The Waxcap Wizard!

 

 

 

 

 

To my mind, this is The Waxcap Wizard  known to the rest of the world as Bruce Langridge.

 

 

 

 

 

He has been the Interpretation Officer at The National Botanic Garden of Wales for the last 10 years & is responsible for lots of things,

including trails ...

 

 

 

One of the trails around the garden that he organises is of waxcap fungi!

(That's mushroom-y-like- toadstools that grow wild and free,

to the likes of you and me).

 

In fact, when Bruce came to catch up with me on a cold January morning in the Oriel Gallery, he was more excited about fairy rings than even I was.

 

I told him that I had read his piece in Y Gardd Magazine and that I was really excited about writing  the sequel to my Dragon Tree Book/Production/Installation ... and that I now knew it would be called The Tethered Fairy Ring.

 

 

 

 

 

Then Bruce told me about a very special trail indeed! Bruce organised the first ever Fungi day here in Wales and it was so popular that it has now become National with other Gardens joining in! WOWZERS! WELL DONE BRUCE!

 

Bruce has led an all Wales search for the largest fairy rings, been on the Beeb talking about mushrooms ... when it comes to fungus, Bruce is the man! I was completely  mesmerised by his passion for wax caps.

 

 

 

 

And here comes the magical bit!

 

Bruce then told me some very, very interesting things about how to get in and out of fairy rings ...

 

He showed me precisely, the only way to get out of a fairy ring. Now let's face it, that is a very handy thing for a person such as you or I to know, should we ever find ourselves trapped inside one!

 

And as he enthralled me with his fairy stories, a little light bulb came on in my head ...

 

'Wouldn't it be AMAZING to launch my Tethered Fairy Ring here, at the Garden, on National Fungi Day, to tour her everywhere, and then bring her back here at the end of the tour on Fungi Day the following year with an Arts Installation!

 

'Yes,' said Bruce ...

 

... but I don't think Bruce knew me very well at the time. I don't think he knew that I would spend my every spare moment between then and now, composing a Symphonic Poem & Ukulele Overture for the Light Hearted (wink!)

 

I don't think Bruce could have guessed how I would lay awake at night running over The Tethered Fairy Ring time and time again in my mind until it made sense.

 

How should he have known that I would perform it to intimate audiences, other musicians and artists for feedback, as research to find out if the characters & story line work ...

 

... because I'm guessing, it's not every day that Science & The Arts have such a meeting on a January morning or any morning, come to that! 

 

Thanks a million Bruce for inspiring me!

 

 

NB: All the mushroom foto's in this post were taken by Bruce who kindly gave his permission for me to use them. Not sure who took the ones of him?

 

 

In my next blog I'll tell you how the different layers of The Tethered Fairy Ring started to unfold and how the characters showed themselves to me.

 

 

 

A Sprinkling of Fairy Dust!

 

As I say in my last blog, it was very cold in Oriel Gallery. I had on my mittens & scarf & big coat & long johns, but there is nothing quite the tonic on a winter's day, as a nice cuppa.

 

 

Foto by Colin Baglow

 

So, I headed over to the Café for a brew. As I sat down, I glanced at the Garden magazine Y Gardd.

There was a really interesting write up in there about Fairy rings! Seems that there are AMAZING fairy rings at the Garden.

A fairy ring is a complete ring of toadstool/mushrooms.

There is one in the Garden reported to be 150 years old! In fact, it could be the oldest living plant in the Garden!

And I love that!

Mother Nature just doing her thing, while we're digging & pruning & building & being all corporate about it, she's having a little snigger, making magical things happen right under our noses without us realising!

 

Painting by Josephine Forest

 

There are so many fairy ring folk stories but the magazine explained the bio-science bit!

A fairy ring as we know it, grows free, in a field, at random, wherever it likes ... it grows in a circle because each mushroom or toadstool is inter-connected growing from the roots and goodness of the next mushroom and over time, the roots spread into a circle. It's almost like the mushrooms are all holding hands and breathing life into each other

(that's not the science bit, that's my little head ticking!)

 

I thought 'WOW! I never knew mushrooms were so utterly cool!'  I continued to read on ...

