Night before Roadblock

It was the night before Roadblock

And all through Roath

Not a creature was stirring 

Apart from the Made in Roath team and most of the artists involved in tomorrow’s series of events

Plus everyone who is out and about enjoying the on going nightly events such as the exhibition opening currently happening in Cardiff MADE

And of course everyone not involved in MiR but out and about enjoying their Friday night’s like

People in pubs, they’re probably stirring

Especially if there are any sporting events on,

then it’s likely to be lots of stirring and possibly singing.

And of course people who work in pubs,

they have to be there.

You can’t have a pub if no one is working there, 

logical really.

And of course people in other jobs,

like shops and taxi drivers

they’re up and about,

especially on a Friday night

loads of late night taxi drivers stirring around the place

Students too,

they’re renown for their late night activities. 

Insomniacs too.

They’re defiantly up late at night

And then there’s all the people who are watching DVD box sets, 

they generally stay up late getting their fix of Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones

Also people who are currently reading the Game of Thrones books in an attempt to act slightly superior around those of us who are watching the TV series

Also I guess staying up late is very much dependent upon your definition of “late”

I mean if Einstein has told as anything it’s that time is relative

It can mean different things to different people

for example late for me would be about 1a.m., but late for my Gran could be 10p.m., a very different definition of lateness.

So what Im trying to say is

it was the night before Made in Roath Roadblock

and quite a lot of things were going on

including with the mouse 

because mice are largely nocturnal 

so are mostly up late.

Owls too,

mice are up so it means their hunters are around as well, 

common sense really

I’d say cats too but I’m pretty sure they’re always asleep,

they are the cats who walk by themselves and all things are alike to them 

but living in Roath I know from experience that Owls are about

there out having a hoot (hehe).

Anyway I digress from my point which is basically Made in Roath Roadblock (Saturday the 17th), one of the biggest and certainly the busiest of all the events is happening tomorrow. 

I won’t discuss Roadblock right now but the spirit of it.

I was trying to think this evening what makes Made in Roath special. I know of many other yearly community events and area fairs which are quite wonderful but they lack a certain creative amusement that Made in Roath has. 

I think what makes Made in Roath “interesting” is this community openness and the involvement it promotes. I know of very few other festivals that allows so many people to get involved and which entertains so many more. It’s a festival that everyone feels more involved in, a festival whose ownership doesn’t feel like it’s controlled by some random, nameless person but is in everyone’s hands. Everyone from shop keepers to artists, to the residents of Cardiff to anyone who happens to be passing through. It’s something that offers so much that it’s hard not to get involved in or enjoy the delights that everyone’s creativity has to offer.

I was reminded the other day of a story I heard ages ago. When Petrol was first invented no one knew what to do with it so it was used as a dry cleaner, a process called “Nettoyage à sec”.

This persisted for a number of years until someone thought of trying out this petrol stuff in these new internal combustion engine which worked great and gave the world cars, trains, planes and pretty much powered the modern world. But it started life, and for many years was, a dry cleaner. I quite like that as a metaphor and I think that is maybe us sometimes in life. Often we are involved and active in things that don’t push us or allow us to reach our full potential. It takes us finding our internal combustion engine to drive us to doing the things we were meant to do. I think in some ways that’s Made in Roath, it’s the creative/community version of an internal combustion engine that changes our views and experience and thus changes the world. 

Nos Da and thanks for reading, Dai 

Screen view on Roath

It’s interesting watching a festival develop and happen through a screen. For a large chunk of Made in Roath 2015 I’ve been watching it develop via the web. Through the social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, this is due to an issue of geography i.e I don’t live in Cardiff so can’t be about to see it all.

 But this has given me an interesting prospective of the happening of the festival via the web and what I’ve noticed is that its all rather quite wonderful.

  Instagram has been my favourite thing to watch, this has filled up with fantastic images of what people have been seeing, doing and experiencing. Likewise on Twitter, there has been tweets and hashtags about people getting involved and sharing their thoughts. Its also been quite exciting seeing the dialogues evolve and develop, the conversations between people and between the Made in Roath twitter account. The chatter that has began just through this festival. Facebook too there’s been more shares, comments and posts posted to the event pages and the Made in Roath Facebook page. The interaction and involvement that have been taking place, the “likes” upon a post for even those such as myself who are unable to attend the festival allow us to partake in some shape and prosper in the feel of the festival from afar.  

