Inspiration and Indulgence

A busy week, starting at an exhibition in Dolgellau that grew from Byw Mewn Heddwch (Live in Peace), a year long art project for women and young people in Meirionnydd. Working with everything from textiles to pottery to poetry, groups had explored local and wider concepts of peace. It seems to me that in my lifetime there has not been a more urgent need to pursue ways of creating peace and I found the exhibits enormously inspiring. A flower and poetry festival the following day in Beddgelert in many ways echoed the theme and there were some stunning displays.

But the main purpose of my trip to North Wales was to spend a week at Ty Newydd, the national writing centre, "Writing the Body" with Zoe Brigley and Rupinder Kaur Waraich. Ty Newydd, as I've written so often before, has to be one of my favourite places on earth; this time it was made even more special by the wonderful group of enormously talented poets there, each one bringing their unique experience of the body from which to write. One in particular, Elizabeth Gibson, a young woman from Manchester, impressed me greatly. Her collection "A Love the Weight of an Animal" (Carmenta) I'm finding intensely moving. As always my early morning walks took me in Lloyd George's footsteps down to the Dwyfor - I sometimes feel the ghosts of he and his dog are wandering along the banks beside me!

I took the scenic route home yesterday and called in at another exhibition in the arts centre in Llanidloes. There's an annual exhibition there of some of the several hundred quilts that the centre holds. Wales has a centuries old tradition of quilt and blanket making and the social and political importance of the craft is fascinating to explore. To me though it's the stories behind the designs that interest me. We tell stories in many ways other than with words, and in quilting the materials used, their colours and textures, the way in which they are put together all tell a unique tale. One of the quilts yesterday had been worked by a woman who was going blind and the colours and arrangements told the story of her journey into sight loss. Another comparatively modern one (some were from the early to mid nineteenth century) was made up of pieces of Laura Ashley materials; as I'd worn a Laura Ashley dress to get married in forty years ago, that one had to be my favourite!

All good things have to come to an end of course, so now it's back to the desk and getting on with the writing. But tomorrow afternoon I'll be down in Newport to do a reading at The Cwtsh to mark the closing of John Briggs photographic exhibition of Writers in Wales. Your last chance to see it if you haven't already! Well worth a visit - and to hear an hour or so of the work of several local poets. Do come if you're in the area.