How it Began

The idea for this project began with my noticing a blank piece of wall on the side of our local community shop. I imagined a colourful painting there, drawing the eyes of passing motorists, kindling curiosity. It would be a dynamic image that somehow represented the energy of renewal happening around the building....a visual invitation to passers by.
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I love to see art works in public places, where people are going about their daily lives—to see sculptures and murals punctuating everyday experience with colour , shapes, relevance, interest and meaning. Something to awaken us from our usual preoccupied trance.

For the past few years my main artistic practice has been to paint mandalas. The pictures have grown progressively bigger over the years, lending themselves to spacious or outdoor settings...so it occurred to me that it would be great to paint a large mandala mural - and that it would be ideal to do this locally, as a kind of offering to the community.

The development of the shop and café in Tre’r’ddol, Ceredigion ( http://www.cletwr.com/ ) is an inspirational project in terms of how a community can come together to rebuild public services, in a sustainable and empowering way. Local people have transformed an old service station into a thriving community hub. The atmosphere is friendly, with many hands making light work. Locally produced foods and crafts are sold, the cafe makes wholesome sustainably sourced food as well as being a venue for events and courses. It’s incredibly heartening to witness how generous people are with volunteering their time, how enthusiastic people are to make positive change in this way.

How It Grew

It was important that the mandala be something that evolved from the community as well as from my personal expression, for it to really come alive and reflect the spirit of the place. So I invited participants from a mandala painting course I taught at Siop Cynfelyn last September to get involved, and from there it expanded.

There were sixteen contributors in all, the youngest aged 4 and the oldest 78!

The painting took nearly 4 months to complete, evolving from initial sketches and developing as it went along, line by line, from the centre to the edges and back in again, shaped by the input of everyone involved.

The underlying geometry is that of the Chakana (Inca Cross) similar to a Celtic Cross, representing the four directions of the compass and the elements of fire, water, earth and air.

We decided to represent not only the human activity of this community enterprise, but also the environmental context of Tre’r’ddol itself, paying homage to the very rich diversity of wildlife we’re lucky enough to live alongside, particularly in Cwm Cletwr, represented here season by season throughout the year.