These likes, tweets, images and posts in the digital environment all go into the festival and help make up the spirit and feel of the week.

Tea and Made in Roath 2015

“Stands the church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?”

 It’s somewhat of a shame that when you mention a “tea house” the vast majority of the great British public will think of quaint, traditional images; old ladies sipping from china tea cups and picking at cream scones, laced doilies and vicars, cricket on the green and murder in the summerhouse.

Where the most scandalous thing that has ever happened is that fateful summers day in August 1876 when Mrs Trellis of North Wales put the milk in first. Silence fell. Clocks stopped. Fighting dogs and children stopped in the street. After the local dowagers had been revived it was agreed by all that the incident would never be spoken of again. (At least not when Mrs Trellis was in earshot.)

 It’s a shame because historically and factually this image of the traditional tea house has as much to do with reality as Beethoven with punk rock. That is to say very little at all. Tea and the tea house I can (and do frequently) argue have been the hotbed of political, cultural and social reform for the last few hundred years. What’s more tea as a drink has done more to change the fabric of this world than any other drink. During the Industrial Revolution the owners of factories encouraged their workers to drink tea rather than the traditional lunch time drink, beer. (Turns out getting drunk at lunch time then going back to operate highly dangerous and complicated machinery isn’t a great idea, who knew?) Thus creating the tea-break.

It is thought tea first became popular around the 1660s when Charles II’s wife Catherine Braganza started drinking tea to ward off cholera.
 And since celebrity culture was just as inflammable in the 1660’s as it is today this created one heck of a demand. This demand required more tea, hence the Opium Wars and also tea plantations on industrial “country the size of Wales” scales. It also meant speed. To get the tea back to Britain the fastest ships in the world were constructed, tea clippers. The wealth of this trade built the British Empire. 

When the tea got back to Britain people needed places to drink their cups of char. So the tea house was created becoming popular throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The tea house differed from that other great drinking place, the pub, in one key way. Mainly that tea drinkers weren’t as proven to become incomprehensible and start singing and thus end all chances of conversation as their pub drinking fellows were. So natural and free conversation began. At this time tea being more of an expensive drink meant that generally only more educated, learned people of means could afford to partake in tea. This flow of free thought between the learned folk created the enlightenment.

  Also thanks to the strict, official rules of society with it’s sexist censorship women were demonised and harassed from most traditional meeting places unless they were accompanied by a male chaperone. One exception was the tea house. The tea house provided a place for the early women’s suffrage campaigners to meet and discuss universal equality without fear of dispersal. 

The tea house literally provided a place for the changing of this world, how fantastic is that? When you visit a tea house and sip your drink you have that history, that linage of the shaking of the worlds and changing of times, of speed and revolution, of the celebration of progress, new ideas and, most importantly, equality. 

 It was therefore with a quiet sense of joy and proud feeling of ancestry that I entered Waterloo Tea Gardens, one of Cardiff’s premier tea houses for the Made in Roath opening. 

The Made in Roath 2015 Opening was a free to enter, open to anyone, call out for art work of any type and style displaying a wide range of artistic design from the very experienced practitioners and highly exhibited artists to the fledgling, first time creatives; a refreshing change from other art call outs. While the works were evaluated and prizes awarded there were no judgements just, like the dodo at Alices’ tea party, praise for all.  

The evening began with a large and charming crowd which reflected Roath’s diverse population. Chris Brown, director of the contemporary art gallery G39, gave a splendid and inspiring speech and then wine and nibbles were had by all. A thoroughly pleasant way to start the festival.

 It was one too that I thought encompassed the very spirt and concept of Made in Roath: it doesn’t matter who you are but hey why don't you do something. It’s a festival that brings together the most established and experienced artists with first time makers and people who have never been to an art gallery. People with a passion for the arts meeting, sharing and enjoying time together. There is a spirit of equality, of just having a go, of creating something just for the joy of creating it. It’s a spirit which can be imbibed everyday this week during the Made in Roath festival. 

  Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the festival, Dai 

Sam Hasler = Cardiff Council Residency.

Cardiff Council Residency.

I’ve just begun a new residency set up by Made in Roath working with Cardiff Council at County Hall. The first meetings I’ve had with them have had a very polite but stuttered quality; anything could happen, but once processed through a complex of secretaries, consultations, meetings, emails. This is the strange, and sometimes intangible, substance of the political work that happens there.

At each meeting the council ask me when I would like to start. It seems that neither they nor I know what the start is. I always say that I’ll start next week, though I’m sure it’s already begun. We don’t really know the start, and we certainly don’t know the end.

It’s interesting to discuss art events with people who don’t have a lot of experience in the visual arts. The people who work at Cardiff Council work in a highly pressurised and complex environment. They are not immediately at ease with something open ended or unpredictable, and where the measures of success are not clearly identifiable. Also, the question of trust was raised. Was I there to be provocative? Might I create something shocking? If art is not in a traditional medium is it more likely to be provocative or shocking? Might I use the position for some political aims? They, undoubtedly worry about what it might look like to the public.

These are all things to explore: The substance of the work that takes place there. The role of a work of art in a place where no one has time to ponder. The role of an artist reflecting on this already well documented and accountable public body. The terrifying spectre of ‘The Public’ looming over everything that happens. The buildings themselves and their weird carpets.

Sam Hasler

Insights into life

 They say the eyes are a window into the soul, then surely by this logic a window is a gateway into the character of a house.

 I grew up in the South Welsh valleys, a place of what seemed like endless rows of Terraces housing, criss crossing the steep mountain sides. The terrace house is a pretty standard building, they are all the same size, the same shape and constructed of the same stone, their even generally all painted the same (Altho there is that old story of back in the Mining glory days when ever the village colliery was repainted, suddenly and in a completely unrelated separate event, all the other houses in the village would also be astonishing repainted in strangely but completely coincidentally the same colour as the colliery…..).

  Anyway I digress, my main point is the houses are somewhat uniformed, the only thing that changes are the windows and their sills. Walking up a row of houses a quick glance can display a variety of objects and processions housed lovingly within the frame of a window. 

 There are objects and prized ornament, picked up and bought on treasures family holidays, or brought back as presents and gifts to the loved ones inside the house. In others cases large vases or amphoras are placed in the middle of the window, overflowing with flowers. These splendid bouquets of flora and fauna brightening up the street. Then at night the houses remain dark but the windows and their sills are lit up, pouring out a lighted glow from the heavily curtained windows. Flooding out light into the night mixing and dancing with the yellow glow of the street lamps. The effect is if you are above on top of the valley sides looking down into the valley, an endless line of light in a sea of darkness, like the veins on a body or the collection of rivers flowing down into that great white city sea of light. 

 And at Christmas, oh my days Christmas, it’s generally considered bad form when decorate your home, not to stick so many lights and sparkles in your window that you give Blackpool illuminations a run for their money. To be honest the goal isn’t so much to celebrate Christmas but to make sure the people on the other side of the valley (and possible Space) can see your Christmas lights and know your celebrating Christmas too (and on some occasions, the result has been to deprive the other side of the valley from sleep due to the amount of flicking and changing lights that are being inflicting onto them), it’s a bit like a dance off just with Christmas decorations and hole valley mountain sides participating.  Anyway all these wonderful things are possible and happen via the frame or canvas of the Windowsill. 

  It’s a humble expression of ones personality outwards into the street, the original and universal display, a quiet statement of life. 

  The sentiment and ideal remains the same of the windowsill everywhere, they are a unique insight into the owners life.

  It’s a concept Artist Claire Louise Prosser is considering as she investigates the correlations between Wales and Venice with her new project Windowsills, for Made in Roath 2015. 

  She is asking for photographs of our own windowsills for a comparison with our Venetians counterparts.  It’s an interesting project, do check it out.  

As ever, thanks for reading. 

