A.P.W. to be Director of Collections and Research at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

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My partner Alexander Peter Wakelin, who frequently gets name-checked at the Artlog and has been known to make the occasional appearance here, is about to begin a new adventure. We moved from Cardiff to West Wales eight years ago when he became Secretary of the Royal Commission for the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. In December he will be leaving the Royal Commission to take up the post of Director of Collections and Research at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

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Above: National Museum Cardiff

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This is a wonderful opportunity for Peter to stretch his wings. He will be responsible for all the museum collections spread over a multiplicity of sites: National Museum Cardiff, St Fagans: National History Museum, Big Pit: National Coal Museum, National Wool Museum, National Roman Legion Museum, National Slate Museum and National Waterfront Museum.

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Above. Saint Fagans Castle at the National History Museum just outside Cardiff

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So, lots of exciting challenges lie ahead. I have an exhibition in 2014, Two Tales, for Martin Tinney at his Oriel Tegfryn Gallery in Menai Bridge, preparations for which will keep my busy in the studio here while Peter gets his feet under the table at the museum. (His office will be just beneath the dome shown in the top picture.) He takes up his new post in January. Ty Isaf will continue to be our home.

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Below: the gallery under the dome. I understand Peter’s new office will be through one of the doors leading from it. There must be the most wonderful view down from the gallery to the concourse below.

Philippa and the puppet from Palermo

Artist Philippa Robbins and I are in the early stages of discussion for a project we’re undertaking together. This is the first time I’ve worked collaboratively with another artist toward an ‘art event’, and it’s an idea grown out of our joint interest in puppets. Earier this year together we visited the Toone Puppet Theatre in Brussels, and Philippa has just returned from a research trip to Sicily, where she’s been exploring the tradition of Sicilian marionettes. On Friday evening we met at her home in Penarth for a de-brief of the trip, and she presented me with a vintage puppet head acquired in Palermo.

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This little chap has clearly been used in performance (there are signs of wear and tear to his paintwork) and I would imagine he’s the result of the tradition of changing a puppet’s head and costume when time is too short to create a new figure from scratch. He appears to be sculpted from a composite… something like ‘Milliput’ I think… and though small, the head is quite dense and heavy. He’s now ensconced in the puppet cabinet here at Ty Isaf, sandwiched between some vintage Pelham marionettes and the head used in The Mare’s Tale to transform a Mari Lwyd into an apparition of Jane Seyes.

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The face is hawkish and saturnine, though rather noble, and it’s interesting to speculate about what sort of a character he was when intact. Clearly stern, but not I think an out-and-out villain.

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Thank you, Philippa, for this wonderful gift. I love it.

ciliau portfolio by Jon Street

Jon Street, the vision-mixer on The Mare’s Tale, was among those who lodged with us at Ciliau. He took some really interesting photographs of the house, and here are few of them.

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Being at Ciliau was the most glorious experience, and Peter and I thank Roger and Emma for their generosity in appointing us house-sitters and cat-minders for the two weeks I was rehearsing at Theatr Brycheiniog. Puss made all the house-guests most welcome, including Jack. (Photographs below by me.)

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UPDATE 29/09/13: My sister-in-law, Sally, came for a week to Ciiau. Sally is the best company and is also a wonderful cook, and so having her under the same roof was a real pleasure. She writes about her stay in the house HERE.

the two fathers

For the past week, film-maker Richard Edwards, who was commissioned to produce the documentary about the ‘making of’ The Mare’s Tale, has been editing the footage he’d filmed during pre-production, rehearsals and performance. He’s remarked that what’s became apparent to him as he’s viewed the material, is that while The Mare’s Tale is a fictitious exploration of my late father’s terror of the Mari Lwyd, it’s an exploration too of another absent father, Richard Wakelin, whose son is my partner. Dick died long before I met Peter, but his sculptural works lie at at the heart of my original Mare’s Tale series of drawings, and have evolved into the inspiration of the stage-set for the chamber-work.

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Below are some images of Dick’s sculpture that I live with every day. I’m sure that the influences of his work on my own will be apparent to anyone with an eye for such things.

