 My time spent on the Mawddach was one of deep awe and inspiration. Largely spent in quiet, watchful, reflection I experienced creative flow like I never have before. I was welcomed by Scarlett on the first day and made to feel immediately comfortable and at home. Though I knew people who had also attended the residency, it felt completely my own unique experience and I appreciated the effort Scarlett and Jake go to in order to ensure everyone's time at the residency is personal and authentic. To engage with my proposal, which was to encounter 'the Beast'; face within myself and the landscape's present and historical embodiment of the wild, my days were spent walking, bird watching and swimming each morning with the rising tide. As I came to the residency wanting to reconnect with the writing and conceptual components of my practice, I lived by my pocket notebook and the calling of each and every magical place to uncover. Each evening using the studio to edit and transcribe, drawing based on findings of the day and enjoying invaluable discussions with Aurore, my fellow paired resident. I also managed to create a short film on my time there drawing from my own writing as well as local folklore and wider reading I carried out as preliminary and continuous study.  As this was my first residency experience, I didn't know entirely what to expect, definitely it is a space for very self directed artists, with Scarlett and Jake available to meet any needs one might have but largely as residents we operated as self contained. This was only a shame as Jake visited our studio on the last night and I am sure many more wonderful conversations could have been had! I am very grateful I decided to choose a paired residency, and very lucky to have landed with Aurore - and can only admire Scarlett and Jake's skill at choosing two people so well suited to spending two weeks working alongside each other with such synchronicity and shared inspiration!  For me the biggest draw, which went above and beyond expectations, was the Landscape - Mawddach Crescent is situated in the most rich and wildly exciting pocket of nature, and though I spent hours trekking further up the mountain or valley, the small patch of woodland directly behind the house and the quiet inlet on the estuary in front, was truly more than enough.
I am still physically and emotionally processing the amount of work I was able to achieve during my time at Mawddach and will be forever grateful to Scarlett, Jake and the wonderful Toby! As well as the land and sea, kingfishers and seals and the folklore seeping through the very essence of the place. Holly Bennett
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 As I made my journey to North Wales from London Euston I experienced the scenic views from the train in a dramatic storm and arrived already feeling deeply connected to the landscape. After spending a cute evening meeting Scarlett and my paired resident Holly (and how can I forget Toby) I just couldn’t wait to wake up in the magic the estuary has to offer. I’ll never forget waking up and pulling those curtains back and see the glorious view we got to immerse ourselves in everyday. Being connected to nature is so important to my art practice and living in London can make one feel deprived from it so arriving to the beautiful scenery was extremely stimulating and overwhelming. The area has so much to offer and all I wanted to do was explore and immerse myself in nature as much as possible. For the first week the weather was incredible and I just had to get out there with my sketchbook. I particularly enjoyed finding mushrooms and drawing/painting them as there were an abundance of them due to the mast year. With this residency I also wanted to experiment and play with my printmaking practice and use found objects to express what I’ve seen on my walks. I especially enjoyed finding beautiful stone slates that I printed with to represent the stone circle I saw on my walk up to Arthog waterfall. I also combined embossing and printing with leaves with my lino carvings which I’ve always wanted to experiment with. Being in a new space gave me that chance to feel playful and have fun. I’m also really into bird watching and because the weather was so beautiful I was spoilt with amazing bird activities and drew quite a few varieties that I will use as inspiration for future prints. I spent a lot of time reading and researching North Wales folklore and really enjoyed some of the beautiful books Scarlett and Jake had around. I can’t wait to combine the folklore and the birds I saw to create some exciting lino prints in the new year. After being there for two weeks I also finally got the courage to do my first ever landscape lino print. It’s something I’ve always wanted to explore but never felt it suited my style of printing so on the final day when we got hit by a storm I carved and printed a small landscape lino. Being paired up with Holly also added more magic to my stay. We found our worlds parallel in many ways and we had some similarities of interest in nature and folklore. It was a pleasure seeing both our spaces slowly growing each day from us collecting beautiful things to drawings unravelling from similar day trips exploring the beautiful Estuary.
