2024 began with teaching in Almaty, Kazakhstan: two clown workshops, masterclasses for students at the Kazakh National Academy of Arts T K Zhurgenov, and a paper art workshop at an oncology centre. I finished my trip with a performance of Alarch (Swan). I met so many interesting people in Almaty and am deepening my research into ancient spiritual practices of this land, appreciating the ancient ways that connect and nurture us in these times.

 

Plans for this year include a period of focused time on creating further paper wearable art, a return to Kazakhstan later in the year, as well as another residency at Bryn Celli Ddu with CADW and fellow artists and archaeologists (see below). 

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Blueschist Dress, my first piece of wearable art, forms part of the first International Paper Art Biennale this year. Throughout the Spring and Summer 2024, it is being shown at Castle Hagen, Germany.

 

The Spring Equinox of 2023 saw the culmination of a 12-year long project on Lake Baikal with LabirintLab, which I was involved with from 2013. I took a necessarily circuitous route to Ulan Ude where I met the rest of the group and we travelled on to the ice for the last ice labyrinth creation together on this particular project. We were located in the heart of Baikal, nurtured by the beauty of the surroundings during the day and the stars at night.

 

The Summer Solstice found me collaborating with CADW (Welsh organisation protecting heritage sites and landscape) and tactileBOSCH (experimental performance art). I joined fellow Welsh artists for AGORA: a meeting of artists and archaeologists at the neolithic site of Bryn Celli Ddu on Ynys Môn (Anglesey), to explore our responses to site and of gathering together. I made a dress in response to the rock art and geology of the site, in particular Blueschist, a rare rock, a belt of which exists in the South East of Ynys Môn and which was specifically used at Bryn Celli Ddu. The Blueschist Dress was exhibited at The Turner House in Penarth, Cardiff and later at Galeri Caernarfon. It was such a pleasure to work with a group of artists on site, particularly after my visit there in 2013, as part of my residency with National Theatre Wales. I was honoured to use my shamanic resources and skills in service to Bryn Celli Ddu and Urdd Derwyddon Môn (Anglesey Druid Order), preparing and cleaning the site for the Summer Solstice celebrations.

 

I returned to Germany after many years in late Summer/early Autumn, to exhibit and perform at the Congress of the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists (IAPMA) in Dresden, Saxony. I exhibited my second wearable art piece of the year, Birch Dress, which I wore for my performance Alarch (Swan), beginning in the gardens of the Pillnitz Palace, and ending on the banks of the River Elbe. My short film Llif (Flow) was also shown at The Decorative Arts Museum at the Palace throughout the Autumn. 

 

I have worked for almost 25 years within dramatherapy and theatre for diverse ability groups. It was a great pleasure to receive funding from the Arts Council of Wales to begin another year of theatre with the Blodeuo Project in Abergavenny, Wales. We are working within the structure of Shakespeare’s Mechanicals, to create three separate stories to be performed in late summer 2024.

 

2023 also saw the recommencement of more hospitals opening up for healthcare clowning with Theodora Children’s Charity. I now work in three different hospitals in the south of England, and it is a joy to visit children and their carers on a regular basis following the pandemic.

 

I am now a visiting lecturer at Roehampton University on the MA Dramatherapy programme, utilising my experience in site responsive theatre and personal process, together with clown workshops, particularly looking at the presence of the therapist and relationship of therapist and client. 

 

My practice can be read about in detail in the publication "Staging Loss: Performance as Commemoration" edited by Michael Pinchbeck and Andrew Westerside, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Ebooks: Google and Springer Nature.

 

I have also written for POWER (2021) and FUTURE (2019), two bulletins for the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists (IAPMA) 2019 (https://iapma.info)