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Below: architectural elements borrowed from R. W., and then reconfigured and distorted in drawings, paintings and recent stage designs.

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announcing ‘Glimmerglass’ and ‘Maze of Blood’

Glimmerglass and Maze of Blood are the two new Marly Youmans novels forthcoming from Mercer University Press, and I’ve been asked by her to produce the cover artworks for both. I’m nearly through reading the manuscript of Glimmerglass, and have made copious notes in preparation to starting on the cover this weekend. Marly writes of the book:

‘Despite the fact that I have not lived in Cooperstown for the requisite thirty years, I have once again written a book related to the place, although it is more related to some of the stories I have written about it. Glimmerglass plays with the fictional quality of Cooperstown–this weird place where people regularly talk about Cooper’s fictional places, where we have our own lake monster, where we have Kingfisher Tower in the lake and a Norman tower in the woods, where the line between fictional and real is a little frayed. This is a story about an unmarried woman at mid-life who considers herself a failed painter but who has a kind of resurrection in this landscape. I’ve imagined her living in a charming old gatehouse near the Fenimore Museum. There is an embodied Muse, a flood, a house that leads into a hill, a labyrinth, a love, the possibility of murder, and much more.’

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Look out for more at the Artlog about my work on Glimmerglass over the next few weeks. This is to be my fifth book for Marly, as I previously made the cover artwork of Val/Orson for PS Publishing, and covers and interior decorations for The Foliate Head… shortly to be out in a second edition at Stanza Press… and Thaliad for Phoenicia Publishing.  An annunciation painting of mine titled Touched was adapted to the cover of The Throne of Psyche published by Mercer.

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Praise for the poetry of Marly Youmans:

“Her strong and inventive metaphors and similes evoke an otherness that only Coleridge attained . . . wholly beautiful and brilliant. Youmans is a writer of rare ability whose works will one day be studied by serious students of poetry.”
Greg Langley, The Baton Rouge Advocate, 2011.

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“When I think of Marly Youmans’ work, the word that comes to mind is ‘magic.’ By this, I mean not only her language, but her evocation of mystery. Youmans’ poems always seem utterly new and startlingly familiar …. She is a poet working at the height of her powers.”
Kim Bridgford, poet, editor of Mezzo Cammin and director of The West Chester University Poetry Conference.

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“When a person reads a Marly Youmans poem, all the spaces ’round about fall silent. The busy world is hushed, and her words, each one perfect and pinned in its perfect place, rise into the silence and burst into light. I, a poor mortal, can explain her work in no other terms.”
Howard Bahr, author of The Year of Jubilo and Pelican Road.

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Farewell to The Mare

Today my friend, the ever perceptive Natalie d’Arbeloff, left a question at the Artlog that has left me undergoing some serious thinking. So in the spirit of candour and sharing that Natalie and I subscribe to in our blogs, here’s a public response to what I very nearly answered privately. Thank you Natalie for putting a question that needed to be asked.

Natalie d’Arbeloff wrote:

‘Clive, having followed the fascinating saga of the creation of this performance from the start, in the wonderfully illustrated way you have shared it, I’m wondering now how you’re going to be able to get back to the loneliness of painting, after the satisfaction and excitment of harmonious collaboration with such a talented team and all the variety of tasks involved. I know that you chose to leave behind your theatrical skills for the quasi-monastic life of an easel painter, but did this new excursion into multi-media theatre make you feel that you might want to do more of it?’

Clive Hicks-Jenkins replied:

Natalie, I put my first career behind me way-back-when, and I did so in a mood of despondency at the way it had been unfolding for the longest time. The theatre is a demanding world, and one that I’d thoroughly explored in the twenty-odd years I worked in it. I’d been a choreographer, a director and a designer, and I’d enjoyed success in all three fields. When the right jobs came along then I was sublimely happy, but it became increasingly apparent that the achievements I was proud of were far outweighed by work-a-day jobs I’d taken to pay my bills and stay afloat. The experience had left me feeling emptied of ambition and with my enthusiasms fatally compromised. Nevertheless, cutting myself free was very hard, and it took a certain ruthlessness. Adrift though unrepentant after I’d made the decision, I determinedly burned all bridges behind me. I fled to Wales, took refuge at Tretower and didn’t set foot in a theatre, not even as a member of an audience, for over a decade. Along this path to another life, I met Peter. With his encouragement I began to paint. In time I came to believe that I should have been a painter from the start, though I’ve since moderated that view. I see now that without the career I had before I came to the easel, I wouldn’t be myself, and wouldn’t be the painter I became.