The Art of Serendipity

There’s an ancient Persian fairy tale featuring three Princes whose father, the great and wise King Giaffer, being a good father and a good king. Wanted his sons to become educated and endowed with wisdom, knowledge and all the virtues a prince should possess. The king summoned the best tutors from across the lands to entrust his sons with the knowledge of the universe. In Science, Maths and History the three princes study and became knowledgeable and the king was pleased. But concerned his sons weren’t gaining experience in the world just knowledge of it, he decided to fake anger with his sons and sent them away, off into the world.

So the three princes of the kingdom of Serendip went off  into the world and had many adventures and solved many mysteries (notable one to do with a three-legged camel) and generally experienced life and become wise and worldly in their views and of coursed lived happily ever after. The tale of the three Princes of Serendip has been called the world first detective story because the princes use analytical methods to disciver and solve clues whilst on their adventures. Its also the origins of the word “Serendipity” because the Princes made their discoveries and had their adventures by accident and without understanding of the quest of experience their father had sent them on. The word was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754 as meaning a discovery by good fortune or luck. The notion of “luck” or “chance” is a familiar one and common occurrence in history such as the accidental discovery of Penicillin or the invention of the microwave and even the creation of the post-it note.

What these examples share with the Princes journey is that it was not just by luck they made their discoveries but because they held an open mind for opportunities, they were open to new ideas and looking for new chances and so discovered them. It is not just through chance we discover and find new things but when we are ready and searching with open minds, thats when Serendipity plays its hand.

I find being an artist is very much like being one of the three princes of Serendip, you are on a quest with which you don’t necessarily understand or even know you are on, sometimes you feel somewhat banished from society, you think you can discover these things by looking and thinking and attempting to work out a process and by developing an understanding of your surroundings but really it doesn’t truly come together without a bit of luck. Without being/seeing/talking or just doing the right thing at the right time, it can be the thin red line between it working and it not. Also like the princes the understanding starts often with a basic insight into history and knowledge through books, tapes, exhibitions and information. Tennyson once said

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers”

Its with our knowledge we eventually become wise enough to know what on earth we are going on about. Its with these two arms of information and experience we learn to move forward and create new things. Picasso didn’t just randomly create Cubism one fine day in spring, Cubism came from the inspiration Picasso saw in traditional African tribal masks and conversations and experiments with other artists which had the end result of Cubism.

Its with a mixture of this knowledge, experience and serendipity that we travel through this world. So the secret to creating and staying off that evil terror known as “artist block” is keeping an open mind set, like Picasso or the chap who discovered Penicillin or created the post-it note, they weren’t planning on changing the world but they held an open mind so when serendipity presented them with an opportunity they saw it and developed it into something amazing (especially true of post-age notes, saved my arm from me using it as a notepad many a time).

The good news is there is quite a lot you can do as an artist in Cardiff to look for these Serendipity moments, there are of course a host of very friendly gallery and amazing folks to chat too. Or volunteer at one of the many great places, Chapter, Ffotogallery, Made in Roath or WARP to name four. Plus helpful publications such as the Cardiff Art map, the monthly WARP bulletin or just keep an eye on social media and turn up at an event or art opening. The wonderful thing about the Cardiff art scene is its very close. I’m sure you are aware of the theory of 6 degrees of separation. Where you are connected to anyone through 6 people? Cardiff its more like 2 …. 3 at most….. maybe 3 and a half if you haven’t been around for a while but kinda know that guy you nod to and say “Alright” too but don’t actually know his name and its been nine months of nodding and saying hi so its kinda gone on a bit too far to inquire, so you just end up calling him “mate” all the time and hope someone will mention his name or one of you will add the other on Facebook, I think it might be Mike, or Mark, Im not too sure…. anyway I digress. It’s a very friendly, very open and welcoming community.

But the best thing to do is just to get out there and see some art, drink some tea and meet and chat to other artists. John Donne wrote

“No one is an island, Entire of itself, every one is a piece of the continent”

I’ve always thought that true of society and certainly of the arts, it’s a wide but close community that we all share and make up and in it we inspire and create together to produce our own individuals art practises.

And yea you do get stuck in a rut and question everything and the purpose of it all occasionally but again it’s the community that helps to get you back on the road and if you keep going, you find those wonderful serendipitous moments. Thanks for reading, have a good day.