After having a tough year with a strange diagnosis that stopped me from going out to draw and get inspiration, I knew I wanted to have a new experience and this residency gave me that and much more. The whole two weeks has enriched me with so many ideas but also all the drawings and walking has made me feel stronger and proud of how far I have come with my illness. I left in another rainy stormy day that felt like a symbolic full circle to my experience. Aurore Swithenbank website  ...click on/tap images for a larger view.. When I heard that I'd been accepted onto the Mawddach residency I was so excited. Being able to totally immerse myself in this beautiful Welsh landscape for two weeks was a dream! I'd never been to the west coast of Wales before and I had heard so many wonderful things. I was also at a point where I was hoping for some fresh inspiration for my painting process and I knew this was going to be the perfect catalyst. Scarlett & Jake very cleverly paired me with the lovely, talented sculptor, Arabella Brooke, and we had a similar focus, both of us wanting to make the most of this unique experience. I found co-working in the studio was valuable and inspiring. It was a privilege to have such a close insight into Arabella's working method. We shared delicious meals, swam in the estuary, talked art and posed for the Draw Brighton portrait session. All these experiences were really precious to me. September was also about experiencing the seasonal change from summer into autumn, colder mornings and unpredictable weather. We had thunderstorms like I’ve never seen, huge hail stones, and I awoke to mountains shrouded by mist, viewed from the cosy studio. I loved the dark ominous rain clouds moving in across the sea, beams of bright sunshine and the endless rainbows. It was such a treat to swim in the estuary under this immense sky surrounded by incredible mountains and hills. My paintings are about experiencing the landscape rather than visually depicting it, so walking and exploring the local area was important to me. I loved the walks to the waterfalls at Arthog, Cregannan Lakes and Blue Lake. Seeing the view from the other side of the estuary and discovering the neolithic burial chambers (Tal-y-bont) and Barmouth & Fairbourne’s blustery beaches, are all experiences etched in my memory and recorded in drawing. I made colour studies in my sketchbook and large charcoal drawings when working close to the estuary. I also had the time to take pieces of rolled canvas with me into the landscape, something that I've never done before. I worked on these with watersoluble materials, which, now that I am back in my studio, I see as a starting point for new work.  I intend to grow the work I started on the residency, a particular focus being the atmospheric skies. I loved seeing dark clouds on the horizon and bright sunshine over the hills, this combination gives the most incredible colour to the salt marsh and surrounding mountains. I'm excited to be having a solo show at the Jeannie Avent gallery, East Dulwich in March 2026 which will enable me to share some of this work with a wider audience. Claire Chandler website  ..click on/tap images for a larger view.. I am a bronze sculptor and much of my work on a day-to-day basis involves the long and technical process of producing the bronzes (building armatures, making molds, producing waxes, patinating the metal), as well as everything else that professional artists need to deal with these days (photographs, instagram, delivering work, marketing, exhibitions, etc.). I knew I needed to press a reset button when I realised I had started to talk about my work as a small business, rather than a process of artistic development, and being awarded this residency felt like a life-saver. I arrived at Mawddach, full of ideas about what the two weeks would hold. I planned to collect specimens of local materials and amass a ‘bank’ of textures and structures for future use in sculptural work; I was interested in the idea of inks and drawing materials collected from the estuary; and I wanted to push the idea of creating some sort of collated ‘portrait’ of the local landscape. I think I felt the need for a structured plan because as a figurative scuptor, I felt very under-qualified to respond to a scene as a ‘landscape artist’ might. I was absolutely entranced from the start by the estuary, the way it changes constantly with the tides and the shifting light during the day, and yet on the other hand it seems to have been completely unchanging for millenia. I was obsessed by the boulders strewn across the mountains, and the wind-shaped trees on the hills. I quickly ditched any pre-conceived notions about what I was here or, and just concentrated on observing the landscape and getting it down on paper, a massive shift away from trying to capture and catalogue the natural world, to just observing how it felt to be in it. Every morning, Claire and I would head out in separate directions after breakfast, and get back 7 hours later - I walked and noticed and walked and drew/painted and wrote masses of stream of consciousness words in rain-splashed sketchbooks, which I had to decode later in the studio. Mostly I just practiced paying attention. I stopped trying to conquer and control what I was drawing and concentrated on the experience of being in a space. I didn’t achieve anything on my original list, but the residency has been transformational in other ways. I learnt so much from talking to my fellow resident, Claire, but mostly I also just remembered how important it is to observe the world around you. Daily observational drawing, with the focus on feeling and experience as much as on factual accuracy, is now firmly back at the centre of my practice, and I am trying to allow the sculptural work to express some of the qualities of Mawddach as remembered from the sketches that I have papered all over one wall of the studio. Thank you so much, Jake and Scarlett, for the most amazing experience.
