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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
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