Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
By: The Regional Print Centre at Yale Wrexham
Print Box Proposal - The theme of this project will be ‘Place’. We will work around the ideas, issues and images generated by Landscape, Coast and Gardens. Within these subject areas, the ideas of transformation and transition will be considered, alongside an examination of the impact of man and of natural forces on a place or group of places.
All comments welcome at printcentre@yale-wrexham.ac.uk
The Regional Print Centre at Yale College in Wrexham is a joint partnership project between Yale College and the Arts Council of Wales. We provide open access printmaking facilities to artists and designers from across Wales and beyond. This project forms part of our unique professional printmaking diploma programme.
# 9 [6 December 2007]
The work in the woods was really inspiring. It takes a while to let it sink in. I'm only now really coming to terms with the ideas and feel that some of it will develop into ideas for work.
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# 8 [6 December 2007]
...coming back together to share our writings ...we had been asked to spend time using a process called "alert aloneness"...being in nature and being open to what there is to be found,using all the senses...
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# 7 [4 December 2007]
the impact of the time in the forest has grown over time for me..its made me want to communicate more clearly with other people. the contrast w blaenau was great, but inside the studio chapel the forest was back w us
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We had a writing workshop in the forest with Jill Teague. she got us to look a a sense of aloneness in the landscape and to look at things real close up.
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We visited David Nash's studio and workshops in the afternoon in Blaenau Ffestiniog. Huge wood sculptures towered over us and it was like being in a magical forest inside the chapel.
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I have been developing a small research journal where i write things down and draw things and add photos etc. it is all about the sense of place and relates to this project and my own work.
# 6 [4 December 2007]
We went to Maentwrog and Blaenau Ffestiniog this week.
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miner's cottage c1969
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Castings made on site for all machinery for Llanberis Slate Quarry. Created out of wood and displayed on white background they make a charming decorative pattern which contrasts with the severity of the industrial processes. sue
# 5 [27 November 2007]
I found the visit to portmeirion and llanberis left me with mixed feelings - they are so different, one a picturesque tourist fantasy, the other now a visitor attraction too, but our guides were men who had worked at the slate quarry - they had used the tools and equipment now displayed as museum artefacts. both places suffered a decline, but portmeirion is now a chic destination hotel complex - our manufacturing industries are mostly dismantled and the communities built around them fractured. pam
# 4 [22 November 2007]
The contrast between the sugar sweet perfection of Portmeirion and the bleak tomb of the slate works has inspired me. Is it luck or destiny where we find ourselves in life? Portmeirion filled me with Joy and pleasure, a place to loose yourself in time. The slate mines filled me with sadness and dispair a place lost in time. It's this contrast between extremes that I want to explore and develop in a body of etchings. JB
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National Slate Museum, Llanberis
# 3 [19 November 2007]
The Slate Museum was really interesting as it used to be a working quarry. It was closed in 1969 by the owner Lord Penrhyn. There was little warning of the closure and it sent the valley into decline.
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Here we are trying to decide which way to go with the project
# 2 [19 November 2007]
At the foot of snowdon the temperature dropped dramatically
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Here we are enjoying the sun!
# 1 [19 November 2007]
We had a really good research day on Thursday. A group of us went on one of the most beautiful days this autumn, to portmeirion and then up the mountains past Snowdon and to the National slate museum in Llanberis. What an amazing day! so many things to see. The contrast between the two places was brilliant; from Clough Williams Ellis' folly to the workers' experience in the Dinorwig Quarry.