Arabella Brooke website  ...tap/click on images for a larger view.. I arrived at the Mawddach Estuary, with the feelings of both wonder and excitement about the prospect and luxury of having two weeks to dedicate to drawing and making collages. I did have quite a clear plan originally, to make work that would be a continuation of the body of work I am making in Norfolk, focusing on the depiction of derelict and abandoned churches, using the poem ‘Church Going’ by Philip Larkin as a cannon for my ideas; and illustrate the gradual changing in the uses of religious buildings, showing how ruins are symbolic of shifting communities, and modern society. I think I tickled Jake and Scarlett with my use of the term ‘Ruin Lust’ (Dillon,2014) which I’d quoted from Brian Dillon’s book of the same name. But it’s true, despite the magnificent landscapes, sublime panoramic estuary views, I was compelled to seek the most dilapidated buildings I could find. Even as soon as I passed through the Welsh border, the plethora of abandoned churches, relics of industry, and communities of old, strewn along the roadsides, were very prevalent. On the first few days I felt the need to venture out quickly, and found places such as St Catherine’s Church, and Salem Methodist Church in Arthog, that could be a focus for my time on the Residency. Discretely hidden behind the undergrowth on the A493 roadside between Arthog and Dolgelloau, Salem Methodist Church in Arthog, built in 1833, abandoned in 1973, was the place I think I kept returning to the most. Shapes, forms, and textures, form the chaos of rubble on the church floor that is littered with dismantled furniture and roof debris; pulpits are haunting, carved, figure like relics of what may have been a dedicated congregation. The space was fascinating and challenging to draw and really resonated with the Philip Larkin’s reflections upon faith and community, symbolised through his observations of languishing church structures with ‘shapes less recognisable each week’…and with ‘purposes more obscure’. The experience reinforced the value of fieldwork. The locations for much of my work e.g. Salem Methodist Church, almost became an extension to the residency studio space; both of which, gave me the time and space to reflect and focus on my practice and methods; and inspired me to experiment more with shapes and forms, resulting in imagery that explored line, and layers of shape and texture.
I aim to develop the work I began during my residency time and develop further larger scale studies of Salem Methodist Church, Arthog, focusing on an interior derelict church space that resonates with Philip Larkin’s writing. I hope to exhibit the work as drawings and prints in April 2026. Glyn Brewerton  ..click on images for a larger view.. On the day I arrived in Eryri, I sat outside drinking tea with Scarlett overlooking the estuary at low tide. My phone tucked away in my handbag somewhere deep inside the house. Later, once my co-resident Amanda had arrived, we’d have a lovely home cooked dinner and I would get a glimpse of the tone of the next two weeks: rest, enjoyment, solitude, connection, breathing space, routine, and spontaneity. On my second day at Mawddach, my Tesco food shop arrived, along with the fear of getting started. I drew the breakfast on my plate, the view beyond the studio window feeling too big and beautiful to tackle just yet. Throughout the first week, I explored the local area across the bridge to Barmouth and along the Mawddach trail to Rhaeadr Arthog. I would draw instinctively but outside of my sketchbook comfort zone, which can sometimes make my practice feel both literally and figuratively small. Back at the studio in the evenings, Toby came by (sometimes to hang out, mostly for cat treats) which was a very exciting development. On the sixth day I swapped drawing for writing. On the seventh, I swapped writing for getting lost in a field. I was trying to reach the carefully crafted garden rooms of Plas Brondanw, which I eventually found just in time to see its interior rooms, filled with Susan Williams-Ellis’ colourful pottery and textile designs. On day ten I sat for the Draw Brighton portraiture session, the tension in my neck not from stress or worry but from trying to stay deathly still for 45 minutes at a time. I felt good about the chat with Jake at the start; it helped me to reflect on my first week and set me up for the second. It was at this point I was able to articulate that my drawings made most sense when they captured a moment, as opposed