A big hello from Anglesey and Summercamp,

Also a shout out to the sunshine that has made an appearance today in Trearddur Bay. So my project here started out as a very vague idea about something to do with something that was to do with childhood memory and wanting to be a mermaid when I was little. I started to research into the idea of mermaids and what it was about them that made the mini me want to be one so much and came across some very exciting pages about Selkie's. A Selkie is a mythical creature who in sea lives as a seal but as they come to land they shed their skin to become humans. Often the skins of Selkie are stolen by fishermen meaning that they are never able to return to their home and families in the sea. In terms of my project this was fascinating and really helped to shape my idea for my project really is. The piece I am creating here at summercamp is a one women show based on the loss of youth and coming to terms with age and how to accept your ever morphing body and flesh as you get older. In the characters mind she still believes that she is a young siren of a mermaid as she hasn't accepted her bodies changes as she has journeyed into adulthood and pleas to the audience to help her find her tail that she has lost.

I created a short video with the help of Jan that I projected onto my tummy as I read a piece of text I wrote. I am trying to upload the video so will attached it at a later date :) Enjoy

Mermaid

Kelly: This isn’t a fancy dress costume or some hipster fashion statement; it’s a substitute for my actual skin. It’s a temporary fix like a plaster to put up a picture frame, temporary. Every little girl dreams of becoming a mermaid when she is a child but none of them ever do. I was born a mermaid, though I am not quite sure how that happened as both my parents are from Dagenham and neither of them posses flippers that I know of.  But I am a mermaid and my childhood dream was to live as a Daryl Hannah style one in this world or a business woman who can cook stir fry and has dinner parties with her friends. Now I am neither nor both. I am just floating in the uncertainty of whether I’ll ever be me again ever. See I have lost something not something small like keys or a Tesco bag full of reduced fruit something big, huge.

I woke up one morning to find my tail was gone and the glittering scales that graced my tail were now replaced by the lumps and bumps and scars of my aging human flesh. Rotting stretched marked skin. This isn’t my body. I am on holiday from my actual skin, or it’s on holiday from me. Or its runaway from me from the amount of kebab and burger abuse that I have thrown at it. Or its on a world round trip stopping at every single country, town, village and street till it finds its way back to me and we can be reunited and unzip me of this awful body I have stumbled into. I am a mermaid it’s in my core my solar plexus just at the moment I have forgotten where I left my tail.

http://youtu.be/BhxoXe9FwwA