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Esyllt Lewis

Y Gymraeg mewn celf; how experience informs the language of writing and drawing

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All great drawing is drawing by memory... Even before a model, you draw from memory. The model is a reminder. Not of a stereotype you know by heart. Not even of anything you can consciously remember. The model is a reminder of experiences you can only formulate and therefore only remember by drawing. And those experiences add up to your awareness of the tangible, three-dimensional, structural world. A blank page of a sketch-book is a blank, white page.... That space is filled with the potentiality of every form, sliding plane, hollow, point of contact, passage of separation you have ever set eye or hand on.

(Berger 2005, p. 102)

Fy enw i yw Esyllt Lewis. Dwi’n 23 ac, wedi imi geisio ymrafael â fy hunaniaeth drwy astudio

gradd academaidd mewn Cymraeg ac Athroniaeth yng Nghaerdydd, a threulio misoedd o

ddiflastod yn gweithio i gwmni cyfieithu preifat, rwyf bellach yma yn Yr Hen Ogledd, yn

astudio gradd meistr mewn arlunio yng ngholeg celf Glasgow, er mwyn ceisio cymathu fy

mhrofiadau blaenorol gyda fy niddordebau academaidd a fy ymarfer artistig.

Having studied a foundation course in art & design, a BA degree in Welsh and philosophy,

and working as a translator for a few months, my methodology for artistic practice centres

around the notion that every experience and every act of drawing, however banal or

seemingly pointless, holds significance within it, which informs my work and my conception

of the world. Seeking to learn from every experience and every piece of work I create allows

me the freedom to make work of varying quality, knowing that through making, you are

learning and solving problems all the time. The process of making is therefore the most

important element for me. Does dim ateb anghywir, dim ond creu a symud ymlaen o hyd. I

try to use this as a methodological framework for my interest in using drawing through

language and language through drawing, bringing inspiration from everyday, mundane

experiences, as well as formative experiences that link with a lifelong interest in preserving

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Welsh language culture and communities. This essay will outline how different personal

experiences have informed my research interests and methodology for practice.

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The world of art and the world of languages have been the two persistent passions in my

life, and bringing these things into dialogue through artistic practice is what I strive to do

through studying a Master of Letters in drawing. I am doing this by attempting to combine

text and drawing in my work in a necessary way, so that both elements are integral to the

work’s success and relevance, rather than writing / drawing becoming an accessory /

distraction from the work’s driving force. This could come to fruition in different ways: text

becoming a part of the structure of a painting, or text and language informing the creation

of a painting, or a piece of text being generated from a drawing. Through the process of

writing this essay, I firstly hope to understand, analyse and share the things that drive my

need to create, informing my methodology for practice. Secondly, by writing bilingually,

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mae modd i mi archwilio’r hyn sy’n bwysig o ran fy niddordebau ymchwil mewn modd

ehangach na’r hyn y gall cyfyngiadau’r byd Seisnig ei gynnig. Rhaid cydnabod pwysigrwydd y

Gymraeg fel rhan greiddiol o’r hyn sy’n ffurfio sylfaen fy ngwaith, a hefyd yn ffurfio

strwythurau’r methodoleg yr wyf yn eu defnyddio er mwyn creu, gan ymwrthod rhywfaint

â’r strwythurau grym hegemonaidd, a chyfleu realiti fy mhrofiad yn ei gyflawnder. Fel

dywed Alison Phipps,

Let’s work harder to cite those who live and work in languages other than English, or at least other than English first.... (rather than) masking the multilingual by the requirements of clarity, cohesion, transparency and an academic publishing world of words which keeps on putting English first, and then putting those first whom the counters find to have the most citations, in English (Phipps 2019, t. 6).

Trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg rwy’n profi angerdd ac emosiwn yr hyn sy’n bwysig i mi, trwy

gyfrwng y Saesneg rwy’n gallu pellháu fy hun oddi wrth y pethau hyn, a dadansoddi pam eu

bod yn bwysig i mi. Yn yr un modd, mae rhywbeth tebyg ar waith wrth i mi arlunio. Making

drawings and artwork is for me both a psychological departure from the issues that are

important to me, and a way of disseminating these issues in a physical, public way. Mae’r

pethau yr wyf yn poeni amdanynt yn faterion academaidd, dwys, but making art is a process

that releases me o’r maglau deallusol, mae’n agoriad creadigol o’r holl broblemau a’r heriau

sy’n chwyrlïo yn fy mhen yn ymwneud â hunaniaeth a fy ngofod yn y byd.

