It begins with a walk.
It follows to a connection.
Then ends with an ode to a story untold, a material lost.
The Project: Material legacy: Copper
Material legacy: Copper has formed from lunchtime walks down to the beach of Swansea Bay. Strewn across the sand are fragments of industries lost; pieces of brick, copper slag, and coal to name a few. I began these walks when I joined the Gallery Assistant team at the National Waterfront Museum, one of Amgueddfa Cymru’s seven sites. Within its walls are the stories and objects of past Welsh and Swansea based industrial factories that were important in the raw material processing of the world . There is a poignant connection when holding a piece of washed up copper slag and seeing the images within the walls of the museum of men working the material. Even more poignant still are the lives that have been affected by its legacy, an industry lost and an environment polluted.
I am an environmental responsive artist. I spend time in locations across Wales collecting waste materials or materials of importance to Wales. I reimagine these fragments of Welsh history and industry to process into my own sets of paints and also into sculptural paintings. I have previously used materials such as slate and iron to make paints based on the rusting slate cliffs of Pembrokeshire. The key material in Material Legacy is copper, that once had a major role in the life of Swansea. The shapes and forms my paintings and sculptures take in this project are based on industrial tools and objects from the National Waterfront Museum and the coastline of Swansea Bay.
Brief history of Swansea's industrial history
Swansea was once known as the Copperopolis of the world. There were two significant factories near Swansea Bay that processed copper:, Hafod and White Rock. White Rock Copperworks was established in 1737 and then Hafod in 1808-09. In 1810 Wales was the largest producer of copper ingots in the world. This vast production also resulted in a significant amount of waste within the process called slag. The lumps of slag were piled high, and by researching I have found that some of the molten slag was directly poured into brick moulds. In locations across Swansea there are walls built with this dark black/brown/purple material. I have also been told that slag was piled high in the sea to create the harbours we now know. In storms this slag was washed ashore and then harbour ‘walls’ would be piled up again with slag. It was a continuous process of dispersing and rebuilding against the tide and weather.
A responding
So how can we look at the industrial waste collected by the sea on Swansea Bay? Picking up different pieces of copper slag, they hold so many different colours:purple, brown, orange, black. They really are quite beautiful in their bubbling oozing forms.
My first thought in this project was to process the copper slag into pigments however due to the hardness and unknown contents I began thinking sculpturally with them. I then read about the ‘brick/slag’ walls of Swansea and it made me want to create my own. I wonder if this repurposing still happens as part of copper processing? Using beeswax as the mortar I have created my own small ‘wall’ of slag as an ode to this sustainable practice that was in use in the factories of Swansea. The beeswax is a nod to the bees which are housed in the National Waterfront Museum, it is also an organic material which I think balances the brutality of the copper slag.
As a painter I couldn’t help but create some paints from material which surrounded the Copper Slag. Paint is made up of a pigment (the coloured powder) and a binder (the glue). I found pieces of brick, shells, charcoal washed on shore which created some beautiful fine pigments. I then used gum arabic, a type of sap from the acacia tree, as the binder. It’s important to me to use natural, organic or waste materials within my practice.
These paintings and pigments lead me to an experimental performative piece on the bay. The work was made using pure gum arabic painted onto a piece of linen and then, using a piece of brick, I rubbed it into the linen to create a paint on the surface of the linen. The brick left a beautiful rich orange colour on its surface. It was also quite a physical process as I had to fight against the sand under the linen. Through this grinding and physical processing I was thinking about the brutality of the making of these materials surrounding me. Refining copper was a hot and difficult process for the men working in these factories. Making pigments is a physical process which echoes in a small way the industrial processes that the men went through.
Paint making recipe
I couldn’t finish this article without giving you an opportunity to make your own natural paints. As I have previously written paint is a mixture of binder (the glue) and a pigment (a powder). They are ground together in a pestle and mortar to bind into a paint. Something to note is that not all natural paints will last, they are fugitive and can fade or shift in colour, its the beauty of the medium to see how they change over time.
My basic recipe for a watercolour paint is:
2 parts pigment (this can be any powder from spices to makeup, to your own ground up natural material). A note on grinding your own pigments from natural materials: It’s important to wear a mask, goggles, gloves and work in a well-ventilated space when using collected materials as sometimes they can have hidden heavy metal components. Using something like slate I will place it into a heavy linen bag and hammer it into smaller fragments being careful of my hands. I will then put it into a marble pestle and mortar with a dash of water to grind into a powder.
1 part dissolved Gum Arabic (recipe below)
2:1 parts lukewarm water to hardened gum. Place the gum into a muslin bag (a jam straining bag works well). Place that into a jar of water overnight until you can see the golden substance has liquified. You will see parts of bark inside the bag from when the gum was harvested.
The tools you’ll need are:
A white pestle and mortar (not your kitchen one though!)
A facemask
Goggles
Gloves
The process:
1. Begin by popping your mask, goggles and gloves on.
2. Slowly add your pigment into your pestle and mortar. Then add a dash of water just to coat your pigment. This is an important step as it reduces the chance of your pigments entering your airspace.
3. Give the softened pigment a good ground at this stage.
4. Next add your gum arabic and grind again until you have a smooth paint.
5. At this stage your paint is ready to use but you can also loosen it with some water.
6. Paint away!
Rhiannon Rees graduated from Loughborough University with an honours degree in 2021. During her studies she was selected to study for a year in the Painting Department at the Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki, Finland. After graduating Rhiannon has shown across the midlands of England and across Wales. She has also exhibited internationally in Bridgeport USA. In 2023 she was published in Spacecraft Magazine and was selected as an Associate Artist of Oriel Myrddin. In 2023 she also had her first solo exhibition as part of the Aberetwm Festival with Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Rhiannon has recently shown work in Elysium Gallery, Swansea, and Gallery Gwyn, Aberaeron.