 

 

 

It seems there is also another type of Fairy Ring ...

... a Tethered Fairy Ring.

This is a fairy ring that grows from the roots of a tree and consequently, over many years, will co-exist with the tree roots, while it's own roots grow around the trunk, in a complete circle!!

 

'WOWZERS TROUSERS!!!'  I thought, as a I warmed my hands on my cuppa, 'That's just awesome.' And it totally is, don't you think!

Let's face it, it seems that we could
learn a thing or two from mushrooms!!

 

 

 

And then I pootled back over to Oriel Gallery to sit with my Dragon Tree Exhibition and it dawned on me ... there was a fairy ring growing in my mind around the dragon tree .. the dragon tree had been the journey I was on, and growing around that tree, my next creative adventure, a magical, mystical, beautiful, tethered fairy ring!!

 

 

With that, in walked Bob Edwards, my friend, who is a volunteer at the Apothecary. There's nothing he doesn't know about ... well, anything really! He very kindly came to sit with me & we got chatting about fairy rings.

 

 

 

But as we were chatting, he was twiddling with something in his pockets. 'What's in your pockets, Bob?' I asked. He pulled out a bag of red & black rosary peas ... little oval peas that look like rosary beads. Turns out they are horribly poisonous!! 

 

'So, you've got Pockets of Poison,' I said to him ... 'Pockets of Poison ... P.O.P ... Pop ... Mmm ... that could be a character in my new piece ... Pop ... in the Tethered Fairy Ring ... '

 

 

 

Bob had dried peas in a little plastic bag .. but when I looked on the internet for images, this is exactly how I envisaged them in the story line ... as a necklace

 

 

 

Bob got really excited, and he offered to go and ask Bruce if he would come and talk with me about it. Bruce knows just about everything there is to know about fairy rings and runs fairy ring talks at the garden as one of the members of the Education Dept.

He also set up the first Fungi Day at The National Botanic Garden of Wales, which was so successful that it has now become a National Event at all the Botanic Gardens ... Well Done Bruce!

 

And so it began ...

the journey to my Tethered Fairy Ring

 

 

Find out in my next blog, about the magical sprinkling of fairy dust that happened once Bruce & I got chatting about Fairy Rings!!

 

 

 

New Beginning ...

As part of my last tour The Dragon Tree I was resident for 2 weeks at The National Botanic Garden of Wales where my film & book launched in Theatr Botanica.

 

I performed the songs live
with musicians & dancers ...

and I had an exhibition in the beautiful Gallery.

Little did I know that from the end of this journey, would come a new beginning ...

It was snowing quite heavily and it was just heaven to sit in the beautiful Gallery meeting the brave who had slid across the white landscape to see me. There were over 250 people who came to the Arts Installation Launch in Oriel Gallery. I was blown away! Even on the snowiest days, there was still a trickle of people throughout the day. It was a very beautiful experience because as a musician/performer, my impact with the audience has always been very intense and full on: condensed into 2 x 3/4 spots, whereas this was a new way of engaging with an audience, a slow more indepth and personal way.

 There were hours when no one came to the Gallery, particularly early in the morning and this gave me time to reflect on the hard work from the year that had just passed & where it might take me next on my journey.

I had been awarded an  Individual Mainline Grant from The Arts Council of Wales to write A New Folk Story for the West Wales Coastline but post Dragon Tree there would be no funding ...

foto by Brian Crofft

 

It was life changing having the Arts Council Grant. It had funded me to find time for my own creativity where previously my life had become full of directing and supporting others. I decided in that moment that my own creativity was special to me: I pondered that before me, in history, there had been so many artists, in so many genres, that created simply & purely because they create, regardless of funding!

And so I decided, in this personal space that I had found through the Dragon Tree, that whatever happened next, by hook or by crook, I would find a way to make space for myself within
my creative life!

 

So there I was, sat with my Welsh Language Arts Installation Coed Y Ddraig in Oriel Gallery, in the stillness of a cold, snowy afternoon, when

The Tethered Fairy Ring came to me ....

Find out in my next blog, how this man, 

Bob Edwards, the volunteer who runs the Apothecary at The National Botanic Garden of Wales, became POP!