Treftadaeth Gymraeg

Esyllt Lletchwith. I have a Welsh name – a name that instantly sets me apart – a name which

is ‘difficult’ to pronounce – difficult for a monoglot English speaker. As soon as I introduce

myself, people are confronted with a different window to the world, a different place,

existence, language. Mae hyn yn golygu bod fy enw yn wleidyddol. And yet, I am white, and

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speak good English, thus casual xenophobia towards my mothertongue is acceptable. Mae’n

berwi. I cannot escape my identity - which underpins the way I view and construct the world

- neither would I want to.

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I decided to study Welsh, rather than fine art, as an undergrad, in order to grapple with it; y

Gymraeg, rwyf yn credu, yw hanfod y ffordd yr wyf yn gweld a deall y byd. Mamiaith, as a

first language Welsh speaker from an area where the Welsh language’s relevance to daily

life is becoming less and less apparent.

Languages are very delicate networks of historically accumulated associations, and a

thought in Welsh has innumerable and untraceable connections with the thought of

past centuries, with the environment, with the scenery even, with one’s mother and

father, with their mothers and fathers, with the moral and emotional terms in which

the community has discussed its differences (Thomas 1971, Ar-lein).

These words from Ned Thomas’ book, ‘The Welsh Extremist’, written in the 70’s, but still

crucial in understanding perspectives on the Welsh language, highlights the importance of

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experience and memory of language in formulating ideas, in a similar way to the claims

made in Lavin’s diary quoted at the beginning of this essay about the influence acquired

through the visual language of drawing. Roedd astudio gradd yn y Gymraeg yn garreg

sylfaen i mi i ddod yma i astudio celf; mae profiadau a chysylltiadau personol yn llywio’r

ffordd yr wyf i’n creu celf a deall y byd, yn ffurfio iaith weledol o’r ieithoedd geiriol a

roddwyd i mi. Drawing every day allows me to process and assess how learnt ideas about

language and place inform my understanding of drawing in the present, and vice versa; how

drawing in the present develops or challenges these learnt assumptions from my past

experiences, such as studying Welsh and Philosophy at Undergraduate level.

Welsh and English are my languages – deuoliaeth sy’n ddrysfa ddifyr ddibendraw - a

language binary which forms the crux of my research interests, and my artistic practice. A

wyf yn mynegi fy hun yn well yn Gymraeg? Ni allaf fod yn siŵr. Am gyfnod hir, doeddwn i

ddim yn credu fod siarad Cymraeg a chreu celf yn mynd law yn llaw. Roedd y byd celf yn

teimlo fel rhywbeth cyffrous ac estron; ond Seisnig, gyda’r byd Cymraeg yn perthyn i

farddoniaeth, llenyddiaeth a cherddoriaeth – nid celf weledol aruchel. Rwy’n parhau i

ymladd y teimlad hwn sy’n cnoi, nad oes lle i’r Gymraeg ym myd celf, a dyma reswm arall

dros ysgrifennu’r traethawd hwn yn rhannol yn fy iaith gyntaf.

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Argyfwng yr hinsawdd

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My experience growing up reading and studying Welsh poetry about keeping, sustaining,

preserving land alongside language, has no doubt affected my desire to situate myself

within a landscape through drawing,

“Cadwn y mur rhag y bwystfil, Cadwn y ffynnon rhag y baw”

We shall keep the wall from the beast, we shall keep the fountain from the muck

“Cawsom wlad i’w chadw, darn o dir yn dyst ein bod wedi mynnu byw.”

We were given a country to preserve, a piece of land that was proof that we had insisted on living

These are some of the most well-known and well-loved lines of poetry that we have, the

use of the first person plural ‘cadwn’ and ‘cawsom’ making sure the reader too feels the

urgency and responsibility of the explicit links made between the intertwining of place and

language in this poetry. Nawr bod gwarchod yr amgylchedd a gor-bryder yr hinsawdd yn

dod yn fwyfwy amlwg, mae fel petai pobl yn dod yn fwy goddefgar tuag at ieithoedd a

diwylliannau lleiafrifol ac yn dathlu amrywiaeth ynghanol

T

I

R

L

I

T

H

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R

I

A

D

globaleiddio a chynhesu byd-eang. The relentless growth of global capitalism and the eco-

crisis it has created means that people are seemingly seeking and appreciating alternative

ways of thinking and being, in order to celebrate diversity in the face of homogenisation,

Such language differentiation may be tied to ecological differentiation. In this view,

people adapted their words to the ecological niches they occupied, and California’s

highly varied ecology encouraged its linguistic diversity. The theory is supported by

maps indicating that areas with greater numbers of animal and plant species also

have greater numbers of languages (Solnitt 2005, p. 18).

Mae’r angen i osod enwau arbennig ar dirlun penodol yn elfen yr wyf wedi bod yn ei

harchwilio’n ddiweddar wrth fraslunio Glasgow city skyline, looking at how a certain

landscape is altered or affected by the verbal language through which it is observed,

painting by the letters of different languages, rather than painting by numbers. Starting with

Cymraeg,

English,

Français,

Italiano,

Deutsch,

Español.