Out of Doors 2015

 There are many unsolved and unanswerable questions in this universe. What is the meaning of life? What existed before time began? What is actually in a black hole? And why, oh why are 99 ice creams called 99’s?

   I’ve asked around, typed it into Google, consulted a wise man with a white beard in a cave near Merthyr and it turns out no one knows. Early in my days I thought it was the original cost, 99p for a 99. Nice and simple but apparently not, they were created in the 1930s when nothing cost 99p because it was pre-decimalisation. One theory I’ve read is that its named after a shop address, another states it’s in honour of the last generation to go to the first world war born in 1899. On the Cadbury website it mentions the name came from the guard of the Italian king which consisted of 99 men and "subsequently anything really special or first class was known as 99.” But this is a myth and refers to the Vatican's Swiss Guard, who traditionally have 105 members.  

   So who knows. Lots of theories but no one knows for sure. One thing I do know is that it is indeed a law of the universe that you simply have to partake in a 99 when walking around Roath Park boating lake. It’s an unquestionable dictation of fact, such as having afternoon tea when in the Ritz, the finest of wines is a must when visiting Paris and Chips and Cheese is a necessity when on Barry Island. 

 So as I munched a 99 ice cream, strolling around Roath Park lake in the late light of a Saturday I found myself gazing at the one’s and zeros atop of the Captain Scott memorial lighthouse in the calm waters of the lake. The digit series spelling out “IF” in binary code. They say there are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those you don’t (sorry just a binary joke hehe).  The binary “IF” created by artist Nicola Dale for Made in Roath first Autumn festival “Out of Doors” is just one example of the many subtle art interventions placed around the tranquil and beautiful surroundings of the park. 

  Underneath a tree on one of many park paths you will find a secret flower and fairy land created by Lauren Foulkes. A fairy scene reminiscent of the Cottingley Fairy photographs. Or along another path you can scan the QR codes of artist Nia Metcalfe placed along the park benches. Another work only comes alive as the evening light fades and darkness consumes the earth, when the more noisey people wandering around the park might stumble under the tree of Mothmusic created by artist Stefhan Caddick. This work of flickering and dazzling noise reacting light dances in the night to the surrounding hum of the city.  

   These as well as the other art works combined with the workshops that were held over the weekend have given the “Out of Doors” festival a colourful and diverse lineup. The overall feeling of the festival is not of some bold statement but a quiet and dignified graceful placement into the natural and attractive surroundings of the park. The two harmonising with each other, giving the visitor an enjoyable experience of art work and nature’s natural wonders.

     As I finished my 99 I found myself thinking more of the binary “IF” atop the Captain Scott lighthouse. It seems a fitting placement. That word is so much about trying. Evoking thoughts of Rudyard Kipling’s epic poem of upholding your ideals through life tests and trails which is what Captain Scott and the other members of the Terror Nova were doing. If you can reach the South Pole. If you can cross the snow filled land. If you can be the first person to ever do this. For the Edwardians reaching the South Pole was like a mission to Mars is for us. But to return to “IF”, as artists we all live by and know the “IF” well. If we can make this work. If we can present it. If we can just be artists. It’s that power of dreams that drives us forward and onwards to create. The feeling of “IF” is something Made in Roath does rather well. If we can do this. If we can try this. If we can put on a community art festival.

 It would be fitting to close now by simply recalling the words of Kipling in his poem “IF” but I find myself thinking of some other words, some which I think is more suitable for all artists, the words of “The Man in the Arena” by another Edwardian, Theodore Roosevelt. The arena of which Roosevelt’s talks is I think rather apt to all artists and people who create. We are all at some point in the arena presenting our thoughts and creations, we all know the feeling of the sand as we stand showcasing our creations and it is not in the final outcome of the work that the value comes but in the act of creating and just trying to be an artist is what all artists should be praised for. As an art student I was terrified when my lecturer told us “95%” of all art students upon graduating never pick up a paint brush again. So if you are still making work after art school and are part of that 5% then you should be praised, regardless of your work you’re doing, its great just that your doing it and the chances are you have experienced that arena yourself. So with that, to all in the arena

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”