A personal Map based on the novel 'No Hiding Place'

This is my personal response to the Digital Literary Atlas of Wales and its Borderlands Project, organised and co-ordinated by Dr Jon Anderson, Lecturer in Human Geography, Cardiff University and Dr Kieron Smith Research Associate School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University.

You can follow the development of the final piece here on this blog, including the accompanying book, explaining my thinking behind this work and the practical considerations. For now, here are some images of the work as it unfolded, so to speak.

I was fortunate to be selected as one of a number of artists that would be commissioned to respond through art to certain books that are considered significant in the Literary Landscape of Wales and its Borderlands.

When the title of the book was given to me, I was somewhat surprised. I had not read this book, although I had been aware of it having been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 

I could not wait to read it, and when I did, I could not put it down. It described a dysfunctional family, living in a socially deprived area in Tiger Town in Old Cardiff, near the docks. The landscape was unfamiliar to me experientially, but very resonant in terms of the human drama, the human geography and the sense of asphyxiating poverty. 

In addition, aspects of the behaviour of members of the family were familiar to me through my work as a teacher with young people facing challenging health and family circumstances.  I share another thing with the writer; a sense of being a part of another community and culture. 

Trezza Azzopardi's father was from Malta and my family are Greek. This duality creates fertile ground for asking interesting questions, but not necessarily finding answers. 

I hungrily read the book in two days and was submerged into the emotional landscape of the novel.  The setting had a very distinct physical aspect. Tiger Bay, Bute Town, the slums of the old Cardiff docks. All around the old Victorian houses in various stages of decay provided the backdrop for a human drama that one could not but feel drawn into.  The smells of the surroundings, the dull, joyless houses, purely functional, and then only just so; the logistics of keeping a family, when the main earner is a gambling, immoral and self-absorbed loser; the innocent descriptions of the horrors of paternal neglect and violence.

I had to try and capture this quickly, and so over the period of several days, a  'Map' of sorts emerged. In the next few pages, I present the process and explain elements of this work and its links with the novel.

I did not want to draw the whole image out because I know that I sometimes lose momentum when doing so, and also, it becomes less inventive.  Drawing directly on the paper with indelible ink has an element of risk that I like and also makes me much more careful as to where the composition takes me. In addition, it allows my first thoughts to be made permanent, on the paper.
I think that when I draw in pencil the work has a much more considered look overall. I can rub out, redraw, recompose and reposition elements. I have found that this can sometimes result in much less visceral outcomes. So for me, it is a conscious choice in some of my work to capture my first thoughts without censorship and redrafting. This is what I wanted here and this is what I attempted to do.
What happens, however, is that you accept your first draft, your first marks as your honest direct expression to a stimulus and then you have to live with your decisions, and of course your mistakes.
I had to be particularly careful with the map of Tigar Bay and the surrounding areas taken from a late 60's area map. This took up most of the lower part and was combined with Fran's harmed arm and Mary's strong but disquieting face.