To return to your question: You ask whether the Mare’s Tale experience has left me wanting to do more. The project was unusual inasmuch that it was a bespoke fit for me, an exploration of a theme in which so much of my past work has been bedded.  I saw the development of TMT into a chamber-work for ensemble as less a return to the theatre, than a continuation of what I do in the studio. If the piece is to have the future MWCO and I envisioned for it when we set out on the adventure, then I want to be a part of that. However, the plans for a tour being some way off in 2015, right now I need to get back to the easel.

In 2014 I have a one-man exhibition for Martin Tinney at the Tegfryn Gallery. After that I’m collaborating with Philippa Robbins on what’s planned as an ‘immersive’ exhibition, in which my contribution will be an installation involving video material and puppet performance. (Another chance to work with Pete Telfer, who was cameraman on both The Soldier’s Tale and The Mare’s Tale.) Clearly the latter project will once more take me away from the easel and into a collaborative environment more akin to the theatre.

This year my projects with MWCO at the Hay Festival and Theatr Brycheiniog saw me fall in love all over again with everything that had captured my heart when I was a teenager. One has to be careful of that kind of thing, because it can be deceptive. On the first day of rehearsal for The Mare’s Tale I was full of trepidation, and even fear. But once I was waist-deep in the process, I just plunged in and swam like a dolphin. It was a real pleasure, and I felt utterly at ease. The twenty-five year gap had done no harm, and had probably made a better director of me. Certainly a more reflective one. I said back when I started the Mare’s Tale adventure in February, that I’d suck it and see. Well it must be said, it’s been a wonderful experience. Now I miss my brave, shining boys and girls more than I can say. They were so dedicated to the project, giving their utmost throughout. I couldn’t have asked more of them, and I miss being surrounded by their passion and energy.

Although the libretto of The Mare’s Tale is a fiction, Damian Walford Davies borrowed its central episode of a recovered memory from my account of what happened to my father at the end of his life. When Morgan Seyes is entangled in the bed sheet he’s mistaken for the Mari’s shroud, his words are the ones my father cried out in exactly the same circumstances. Eric Roberts doesn’t look like Trevor, not in the slightest way. But in that single performance at Brecon, as he dragged the suffocating cloth from his silently screaming face, for a moment the resemblance was uncanny, and it was as though the image had been plucked from my memory and projected into the darkness. I’d never directly represented the episode in any of the Mare’s Tales drawings of 2001/2, but at Theatr Brycheiniog where it was harnessed to Mark Bowden’s haunting music, the moment made my knees buckle.

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For now, I think I shall cease blogging about The Mare’s Tale at the Artlog. I’ve probably written too much on the subject. With the experience behind me, I feel the sadness that inevitably overwhelms when a collaborative project draws to a close.  So from tomorrow, Artloggers will find new things afoot here. My thanks to you all for your patience and interest.

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Left to right: me, actor Eric Roberts, violinist Rakhi Singh, viola player Tom Hankey and clarinetist Katherine Spooner.

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Rima and Jane at Ciliau

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The Sunday after the preview of The Mare’s Tale, Rima Staines and Tom Hiron, who had travelled far to be present for the performance, came to see Ciliau. Emma, who had loaned us her beautiful house while she was away on an adventure, had returned for the last few days of our stay in it, and Peter Rima, Tom and I had a ‘Farewell to Ciliau’ lunch with her in the garden before heading for our own homes, Rima and Tom to Devon and Peter, Jack and I to Ceredigion.

