Walk Valley Draw

Artist Neil Burridge is walking the valleys of the South wales coalfield, drawing every fifteen minutes and for every five miles

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Nantgarw

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Work is up in The Factory, Porth. Private view Wed 17th, 7-9pm, all welcome

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Private view Wed 17th Feb, 7-9pm, all welcome!

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Drawing kit.

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Brynmawr to Six Bells

A short walk today. I park at Newbridge for the bus for the extra miles on foot later in the day. Its been a slow summer of fits and starts. Perhaps a necessary lull. The weather was set to be cloudy today, with showers, but it's bright and clear. Overall it's a gift of a day, beautiful, warm, calm. I head out of brynmawr, passing though nantyglo and Blaina. Walking is easy, the towns lively with shoppers. I was expecting more hardship in the upper reaches of the valley, but instead enjoy my time here and feel a lot of love for the valley. I can feel the end of summer in the air, mid August, and there is a poignance of ending in the beauty of the day. This walk is the last that I had planned from the original set, in fact I've exceeded those intentions. The day feels like an omen. I'm aware that the drawing is starting to feel rehearsed, a comfortable process and this is not what I want. I recognise that this may be the last walk that I make using this format, these materials, for some time. I still want to walk the Swansea valley's and make a walk into Newport, but these can wait for a fresher head. Into abertillery, I'm greeted by a memorial sculpture, steel rods each for a pit that closed. I suspect that they may light up at night and am glad to see them in the day. It is one of the more poetic references to industry encountered in the road. Not a Davey lamp in sight. Abertillery is vibrant, busy, lots of small shops, local businesses. I'd like to revisit. I press on to Six bells having planned to finish the walk at the Guardian sculpture. I pass through the landscaped colliery site which sits beautifully in the middle of the valley. I can see the figure from one end, and I approach him steadily. At a distance the coiled metal of his making lets the light through, and he is a shadow, insubstantial. As the distance closes he is orange steel solid. As I stare at him a former colliery worker appears at my side. He sees my backpack drawing board and asks what I think of the sculpture. I don't know at first. His pose is a strange one with hands held out slightly raised in front, I think somewhere between stained glass saviour and the chorus of YMCA. I say I'm not sure and ask his opinion. He's proud of the sculpture and that people from America have been here to visit. On the day of the disaster that the sculpture commemorates, he was on a different shift. We chat for a minute and he moves on, but he has anchored this place and this time as past and future float around. I like the Guardian. He belongs in this place. I imagine the evening Sun golden at his back. It is a beautiful light in the valleys. Having seen so much predictable public art on the road, he is at least a monumental and serious commemoration of the industry that shaped the valleys. The day, the sculpture the light, remind me that the valleys have moved on. The hole cut by the erasure of industry is still there to be seen, but like the pit sites, it's being grassed over. After the dismal scenes of the 90's things look better, at least on the surface. At the end of this particular road, I decide to walk the last five miles into Newbridge, just for the pleasure of walking. Drawing board temporarily retired. A present to myself, a small celebration, on a golden day.

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Brynmawr to six bells, 18th Aug 2015. 5.5 miles

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Blaengarw to Bridgend

Good early start, but the day feels leisurely. So do I, and I miss the bus by five minutes. It’s an hour to the next so I take a stroll around Bridgend, and call in to Ty Coffi for tea and a bacon roll. Bridgend has the feel of a house that had a party in it the night before. The bus is smooth and I’m on the road by ten. It’s a beautiful day. I feel peaceful , internally silent, relaxed, non verbal and at ease with everything. Blaengarw is busy, school run and a glut of older residents going happily about their business. Walking is easy. Progress steady.

I float along in trance like motion. Walking and working. A woman riding a horse and wrestling another on a rope, hurtles past, traffic stopping as horses cross lanes in the road. Along the route, horse motifs reappear constantly on lorries, in the flesh, in garden, on wall, in text and ornament. Time and again, there are poppies, for memorial, in cars on walls on monuments. I think of the three military students who disembarked the bus I got into. As the day wears on, there is cloud cover and humidity, electricity and friction in the air. Storms ahead. For once I’ve remembered a hat and waterproofs so am unperturbed. It makes for an easy day. I have great love for the valleys, but in the summer, the light, the atmosphere is especially dear. It is poignant to remember summers passed. Something nostalgic in the light that rips the heart. Every year brings with it a deeper love, and with that the sadness of loss. Days, like miles, behind you. There’s only forward, though, working and walking, no matter how much urge there is to cling. Another collection of mining memorials. A tram, a weird giant Davy lamp. Earlier in the day I see a pair of giant shoes as plant pots. Somewhere along the way I enjoy the shoes more than the lamp, because their humour and weirdness was understood by their maker. I imagine a giant Dai cap monument. There is also a nod to Richard price, and I enjoy seeing reference to a culture that belonged to mining communities, which isn’t a bit of glamourised kit. Into Bridgend, I have pain in my hip and groin and wonder if two weeks working a shovel have opened a hernia. I keep walking. Despite discomfort, the day remains, in itself comforting, intimate, peaceful. A day of peace and enrichment.

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Blaengarw to Bridgend, July 16th 2015. 10 miles

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Getting drawings together to re-photograph - 31 so far, a little over 150 miles worth

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I visit the national museum of Wales yesterday, to see the ceramic exhibition, 'Fragile'. I see this, a piece of curatorial sculpture: bricks from the brickworks that often adjoined the pits in south Wales, in the spectrum of earth from these places. Gives me pause for thought.

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Exhibition postponed

I've agreed with the factory in porth, to postpone exhibition until February 2016. They have a brilliant refurb opportunity, and I'll get to walk the western valleys before the show. Looking forward to getting back out in the weeks ahead!

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Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)

A true man stares at his old shoes And sheepskin jacket.Every day he goes up To his attic to look at his work shoes and worn out coat This is his wisdom, to remember the original clay And not get drunk with ego and arrogance

To visit those shoes and jacket Is praise

The absolute works with nothing The workshop, the materials Are what does not exist.

Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it. Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing, Where something may be planted, A seed, possibly, from the absolute.