Saturday 1st March, I arrived in darkness at Mawddach Crescent. I was greeted by Scarlett and Jay my studio partner to help carry everything but my kitchen sink to the top floor. After working up an appetite we all shared an extremely yummy curry, where I was introduced to Toby, the resident cat. My room was beyond comfy, I immediately felt at home.

In the morning I rolled out of bed to see the most beautiful view of the estuary with towering mountains in the distance. I went with no intentions of making anything but to let the space, and local geography inspire me. I walked most days through woodland, up waterfalls, over hills and along the beach, unlimited access to all terrains. It was beautiful. I reintroduced myself to what made me want to weave when I first learnt how. I had a small inkle loom that I played on for the first few days, weaving simple wool ribbons with little thought of how they would be used. After finally picking my favourite walks and finding the best sitting spots I decided to get on the big loom.

Exploring the variety of landscapes and being inspired by the enormous selection of sheep, I wanted to pick a material that drew on these elements. Black Mountain sheep wool arrived a couple of days later just in time for my warp to be wound and loom set up. I wanted a thick cloth to provide warmth and strength, a simple design that celebrates the natural colour of wool. As I wove, ideas came to mind, looking out at a continuously changing landscape, my weave started looking like windows. After this, I wove a cloth opposing this one, thin, floaty, almost transparent, to experiment with the qualities of the welsh wool.

I shared my residency with Jay Caskie, a fabulous printmaker based in Cornwall. Working alongside him in the studio was a joy, and an inspiration. By the end of the residency, we had shared our crafts, and built a friendship – Thank you Jay.

During the 2 weeks I had the pleasure of taking part in SGWRS BACH – ‘The small things’ at the local community hall arranged by Scarlett. It consisted off a 7-minute presentation with 20 images showcasing my practice. Alongside other makers also presenting, I met several locals, artists, and past Mawddach residents. Followed by lovely chats over some yummy cakes, it was a special night giving me more inspiration to take away.

I signed up to partake in the life drawing session as a participant and model. I can’t say I’m confident at drawing, but it was so much fun to play and experiment with different ways of interpretating human features. Posing for the class was even more exciting, getting to see versions of you on paper felt grounding and lovely.
 
Me and Jay had the honour of being toured Jake and Scarlett’s new venture at the school, having an insight into their ideas for the future. Looking forward to revisiting and seeing the progress. I really felt lucky throughout my time at Mawddach residency, and still now. It was a magical time which will not be forgotten.

I had never done any kind of artist residency before, so I was very excited but didn’t quite know what to expect. My goal for these two weeks was to fully immerse myself in the creative side of being an artist- away from the everyday distractions and admin that come with being self-employed. I was looking forward to spending my time exploring the landscape, sketching, engraving and experimenting with new imagery.

What drew me to this residency was the landscape of vast mountain ranges and the changing tides of the estuary. They remind me of my home back in Canada. Now that I live in Cornwall, I don’t get many opportunities to spend time in the mountains, so I was especially looking forward to this part.

These two weeks pushed me out of my comfort zone, in the best possible way. Highlights include:

• Meeting so many inspiring and creative people
• Driving outside of Cornwall for the first time
• Doing my first artist talk
• Collaborating with the talented Scarlett Rebecca to create a lithograph print
• Modelling for the Draw online portrait drawing class
• Learning to weave (thanks Michaela!) 

During my time in Wales, I spent a lot of time sketching and engraving small test blocks. I was particularly interested in capturing the ever-changing light on the mountains and water. Going into this residency, I was focused mainly on the work I would make there. I planned to create a series of experimental sketches and prints, and build up a visual library of imagery that would inform my work for years to come. 

I’m happy to say that I accomplished all this, but what I didn’t anticipate was the inspiration I would get about my art practice and life as a whole. Meeting with other artists and seeing the way they create creative communities around them made me think more deeply about my own life and my art practice. I came back to Cornwall full of new ideas about a new body of work, but also with ideas about how I can use my art practice to create community and meaningful connections with others. 

