Two examples of sculptures by Phil
Forder
The Healing Legacy of Celtic Art
I clearly remember at the age of
eleven first setting foot on celtic soil. It was 1964 and my parents
and I went into Wales for the day. We visited the Horseshoe Pass and
Llangoilen. I recall vividly those first impressions, the mountains,
the sky, the stone walls, and I heard for the first time the
language. An ancient feeling seemed to permeate everything and that
gave me a very satisfying sense ofbelonging, dare I say a coming
home? I remember selecting a rock that would fit in my pocket, taking
it back home with me and keeping it on my bedroom window sill. This,
on reflection, seems rather significant to me now.
That feeling has fortunately found
me again and again during my life and it seems to connect with the
landscape and what lives in it. This is particularly so where ancient
celtic culture once had a home. Many people I've met ,from all works
of life, and from all parts of the world share this feeling about our
western lands.
It was a great revelation to me when
I found that I could recreate that same feeling found in the
landscape when carving wood with celtic designs which is my job. This
feeling of well-being and contentment that celtic art can generate is
there for both artist and spectator alike. It can produce a soothing,
therapeutic etfect which partially explains its popularity. Thus one
can view a monument covered in knotwork and feel like a key is
turning inside the spectator. The knotwork creates a rhythm, a
movement that is mirrored in the spectator and a communion takes
place.
1 live in West Wales on the border
between Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in what was once the land
ofthe Demetae, and it came to me the other day that all the celtic
lands not only are in the west but also face west. They seem to have
their backs to the rest of Europe. And what they are facing is the
ocean, the vast Atlantic, where the ancients found magical lands,
"The Islands of the Blessed". From over these seas many great and
significant people arrived, St Brendan, St Gofan, Colum Cille to name
but a few. They seem to wash up somewhere and then stay there where
the tides had taken them. This is the starting point for my work. I
carve crosses, celtic crosses, and like the saints I find my wood
washed up on the shores of Pembrokeshire. There are certain coves
that are tidal bottlenecks that gather the wood for me. Coves between
cliffs. It is amanng what one finds among the flotsam, there's always
rubbish unfortunately even in the remotest places, but there
sometimes is treasure.
Once, near St Gofans chapel in South
Pembrokeshire, 1 found a wonderful branch, it was n't a plank and
when I picked it up it was heavy. It was nothing special to look at
but its weight gave it away. I carried it home and when 1 cut it
found it was almost black inside. I carved this piece of wood into a
figure of St. Gofan who was also washed up here in the 6th century,
what else?
The mystery of the origins of the
wood that 1 use is nicely in keeping with the work that I do. It
arrives on these shores and is then inscribed with designs. All these
pieces have biographies which with imagination one can try to
unravel. What I do to them is the next stage in their Lives, not the
final stage necessarily. I find it quite strange and wonderful to see
one of my crosses on a smart clean wall under a spotlight in a
gallery, knowing that a few months earlier it was on a windswept
beach or bobbing around in the waves. It all adds to the mystery. It
is even more amazing when someone buys it and they disappear out of
my life on to their next stage.
The designs 1 put on my crosses are
all of authentic Welsh origin. Welsh knotwork is simple compared to
Irish or Pictish work, yet it has a quiet charm about it that belies
its intrinsic complexity and potency. I like to think this reflects,
in a similar way, the Welsh landscape . I have quite a large cross on
my kitchen wall, the shaft is one large panel with a two loop design
taken From a cross base in Llantwit Major. It is interesting to see
when visitors come how before long their eyes start to follow the
pattem. Round and round. A momentum is started, an internal rhythm
set up. Its all very gentle, its as if the knotwork were singing. One
doesn't need to work it out, one can if one wants but it works by
itself, one receives it, one connects.
All the complexities of design fall
upon the artist. The methods of construction can involve hours of
painstaking work, getting the designs to work out. The next stage of
carving the knotwork in wood or stone, by hand, is by nature a long
and slow task. But as a spectator of the completed artwork, one
dances with ones eyes around the twists and loops in a lively,
whimsical way. I think at this point of all the incidents of "dancing
with the fairies" in various legends. What was carved in stone now
becomes alive. The viewer gives it life. The tensions and sweeping
movements within a carved panel are enlivened, the dynamics are
unlocked and the viewer begins to dance internally and the result is
healing.
Phil Forder lives at Glanrhydwilym
Llandissilio, Clundenven Pembs. SA66 7QH
Tel 01437 563 562
His work is permanently on show at
the Golden Sheaf Gallery, Narberth, Pembs and he has had exhibitions
at the Washington Gallery, Penarth, Glamorgan and the Trapp Art
Centre, Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire. Phil has also started a small
company that produces Welsh celtic greetings cards and books on local
subjects.
Celtic Pembrokeshire Home Page
*Gors Fawr Stone Circle and
the Presely Hills*Pentre Ifan,Tycanol, Nevern
and Carningli
*St Davids, St Nons and St
Davids Head *Credits and Links to other
sites
* Accommodation
in Celtic Pembrokeshire
