Walkie Talkie

Join Cai Tomos for a walk and workshop in Caersws, where rhythm will be explored through movement and making. All are welcome to join, as the walk and workshop will be suitable for beginners.

"This workshop looks at rhythm as a starting point for creative endeavours. Rhythm shows itself in patterns. The patterns in a dress, a beautiful carpet, or a pair of warm wooly socks, makes visible the rhythm of the work in the hands.

We are movement. It is at the very core of our lives. From our everyday gestures, to the beat of our heart and the rise and fall of our breath, our bodies are full of rhythms. Nature and the seasons show us a whole variety of rhythms in the natural world that often collide and contradict. The return of the swifts to the first snowdrops. Everything can be seen as movement and rhythm.

The workshop will begin with a local walk, firstly to notice the interplay between the rhythms inside us and those around us, the rhythms of language and of taking and walking together. We will spend a little time waking up the senses, waking up our hands and spines to support us in the movement of our making.

In the workshop we will look at repetition as a way to find flow and experience time differently. One of the benefits of the creative process is that we can fall out of clock time, and enter some other state that’s akin to when we take good long walk, in some small way we are always changed by a simple act of movement.

The workshop will focus on the simple task of wrapping everyday objects with materials. Through this process we will create sculptural objects, ones that we engage with kinetically, sensually and imaginatively."

Cai Tomos

Refreshments will be provided but we ask participants to bring any other food or snacks that they may need. Thanks to the Outdoor Partnership, we can provide outdoor gear (boots raincoats, trousers). Please email orieldaviessuzie.jones@gmail.com with your sizes and needs by Friday 19 April to request.

This walk is part of our Walkie Talkie project which celebrates the centenary of Laura Ashley, an important figure in the history of the local area as well as in textile design and production.

As part of the project, Oriel Davies are commissioning 5 artists to lead 5 walks each based in one of the following towns, of which had its own Laura Ashley shop: Carno (or Caersws) where the Laura Ashley factory was located, Welshpool, Newtown, Llanidloes and Machynlleth.

Laura Ashley developed her business with the idea of family at its heart. One such idea she used was the ‘walkie-talkie’ - a walk outside in nature with the family or some of the staff to talk through ideas and problems and support wellbeing.

This project is funded by The Ashley Family Foundation.