Day 2

Met up with Graham Fry at his sea front hotel The Royal Lion, a sturdy statuesque figure who greets us on the doorstep with a tray of home made scones slathered with proper Welsh salty butter.

Graham has owned St Catherines Fort for the last 40 years.

He immediately reports an incident from the night before, bizarrely enough two people were arrested for trespassing on his island, the first time in forty years that the police actually charged someone. We reassure Graham that it wasn’t us….honest! Nor did we send someone to infiltrate the fort to document its interior!

St Catherines fort has an extraordinarily varied history – from its Napoleonic origins to its Edwardian period as an eccentric family's summer residence, complete with corridor floors lined with fur and walls laden with stuffed Deer heads (echoes of my last solo stage work ‘Gloria Days’, based on the 5th Marquis of Anglesey) and, finally its most alluring phase as a Zoo in the 70’s!!!

An extremely rich juxtaposition of visual stimuli and research material, which certainly gets the creative juices flowing, well more like a flood!

Graham is clearly a visionary businessman, this became evident when he played us a video
outlining commercial plans for the site that he drew up 10 years ago, which he feels have fallen on deaf ears and has now been abandoned. In the film we got a tantalising glimpse of the fort’s interior and it certainly doesn’t disappoint! My vivid pre imaginings were matched and even superseded by its dishevelled splendour. Large rooms with amazing vaulted ceilings strewn with a few discarded objects that reveal its former Zoo time legacy.

It’s truly an incredible and inspiring location but virtually sealed for security reasons and would take up to four hours to unlock and crowbar open. Understandably Graham is reluctant to do this at present but very kindly offered to take us on his boat for a jaunt around the island later today (weather permitting)…..an offer we simply cannot refuse and worth sacrificing Sian’s sea fearing belly...she is currently chanting for rain.

We then walked about the town in the heat of the day and I became entranced by its Georgian charm and cute surfer boy dudes, we took shelter in a café with a wonderful balcony overlooking the sea which felt almost Mediterranean with its aquamarine sea view and big sky vista, with the best coffee this side of Kidwelly, the perfect spot for some blue sky thinking.

A further stroll to the hotel but first a short shop stop to purchase some cheap flip-flops before ditching the shiney clip clop shoes and crushed velvet jacket at the Myrtle B&B, an attire that was not sensible nor fashionable in such temperature so I donned the Carhartt jeans and T shirt in the hope of blending and bonding with the local blond surfer community....yeah right!

During our meandering we also discovered and visited a semi-abandoned garage with discrete architectural features that revealed its 1930’s origins – curved white stucco edging, concrete step-up façade, vast glass windows of the former showroom and a perfect herring bone patterned parquet floor – an intriguing space for sure – part of the road trip is to come across places spontaneously and the garage is certainly a hidden gem but we sadly discover that it’s to be demolished for the sole purpose of reducing rates, tragic!!!

Next a short trip to the Royal Pembrokeshire Dock yard; a quick pit stop in a greasy spoon caff opposite our next site, the Garrison Chapel. Post egg and chips we met Barry and David who are part of the Regeneration Unit at Pembrokeshire County Council and on entering the Chapel it became evident that they had done an incredible restoration job. Built in 1830 and reopened in 2007 it has been superbly restored and had almost a Bostonian feel with its pristinely white washed, walls, woodwork, pillars et all, it felt like walking into an architects model of a dream gallery space.

It is an incredible blank canvas that is simply crying out for an art installation - like Anthony Gormley’s ‘Field’ for example, imagine 35,000 tiny terracotta figures, installed on the floor of a vast room - perfect!

We were also taken to another building close by, the former Court House and occasional market, also an amazing location with tremendous site-specific potential.

So far so good……

Back to Tenby for a studio visit with Freshwest, the fantastic dynamic design duo Markus Beck and Simon Macro. I’ve been following and admiring their work for some time and have witnessed their international trajectory as they graced the covers of Wallpaper Magazine and Elle Decoration. I wanted to see their latest fascinating creation ‘The Lazy Chair’ which caused a stir at the recent Milan furniture fair. This experimental concept piece is based upon the small wooden animal toys held together by tension strings which, when the base is pushed in, lose tension is and the animal collapses. The seat has a personality of its own, collapsing as the viewer approaches, then rather elegantly righting itself in a random, human-like manner after a few moments delay. It's quite remarkable and a thing of real beauty as the fall down is abrupt and loud and the standing motion uber slow and silent… I could imagine a whole collection of chairs in the Garrison Chapel and a lone figure gradually moving amongst them triggering their haphazard collapse.

The duo expressed real interest in a collaboration of some kind and are clearly unafraid to venture into new territory…their work has a real theatricality…

Watch this space!

Collaboration has been the bedrock of my creative practise and I’m always fascinated in working with artists from all different fields and cajoling them out of their comfort zone. This could be an ideal project to continue this tradition and incorporate an eclectic selection of home grown and international talent similar to my last work ‘En Residencia’ and an older piece ‘The House Project’ (www.r-i-p-e.co.uk).

The search for the catalyst along the coastline continues……

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Comment by Catherine Paskell on June 17, 2009 at 2:32
How did the boat trip go?! This sounds so exciting, I have seen the garage, it's a Tenby landmark for me and I'm traumatised to hear it's being pulled down! Probably to lower rates and then build executive holiday flats I expect. Can't wait for the next installment...

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