It has taken years but the cats and I have finally found a publisher who are keen to produce a book based on words and images from the cat’s blog. And so, when I should have been doing work on bears I have been wandering back through old writings.

Hopefully by Autumn next year, all things being well, we will have a new book, of cats. Meanwhile here is a link to some old work of mine.

We Three Cats, a blog about things.  

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This one has been lurking in my studio for months. Time to free him. So if you like him there is a chance to win him at The House of Golden Dreams on Facebook. ( Sorry, this is a facebook giveaway only. I will do another on my blog soon when the right piece comes available) Simply go to the House of Golden Dreams and leave a comment on the thread with the blue on gold swallow. A winner will be picked by a random number generator on 8th July. If you wish to wander through the folders of images and share then please do, that would be lovely but do not feel any obligation to do so.

Thank you.

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First attempt was ok, but somehow the tone was very similar and the balance wasn’t quite right.

Something about this piece didn’t sit right in my mind’s eye so I began again, this time with a piebald spotted dog or two, and moongold instead of red gold.

The shadow silhouette of gilded stag lay on the board like a ghost.

If I had time I would work the piece again, but other work presses, and sometimes you have to let go and move on. Strange these relationships we have with our work. It’s a kind of love/hate thing. Finding the balance is the key to all things.

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Different people read books in different ways. Some review them. I prefer this reveiw:

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Jackie Morris, London: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, hb. 978 1 8478 0294 1, £9.99, 2013, 176pp.

This is a beautiful edition of a Northern version of one of the very first fairy tales, ‘Cupid and Psyche’, retold and illustrated by Jackie Morris. Like all true storytellers, Morris spins her tale as she imagines it: one moment a contemporary setting, the next a timeless dreamscape. The opening sentence plunges the reader into a magical present:

In an iridescent sparkle of frosted light he appeared, a huge bear, shifting and shimmering into solid form. Frost stars clung to his thick pelt … they danced around him like an echo of the Northern Lights.

It is winter. The bear is in a busy, noisy city at dusk, seeking, by her scent, the heroine who lives here with her family in poverty. They are asylum seekers having fled from terrifying circumstances in their own country, but harsh rules of qualification have to be met before they are granted safe refuge. Meanwhile they scavenge for sustenance. The family seek to alter their destiny against harsh and unpromising odds. The bear too desires release from a crippling fate and asks the girl to go with him, promising ‘all manner of things will be well’ for her family (words with a familiar ring from Julian of Norwich). Against her family’s wishes, the girl accepts because her heart is open to the sorrow of another’s deep suffering and she recognises the bear as a potentially redemptive figure from her dreams. The long journey to freedom with its longueurs and separations begins for them both. At a brief family reunion at Christmas gifts are exchanged. The bear sends a long-lost and treasured family photograph, an offering of good faith. Despite the bear’s warning to the girl not to see her mother alone, the encounter takes place. The mother’s gift to her daughter is a box containing a candle and matches. The girl does not open the gift until it is too late to prevent the consequences of using it. A beautiful necklace from an elderly woman neighbour endorses her sense of personal value and inner strength. There are more symbolic gifts, kindnesses and also perils ahead, but the girl’s capacity to be an active agent in her search to the ends of the earth has grown. Finally there are three golden gifts from the three sisters, each one bringing the girl nearer to her goal of releasing the bear prince.

Morris does not allow herself to be constricted by a tale that has to conform to a set pattern. She amplifies the story in many ways. She offers fresh insights into the meaning of love and sacrifice, and of responsibility and reciprocity in relationships. Many of the figures in the narrative could be seen as archetypal entities and so limited in their function – the four winds and the three sisters, the troll queen and princess – but in her telling Morris breathes life into them by giving them some human qualities and so evokes empathy in the reader. Nothing is simply black and white; opposites are brought into relationship through reconciling motifs and symbolic enactment. For anyone who knows Jung’s work there are rich seams to mine.

The core of the fairy tale lies in the psychological drama of a young couple coming of age and the completion of a quest, but with an unexpected final twist of an ending and a new beginning. The power of the tale resides in the way it is told, complemented by luminous illustrations. Landscapes filling a double page place the reader at the scene in the immediacy of the moment. Smaller illustrations of the protagonists, objects and wild life embellish the pages like medieval manuscripts and offer moments for thought. This new telling brings fresh insights to a profound and ancient story. It is a book to treasure and will delight mature young readers, and older ones too.

written by Judith Philo,

to this one on Goodreads, written by Elizabeth, who was given the book in a Goodreads ‘give-away’:

“I normally love the story with the girl and the girl and the polar bear (The polar bear king, East and ect) but this book was not good at all. The writing style was horrible and was repetitive.”

( Have deleted her last sentence because of the plot spoiler. )

The first was published in the IBBY journal. Second on Goodreads.

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Here are two readings, one by Catherine Hyde, who illustrated the book, one by me, who found the words. For more on Evie take a look at the book’s page.

