To celebrate the life, work & legacy of Dylan Thomas I organised a paint jam next to Cardiff Castle, on boards that had been put up to protect the trees from UEFA happenings…

Cardiff Council very generously paid for our paint – a Welsh flag colour theme seemed appropriate, and I asked wordsmith Rufus Mufasa (Dope Biscuits) to pick out some Dylan lyrics. To link the theme to today’s living, breathing poetry, DJ Alchemy (The Hold Up/Applied Science) kindly helped me pick out some lyrics by our homegrown rappers.

Thank you to Over, Dan1, Plus, Tao, Sega, Squid and Mr Draws for the love. Graffiti and Hip-Hop is strong in Cardiff, and we are giving a nod to Dylan Thomas as well as recognising the important contribution of rappers to Welsh culture.

Find out more about Literature Wales’ International Dylan Thomas Day here.

 

I don’t have much to report on the Millenium Walkway Graffiti Hall of Fame, other than I’m hard on the case of the Council Officers who have promised to provide us with a suitable alternative before the advertising goes up. They are working to come up with an interim between the walkway and a new permanent spot where we will build a wall. I have suggested a few options and Matt Wakelham is working at getting permissions – he’s speaking to relevant people for Charles Street, Custom House Street and John St (where No Fit State was).

I’m keen on the Custom House Street/ John Street options, as they are close to Callaghan Square.

This area – shiny, polished and pristine – is not really used other than as a walk-through, and I believe, by skaters. We will be arranging to have the concrete structure on Callaghan Square painted next month, and hopefully will eventually be able to get an agreement for using this area for our new wall. If not I’ve suggested Bute Park as an alternative so watch this space…

In the meantime, I haven’t been able to prise a date out of anyone for when the adverts are going up, but true to Cardiff Council’s promise, this memorial piece has been delivered to Brave Toaster’s family. If anyone has any ideas of where we could put it up again please let us know.

It all comes down to money.

The Millennium Walkway costs £55,000 per year to maintain. Advertising on the Walkway will bring in £100,000 per year. We, as artists CANNOT compete with that!

Advertisers don’t want their shiny corporate image tainted with being associated with graffiti… let’s not take that too personally. We can’t share the space with them. BUT, we can share in some of the money that they’ll bring in to our beautiful city.

I’m pleased to say that Matt, Cath and Elaine from Cardiff Council, get it. They understand what we want for Cardiff – for it to be a place where everyone, no matter their financial or housing situation, their demographic or cultural background – everyone has a right to the spaces in this city.

We discussed the need for places where people can come together to paint, to gather socially and have real ownership of these spaces. The council have agreed to build us a new wall, somewhere safe, well-lit and central to Cardiff. They have also agreed to put a section on licence forms for building contractors, to legitimise painting on their temporary hoarding. They will also be securing permission for us to legally paint at skate parks and possibly building walls in these locations for us to paint.

On Monday I’ll be arranging to meet with Paul from Cardiff Council, to walk around the city centre and identify areas where we can paint legally. If not on walls, then on hoarding that the Council will put up for us. If anybody wants to join us on that walk around, or has ideas for suitable locations, please do let me know.

So although we didn’t ‘save’ our wall, we’ll be building a new one, and will transform Cardiff in the process. Thank you everyone who signed the petition – this is your city. I’ll keep the petition page open so I can keep you informed as things progress, because we now need to make sure these promises are kept.

Thank you also to Councillors Sarah Merry and Chris Weaver, Dan Wilson (Grassroots) and Oner Signs.

In 2016 I heard that Brecon was holding a women’s festival. Having been involved in a number of events for International Women’s Day I contacted them to see if I could paint for it. I was too late but the organisers kindly included me in the programme for 2017.

I spent a day in Brecon speaking to people about it, trying to find a suitable wall, and permission to paint it. I came away with a couple of options and followed it up with National Parks, whom I didn’t realise have so much control over what the town looks like.

Speaking to business owners, the Town Clerk and members of the Chamber of Trade, it was clear that there is a lot of concern about derelict buildings and empty shops. My final choice was to paint a boarded up building on the High Street.

