My thinking about generosity has developed some way since my previous post on the subject. From generosity I have moved to include the idea of a gift; or, more appropriately since my context is a railway line in North Wales, the Welsh language equivalent of gift: “rhodd”, or the even lovelier plural “rhoddion” - “gifts”).
To make these ideas tangible, I have been spending considerable time recently applying copper leaf gilding to some pieces of track ballast stone, borrowed from the Amlwch railway line and which I will return shortly. I have found the process of gilding to be both a thoughtful, quiet and delicate process, and also challenging. This is my first attempt at any sort of gilding, and these small palm-sized stones have not been the easiest surface to work with. All these qualities and experiences make the creation of these little “gifts” all the more fitting for me.
Why copper? It speaks to me of several things: the industrial heritage of Anglesey (especially the extraction of copper, principally from the nearby Parys Mountain copper mine); of memory of the past; and of the process of making protecting and preserving (copper bottoms of ships, or copper sheet roofing, for example).
In what way can these little copper jewels act as gifts? I have turned to poetry to enable me to think further about this. Poetry is an excellent way to distill, crystallise or concentrate your thinking. Having written several pages on the subject of late, and how it can relate to aspects of a disused railway line, I’ve now reached this working draft of my thoughts in poetry form.
I am planning to return the stones (anonymously) to the line as “gifts” to be discovered in the future, perhaps by those working on the line as they clear it. Or perhaps they will disappear and never be seen again. Since entropy, decay and loss is an ultimate and inevitable consequence, even in the context of restoration, that will be OK too. The documentation of the gifts through photographs, and perhaps through this writing too, will be the artwork; at least as far as my MFA show is concerned. This blog post will form a part of it too, perhaps.
I’ve already tested the idea during my recent visit to Anglesey, placing one stone back on the line (temporarily) to test the visual impact of the stones and their resilience to the elements. They have the right kind of scale for my purposes, being variously invisible and visible. The next step will be to clarify my thoughts on the locations for the stones, and documentation of the work. There are seven stones in all, corresponding with the seven stations of the line, but this is just one idea I continue to work on.
