I think I’ll share with you the art I was inspired to create after my interesting morning in Llandudno.
This was inspired by the Afrikan Junkman’s junk.
This man was painting a wall ready for the next exhibition in one of the rooms in the gallery. He noticed me taking photos, but fair play to him after a little scowl he smiled at me. They have turned out very well.
Lines and a Circle!
I started my last post by saying Llandudno is becoming the ideal place for artistic and creative people, especially textile arts. I could even say it’s becoming a textile artist’s paradise. We all know that we have Abakhan in North Wales. We also have many important galleries, there are three very well known galleries within easy reach, just over the bridge here and past the castle I have The Royal Cambrian Academy. I talked about the Mostyn Oriel, Llandudno in my last post and I mentioned The Ruthin Craft Centre in my recent post on the North Wales Embroiderers’ Guild website blog, Croesew.
There’s a very good and reliable Knitting and Stitching Centre in Upper Mostyn Street and they are very supportive of the Embroiderers’ Guild. We have Betty’s Fabrics a very good fabric shop on Mostyn Broadway. We also have a very well known craft shop called Craft Land-dudno.
But the great news is that we have another wonderful shop opening a few doors from the Mostyn Oriel, LLandudno and just a few steps from the train station. It’s called ‘Stitch It’ and it’s an Aladdin’s cave, full of colour and everything you will ever need to create any kind of textile art, I don’t think I will ever have to depend on the Internet and the Shows to buy my stuff again, I can get it all here in Llandudno. I called there today and the owner Carol Worthington let me in even though she was busy preparing for the Saturday opening.
This cabinet here is full of a rainbow of beautifully soft Merino wool tops. I know she will be stocking Steff Francis and Oliver Twists threads, hanks of Sari Waste in the most glorious colours as well as dyes, Lutradur, Tyvek, Moon shadow mists, some fabrics ready for dyeing, and lots of other goodies. I hope to be first in the queue on Saturday morning when it opens 10am. It will stay open to 4.30. I’m going to miss the opening as I can’t be in three places at the same time can I? I booked a workshop for Saturday and Sunday months ago completely forgetting it’s the Guild’s AGM and now I’m missing the opening, but I think the workshop will be well worth it. I can visit the shop on Tuesday morning instead and I apologized to the Guild.
Opening Times
10.00 - 4.30 Tuesday to Saturday
Good luck with your new venture Carol.
It’s a lovely day here in North Wales, the sun is out and it’s lovely and warm. I spent the morning in Llandudno and it’s becoming the ideal place for artistic and creative people, especially textile arts.
My first call at one end of town(near the station for visitors) is a shop called William Glover, this is wonderful furniture store. All I need now is a new house and it must be much larger than my little flat(apartment) as the furniture here is old reclaimed oak and some of it is massive, but there are small items that I really fancy. But the main attraction for me are the beautiful decorative items, paintings and ceramics.
I then crossed the road to Oriel Mostyn the art gallery.
The new exhibition is now up and I have already visited 3 times. There’s been an artist in residence here for the last couple of months and will be there until October 16th. I have been watching his work developing and in the beginning I was not at all impressed I must admit, but I now love what he’s been doing. He is The Junkman from Afrika and the work is called The Junkyard of Awkward Things. he is one of the most influential artists of the African continent and he was once an University lecturer before he engaged full time in a professional art practice that has taken him to work in universities, major art museums and galleries in most parts of the world.
I was allowed to take photos for my personal use at the gallery and I found them very inspiring. I was looking for Lines and Grids for my Sketchbook Project with the Art House Sketchbook Project.
I just love these! Have you ever seen such lovely lines and grids? (smile)
I have so much more to share. Sometimes I don’t have much to say, but then I have far too much. so I will make this into a 2 or 3 part post.
On Sunday we had the Annual Concert of the Maelgwn Male Voice Choir.
Rhydian the well known Welsh baritone who was the People’s Favourite in the X-Factor a few years ago had been invited to join the choir. He is very popular and we all enjoyed his singing to a full house.
Annette Bryn Parry who is equally well known was also a guest and gave a wonderful Piano Recital and accompanied Rhydian in some of his solos.
The Director of the choir is the talented Trystan Lewis.
You may think I have been idle recently as I haven’t blogged, but I have been very busy as usual with few other projects which I’ll share another time. Oh, yes, of course I nearly forgot that I’d also been doing some of the hated housework which I’d neglected and also tidied my workroom which I always try to do when I have finished a project. I am a very untidy worker, so my room gets very messy with all my boxes and contents for that particular project. It would of course make things easier if I only had one interest, but as I have so many different ones I need many boxes and all kinds of different stuff. I’m also a great hoarder as I never know when something will come in useful as people creating Mixed Media will understand.
This is my workroom taken from both ends and this is as tidy as it gets.
This is the window at the far end and I can see the castle, but I must admit when I’m up here I don’t have much time to look, but it’s still good to know it’s there.
This is my Embellisher area and I have my colourful baskets on my mother’s old tea trolley. It’s very useful.
This is my wonderful wet area. I didn’t have water in my loft workroom for the first 18 years since we’ve lived here, but 2 years ago I had this double sink put in and I love it.
I cleared my notice board ready to pin up the inspiration for my next projects.
This is a pile of WIP (work in progress). Some of it is work started at SerenTex and the pile on the left is inspiration I’ve collected for my Art House Sketchbook Project.
