Curious Travellers
"I beg not to be considered as a Topographer, but as a curious traveller willing to collect all that a traveller may be supposed to do in his voyage. I am the first that attempted travels at home, therefore earnestly wish for accuracy"
Thomas Pennant, May 1773
Thomas Pennant, May 1773
Movement, Landscape, Art, an Artistic Response to Thomas Pennant's 'Tour in Wales'
The pieces on these pages are my part in this exhibition, one strand of a four year academic project investigating early tourism in Wales and Scotland, more detail of this project can be found on www.curioustravellers.ac.uk
The pieces on these pages are my part in this exhibition, one strand of a four year academic project investigating early tourism in Wales and Scotland, more detail of this project can be found on www.curioustravellers.ac.uk
Following in the footsteps of Pennant – an eighteenth-century gentleman as well as a teller of tales from a bygone age – reveals the landscape as not just magnificent, solid or outwardly permanent, but in a constant process of change, in which remnants of earlier times are everywhere: some in full view, others awaiting rediscovery.
Wrth ddilyn ôl-traed Pennant – dyn bonheddig y G18fed, trosglwyddwr chwedlau’r gorffennol – gwelir tirwedd fel rhywbeth sydd nid yn unig yn hardd ac yn gadarn, ond hefyd yn fythnewidiol, llawn darnau’r oesoedd gynt. Mae rhai yn amlwg; eraill yn aros i gael eu darganfod.
Wrth ddilyn ôl-traed Pennant – dyn bonheddig y G18fed, trosglwyddwr chwedlau’r gorffennol – gwelir tirwedd fel rhywbeth sydd nid yn unig yn hardd ac yn gadarn, ond hefyd yn fythnewidiol, llawn darnau’r oesoedd gynt. Mae rhai yn amlwg; eraill yn aros i gael eu darganfod.
When Thomas Pennant visited Parys Mountain and discussed the industrial processes taking place there, he didn’t mention the Copper Ladies, though they were probably present. The census of 1801 lists 27 Copper Ladies, who were memorably described by Michael Faraday in 1819 as ‘sitting on the ground in the midst of heaps of ore of the large and small, their mouths were covered with a cloth to keep the dust of the ore from entering with the breath … employed in breaking lumps of ore into small pieces and selecting the good from the bad.’ While experimenting with pigments found at the site, I was inspired by these forgotten women to produce ‘A Quilt for a Copper Lady’, based around traditional Welsh quilt design.
Pan ymwelodd Thomas Pennant â Mynydd Parys a thrafod y prosesau diwydiannol yno, ni soniodd ddim am y ‘Copr Ladis’ – er mae’n debyg y byddent wedi bod yn bresennol. Rhestrir 27 o Gopr Ladis gan y sensws yn 1801, a cheir disgrifiad cofiadwy ohonynt gan Michael Faraday yn 1819, ‘sitting on the ground in the midst of heaps of ore of the large and small, their mouths … covered with a cloth to keep the dust of the ore from entering with the breath … employed in breaking lumps of ore into small pieces and selecting the good from the bad.’ Wrth arbrofi gyda phigmentau o’r safle, cefais fy ysbrydoli gan y menywod diflanedig hyn i greu ‘Cwilt ar gyfer Copr Ladi’, yn seiliedig ar gynllun cwilt traddodiadol Cymreig.