Adventures in Wales - Part II

April 26, 2024

The workshops at Chapel Cottage Studio were an absolute delight to teach.  The artists were fun to work with and open to all sorts of experimentation using techniques that offer a variations of ways for each artist to adapt ones that feel right to them.  My hope is that the new techniques will provide an expanded way for each to nurture the unuique inner artist that resides within.

This is a quick post.  Jill and I are headed to Bristol for a few days and then on to St. Ives for several more days.  I look forward to finding more beach treasures and for going to sleep with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks outside my window at the Pedn Olva.  

The short video above is a montage of photographs I took on the Broughton Bay Beach in Gower where we spent a few days at Jill's caravan.  I want to share these images with you as a way for you to see what grabs my attention and what excites me as I wonder the world.  For me, it is rarely about the "thing".  It is more about the shapes, patterns and textures. sometimes it is about the feeling of the environment in a wider scope … the expanse or the intimacy, the privacy or the exposure to stimuli.  Sometimes it is about documenting the unique (or universal) elements found in a specific location.

Over the last two years, the layering of all the above mentioned elements that capture my attention and cause me to pause to take closer notice, the additional element of history, origin and place these elements occupy within nature has become important to me.  Though I continue to sketch more or less constantly, I find myself spending more time contemplating and getting in touch with my inner feelings and reactions to the places, people, smells, weather, tastes, sounds and tactile stimuli. It is those experiences I wish to express … in some way woven into a narrative of the experience.  this new weaving of visual fabric is still very foreign to me and a bit uncomfortable while also wonderfully exciting and challenging.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Chris Carter