Corrugated cylinders & Brogue envy

Wednesday

Just outside Corwen we stop to take a look at an unusual chapel that has caught my attention a few times, there’s no door and the inside has been totally gutted, soon to be transformed into a showroom for solar power panels, apparently.

We head towards Rhuthin and the craft centre, I’d never been before , it’s a really impressive set up , we meet its wonderful director Philip Hughes and I immediately have brogue envy , he’s wearing a fabulous two tone pair made in collaboration between Grenson and Barbour, we compare our mutual shoe fetish and I quiz him on his favourite ceramicist ( for another show I’m thinking about ) he is a wealth of knowledge and king of footwear.

We then bump into the effervescent painter Eleri Mills who’s on a residency at the R, she looks fantastic in her double denim get up complete with muji apron and blue clogs. Her latest work is a monochrome mountain-scape on acetate, a moody powerful representation of her Milltir Sgwar in heavy black marks and swipes. She talks about the strong impact of Tir Sir Gar, especially as she’s a farmers daughter, her connection to the land is so deep that it calcifies her bones.

On the way back I am once again drawn to a corrugated iron structure by the side of the road, this time of a cylindrical form , big enough to walk through. I’m bemused as to what it’s purpose could have been, I shout through the tin tunnel and my voice carries down the valley, scaring and scattering sheep.

Its the landscape once again that has affected us the most over the last three days, at dinner overlooking the Mawddach we simply sit, eat and drink in the scenery and meditate over Merlot how to capture and convey its presence via a piece of immersive, visceral theatre.

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