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Being able to react to my immediate surroundings and being spontaneous in the way I

create, whilst visually formulating these weighty, lifelong concerns involving identity, is very

important to me in my process of learning through making. Thus, looking back at the Welsh

language through the spectrum of Glasgow yn y presennol,

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allows me some physical and mental distance o’r hyn sy’n hynod bersonol; y gobeithion a’r

pryderon hynny sy’n cael eu cario o’r gorffennol. I hope to further develop this practice of

reacting impulsively to my immediate surroundings, whilst being subconsciously informed

by the knowledge and the insight I have gained from my own past experiences and values

system.

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Cyfieithu

For a few regrettable months at the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019, I worked as a

translator in Cardiff, part of a Welsh language private company, where computer

programme efficiency and profit were more important than wellbeing. I hated it – the

language being overly-digitized, jargonized, forging an unthinking, robotic attitude towards

life. It did not align with how I naïvely saw Welsh-speaking Wales, as radical, socialist and

quietly resisting the pressures set upon us by Anglo-American cultural capital. Surely the

Welsh language should not want to conform to the soul-less money-making of global

capitalism? Ai dyma’r ‘Calon Peiriant’ y cana Gwenno amdani?

Mae’r profiad hwn fodd bynnag wedi fy ysgogi i fod eisiau creu a gwella’r hyn sy’n ein

hamgylchynu bob dydd, it has taught me that every experience, however demeaning, helps

with your learning. From this seemingly wholly negative experience, now I am hugely

interested in using translation in creative, subversive ways, ac ystyried y ffyrdd y mae

cyfieithu o’r Gymraeg ac i’r Gymraeg yn gymorth wrth fwydo cyfalafiaeth, ac yn fodd o

adfywio neu grebachu achos y Gymraeg. Wedi’r cyfan, cyfieithiad William Morgan o’r Beibl

i’r Gymraeg yw un o’r pennaf resymau y mae’r Gymraeg wedi medru goroesi mor wyrthiol o

dan bwysau’r byd modern. Therefore translation is all important in the success or failure of

the Welsh language as a living entity. I’m interested in examining identity through

languages, dissecting language to create new meanings, and new ways of thinking.

Niwed

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newid

geiriau.

Conservation conversation.

But minority language culture ultimately undermines the efficiency of capitalism, through its

difference, and difference slows us down. Wyt ti’n gallu cyfieithu hiraeth? Hoffwn weld y

Gymraeg yn cael ei defnyddio’n greadigol fel modd o wrthwynebu byd sy’n gynyddol

homogenaidd o dan ddylanwad cyfalafiaeth fyd-eang, McDonalds, a bod y frwydr i gynnal yr

amgylchedd ffisegol yn mynd law yn llaw â’r frwydr i achub diwylliannau dan ormes. Welsh

and other marginalised languages, rather than conforming to new technologies which

contribute to the homogenizing efficiency of capitalism, could actually be used to resist this

beige big mac consumption; by thinking and making in alternative, more sustainable ways,

alongside our use of new media. As the protagonist in Owain Owain’s ysgytwol novel, Y

Dydd Olaf (The Last Day), notes in his last diary at the beginning of the novel,

Yr hollwybodus ei hun — yn methu a deall fy iaith fach i!

Fe â’r dyddiadur hwn drwy’i grombil electronaidd heb roi cam-dreuliad iddo! Fydd o’n darganfod dim yn hwn sy’n waharddedig — oherwydd nid yw’n deall yr un gair o’r iaith fach ddibwys hon! Ac fe fydd popeth — y gwaharddedig a’r diwaharddedig — yn cael eu micro-ffilmio a’u storio’n ddianaf yn y cof electronaidd (Owain 1976, Ar-lein).

The Welsh language should try to subvert the expectation of global uniformity; “it preserves

an area of inner freedom, of conscious alienation from the system, and at the same time a

means of contact which by-passes, indeed short-circuits the machine (Thomas 1971, Ar-

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lein).” Credaf fod hyn yn hollbwysig – nid ceisio troi i ffwrdd o ddiwylliant y system ddigidol

a wnawn, ond ei oddiweddyd, gweld heibio iddo, a thorri ar ei draws, ei blygu i’n dibenion ni

ein hunain.

