Helen Baines

I applied for the residency as I was nearing the end of a third year on the Turps CC mentoring programme and, feeling somewhat untethered, believed that two weeks of quiet focus would enable me to better navigate this transitional period. Being on the residency was always going to be a time for reflection and exploration, and to tap into something authentic in my practice.
I love nature and the outdoors, so it was my intention to get to know the landscape more intimately by
walking and making field sketches. By drawing, re-drawing, cutting up and editing back in the studio, I wanted to try and locate a sense of presentness in the landscape, a density of experience that would inform new paintings. I didn’t take oil paints, my chosen medium, so I was attempting to describe some imperceptible characteristic of the landscape using materials that I don’t often use (egg tempera, gouache, pastel and charcoal), and hoping that these unfamiliar materials would also open up possibilities.

I was fortunate to arrive at the height of spring’s abundance with new life overflowing in the hedgerows and a proliferation of sturdy lambs with their watchful mothers keeping me company in the hills. I hadn’t been to North Wales for some years, and I’d forgotten just how majestic the landscape is compared to the gentle rolling countryside of my home. The scale was humbling and I sensed a palpable shift in perspective as I adjusted to my own smallness. Out walking, I found myself drawn to the many ruined cottages spread across the hills, roofs missing, their gable ends standing like monuments to long departed inhabitants. I loved poking around the dilapidated gorse-strewn interiors (now exteriors) littered with sheep dung, a tangle of weeds sprouting from
crumbling mortar, and imagining the families that had lived and worked in these harsh environments. I know these humble dwellings will appear in future paintings. I also loved the incredible network of dry stonewalls that run everywhere - up, down, across and around as far as the eye can see, cutting through the land at impossible angles. I wondered at the toughness and tenacity of the builders of these human-drawn lines of stone.

I was determined to get out and walk every day, to capture as much as I could on paper, in my head and with my camera, stockpiling memories for my return home. The landscape demanded that I was more attentive to its sights, sounds, smells and textures and to the folkloric and spiritual that are intrinsic to Wales’ cultural heritage. I was mesmerised by the lush ferns, the steep wooded valleys and the luxurious chlorophyll-green moss covering every craggy rock, as soft, dry and dense as a pure wool carpet. An insistent birdsong, particularly that of the Chiff Chaff with its perky announcement of spring, provided a magical soundtrack to each day, whilst the pungent smell of hawthorns in flower and wild garlic permeated the warm spring air. This slowing down and the intense quiet and solitude seeped into the drawings I was making and, as the days slipped by, I felt an urgency to somehow hold on to this marked sense of the here-and-now.

With minimal outside distractions, the days naturally found an ebb and flow; rising early, pilates for my creaky back, breakfast and then out exploring with my sketchbook. Afternoons were spent making drawings back in the studio where I shared the space with Jess Hinsley, the other artist-in-residence. She was the perfect house mate and, despite our age difference, we shared a remarkable amount in common, not least our love of nature and wild places. We quietly orbited each other whilst we worked, meeting up over dinner or a cup of tea which I looked forward to after a solitary day. Thankfully there was no television and we read, knitted (Jess), exchanged life stories, played Scrabble and laughed a lot. My one connection to the outside world was through Instagram, and even this felt like an unwelcome intrusion on the idyll of the estuary. Watching the multitude of birds - nuthatches, goldfinches, chaffinches, robins, blackbirds and blue-tits at the kitchen window feeder was a daily ritual. The dilemma in the morning with my first cup of tea was deciding whether to watch the birds feed from the kitchen or to gaze out over the heart-stopping view of the estuary and mountains from the studio.

The residency has been a wonderful restorative break from the quotidian. I feel reconnected with my artist self and am excited about the next few months of painting. I have come home with a plastic A1 portfolio stuffed with drawings, a full sketchbook, memories that will stay with me for a long time, and a strong desire to get on and make work. The Mawddach is a special place where creativity flows more easily without the demands of daily life. Scarlett and Jake have created such a warm and supportive environment for artists in their beautiful art-filled home that one can’t fail to be inspired and to come away somehow transformed.

Helen Baines
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