For more images from Evie take a look at Catherine’s website.

Catherine will be at Art in Action in July, 18th- 21st at Waterperry Gardens in Oxford. I will be joining her on the 18th 12-1 and 4-5pm to sign copies of little Evie.

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I had made some notes, and Robin had valiantly searched Seattle for a Chicken of Time, but returned with a Cow of Time instead. It played a vital role in my talk.

It’s always difficult to stand infront of people and talk about your work, but more and more I am asked to do this. I find reading infront of groups of people difficult. But also good, to share. So, if you have a cup of tea and half an hour listen.

I am hoping that Suzi will send me some of the images she showed on her slides, but meanwhile her website has some stunning images. This woman is amazing. She has been so close to some of the most beautiful animals in the world. She has courage and skill and talent. You can buy her books from Frances Lincoln in the UK, order them from your local library in UK and USA and get them in all good independent bookshops. She also sells online, s you can get signed copies from Suzi here, and as always you can get mine from Solva Woollen Mill.

Keep an eye on Suzi’s website and if you get chance go and see her.

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By day I am working on paintings for The Wilful Princess by Robin Hobb. Black and whites. Not sure which will be used but the book will be published in October /November 2013 by Harper Collins, Voyageur, to coincide with Robin’s visit to Brighton for the World Fantasy Conference. So, there is some pressure to complete.

I read and re-read the book. Then I began to sketch out ideas. I had hoped to do wood engravings, then decided on lino cuts, but the paper quality I am told will not be sufficient to carry the repro for lino so turned to painting with watercolour in black and white. And now I am glad that I did.

So, here is  four days work. I was contracted to do 10 black and whites, two colour and a cover, but with details and things and love of the story I have got carried away and am also hoping that Harper Collins will put money in to produce the book with decorated end papers and a ribbon.

We hope to have signed copies available from Solva Woollen Mill and with great good fortune we may have a few signed by both myself and Robin.

By night I am reading Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb in order to produce 2 more covers for the Brazilian publisher who are splitting the first series into five books and using my jackets. So I spend my days and nights steeped in the wonderful world of Robin Hobb and once again find myself to be in hopeless love with Fitz, Nighteyes and the Fool. More compelling than Game of Thrones. Sometimes I just love doing the work I do and count myself to be the most fortunate of women.

Meanwhile I am also thinking about Christmas cards, bears, dragons and swans.

More about my connections with Robin Hobb.

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Below is the unedited raw text that I sent to The Western Mail. When Glyn’s brother died he had been very unsettled. He wanted there to be something in the paper to mark his passing, but his eyesight had faded so much from glaucoma that he couldn’t see any longer to read or to write, so I said I would help. I had only met James once. He lived in St Davids. So I sat on the settle beside Glyn and Nadolig and he helped while Glyn remembered and I wrote and then read back to him what we had put. Then he was happy. So in a way this is as much for Glyn as for anyone. For those who knew of Mr Griffiths through the cat’s blog, can I say thank you for all the cards that you sent him when he was ill. He loved that these arrived from far flung places, loved the pictures of cats and the stories of people, and the fact that you cared enough to send him warm wishes. Meant a lot to me too. So thank you.

A life measured out in cats.

On the side of a hill, close by the sea, a small cottage sits and waits and glows like a pearl against the green. When you stand in the yard in front you can hear the bells of St Davids Cathedral. Now the cottage is derelict, sad, its only occupants the jackdaws who build their nests, and the mice who scurry in the dark inside. It wasn’t always like this.

For years artists have been drawn to this cottage. It has been painted so many times, photographed over and over. Film crews have come to the door, making programmes about Welsh life, Welsh architecture, and all were welcomed by the inhabitants of the house, Glyn Griffiths and his cats. The house could be said to be an icon of Pembrokeshire with its chimney fawr and limewashed walls and grouted roof. And in truth Glyn was also an icon.

I first met this small, unassuming man when I moved to Treleddyd Fawr over 20 years ago. At the time, in the ignorance of my youth I thought him old. A sweet old man who lived next door.  Over the years I got to know him better. On sunny days we would stand in the yard in front of the beautiful powder blue door and pass the time of day, and I began to learn.

Glyn spoke Welsh as his mother tongue, the last in the hamlet to do so. He had lived in this cottage since 1936 when his parents moved there and had grown up wild on the hillside, running all day with friends over the hill with a slab of bread and cheese in his pocket until his mother blew the whistle to call him and his brothers home.

After about ten years of conversations on the sunny doorstep Glyn asked me in for a cup of tea.