As soon as I started putting on the base coat emulsion people started thanking me for improving the appearance of the shop. PLAN Brecon posted some images of my work in progress on Facebook, sparking a discussion which I followed with fascination. One of the first comments ‘Don’t need this type of art it sends out the wrong signals we not in new York’ initially made me chuckle, but on reflection I think this insight was actually quite astute.

I learned my art-form by painting on legal walls with friends. In Hip-Hop culture, we have an ‘each one teach one’ ethos. Graffiti is a community-led form of alternative education which grew from the political situation in 1960’s New York. Extremely poor areas of the city had been left isolated and deprived, and young people in those areas instigated what has been referred to as one of the most important art movements in recent years. The authorities, rather than addressing the social problems at the time, blamed graffiti – a visible, easily identified target. The media portrayal from this time is what has shaped our understanding of the art-form right up to this day.

When I was growing up, Brecon was a thriving town, and like many it has suffered from online shopping, large retail outlets and chain shops sucking money away from independent ‘High Street’ businesses. I’m pleased to say that my mural has sparked some positive exchanges online, which I hope will lead to real projects and more people working together.

Change must come from grassroots level, and can only happen if people are able to work together, putting aside their differences. Street art is not permanent – that’s the point – it’s part of an evolving landscape. A landscape which now needs to adapt quickly to thrive. The internet has brought shopping into all of our homes, and we may need to re-think what a Town Centre could become, before it becomes isolated and deprived – like parts of 1960’s New York.

Further reading: Taking The Train – How Graffiti Art became an urban crisis in New York City, by Joe Austin.

Read the discussion on PLAN Brecon’s facebook page here.

Yes I do. And it keeps me sane – a walk in the woods or a cycle along the river to start or end the day, makes sure I don’t get ‘growly’.

I spent a day last week in the woods, in the company of other creative folk, doing what we do (photographing, filming, painting, posing, creating) and just being in each others company, in nature. I came away inspired, and thrilled – feeling the magic with other creative people somehow made it even more special. It came up in conversation at the end of the day though, that nature words have been removed from the dictionary – including ACORN. What. The. Fuck? Acorn? really? I asked my good friend google, and it’s not the full dictionary, but the Oxford Junior Dictionary – the one for little kids, who will be picking up an acorn and saying to the grown ups ‘what’s this?’. If these words are taken out of the junior dictionary now, who’s to say they won’t be taken out of the hefty grown up’s dictionary in the future?

Apparently the decision is taken by how often words are used – but I believe that the ‘use’ is from some kinda google algorithm, which I assume will be online or print use. It’s these kind of words which are used in conversation, not necessarily in written language, which will be lost over time. This makes me sad, and angry, and confused, and disappointed and tired.

I’m working on some artwork about it, but in the meantime here’s a piece I wrote with my lovely husband Owen Thomas, about nature. It’s in print form in my colouring book – I have couple left here if you fancy one to pass on to the little folk…

 

Nature defines us. What we are. Who we are

 

We live it.

We eat it.

We breathe it.

 

Without nature, we are nothing.

 

Being creative is nature’s way of working itself through us, helping to put our thoughts and dreams into the world. It is the same silent energy that moves along the stem and into the colour of petals.

Music, art, poetry and dance are all essential elements of a hip-hop culture in a modern world.

Because, yes; we live in a modern world, but we are not so far removed from our ancestors. Why is it that we enjoy getting ‘back to nature’? Our love of simple things; hanging out in the park, camping, walking through the woods with friends? It reminds us of what we are, where we came from, and, more importantly, it re-energises us, reinvigorates the soul. We drink in our surroundings and connect with living things. We close our eyes and remember that we are but part of a bigger picture.

Listen to the birds of the air, putting their own creativity into the world, in the same way that we do when we paint, we rap, we dance or make music. They are expressing their own true and instinctive selves. Nature is how we do this. Our connection with nature is our key link to our innermost self.

Embrace it, live it, enjoy what it offers, but remember that one day, at the end of it all, when the last grain of sand drops away from what made us, us, we, every one of us, will go back, back to nature.

And our essence, what made us who we were, what made us unique as individuals, will run like the colours on a palette board, back into the nature that created us, that sustained us, that united us.

We owe nature all, and must use our talents in whatever form they manifest to show our respect.