to a view. I didn’t know how to tackle the vast expanse of sea and sky before me, but a mug of tea, a flash of my socks or a window frame in the foreground helps to put myself in the moment, and sometimes the viewer too. The sky and the sea seemed to draw themselves in after that. I really liked the Crescent’s immediate surroundings - tangly oak trees meeting little beaches. With my two main goals being to capture more nature in my drawings and to scale up in size, it was a no-brainer to explore this landscape further. On days eleven, twelve and thirteen I went out with a big drawing board, spread out my supplies on the grass and just enjoyed playing with oil pastels and oil sticks. It took a while to get there but as the whole experience drew to a close, I was no longer scared of the big blank piece of paper. Elevated from my usual practice, the results still have an energy that feels and looks like mine. On my last full day at the residency, I put everything I’d make up on the studio walls and invited Scarlett and Jake to a mini exhibition, reminding myself to be proud of the breakthroughs I’d made, not the volume of work. As we sat outside again, this time with a fire and wine, I cheers-ed to what had been accomplished and the progress that is still to be made. My art isn’t ‘about’ anything ground-breaking – it’s just documenting a series of places in my life as I’m living it, and I’m forever grateful that that was enough for Mawddach. Am brofiad bythgofiadwy!
Cerys Scorey website ..click on images for a larger view..  Neither of us had ever done an artist’s residency before, so we were delighted to be accepted for the Mawddach Residency. In our application we had said that we would like to work closely together in a sort of ‘Exquisite Corpse’ mash-up. We have been friends for years, but had never actually worked together, so it was going to be an experiment, which frankly could have gone either way. We have similar interests, but not entirely, so we had to find common ground. Also we had to be able to do our separate work. When we heard that we had been accepted on the residency we started having mini meetings and fairly early on Fiona commented that two was not a magical number… she insisted that “three is a magic number”. She then spent many months working in her studio before we left, making a life-sized third person - Alice, who would join us for the two weeks. Alice travelled on the back seat of Fiona’s van, arriving in Wales headless. Assembling her in the glorious studio overlooking the constantly changing estuary became Fiona’s practice. Sally had a vague plan to do 100 drawings, so went out each day with a rucksack full of materials. She also made a series of time-lapse films every day, of the weather, remarkable in that no two days were the same. The clouds race, the sandbars appear and disappear, the tide ebbs and flows, and the colours, they were extraordinary. It was hard not to spend all day just staring out of the studio window.
We did three long landscape paintings together, walling ourselves into the studio with a huge roll of paper. Using pigment and water, we worked spontaneously, changing ends often, and adding to and scrubbing out each other’s work. It was surprisingly harmonious, and not the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ bloodbath it could have been. We now have plans to continue this into the next phase of our joint project which will include the 3 or us, Fiona, Sally and Alice, with additional embroidery… Sally Muir website Fiona Haser Bizony
I came to the Residency with a proposal to make a speculative sonic survey of the tidal flows of the lower reaches of the Mawddach Estuary, and to focus on developing my listening practices. I spent time gathering field recordings using a variety of microphones such as hydrophones, contact mics and binaural mics while attempting to sense the changing tidal energies and began each trip out with a self-instruction taken from a series of notations I have drafted as techniques for encouraging attentive and imaginative listening inspired by Pauline Oliveros' 'Anthology of Text Scores' (Oliveros and Pertl, 2013).
"you have to listen to everything all the time and remind yourself if you're not" (Oliveros) This listening meditation, which invited deep listening to everything it is possible to hear (from the sounds of the community that is estuary, and imagined sounds, to my own thoughts and memories) became easier as the Residency progressed – my listening grew more sustained and less fractured or unfocused.