Jay Caskie
website
instagram

My proposal for the Mawddach Residency:
‘I was born and bred in Bolton (Bowl-town). I have a pull towards hills and have grown up surrounded by them. Sometimes they have felt looming and sometimes my protectors. My proposal ‘a love letter to the hills’, is a cumulative story told through film and 35 mm stills and hopefully, collaboration.’

Past this I didn’t really have a clear intention - this experience was unlike anything else I had ever done. I didn’t know what my outcome would be, I didn’t know what the rhythm of my days would look like and I didn’t know what I would be able to make with my hurriedly ordered Tesco delivery or what I would use the projector compact amongst my clothes in my suitcase for.

Met at the station by Jake and Scarlett and the trusty wagon for carrying luggage. We were greeted by the sea air and the spectacular view of the Mawddach landscape and surrounding hills. Surrounded by the hills we had tea and biscuits and huge helping of gratitude, much of my uncertainly was put to rest by the encouragement of Jake and Scarlett and replaced with excitement.

In my first week I wanted to be guided by interest and intrigue, I wanted the ideas I had to have the room to breath and grow without the pressure of them becoming a fully realised idea. Almost like strands of lace being woven into a fabric. I felt inspired by the house on Mawddach Crescent, by Jake and Scarlett and Katie (my fellow resident) and by the landscape. I wanted to capture it all, I didn’t want to miss any opportunity or idea that might arise; an equally overwhelming and encouraging place to begin. Like a forager I begin collecting material, I ventured out with my camera with some visual themes; corner stones of my practise. Landscape, recreative/ reflection, texture, movement/change. My first week became a process of capturing, reviewing and responding.

The newness of the experience felt deserving of a newness in approach. I quickly I realised that I didn’t want to make a film, which seems bold or rather sacrilegious as a filmmaker to declare. It didn’t feel conducive to the time I had and the freedom that the residency afforded. Reviewing and responding to the material that I gathered I was struck with the image of hills and ‘hill like’ images. Something simplistic if not obvious, focused my eye, a triangle with its peak in the middle of the frame. With some perspective shifts most things fell into this framing, whether it be a rock, a floorboard or a coaster. I played around with my footage editing and cutting them together layering images and making connections. I projected these on to the walls of the studio using my projector as a way to view it outside of my laptop screen. And played around with projecting it onto different surfaces, texture and angles. I enjoyed how the exterior images interacted with the interior space.

Along side this I began to develop a textile piece, in some ways trying to immerse myself in the location from the windowsill in the studio, and began to stitch the landscape, which I named unimaginatively my ‘fabric foto’. It was a very natural process and the longer it went on the more committed I was to it - I didn’t know how I was going to ‘use it’. I set some boundaries around the construction of this piece, I would only stitch using the actual landscape as my reference, meaning this was only done during the daylight, speaking to the feeling of nowness and presence of this experience at large. I listened to podcasts and essays about North Wales - by the Welsh writer Jon Gower and through him Welsh poet and writer Ceiriog and his poem Aros A Myned (The great mountains remain).

‘The hills are moving’
This line of the essay really encouraged a perspective shift for me. My whole thinking and impulse to undertake this residency in this location was my perspective of hills, the ones surrounding me as I grew up, these ever present beings. I liked the contrast between our perspective and the reality.
I was also still gathering material and doing projector tests around the flat and the studio. And from this a
rhythm emerged with my work. Stitching in the daytime and projector experiments in the evening/nighttime. Upon this reflection it is clear to see why these two elements became integral to my final piece.

