WRITERS IN THE PARK

We finished our first term yesterday. The feedback was very positive and we're hoping to continue in the Autumn. I wanted to set up a writing for well being group that could use the park and our beautiful environment for inspiration. I have been really impressed by the quality and freshness of the new writers' work. I feel humbled to be facilitating such hidden talent. It reinforces my belief in the power of creativity to inspire, explore and express what it is to be human. Each member has a thousand thousand stories to tell and write. The group provides a safe and friendly environment to be heard, to share and offer mutual support.
Now I need to get back to my own writing.

CONCENTRIC: GROUP EXHIBITION BY 6 WOMEN ARTISTS AT CARDIFF MADE

This is a 'must see' exhibition celebrating the diversity and quality of women's art in Wales today for International Women's Day 2015. Hung in the sparkly little gallery of Cardiff Made, 41 Lochaber St in Roath with its café, and shop selling local crafts and organic marmalades, the exhibition includes painting and drawing, installation and text by Jacqueline Alkema, Penny Hallas, Leona Jones, Kay Keogh, Lydia Spurrier-Dawes and Sheila Vyas.
      'Concentric is a coherent group of very individualistic entities, questioning, pushing boundaries, experimenting with making processes and subject matters, all playing with the notion of what and how it is to be a woman and a woman artist.'
         I  particularly liked the intricate and detailed mandalas of  Sheila Vyas, the disturbing imagery of Kay Keogh and the surrealism of Penny Hallas. I laughed out loud at Lydia Spurrier-Dawes, 'siblings' and then thought about it and found the knitted jumpers with long arms wrapped around their bodies like strait jackets, strangely disturbing. Leona Jones text is intriguing and funny. I loved her idea of using moving words in such a way that enables the viewer to visualise the scene.
          The Exhibition is only on until Saturday 21 st of March.  See www.cardiffmade.co.uk for further info.

PS The Portuguese custard natas are a must eat.

HOMEWORK DESK

 

I am polishing my old desk. She sits in our Edwardian hall.  Fifty-five years ago she sat in a chilled bedroom next to the maroon-quilted double bed I shared with my mother. I was about to go up to ‘big school’ with expensive uniform, a two-bus journey, nuns and homework. I would need some privacy away from our common room- the kitchen- a postage stamp of cooking smells, Players cigarettes, Old Holborn roll-up, a two bar electric fire,  black and white TV, Joey the green budgerigar and a younger brother.  

        The oak desk had a dark mahogany stain, a pull down top to write on, and inside small compartments for letters from pen pals, letters to be written and a tiny secret compartment for my diary. Three drawers below contained underwear, lambswool jumpers and mothballs. She had cost 5 shillings in a second-hand furniture shop in 1959. She was overlooked by a thin shelf of books that were my staple; What Katy Did?  What Katy Did Next? Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, The Bunty Annual, The Schoolfriend Annual and some volumes of an Oldham encyclopaedia published at a time when Britain ruled the waves and we had colonies. I don’t remember my parents reading anything other than the Daily Mirror. The desk was their gift and imagined passport to my academic success. I left school at 16 with three O’ levels and a job in the local library so I could keep my mother company at lunch times.

        After my father’s death we brought her here to our adult home and had her fashionably stripped. Each week I take my earth friendly furniture polish made from natural olive oil and buff up her good memories, see her oak grain deepen and shine. I am rubbing hard, harder, trying to erase her other memories.

 

JTD, 2015

HAIKU WORKSHOP SATURDAY MARCH 7 CANCELLED!

Although the workshop is cancelled you can still take part:

Haiku is a poetic form and type of poetry from the Japanese culture. Haiku combines form, content and language in a meaningful yet compact way. Haiku poets often write about nature, feelings and experiences. The most common form for Haiku is three short lines, usually containing 17 syllables; five syllables on the first and third lines and seven on the middle line.

Would you like to respond creatively to Rhys Daniel’s art work by writing your own haiku?  

On the post card provided in the exhibition, write the name of the painting, print your 3 line/17 syllable haiku, and give your contact details. Post the card in the box provided. 

Alternatively, you can look at http://ieuanrhysdaniel.tumblr.com and email us your haiku  at janetdaniel125@hotmail.com

The best haikus will be displayed during the exhibition.

