Robyn Bamford

At the first sight of new lambs bounding up and down the daisy-studded Welsh slopes, it came as no surprise that all I wanted to do for my first week on the residency was to be outside and fully explore the vast range of natural surroundings that Mawddach Estuary sat in the middle of. Welcomed by Jake, Scarlett, Ellie (my fellow resident) and Toby the cat, we had a wonderful dinner sat outside by the estuary, facing the mountains floating
in the distance over the water. It truly felt like I had stumbled into a Nan Shepherd-esque dream.

We were lucky to have a glorious first week of April sun, and out I went with a copy of David Berry’s ‘Walks around Barmouth and the Mawddach Estuary’ a brilliant little book I had found in our sitting room. My first walk took me up a though a dappled wood by a stream, past a neolithic burial chamber sitting amongst heady clouds of gorse, down a wide walled track framed by oak trees that looked like it hadn’t been trodden on for 20 years, and into a wood with the thickest carpet of wild garlic I had ever seen (later to be made into cheese and wild garlic scones). What I loved about this book is that all it gave me was a rough drawing of the shape of the walk and instructions to follow, which included treasure-hunt like landmarks dotted around the landscape, for example a ladder stile at a corner of a wall 50 yards past a stream, or a crumbling ruin of a farmhouse with ivy practically holding it together. It was due to this little book that I felt like I was truly able to immerse myself in the landscape. If I were to miss a certain corner of a wall I could have lost my way, so every hill, ruin, stream and ladder stile was noticed, making the experience even more enjoyable.

I managed to fit three walks from David Berry’s book into my first week, as well as continuous wanderings around the woodlands at the back of the house and the shoreline of the estuary. To document these days, I kept a ‘texture diary’ in the form of photographs and rubbings, as well as notes and rough sketches of the essence of these places. To be able to have two weeks of uninterrupted research and creating couldn’t have come at a better time, Spring was just unfurling its golden green leaves, and the birds were singing with their little hearts fit to burst.

As the rain began in the second week of the residency, the urge to stay in the studio was much greater than bearing the weather outside, and so the ‘Mawddach Slate’ flute began to take shape alongside a range of Verre Eglomise coasters, made in the lull of clay drying time. The flute seemed to naturally emerge with steady-stealth from my imagination into something tactile, as having had the time to understand the formation of the land (both above and within) and the sounds that accompanied it, I felt confident in translating a version of this via the flute.

When firing day came, Sue from Dispy Dragon in Dolgellau was brilliant, I arrived with the dried flute carefully packed in bubble wrap sitting in the passenger seat of my car and delivered it safely to her basement kiln. Two days later and the flute was dropped off by Sue, in time to be played back to the estuary on my final day. A wonderfully conclusive ending to two weeks of pure creativity. Thank you, Scarlett and Jake.