As the second week commenced, with a day off walking around Barmouth and watching Chloe Zoo films, I concerned myself with sculpting my findings into some sort of ‘final form’. A way to present what I had been working on.. not that it had to be a fully formed and realised film. Nevertheless, it felt really important to me that things were rounded off/ presented. I wanted to mark the occasion.
The final form was visually being realised and I became concerned with the sound. In someways it seemed counter intuitive to contrast the stillness that the Mawddach and Arthog had offered (with the exception of Arthog Waterfalls). Jon Gower’s words had struck me and so I thought that would be an appropriate place to start from. I gently began scripting the piece selecting sections of the essay I wanted to explore. And from this I thought about adding my voice into the piece. I was hesitant to do this feeling like it would become too self indulgent but I realised that this was a deeply personal experience and this felt like the only way to demonstrate that. This went through a couple of iterations, I tried to make this something more humorous bit it seemed to cheapen the thoughtfulness of Gower’s words and my own collecting of material.

As my residency was drawing to a close, it seemed to sharpen my mind and clarify what I was working towards. With two clear themes: The hill-like and Conversation (not only ‘between’ myself and Gower, but between the feelings of permanence and impermanence, interior and exterior spaces, hard and soft textures, natural and human made.)

Organically my textile piece found it's way into an installation on my final evening at Mawddach Residency. On the landing I set up my project, projecting the film I had made on to the apex of the ceiling where two walls met at the corner of the stares. I positioned the projector in such a way that the image itself was distorted and looked hill-like in its own right. I had done previous experimentation with mirrors, testing out reflections and how images were distorted and enhanced. I really wanted to emphasis the perspective of my work. I put a mirror along the wall opposite the projector as another way to view the film. On the landing I set up a stained glass lamp with a mirror under it to reflect some of the light onto the ceiling and on this mirror I put left over thread from my fabric foto as a way to add texture to the reflection. On a desk I set up my fabric photo along with some slate that I had collected from the beach.

I had assigned 3 spots where the installation could be viewed. I wanted to interact with the space and capture the moment as it was there and then, allowing Katie, Scarlett and Jake into my head and into my perspective and portrayal of the landscape. This also encouraged some really lovely post installation screening discussion of landscape and perspective.

It has been over a month since my time at Mawddach Residency ended and I am longing to go back, everything felt important and considered and cared for. Down to the shared pasta and cheesy leeks, the portrait sessions, life drawing classes, yoga and the discussions over cake and tea. It was all so refreshing, altering the pace of my day. I read two books in 2 weeks something I have never done, or maybe allowed myself to do.

All this I guess is to say that the talent, kindness, patience and encouragement I found there has propelled me into this next phase of creativity feeling inspired and confident, enabling myself to call myself an artist. I have a new perspective of my craft, my capability and what it will look like moving forward.

Vicky Best
instagram

This residency in February 2025 was my first ever residency, so I wasn’t totally sure what to expect, but I found that it was a perfect first residency for me.

My co-resident Vicky and I arrived on the 1st February; which happens to be Imbolc in the pagan calendar: the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. This is when the very first signs of spring arrive, and it is supposed to be a time of growing potential, of renewal. During those two weeks I could feel the seasons shift, the air changing a little. Or maybe I was just not used to finding that kind of stillness.

I didn’t have a very solid plan before arriving – I had a project based around my family and the landscape of North Wales that I wanted to continue with, but I also wanted to just see what would arise by walking and drawing and slowing down. I am not normally an early riser, but I couldn’t not wake up with the sunrise and sit in bed looking out at the water constantly changing colour.

On my walks, I noticed some patterns and connections that sprouted new ideas, or helped me along on work in progress. Though Vicky and I did not plan a collaborative project, there were elements of her work that found their way into mine - for example, Vicky was using tracing paper in her film, and there was enough left for me to try drawing on it, as I hadn’t thought of using transparent paper in my project. This led to me making a piece of work for my end of year show two weeks after the residency ended, and although it’s a simple idea, opened up some new ways of working.

I felt very settled in after two weeks and it was hard to leave. Scarlett and Jake (and Toby, cat, muse, bread-thief) have made such a perfect and nurturing place for artists and I’m sure all residents leave there feeling energised, as I did.

Katie Vicary
instagram

Mawddach Residency – Melanie King
 
In Winter 2025, I was Artist In Residence at Mawddach Residency. I found out very close to the residency that I had funding via a bursary from A-N. This gave me the confidence to try out some experimental ideas, whilst also pushing me to spend a longer time working through the results of the residency.