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Tom is a mask maker and storyteller, and Rima is an artist with an interest in animation. (There are wonderful things to be found at her blog.) I unpacked the puppet of Jane Seyes from her box, and in an instant Rima was creating life in the little figure, all her energy and focus conjuring a performance of the utmost delicacy.  Back in Devon Rima will soon be working on a puppet project of her own, and judging from her skill at bringing Jane to life on the kitchen table at Ciliau, she’ll be creating something rather special. When there is more news about Rima’s project, I shall post about it here.

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the stand-in

The lighting-design for The Mare’s Tale was done in nighttime sessions, after rehearsals were over and the cast had been sent home. At one, puppeteer Diana Ford kindly stayed late to hold the puppets in their playing areas so that we could light them, but between scenes she took these striking photographs of Peter, who had volunteered to be lighting stand-in for Eric Roberts.

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Jane Seyes

Above: Jane Seyes on-screen during rehearsals. The puppet and puppeteers were onstage and clearly visible to the audience, but the video streaming brought her into luminous close-up.

When I first read the libretto for The Mare’s Tale, I was concerned that Jane Seyes appears so briefly in the drama. She has just two scenes, though both brim with information that help us understand her character and plight. In the early stages of rehearsal the creative team noted again and again that while her on-stage appearances were relatively brief, her presence suffused the entire work, putting her at the heart of it.

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People have been kind enough to say that it was a brave act, having her represented onstage and onscreen by a puppet. In fact it was nothing of the sort. There is only one actor in The Mare’s Tale, and in our case that was Eric. He conjured Jane through the sensitivity of his reading of her, and the puppet was originally a notion I had to conjure another person on stage to help the audience leave the physical Eric behind. But puppetry is a magic art, and between them, Eric, Ann and Diana produced a completely plausible presence. Three into one brought Jane compellingly to life, and aided and abetted by Harriet Wallis’ sensitive camera-work, she tore people’s hearts out.

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‘For me, almost the most moving part was early on, and the first appearance of the puppet/wife: the puppet was quite exceptionally beautiful and expressive, and the sense of her positive identity and individual existence, ignored and misunderstood by her husband, and her complex awareness of this, was both powerful and subtle. Here everything worked together brilliantly.  I found what it did do, though (the feminist in me perhaps?), was break much of my sympathy for the husband, making him appear more selfish and unthinking than was perhaps intended. So his own disintegration was less emotionally engaging.’

Frances Mannsaker

Jane Seyes puppet, backstage…

… on her death bed…

 … and in the form of an apparition.

notes to future producers of The Mare’s Tale

From the outset it had been decided The Mare’s Tale should be a versatile chamber-work that might be presented either simply as a reading by a narrator at a lectern next to the musicians, or fully-staged, as it was for its 2013 preview performance to an invited audience. The story-arc is carried in a lean poetic text, employing multiple changes of scene and character. The performer must conjure six characters, frequently with swift transitions between them, and as two are men and four are women, a mercurial talent is required. Our narrator Eric Roberts, an opera singer and skilled actor, had the necessary musicianship to place Damian Walford Davies’ words with the precision demanded by Mark Bowden’s score. (I believe an actor who couldn’t read the score would be all at sea regarding the placement of the text.) Eric’s baritone too was put to good use, in Mark’s haunting arrangement of the traditional Welsh song that closes the work.

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At Theatr Brycheiniog The Mare’s Tale was presented using multiple techniques. A skewed and multi-level tower some twenty feet high, suggested in abstract the various locations indicated by the libretto. Jane Seyes was represented by a puppet, and her two puppeteers additionally operated various manifestations of the ‘night mare’ at the heart of the narrative. A wandering two-person video crew captured the puppets and actor, with the images streamed to a projection-screen above the playing area. The screen also showed pre-filmed sequences of an ‘Expressionist’ model village designed to help create a sense of time passing, and stop-motion animations suggested the apparition rising from Morgan Seye’s buried memories.

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Composer and librettist have created a dense music-theatre piece that though technically challenging, is a gift to any director and designer. While I chose to use techniques that most suited me and the team I gathered around me, there are clearly many ways to present The Mare’s Tale, as yet unexplored.

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Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Ty Isaf, 2013.