Susan Rawcliffe's Flutations: Adventures in Clay Flutes

Wales is dense with history and beauty. On a rainy day a few weeks ago, I visited Caenarfon Castle, built about 1300 AD, with layers of walls to walk on, polygonal towers, and a central green, with a wall for the town.

Caenarfon Castle

Wandering around, I had no desire to live there, nor to live in its purview. How cold and drafty it must have been. And boys then must have loved it, and still do.

The castle is astounding: huge, dense walls of local stones, walls within walls, arrow slots to the outside, defenses within defenses, a puzzle in space, and passage ways that go up the towers, to the top of the walls, and from one corridor to another.

They don’t all connect, and you must return up or down winding staircases, around and around, back through halls to where you started.

I don’t think this castle would be considered safe for Disneyland. Certainly it lacks disabled access.

From the Castle to the Menai Straits at low tide

Caenarfon from the Castle

Cemaes Bay is beautiful & I’m enjoying myself; it’s a rugged coastline with tide pools, ochre lichen, spring green grasses & lots & lots of flowers.

There’s also a nuclear power plant on the coastline, with nature walks all around. It’s the same age as the Japanese plant; its birthday party was postponed after the earthquake, Tsunami and meltdown. Passing by on the nature path, I was filled with the humming of electric cables,

and the coconut smells of yellow gorse. The musty white smell of hawthorne reminds me of childhood springs.

The nature path leads to a 360 degree vista of the power plant and the headlands. Whoever planned this path was proud of it, and the landmark is visible for miles.

It’s time for the next generation of nuclear power plant. Land in the vicinity has been purchased & more homes boarded up all around.

This lichen is everywhere visible on the rocks.

What a gorgeous place, both Bangor and the University. The weather has been balmy although I’m not quite ready for tee shirts. The Bangorites are—they’re in tee shirts, no shirts, sun dresses, and more, or rather less.

I have walked past this street looking from Upper to Lower Bangor.

I love the chamberpot chimneys, especially obvious here walking down to the harbor.

The collection of prehispanic flutes is fabulous, all 325 pieces of it, twice as many as I thought. As is typical, the circumstances have been challenging, beginning with clearing a seminar room of boxes, books, memorabilia, chairs, a piano cover and more; then finding another table & moving it in. Then I started thinking about lights, the next big challenge; there are no compact florescent daylight bulbs to be had. This reminded me of the saying that the English and the Americans are two peoples divided by a common language.

And what a lovely seminar room it is. Eventually I adapted to the large bay window and turned my photography set up around, to let in the light! So what if I can’t shoot at night; I can shoot with daylight, the best light.

In the middle of this, I hiked up Trefern mountain with a Thursday hiking group, a gaggle of wonderful people. I was well cared for with my borrowed fleece and jacket, as well as waterproof pants & gaiters—just in case. We scrambled over large boulders and loose shale, through bogs dense with moss, through the cloud layer to the top, where we stopped for lunch along with several groups of hikers and rock climbers. There, on one of the three highest mountains in Wales at about 3000’, the clouds were drifting in and out, revealing and concealing the craggy tips of other mountains as well as glacier valleys and rivers below. Stunningly beautiful in the clear air.

After the hike, I felt that none of the niggley organizational details of working with the collection could bother me. And what a wonderful collection it proved to be. What a gift! the freedom of time with these all these beings, taking pictures, playing, measuring, examining….

I was so lucky to arrive last week to beautiful weather, & to stay at Kyle’s house in Pentraeth, just outside of Bangor. And it is beautiful.

I’ve included a few pictures from around their house.

One morning, I walked on the one lane road to the marsh. I loved looking at the the hawthorn hedgerows:

This hawthorne was at the beach.

So many plants are coming into bloom.  

The marsh is now in the process of restoration to eliminate non native plants such as sedges, allowing the return of other native species.

I followed the wooden walkway to the end, where I found a group of semi wild ponies.

As I was returning, I encountered horses in lust, just like a few others around here.

That afternoon, we drove to lunch on the beach, where I promptly fell asleep, as is proper to a beach. Even with a wet suit, the water was way too cold for my California body.

The weekend was a social whirl, meeting lots of lovely Welsh natives and adoptees. I met Fiona, with whom I will be staying for the ceramics part of my journey. She is a lovely English eccentric with a house to match.

On Sunday, I moved in with Manuela Vittori in Bangor and within walking distance of the University.

Until the next post.

One month to go! Help! I’ll be gone for two months, a long time to be away from home. I applied for and received a Cultural Explorers International grant from the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles. Another case of  “be careful what you ask for, you might get it.” And I am grateful.

I’m leaving 4/5/11, & returning on 5/31. For the first 3+  weeks at the University of Wales, Bangor, I’ll be studying prehispanic West Mexican clay flutes and sculptures of musicians, some really beautiful pieces collected by Peter Crossley-Holland when he lived here and taught ethnomusicology at UCLA. The collection is now in boxes in the basement of the Music Dept.

The next 3+ weeks, I’ll be working in a clay studio, having fun, & studying these flutes by making them. At the end, I’ll give a public presentation in Bangor about the collection with the images I shoot, & the sounds we record.

Hopefully, there will also be a workshop in making clay flutes sponsored by the North Wales Pottery collective and a local college.

Ha ha, I also get to be a tourist, looking at cairns, castles, hiking around Isle of Anglesey and Mt. Snowdon, visiting galleries in London or Dublin.

When I return, there will be a San Pedro/LA presentation on 6/23 and a workshop the following weekend at Angel’s Gate, where I my studio is located.

Wheee!  Sheer terror and excitement!

More to come….