Up on the ceiling here I have my year planner because this has been a particularly busy one for me and I knew I had to time everything that needed doing. Did I use it? I’m afraid not as I just used my computer Calendar and my small Diary instead. I don’t think I will buying another Year Planner.
Pride of place goes to Nain on the left and my friend packing the car to go on a course.
This was cut out of a magazine a few years back and it was up on my notice board until this morning. Maybe I should read it now I’ve tidied up? Perhaps it will help me in my battle against procrastination which is a constant one I’m afraid. I’m always doing things, but never the urgent ones. They are always done last minute.
Today I was teaching an Embellisher Workshop at our local Embroiderer’s Guild with a fantastic crowd of ladies, most of them friends and a few newcomers and I hope they all enjoyed it as much as I did. They all seemed very happy! Unfortunately I was enjoying myself too much to remember to take any photos.
I had finished most of the packing for the course last week and spent this week having fun preparing working on extra samples and new ideas and I certainly hope that I will be able to continue next week even though the workshop is done.
We had very heavy showers all day.
And I return to think about my Sketchbook which I hope to work on next week. I like these diagonal lines showing the railway line through the wet window.
Tonight I have some textiles for a change.
I think this looks better now than it did in this post but the colouring is not quite right taken with artificial light this evening. I’ll try and take a better photo tomorrow during the day. (it’s now changed and a closer match to the original)
What was missing? I think that touch of turquoise has livened it up. It was embellished and machine stitched.
Here is a detail of one of the pebbles in my wall. These have all been padded from the back.
Here is another unfinished piece of work again using the embellisher but there’s no stitching on this one. It needs a little thought before I continue with it.
Before I go down Memory Lane for the last time for now, here is bit of fun I’ve had with the embroidery machine and Embellisher combined.
This the small hill just in front of Snowdon as seen from Nantlle lake and it’s called Clogwyn y Garreg (Crag or Cliff of Stones). Below is a close-up of this beautiful crag taken as I passed below it in the car.
When I was 6 years old we moved to this very posh house in the middle of this street, with an inside toilet and water on tap, saving my mother a trip to one of the village pumps. We also had electricity, which we also had in our old house, because the quarry had a Power House nearby for their use and everyone in the village paid them for their electricity. At this time there were many places without electricity. Does that make me very old? I think not, but DH has asked me to take out the photo of myself in the post My Beret with the Embellisher because it makes me look a lot older than I actually do. Now I have just gone and done it. <BG>
My father was born in one of these cottages and when my great grandmother visited for the first time she would not stay there and had to be taken home again by horse and carriage. She looked up and saw the loose rocks above her which reminded her of the large rock that fell on the chapel and demolished it completely. Luckily the service had just finished and there was only a coffin with the deceased there at the time.
Above is the large boulder that fell, still there with a memorial to the old Chapel.
The above says this is where the old chapel of Drws y Coed stood before it was demolished by the stone on February 17th 1892. My father wasn’t born until 1900. The photo next to it is the old chapel house next door.
Here are two climbers preparing to climb the cliff, right above that spot.
I mentioned in my last post that it was a slate quarrying area I didn’t mention that the other side of the valley is scarred by the slate heaps. But as someone in the village told me, even that has a beauty of its own and she’s right too. The slate is a beautiful colour.
Both the houses I lived in as a child were right at the bottom of this slate waste and this was my playground. We climbed up those slates like little goats, knowing exactly where to place our feet so we didn’t create a fall. We played houses, building our own walls to a certain height and can you imagine what good slate furniture we could make? We had tables, chairs and fireplaces. Which reminds me of the evening before we had to take the scholarship examinations to go to the grammar school. I had found a tin of black paint somewhere and had been painting my fireplace black. I was told off and we were unable to get my hands completely clean for the big day.
Here is the little slate bridge I used to cross a stream to play houses with my friends. Sometimes we would share a house with each other and sometimes we all had our own and we’d go and visit each other for tea. I don’t think it cost our parents a penny to keep us happy all through the school holiday.
It just gets better and better. This is not textile related at all I’m afraid, but I have to tell you all about my day. My DH suggested as it was such a beautiful day we should go back to have a look at the small village where I lived until I was 17 years old. I’ve been saying I would love to go back for years as I have only been there twice since I left.
I hope you will agree with me that this is one of the most beautiful views in the world? But of course I may be biased :) This is Snowdon from Nantlle lake and it’s beauty is etched in my memory for ever. My father was a keen fisherman and we had a boat on the lake.
I now have a photo of myself in my favourite view and I think I will have it framed. It’s a slate quarrying district and I wanted that wall in the photo.
Here is another typical slate fence.
I went looking for the house I lived in until I was about 6 years old only to find that it had been pulled down. How sad? I went to the back and found the gateway was blocked by a wheelbarrow, but it only took a minute to move it out of the way and I was able to go along the little footpath into the garden. My mother loved that garden so much and she would have been pleased to find that the neighbours were obvioulsy still looking after her little patch.
She had a vegetable patch here as everyone had during the war.
This was the pump where my mother went to get all the water and when I was about 5 years old I used to go and stand by the pump every day on the way home from school to wave at an old gentleman who was bed ridden and could see me from the bedroom window of the house on the right. It was the highlight of his day and he left me some books he loved in his will.
There was a watermill right by the house when I was a child and even then the wood had become rotten. But now there is no trace of it. As you can see from the window of the old mill someone still remembers and has found a very suitable net curtain. I will probably have a second post about my lovely day down Memory Lane