HAIKUS

THE SWORD

(GLAN Y CLEDDAU)

 

Sprites and faeries play

on the banks of the Cleddau

Roots rock, quartz quiver

 

                                                  JTD, 2015

HAIKUS

ST.NONS

 

Green waters surge high

Thunder-lightning blitz, earth splits

A Welsh saint is born

 

                                                                              JTD, 2015

HAIKUS

ECO-SOUL

(CYFFRO)

Lichen wrap round limbs

dancing to sacred rhythms

freeing green spirit

 

                                                                    JTD, rev 2015

HAIKU WORKSHOP SATURDAY 7 MARCH 2-3PM, TOWER GALLERY,ORIEL Y PARC,ST DAVID'S

 

 

TIR/LAND

HAIKU WORKSHOP SAT 7 MARCH 2-3 PM.

Tower Gallery. Oriel y Parc, St Davids,Pembs

 

Haiku is a poetic form and type of poetry from the Japanese culture. Haiku combines form, content and language in a meaningful yet compact way. Haiku poets often write about nature, feelings and experiences. The most common form for Haiku is three short lines, usually containing 17 syllables; five syllables on the first and third lines and seven on the middle line.

Would you like to respond creatively to Rhys Daniel’s art work by writing your own haiku? Places are limited to 12 so prior booking is essential. The best haikus will be displayed during the exhibition.

For further information contact Janet and Rhys at: janetdaniel125@hotmail.com

Text or telephone: 0750 5024 117.

TIR/LAND; A CELEBRATION OF PEMBROKESHIRE-5 MARCH -MAY 30 2015

Rhys and I are preparing for our joint exhibition at the Tower Gallery at Oriel y Parc in St.David's, Pembrokeshire. Below is the press release we are sending out. I'll be running a Haiku workshop on Saturday 7th of March at 2pm to encourage participants to write their own haikus inspired by Rhys' art work. See a separate entry.

TIR/LAND: A CELEBRATION OF PEMBROKESHIRE

EXHIBITION OF ARTWORK BY I.R.DANIEL & POETRY BY J.DANIEL

Arddangosfa o waith celf gan I.R. Daniel

a barddoniaeth gan J. Daniel

5 March / Mawrth – 30 May / Mai 2015

at Tower Gallery, Oriel y Parc, St. Davids, Pembs.

 

HAIKU Workshop Sat 7th March 2pm

Gweithdy HAIKU Sadwrn 7th Mawrth 2pm

 In ‘TIR/LAND: a celebration of Pembrokeshire’, Rhys and Janet Daniel have worked closely to produce art work and poetry inspired by the land and issues they feel passionate about.

Rhys studied art in Cardiff and Swansea. He has a successful track record as a visual artist and has exhibited in Britain and abroad. He uses mixed media. His work is rooted in ancient Celtic landscape and the natural world. Previous exhibitions have explored his connection with the Welsh landscape; connections between the sacred stones of Wales and Shetland, where he lived for a year; the world of dreams and the unconscious, and the impact of climate change on our environment. Rhys is also an experienced art teacher with over 40 years work in schools and diverse groups in the community.

Janet has written poetry, short stories, travel, memoir, plays and a book about the year spent working in the Shetland Isles.

Janet and Rhys met a long time ago on a photography course in Barry. They have spent the last 35 years summering in a tiny caravan travelling the breadth and depths of Pembrokeshire.

 

janetdaniel125@hotmail.com;  ieuanrhysdaniel.tumblr.com
Tel: 0750 502 4117

ATTACHMENT PANE

 

 

I watch you from the night garden,

trapped in a tiny pane of low-energy twilight,

head in school work, glasses slick on moist nose

-no longer seven but twenty seven-

soon to step into a larger pane

with others waiting for you.

I’ve had this separating moment so many times

I feel resigned

until

the light is a pin hole of indifference.

In panic, I fly back,

the light is there but you have vanished.

 

The light is there but you have vanished.

In panic, I fly back

until

the light is a pin hole of indifference.

I feel resigned.

I’ve had this separating moment so many times,

with others waiting for you.

Soon to step into a larger pane

-no longer seven but twenty seven-

head in school work, glasses slick on moist nose.

In a tiny pane of low-energy twilight

I watch you from the night garden.