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Artists Heather Parnell and David Mackie were appointed by Cardiff Council’s Neighbourhood Renewal team to work with pupils at Ysgol Mynydd Bychan to design an artwork or series of artworks for Canada Road.

In considering the site and the school, two themes became apparent to the artists as the most suitable themes to explore with the school pupils. The first theme was inspired by the area’s street names – named after the colonies – Canada, Africa, Australia, Newfoundland and New Zealand. Pupils worked with the artists to interpret images of art, design and botany from these countries through drawing motifs and patterns.

The other theme was textiles since Ysgol Mynydd Bychan has many examples of textiles from around the world hanging on the corridor walls. Textile patterns inspired some of the individual motifs but more significantly, the overall design of the artwork makes reference to the pattern of a traditional Welsh blanket.

The result is a paving ‘blanket’ created from a patchwork of 44 unique drawings by the school children, who were delighted to see their drawings permanently installed outside their school. There was much excitement the morning after the installation!

The technique used to recreate the children’s drawings on the paving slabs is to produce a template for each design with a resist where there is no line, so that when the slab is grit-blasted only the design appears. The indentation of the line is then filled with a toughened paint, in this case a dark charcoal grey colour. The country names are inset into the paving slabs in stainless steel.

The scheme was officially opened on 13th April 2011.

Media coverage: http://www.welshicons.org.uk/news/cardiff/canada-road-transformation/

High Street Family Practice moved premises in 2010 to a spacious new medical centre with state of the art facilities. The new centre is called West Quay Medical Centre and is located on Hood Road, less than 10 minutes from the old premises on High Street in Barry.

As part of the new build a percent for art public artwork was commissioned through their partners Matrix Medical, who were the developers of the scheme.
Artist Angharad Pearce Jones was appointed and consulted closely with the staff of the practice to select a theme and develop a design for the artwork. Many themes were discussed including medical themes and the industrial history of the area, which is in the Innovation Quarter of the Waterfront area of Barry. Angharad’s design combines the motif of the Tree of Hippocrates and the motif of a steam train wheel within a circle. Around the perimeter is a motto that the practice has used, “Working together in partnership with each other for each other”.

The location of the artwork is a circular area within the hard landscaping adjacent to the main entrance. Eight metres in diameter, the outline of the design was fabricated in metal by Angharad and laid onto a tarmac base. Sureset, a company specialising in resin bound paving, supplied and installed the colourful paving within the metal outlines. The paving is made from a variety of different materials to achieve the different colours. For instance, black is created with crushed coal.
The project on the Sureset website: http://www.sureset.co.uk/casestudies_medical.html
Angharad was excited by the possibilities of using coloured resin bound paving in an artwork and although she had previously used it to create a logo, this was her first project with Sureset on her own design (and possibly the first public art project to use this type of paving material).

This project also engaged more widely with the local community. Poet Phil Carradice facilitated poetry workshops at three local primary schools on the theme of physical and mental health and well-being. These workshops were supported by a grant from Academi.

This project is a celebration of the cultural diversity of youth activities in Barry both past and present. The Domino Club was established in Barry between 1947 and 1951, and involved young people in theatre, performance and carnival activities. The series of slate dominoes, edged in mirror-finished stainless steel have photographic portraits of ex-Domino club members as well as today’s youth, in place of the ‘dots’ on the dominoes. A poem about Thompson Street written by one of the Domino Club members is letter cut into the first domino. The artist Lulu Quinn researched the history of the Domino Club and met with current youth members of Area 41 youth club to involve them in making photographic portraits of themselves.

The regeneration of Barry Waterfront has to date seen significant residential development, the creation of a retail hub and the business and innovation quarter. The Thompson Street Footbridge is a key element in reconnecting the main retail centre of Barry with the Waterfront area. Thompson Street runs north-south from Holton Road to the new footbridge, which connects with the Waterfront area. The Holton Road shopping area was the first phase of town centre improvement works, which also included a public art scheme (see http://www.celfwaith.co.uk/node/1223).

The bridge and artwork were formally unveiled on May 10th 2010.

Background

Blaenavon and its wider industrial landscape was rewarded in December 2000 when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) inscribed the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape as a World Heritage Site under the 1972 World Heritage Convention for the protection of the World’s cultural and nature heritage. In its recommendation the UK Government outlined the significance of the area.

