Wanda Garner
Participating in We Live With The Land
I am an artist printmaker. I recently completed an MA in Art Practice which I undertook as a conscious attempt to examine and extend my practice, an intention almost derailed by the pandemic. Despite this I created a multi-disciplinary installation incorporating print, painting, film, poetry, music and scent, extending over 3 rooms of a derelict manor house, Plas Bodfa on our island home in Ynys Môn.
The call-out for ‘We live with the land’ came at a time when I was considering a new direction yet wanting something that related to on-going concerns which I regularly revisit and reconsider. At the time I had been reading two important texts; Paul Nurse’s ‘What is life’ which concludes by emphasising our connectivity with all life forms and our responsibility for the planet, and Natasha Myers’ research which interrogates the anthroposcene view of the world citing art as an opportunity to develop alternative ways to see, know and interact with our environment. In light of this research I started to think more deeply about what it is that makes the land we live in unique.
As an incomer who was inexplicably drawn to this very particular place, I constantly question the intangible reasons for my attachment. I recognise the special importance of the Welsh language in identifying a sense of place and its related history. Sometimes the narrative is contained in a single name such as our tiny nearby island of LLanddwyn which is the church ( Llan) of St. Dwynwen, Welsh patron saint of lovers whose shrine predated the church. Sometimes the narratives are captured in sayings such as the ‘The most agile crows are from Brynsiencyn’
Thus, I returned to the core of my previous career as a teacher of the deaf, how do I ensure that language is accessible and meaningful. Then as an artist, in the spirit of David Crystal’s suggestion ‘that artists can help create a different conversation’, I want to present the information in a way that is accessible and engaging whilst promoting a meaningful dialogue.
Currently printmaking is my main medium and has been so for the past eleven years. In this project I do not use it to produce endless multiples but because I remain enthralled by the processes, from the precision of drypoints, through to the gestural mark making of monotype and on to the textured richness of collagraphs. All methods are as eco-friendly as possible and involve no nasty chemicals.
