Gini Wade: How am I connected to the land I live in?

I am an artist/printmaker who specialises in stone lithography, working in Mid Wales. 

I was very happy to be invited by Veronica to participate in We Live with the Land/The Land as Other.  

I do have a slight case of imposter syndrome since I am not in any sense a landscape artist.  I have had to consider what can I contribute? How can my work connect to this project?  How am I connected to the land I live in? These are useful questions, food for thought. Eventually I decided to explore the subject through Welsh myths.

I worked as an illustrator for many years, mostly for childrens’ books. This led to my interest in myths, which can give deep insights into the human psyche. I have illustrated many Welsh myths for Welsh language publishers, which lead me to reading the Mabinogi. These fascinating ancient stories (some going back to the Bronze Age, but written down by monks in the early medieval period) are very much embedded in the landscape of Wales, and its natural world.  Transmutation of the characters into animals plays a large part in the plot lines of the stories.

For the exhibition, I propose a series of 4 (or 6) lithographs exploring themes from the first four branches of the Mabinogi.

These prints are not illustrations of the stories, but the images have been chosen from them, to embody timeless archetypes that relate humans to the land in which they live. The boundary between ourselves and the environment was more porous then than now, since the Industrial Revolution has distanced most of us from the land and the natural world.

On a personal level, this project has inspired me to take long walks in my immediate environment. I have been extremely fortunate to have lived in a beautiful Mid Wales valley for fifty years, and while familiarity certainly hasn’t bred contempt, in the last few years I spent more time walking in new places. Now I am re-exploring my home hills with a fresh eye.

The other change is that I am learning Welsh.  Finally! Something I have been meaning to do for many years, though to be fair to myself, my home county Radnorshire is not a Welsh speaking area.  Spending a weekend at Stwidio Maelor in January with Welsh speaking artists was just the push I needed.