Before attending the residency, I had been working with sustainable photographic processes (such as making my own plant based film developers) and analogue astronomical photography. However, I had not combined the two processes together!
 
Whilst on residency I was keen to take analogue photographs of the night sky and use my seaweed-gin film recipe to develop the images. I spent time outside at night taking photographs of the stars. Now I’m back at my own darkroom in Ramsgate, I have been testing out different development times. I have not yet been successful in producing an image (my last film came out completely black). However, I know that I will manage it eventually with time. Currently, I think it is an issue with the difference in film type, but I won’t bore you with nerdy details!
 
During the residency, I also took several digital photographs of the landscape that I will make into duotone cyanotypes from 20 March onwards. In previous months, I had made duotone cyanotypes of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ nebula, but this residency will give me the opportunity to try the process out on landscape photographs. In June, I will be leading an online two day cyanotype duotone workshop with Mawddach Residency and Draw Brighton.
 
Though much of the above work is speculative, I also took some photographs of areas surrounding the residency  for my ‘Submerged Landscapes’ project. According to the Climate Central app, areas of the UK are likely to be affected by rising tides. Fairbourne, sitting close to the Mawddach Estuary, is said to be one of the first towns that may be abandoned due to sea level rise.
 
Submerged Landscapes is an ongoing project where I document the affected areas before they are submerged, using the materiality of the sea within the production of the work. To produce these images, I have used my seaweed-gin film developer recipe. Here are some images and the recipe I used below:

Eggwrack/ Bladderwrack Seaweed-Gin Developer Recipe.
Suitable for 2 x 35mm films, or 1 medum format film. (HP5, Kentmere 400, FP4 100)

100g eggwrack seaweed steeped in 200ml of gin and 400ml of hot water.
Left for 3 days to encourage phenol extraction.

In a separate jug take 300ml of warm water and add the following.
Both powders should be dissolved completely before moving on to the next step.
- 100g Soda Crystals
- 24g vitamin c
- Add your seaweed brew and top up to 600ml.

Best developing time and temperature: 25 minutes, 24C
 
(For the ‘underexposed’ Ilford Delta 3200 film, I tried to develop for 75 mins at 24C – but the film came out overdeveloped).


Melanie King
website
instagram
patreon

I arrived at the Mawddach Residency with a very specific project in mind. I had a solid plan of how I would execute it, what it would look like, how I might present it in a gallery space, and pages of notes and research I had
made in made in advance, so as not to waste a single moment of my time there. Within a few days, this plan was swiftly abandoned.
After graduating in 2021, I entered full time employment and faced the reality of maintaining an art practice within spare evenings and weekends, without a studio. As a result, my approach to art making became very regimented, and the work became smaller, more meticulously planned, repetitive, and ultimately constrained. I would not start a painting without first making a detailed digital mockup, as I feared ‘wasting’ time and materials on making something that had potential to fail.
I had not realised how detrimental this had been to my practice until I was faced with the vast and beautiful emptiness of the studio, and the two whole weeks that stretched before me. The sudden realisation of this unique opportunity for creative freedom in such surroundings that I would never normally have access to, convinced me that my time could be better spent experimenting with my practice, following my intuition, and playing, rather than just working. I knew that my proposed project was something I could execute relatively easily, and I could have left with a number of polished paintings that followed my usual doctrine, but probably wouldn’t help me progress, nor make the most of this unique opportunity.