While spending slow time listening along the estuary edges, I became fascinated by the rippled patterns on the surface of the water, watching how hydrosphere and atmosphere touch, and wondering what the ripples could teach me about the temporal movements of tidal systems in our time of warming and expanding seas. Since the Residency ended, I have begun piecing together a sonic composition from the sounds I gathered, with a score drafted from the ripple patterns on the water at high tide, and on the sands and silts at low tide after the waters have withdrawn.
What made this wonderful Residency even more special was sharing the two weeks with artist Emily Spivey. Talking about practice and processes and co-working in the studio was valuable and inspiring. It was a privilege to have such close insights into Emily’s methods and activities during our two weeks, and to talk through my own tentative, just-forming thinking, and I learned so much from our conversations. Thanks Emily x
Kate Paxman website soundcloud Cat You know when you have fond memories of something, you worry that if you go back, it won't live up to those memories? This was definitely not the case when we returned to Mawddach! It was as beautiful, welcoming, and inspirational as I remember and more. To have time and space to create and be surrounded by art and other creatives was exactly what I needed after a tough year. Bonnie and I chased stories and exchanged tales of the land, the house, and those that had gone before us, both real and imaginary. The stories we have been working on together finally took a leap into the real world and we were so pleased to finish the two weeks with an illustrated zine of our first story, "The Spindle", a tale so entangled with Mawddach it simply would not exist without our time at the residency. Once again, we left with full sketchbooks and notebooks, heads full of ideas, and a sense that anything is possible, and the end of the residency is actually just the beginning. Catherine Lovett website Bonnie
Ever since the last time we left, we have longed to return to Mawddach. It is a special place, like no other I have found, and the inspiration comes not only from the landscape, the weather and the place itself, but from the atmosphere of creative living that Jake and Scarlett model. Returning to a place can be a strange thing, especially to a place that has been as influential on you as this one. We pulled down the drive, aware of how green everything was, how the bare branches and orange leaves we had seen the last time, when we had visited in November, were now hidden by glowing handfuls of the greenest, freshest leaves. Before, the land was grey and silver and purple, and beautiful for it in a gothic, quiet, sometimes melodramatic way. This time, the land was bursting. Last time we were here, we collected new stories, stories that came together on our walks, beginning as conversations, then I would write something and read it to Cat, she would draw something and an image would stick and I would write it into the tale. We cycled round and round, layering the stories into something that felt both new and very much rooted in the land. This time, we already had those stories. We did not plan to make entirely new ones (though I did start one accidentally!) Instead, we went back to the places that we knew we needed, to flesh the stories out. We isolated the key scenes, sections and images from the tales, and those became the bones of the story. As a writer, who tends to over rather than under write, it was both challenging and fascinating to whittle a story down to the essential elements. We ended with a mock-up of one completed zine, which we plan to print and sell. From these bones, we both have opportunities for expansion; I will develop longer versions of the stories, to publish as an anthology. Cat has spoken about developing one image from each story into a print. And we want to do this with all the stories we are gathering – three each from Wales, England, Ireland and Scotland. Coming back gave us the chance to make our ideas into a real, physical thing. We both also work on our own practices, and for me it was strange – haunting and wonderful – to be back in the place where I set my most recently finished novel. I started that novel the last time we were here, and this time I could see all the spaces not only as they were then, not only as they are now, but also as I had imagined them in my mind, when I had played with geography for my own ends and twisted the world to suit my own story. I realised I had spent more time in this place as a fictional one than as a real one. I won’t go into any further musings, as I did that here, but it felt like coming full circle to return to this place that I have spent the last two and a half years inhabiting in my mind. I started a new novel this time, not one set at Mawwdach, but one inspired by the low tide trees at Borth, the time and tide bell at Aberdovey, the huge jellyfish washed up on the many shores we visited and the conversations that were had around dinner tables. Perhaps in another two years we will come back and visit the submerged stumps of the 4000 year old forest and watch jellyfish fluttering in the current, and feel the echoes of this residency too. Bonnie Radcliffe website |
