “symphony”, when we ventured down to the seafront, Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 149 – Sound and Weave

Posted on 08/03/201908/03/2019 by Alastair

My walk this week was more like a run than a walk – I was run off my feet setting up and installing art work in three different venues in Swansea. The main exhibition is the British Tapestry Group’s “Sound and Weave” in which I have an interactive tapestry.

There is a route map for the exhibitions below and I will be posting images and videos about the work over this month on FB and IG and perhaps here as well.

“Sound and Weave” exhibition venues in Swansea

Sound and Weave at Swansea College of Art UWTSD

Louise Martin installation – “WHISPERED WORDS”

Stephanie Edwards’ – “SHHH . . . the sound of silence”

This is the first post I have written and published entirely from my phone – the result of pressure of time! While I have been very busy with this work, I would like to acknowledge the support and assistance of one of the other exhibitors, Stephanie Edwards, my daughter, Hannah and my wife Julie – also the support in the background of the BTG. Thank you all very much.

My Walk this Week 131 – Wear and Tear – The Missing Post

Posted on 02/11/201806/11/2018 by Alastair

Wear and tear is all around us all the time and at the turning point of my walk this week along the beach in Swansea Bay, the high, rusty sea wall that creates the harbour entrance is one of my favourite pieces of evidence of this.

This is the missing post from last week, the third of the posts for My Walk this Week 131 – I don’t know what happened but have just seen that the schedule time was missed!

And the sea is one of the most powerful elements of erosion, wear and tear on the edges of landscape and it is so persistent and rhythmical in its insistence. Even on calm, bright days like this,Continue reading→

My Walk this Week 131 – Swansea Bay Shells

Posted on 29/10/201827/10/2018 by Alastair

The shells have it in my walk this week on the beach in Swansea Bay – big ones, little ones and multiply connected ones. A beautiful day and some much needed space – there would have been peace as well if it hadn’t been for a light aircraft performing aerobatics overhead. But that was quite an interesting sound, and anyway, as I walked down the beach the sound of the waves masked that in the sky. I’ll post the soundscape on Friday as usual.

One of the best things about Swansea Bay is the expanse of beach when the tide is out and that space was just what I wanted on this morning. There were plenty of other people about enjoying the sunshine and sand (and indeed the blue sky above), but none of that hemmed in any individual and everyone was able to wander the shore in relative solitude and enjoy it in their own way.Continue reading→

A Centre of Art – Swansea 4 – Two Small Galleries

Posted on 06/09/201803/09/2018 by Alastair

There are many galleries in Swansea these days, some quite big and some quite small. Elysium Gallery is one of the small ones but is part of a large artists organisation in the city with close connections to Swansea College of Art and running a substantial collection of artists studios and events.

The exhibition, “Paint to the Teeth Bone”, that has just finished at Elysium featured three emerging artists currently students at the college. I look forward to seeing how each of the artists develop their work but I was particularly taken by Sophie Hardings work on figures.Continue reading→

A Centre of Art – Swansea 3 BEEP Painting Biennial

Posted on 05/09/201803/09/2018 by Alastair

The third focus of my attention in my walk around the art of Swansea was the BEEP Painting Biennial. This work was in several venues in the city but the bulk of it was exhibited in the College of Art throughout August and into September – it finishes this weekend so if you have the opportunity, I can recommend it.

I have picked out some of my favourites below but the there were many more I liked and the exhibition could have been half the size and would still have satisfied (unless, of course, my favourites were not included).Continue reading→

A Centre of Art – Swansea 2 The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery

Posted on 04/09/201803/09/2018 by Alastair

Last week I took a day to walk around some of the art currently showing in Swansea. The city is teeming with it – all sorts both international and local. For many years now the arts scene in Swansea has been good but in recent years it has been growing even stronger. So I will be posting each day this week with a different aspect of the work we enjoyed on our tour from one gallery to the next.

We started at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery where N. S. Harsha had his largest exhibition in the UK to date. He was winner of the Artes Mundi prize in 2008 and one of the works was an installation made for the Glynn Vivian. The whole exhibition was impressive and the installation was powerful in its use of mirrors – I became one of the people painted on the floor looking up at the mirrored ceiling. It has a strange and disorientating effect.Continue reading→

A Centre of Art – Swansea 1 Festival of Stitch

Posted on 03/09/201801/09/2018 by Alastair

As a tapestry artist and weaver I was keen to see as much as I could of the second biennial Swansea Festival of Stitch 2018 and managed to get to several of the city wide venues. My first port of call was Swansea Museum where some of the best quilting was to be seen.

The first four photos below are from the museum with others being from the Waterfront Museum, the Leisure Centre and the Grand Theatre. The festival is over now but there is much more art to look at in Swansea and I will be doing so over the rest of this week.