We would sit for a while and leaf through old photos and he would tell me about his mother and father, working on the farm, stone wall building on Ramsey with friends when he was young. He would show me black and white pictures of his mother, father, his old cars, peering at them closely in the dim light of the cottage. His eyes were not as good as they had been. And he had photos from other places too……concentration camps in Germany. At the time I found this strange but he skirted over them on to others. At his funeral the other day I found out that he had been a soldier at the end of World War 2. How much we do not know about our friends, until they are gone. He had travelled through France and Germany and Holland before returning to work in Trecwn for the MOD, and while there had applied to work in Africa, in the Transvaal. On the wall was a photo of him and some of the tribes people he worked with. I still remember him talking with horror about the way the whites treated  the people out there. If he was asked what he did there he would answer that he worked with ‘ all kinds of explosives.’

Glyn had an interest in local history, particularly the ruins of Maes y Mynydd, the old settlement that still lies in ruins a mile or so from his house. He showed many groups of people around there, from the Women’s Institute to school children, history groups and Quakers from the USA who came in search of answers and ancestors. He wouldn’t romanticize the past and always talked of the poverty and hardship they endured.

He took me walking around Maes y Mynydd, too, when I told him I was working on  The Seal Children, a book set in the ruins and told me so much about the place. And I included a painting of his house in one of my other books, rather to Glyn’s alarm. When working on How the Whale Became, written by Ted Hughes, the character of God, in the book, lives in a small house, with a garden in which he grew carrots and a whale ( but that is another story). When I told Glyn that I had painted his house as God’s house he laughed and said’ “ I hope there will still be room for me in there.” It did seem to me that if God did have a house on earth it would be one like Glyn’s…..small, well loved, with vegetables and flowers growing in the back garden.

When I first knew Glyn he had such pride in his house. He knew it to be special. It is rare in these days when houses are treated as investments to discover someone who understands that the true nature of a house is as a home. Glyn loved the cottage. And I think the house loved him. Every year the walls would get a new layer of limewash, and the unique nature of this method of painting meant that the house would glow like a pearl in the green, a beacon. It could be seen, still can, from 2 miles away, if you stand on the Pebbles in St Davids. He would lovingly limewash the grouted roof too, much to my alarm as one day I walked past to find him on the roof, with a rope tied around his ankle and the other around the chimney ‘for safety’, mop and bucket of limewash also balanced precariously.

The house and Glyn appeared with Trevor Fishlock on television, on Restoration with Grif Rhys Jones, on S4C. But there was more to the man than just his care for his beautiful home. Of his parents who lived there and worked the farm he said “ They were happy here.” And from what I saw of Glyn he was happy there too. He lived alone, with cats and he measured out his days in the lives of cats, always with one beside him. When I first met him it was Daffyd, a small black cat of great fierceness. He loved animals. I could always tell where he was when he was out and about as a small flock of squabbling sparrows were always close and rooks flew over his head.In his pockets he carried bread and cheese for the animals.

He would go to Maes y Mynydd when he could still walk there and talk to the ghosts of the people who lived there, always in Welsh. He looked after a sick badger named Owain, a fox found shelter in his barn. He loved birdsong and made many recordings of birds, the sea, seals. He knew the names of the fields, of people who had lived in the hamlet, was always pleased when a new child was born in Treleddyd. Even when his sight was failing he had an eye for a pretty woman and now and again would mention an old flame, long gone, wistful in memory. He loved to read, to tell stories.And he loved a little company now and again and especially the company of cats.

Of his house he said “ I want to keep it for the nation.” What he intended was that if someone who had lived in the house one hundred years ago, two hundred had walked in they would have found little changed.

Glyn died on 21st March 2013. He had been in an old people’s home for some time, his house standing empty.  We had talked when he first became ill of life and death and what he wanted to be done with his ashes. A few days ago, according to his wishes, I carried the remains of him up the hill on a last walk together. The ashes were heavier than I thought they would be. I am told their weight is similar to that of your weight at birth. It was a sunny day. As I sat in the remains of the village of Maes y Mynydd and scattered Glyn’s ashes to mix forever with the stones and the land swallows flew low and close. Back home his house stood waiting, jackdaws nesting in the rooof and walls. It looked both sad and beautiful in the sunshine. I wondered who would live there next and hoped that they would love and be loved by the house as much as Glyn Griffiths had been.

In many ways he was the soul of the house, but he was more than that. He was perhaps the soul of the village. One of the old ones. A true Welshman.

The photograph above was taken by me, one one of my many walks past the house. Glyn had returned from a spell in hospital and Nadolig, who had been absent during much of the time Glyn was away had turned up that day. The photo was to let his well wishers know that both were alive and well.

In the uncanny way that cats have I think that Nadolig knew the last time that Glyn went that he wouldn’t be back and he attached himself to my neighbours Phylis and Alan who looked after him, fed him and gave him a warm and loving home until he disappeared on the same day that my cat Pixie died.

The photo in the Western Mail is by David Wilson who has a fine eye for a great shot and also really liked Glyn and his home. David featured Glyn in an BBC program My Secret Wales. If you watch this, towards the end there is a chance to see inside the house and to listen to Glyn.

Below are three photos taken by Roy Essery. Glyn and his house attracted so many artists, photographers, even film crews.

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This I understand.

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