Blast House 2

Blast House 2, the second in a series of literary events programmed at The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen took place last Tuesday evening. A nice line-up of poets read during the evening including Menna Elfyn and David Greenslade - my particular favourite was Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch.

Film was provided by Gareth Hugh Davies (my colleague at Oriel Myrddin Gallery). Well Known for his paintings; indigo twilight landscapes and studies, darkly brooding trees, glowing evening windows and street lamps, Gareth's films are a natural progression for his work. Simple short durational films; but through their simplicity they stir and disturb deep feelings. Here is a section from Ostinato - a versatile little blackbird singing in Gareth's garden. My favourite was a short film named Procession 1, passing car headlights cast shadows of the front garden hedge against the front wall of a house, hypnotic, a little sinister and melancholic, really beautiful.

Jazz and experimental music took the stage from Orfeo 5 and Parking Non-Stop with poet Zoe Skaulding.

Blast House

I went to The Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen on Friday evening for the first in a new series of poetry, music and art cabaret events. Congratulations to the 'curator' and organiser of Blast House, poet, Chris Ozzard. The identity of Blast House comes from the short lived literary magazine Blast published in 1914 and 1915 as a mouthpiece for the Vorticist movement and seen as emblematic for the first modern art movement in England.

The cover of the first edition of BLAST, 1914 from the Tate Collection

This is a brave and welcome development for Carmarthen. The evening was a brew of art films, jazz and poetry. I particularly enjoyed orfeo 5 headed up by electro-composer Shaun Blezard, and poet and saxophonist Keith Jafrate they collaborated for this performance with Carmarthenshire musician Susan Matthews.

I'm looking forward to the next event on 30th March which will include Zoë Skoulding, Poetry from Menna Elfyn, David Greenslade, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch and Alexander Trowbridge-Matthews, films from artist Gareth Hugh Davies and hopefully more from orfeo5.