As the ‘Angel’ exhibition at Oriel Davies was due to close that following weekend I decided to visit Newtown first for this month’s drawing day. It felt odd initially, not having the warm-up of a Ruthin trip beforehand, but to be back amongst Claire Curneen’s and Philip Eglin’s ceramics was a comfort. How I love drawing them. There is something about their juxtapostion against the passing bodies of visitors that really excites me. Is it the sharp-edged, distinct white static-ness of them against the seemingly more amorphous bulkiness of the be-coated passersby?
An engagement certainly happens, each staring back at one another. It’s magical.
As ever, I have to draw fast. Though from this particular position, in the archway between Gallery 1 and Gallery 2, I can capture people as they stand in front of a video screen.
I listen to it on its loop throughout the day.
Visitors are clearly captivated.
One man even takes out a notebook and makes notes.
It’s the unlooked-for encounters with the general public that makes this project so rewarding for me. As with this man. I’d seen and heard him first in the main gallery. The sliding door had opened and he’d wandered in. “I thought there’d be paintings,” he announced to the member of staff on duty. She pointed to the Verrocchio and began to explain what it was.
I didn’t hear much more of their encounter but saw him leave soon after. He returned about half and hour later and stopped in front of me. We talked about art. He used to draw at school: “I was quite good at it.” But he didn’t think he’d do it again. He told me he’d occasionally slept rough. “It’s the drink,” he said, “it makes me a bit noisy.” He asked about my pens – “that’s a dip pen, isn’t it?” – and took the lid off one of my felt pens. “Nice talking to you,” he said, as he left.
It was busy. The flow of people was constant.
Kate, Oriel Davies’s Creative Producer, came over to talk about the Spring Fayre next month and the various other projects they will have on while the gallery is closed to exhibitions.
Sitting in the little corridor between galleries I could also hear the soundtrack of the film featuring Adam Buick’s Liberty Bell on its cycle behind me. There’s the intermittent, resonant clanging and gentle lapping of waves as they roll into the cave. Two couples enter the makeshift cinema. The women sit on the beanbags while the men talk in the semi-darkness about fountain pens and India.
A man in a florescent orange kagul stands in front of the video screen, his hands clasped firmly behind his back.
A woman is equally entranced. As was I, with the whole show. I loved it – for both its corporeality and its spirituality. I shall miss it. And then, just as I was packing up, a young opera singer came along. She was to play Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel & Gretel that very evening. What a delight she was and how I wish I’d drawn her…..
This was my to be last encounter with Ruthin Craft Centre’s ceramic, shelter and suffragette handkerchief exhibits too. And wanting to capture for the final time the wide sweep of it, I decided to focus my attention on the On Your Table exhibit in Gallery 1.
The incessant rain outside hadn’t boded well for visitors and for the first half hour I had the space to myself. I was happy for it to be so. I wanted to sit with those pots and feast on their elegant restraint without the stress of having to capture some sentient beings.
They soon came. And from then on the flow was constant.
There’s a certain rigid stiffness to the way the visitors engaged with the ceramics. More often then not it involves a hands-behind-the-back lean. Why do people hold their hands like that? Or should I say men? (For it is mostly men who adopt this posture when looking at craft.) Perhaps it’s something learnt from childhood when hands longed to touch but were told they could not. Whatever the reason it makes for a lovely visual counterpoint to the voluptous roundness of some of the pots.
People really look at this exhibition. It deserves their attention and they give it, freely.
I watch this woman perambulate around the exhibition. She makes slow progress and at first I think she is pushing a pram, though it’s hard to see that there could be a child under the various coats and jumpers that are draped over it.
She comes nearer and I can see that it is in fact some kind of ‘walker’.
She stops to talk and explains that she’s just had a new hip after a fall. I learn that she wanted to be a ballerina and was a member of the corps de ballet for a while but when she hit twenty-nine her mother suggested she get a job in the services. She did and became a dental nurse in the RAF. My drawing of her is far from flattering. I’m glad that she doesn’t ask to see it.
Then a man comes along and stops to ask what I’m doing. What a delight he is. Taking out his mini earphones, explaining: “I listen to 24 hour news all day,” he begins to say that he does “a bit of calligraphy” before going on to tell me of a recently discovered son in Australia. Finding a photo of him on his phone, he sticks it under my nose and then proceeds to find images of several of his grandchildren.
The stories flow like a gushing river, tumbling and swirling. What a fascinating life. I am captivated, though in the end I have to tell him that I must draw other visitors. What is it about my sitting there drawing that encourages such emoting? It’s a fascinating question. And I am always touched by the openness of these strangers.
I return my focus to the exhibition and its visitors, wearied now after listening to the calligrapher’s recounting of such a helter-skelter life.
A couple come in. She wanders off into the Suffragette exhibition while he studies each ceramic piece one-by-one.
And consults the price list as he does so.
Spent, I put away my books and materials. I shall miss the gorgeous lines of this show and the way in which the visitors have engaged so carefully and lovingly with what is, in truth, sculpture. Domestic, yes, but sculpture in all its purity of form. Just wonderful. I’ve been blessed.