Piano Pilgrimage
We are very pleased to have Sarah Goudie as a guest blogger!
I visited on a warm and windy July day to see Piano Drowning. Our experiences of heat and drought led our conversation as we walked a dusty path through purple wildness towards the cool of the pond. My sense of wonder had focused and arrested my senses as we came towards this place, archived in my mind through image and story. Murmurs swept through the branches over our heads; children chattering, musicians scattering interior sound, echos of a swimmer carving deep water.
Screeching, a heron broke the air, a lift off through beating wings woke us. With a new sharpened reality, we saw the water had receded and exposed almost the entire piano. Water markings and evidence of submersion circled it. The shifting and lifted keys danced with leaves fallen from the trees overhead. Such stillness in an object, waiting, punctuated in this place of deep history and journey by gifts of response.
Evidence of activity, people coming, the Wood-possibilities haikus by Jo Alexander and Lillemor Latham were on and around the piano. We searched for woven willow, seed pods and forms by Maggie Evans and glimpsed them, burrowed in and amongst new growth. My response, formed by an Anglesey wind, travels with me still and these spontaneous drawings spoke the experience back to me on my return home.
With sincere thanks to Julie for organising in her absence and to Philomena and Brian for a beautiful welcome and tour of Plas Bodfa.
Sarah Goudie August 6th 2022