“The Blaenavon Industrial Landscape presents a large number of individual monuments of outstanding value within the context of a rich and continuous relict landscape, powerfully evocative of the Industrial Revolution. It is one of the prime areas in the world where the full social, economic and technological process of industrialisation through iron and coal production can be studied and understood.”

In January 2008 Celfwaith was appointed by Torfaen Borough Council to manage a public art design competition which would specifically seek craftspeople to develop proposals for public art in Blaenavon and for the Iron Trails. Eight craftspeople were selected to develop site-specific proposals which they presented to a large group of Blaenavon residents.

This exercise was intended to generate new ideas and approaches to public art by involving artists with great design and making skills but who perhaps had not had the opportunity to work at a larger scale or in the public realm before. It was also intended as preparatory design work for future years of Heads of the Valleys funding and to avoid the end of year scramble to spend allocated funding.

The Commission

Later in the year, Celfwaith was again appointed to help implement two public art projects in Blaenavon as part of the £1.7 million Blaenavon Town Centre Regeneration Scheme (2006-2009) which was funded by the Welsh Assembly Governments Physical Regeneration Fund and a Town Improvement Grant from the Department of Economy & Transportation.

Sue Hiley Harris was one of the eight craftspeople originally selected to develop public art proposals and it was one of her proposals for a location in Blaenavon known as the ‘gap site’, that had been particularly favoured by those who had attended the artists’ presentations. The site is a gap between two houses at the top of Broad Street, and was lacking any clear identity or purpose. It was unattractive and contributed very little to the character and vitality of the town centre.

Her proposal was to create a spiral shaped form in stone within the paved site, which would rise gradually out of the ground up to seat height. The top surface of the spiral is the same riven Blue Pennant Sandstone from Gwrhyd Quarry near Swansea that has been used as paving on the site and which is used throughout Blaenavon. However, these large blocks have a diamond-sawn finish on six sides and the top and sides were flamed to provide a precise, durable finish not subject to laminate.

Behind the spiral and following its curve, a number of corten steel posts are set into the ground, in the form of ‘pigs’- the bars of iron created during the steel-making process and transported throughout the world. Stamped onto the pigs are the names of countries that iron was sent to from Blaenavon. As the spiral emerges from the ground, and as the ‘pigs’ gradually increase in height, reference is made to how natural minerals were taken from the ground in this area of South Wales and formed into valuable assets to be traded.

Sue Hiley Harris designed this artwork with landscaping advice and support from Andrew Nevill. The stone is from Gwrhyd Quarry and the corten steel ‘pigs’ were fabricated by DAR Design.

On January 26th 2008 the John Fielding Memorial by Teucer Wilson was unveiled as part of the annual John Fielding parade. The John Fielding Memorial Sculpture was unveiled by The Worshipful the Mayor and a speech was also made by Paul Murphy MP for Torfaen.

John Fielding was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions at the defence of Rorke's Drift during the Anglo-Zulu war in 1879. John Fielding, also known as John Williams, was 21 when he risked his life to save eight hospitalised soldiers. Fielding House used to occupy the site and John Fielding’s grave is located in St Michael's Churchyard, Llantarnam, which is opposite the new housing development.

The artwork is a single boulder of slate, polished, carved and letter-cut . The artist wanted the work to not only remember John Fielding, but also act as a tribute to the bravery of all those involved in such engagements. The work is respectful of the courage and bravery of soldiers, but also has an uplifting and poetic quality. It is a lyrical work which is suggestive of battle in general terms, rather than recording the facts of a certain battle.

The words are lines from a Welsh hymn called The Hirlas Horn:
Fill high the blue Hirlas!
That shines like a wave,
When sunbeams are bright,
On the spray of the sea,
And bear thou the rich
Foaming mead to the brave
The Dragons of Battle,
The sons of the Free!

The Hirlas Horn was a drinking-horn. It was long, blue and rimmed with silver. When not filled with the best Welsh ale it was also used to sound an alarm on the battlefield. A curved horn is carved in relief above the words.

On the back of the slate stone is a carved lion, which is a symbol on the Victoria Cross itself. The words “Yr hwn sy’n ddewr, sy’n rhydd” are also carved, - “he who is brave, is free.”

The artwork was commissioned by Torfaen County Borough Council but made possible through funding from Redrow Homes.

media coverage:
The work and unveiling features on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7028604.stm