In the days that followed, I explored not only Fairborne (as I originally had planned), but also Borth, Aberystwyth, and the surrounding hills, rivers and waterfalls, photographing and documenting anything and everything that took my interest. I explored Jake and Scarlett’s extensive library, and pulled out books on local folklore, medieval Welsh art, Paula Rego, and Hockney’s drawings. I started working on several paintings at once, tested out new colour palettes, tried abstract painting, and let them all sit unfinished, to breathe, and chat to each other. I painted the sunset over the estuary, the snow on the mountains, and the white ponies of the bog. I developed an unexpected interest in illumined manuscripts and used them to adorn drawings of abandoned churches and pond dwelling sorceresses. I hunted, optimistically, for sightings of beavers and otters, and though unsuccessful, was rewarded with my first oyster catcher and great spotted woodpecker.
A particular highlight was a visit to Barmouth to hear the ‘Welsh Whisperers’ storytellers perform national folktales, which captured my imagination intensely and informed much of the work I made thereafter, particularly within my printmaking. The evening was bookended by the long walk over the estuary bridge in the pitch black, occasionally illuminated by the moon or a passing train. The sound of the waves so close and the darkness underfoot gave the impression of walking on water, as if traversing our own strange ‘thin place’ from the mythical world, back into our own.

As exciting and liberating as it was to have some creative freedom back for the first time since university, it was also challenging. Not all my experiments were successful, and I found it diƯicult not be overly self critical when I wasn’t 100% happy with my work. Reflecting on this, I believe this was an important part of the process toward creating a healthier approach to my practice, and trusting that pushing myself out of my comfort zone will help me to learn and progress far more than remaining within it.
I could never have expected how profoundly my time at the Mawddach Residency would alter my perspective on my practice. It has truly re-ignited that sense of play and joy in art-making that had perhaps been lying dormant for some time, and has given me some treasured memories with good friends that I will be forever grateful for.

instagram
website

I had the honour of looking after Toby throughout November while also experiencing a month long residency to dedicate my time to painting, drawing and lithography. Just over a year and a half ago, I moved from West Wales back to London, and returning to the Mawddach estuary felt like I’d never left this part of Wales! My favourite thing about the Mawddach Residency is the place’s immediacy to nature. I find such joy in being fully immersed in the views just by sitting at one of the many beautiful windows in the house. It allows for that magical spontaneity of deciding to catch that last 20 minutes of a sunset, running out the front door, laying my canvas and paints out on the estuary wall, and rushing to get down every colour I can spot.
I approached painting with more playfulness and joy towards image-making than I had previously in my London studio. I had lost some ‘silliness’ which I was determined to find again; I have a deep connection to the Welsh landscape and find joy in learning more about the areas I’m in and the Welsh language.
Prior and during my residency I had been looking at Matisse's paper cut-out collages, Mamma Anderson's landscape paintings, and reading Feral by George Monbiot and The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes. Before dinner I would go on a walk with Toby, wondering the hills up behind the house in awe of the view and the fact that I’m sharing this moment with a cat! I’ve returned to Walthamstow with a lot of little paintings on the go, all snapshots of the colours, patterns and excitement I found within the landscape.

In September, Scarlett showed me the process of Stone Lithography and during my residency I was able to practice again on my own. With drawing and painting being my primary way of image making, I’m used to seeing the work as it is in the moment; knowing when to stop, and being able to intuitively edit parts of the image staring back at me. Working on the stone encouraged me to be methodical, pausing during the process, writing about it, reflecting on mistakes and preparing for upcoming steps in the process. The walk across the bridge to St Johns Hall Gallery (where Scarlett's print studio is) in the morning was beautiful and gave me time to think about how I’d use my day in the print studio. The stone I worked on used drawings from my current and previous visits to the Mawddach Residency. Although I still had my issues with the dreaded scum, It was so rewarding in my last week to peel back the tympan and see a clear print staring back at me!

I’m really grateful to have shared the month with some of my incredible friends I met studying painting at Aberystwyth School of Art such as Eva, Zoe, Toby (human) and Octavia, and to have also spent more time with Emma, the other resident during November. I have fond memories of walking over Barmouth Bridge at torchlight to listen to folk tales by the Welsh Whisperers at the Dragon Theatre, sitting for Draw Brighton and numerous bird-spotting walks up the Mawddach trail.
Thank you, Scarlett and Jake, for this opportunity, I feel so fortunate to have spent a month at the residency and to leave so full of new ideas!

Millicent Evans
website
instagram