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If translation is indeed a work’s ‘afterlife’, as Walter Benjamin attested, then we must

endeavour to make that life as interesting, creative and relevant to our existence as

possible. Simply translating directly from Welsh into English or English into Welsh surely kills

a text, rather than giving it a new life, memento mori. As Ned Thomas asserts, “We either

have to lie down as if dead or do something new (Thomas 1971, Ar-lein)”. Mae hefyd yn

bwysig gwybod pryd y mae cyfieithu’n angenrheidiol, a phryd y dylwn ymatal, a

gwerthfawrogi gwahanrwydd, Remember Tryweryn. Wele enghraifft. Y geiriau ‘hiraeth’ neu

‘cwtsh’. Mae cwtsh yn cael ei orddefnyddio. Cwtsh is a term that has become a trope, a

stereotype of Welshness, plastered on any interior design detail you could hope to acquire –

cushions, slate tiles, photoframes, mugs, soap dispensers. And its Anglicised version, ‘C w t c

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h’ with a c rather than an s, bastardizes the Welsh language spelling and pronounciation.

Gellid dadlau, however, that changing the spelling is a lazy form of adaption, making this

phenomenon more widely accessible to a broader Anglo-normative audience and allows for

ease of access. It is then possible to create a market for mass-produced cushions with the

words ‘Only the Welsh can cwtch’; sold on instagram, facebook, etsy. Is this not an example

of how a minority culture tries to align itself with global capitalism, altering our sense of

identity in order to sell Welshness as a commodity?

Mae cyflwyno traethawd yn rhannol yn Gymraeg yn frwydr ynddi’i hun yn erbyn diffyg

amrywiaeth deallusol; mae gymaint o sôn yn y byd celf am ‘interventions’, ond yn aml maen

nhw’n weithredoedd llaith, diddim. Nid oes unrhyw beth yn bod ar hynny mewn egwyddor,

wrth gwrs. Ond mewn cyfnod sy’n berwi gyda chymaint o argyfyngau amrywiol, mae angen

ymyrraeth o ddifrif. Un fechan yw hon. Rwy’n ymgymryd â gweithred o ymwrthod, o

danseilio strwythurau grym. Writing in Welsh here, now, offers a way of resisting conformity

to the digitized, efficient, machine-driven institutional order of things. A written artistic

intervention. Osgoi gweld y byd celf a maes ymchwil celf fel rhywbeth sy’n perthyn i’r iaith

Saesneg, unedig yn unig. Ymlaen!

In a similar way, drawing every day is a form of intervention, both by chipping away at my

own pre-conceived ideas, and reacting to my present surroundings. Fy methodoleg ar gyfer

creu celf yw creu bob dydd heb feddwl am faterion mawr yn ormodol, ond gadael i’r

materion hynny suddo i mewn i’r gwaith yn araf dros amser. By drawing every day, I can

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begin to break down weighty, abstract concerns involving themes such as identity, cultural

and ecological erosion, translation and loss of language, into concrete, visual reflections for

a wider audience na dim ond fy ymennydd i fy hun. This notion that every experience affects

my art liberates me to work in a way that is not self-conscious, as I know that ideas and

personal history seep into my work without me knowing it almost. Trwy gyfrwng profiadau o

bob math, I am forming a visual language of drawing and writing which analyzes my place as

a Welsh bilingual artist in the artworld, offering a different viewpoint to the traditional

higherarchies, resisting the clutches of modern day ‘progress’ and its destruction of

separate identities and ecologies. Cenedl yw gwarth cynnydd. Using the prism of my

personal history, experiences and language as a grounding for making, I hope to draw and

write using all the potential and lightness of the present, to envisage an alternative to

capitalism and homogenisation in the future. Gadewch i ni danseilio grym y peiriant drwy

gyfrwng yr iaith fach ddibwys hon.

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Bibliography

Benjamin, Walter. The Task of the Translator. [Online Version] Available: http://www.totuusradio.fi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Benjamin-The-Task-of-the-

Translator.pdf [Seen: 04.12.2019]

Berger, John. 2005. Berger on Drawing. Occassional Press: Cork.

Owain, Owain. 1976. Y Dydd Olaf. [Fersiwn Ar-Lein] Ar Gael: https://slebog.net/y-dydd-olaf/. [Gwelwyd: 04.12.2019]

Thomas, Ned. 1971. The Welsh Extremist. [Fersiwn Ar-Lein].

Ar Gael: http://archif.cymdeithas.cymru/dadlwytho/ned-thomas-the-welsh-extremist.pdf

[Gwelwyd: 04.12.2019]

Phipps, Alison 2019. A manifesto for decolonising minority languages. [Online Version] Available: https://channelviewpublications.wordpress.com/2019/09/06/a-manifesto-for-decolonising-multilingualism/ [Seen: 04.12.2019]

Solnitt, Rebecca. 2007. A fieldguide to getting lost. Canongate Books: Edinburgh.

Images

1 Studio view, Stow Building, GSA.

2 ‘Esyllt Lletchwith’, Mixed Media on paper.

3 ‘Iaith Neb’, Brush pen and POSCA on paper.

4 ‘Painting by Letters 1’ Graphite and gouache on paper.

5 ‘Language Preferences Swyddfa Meicrosofft’, Ink on paper.

Articles

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/27/peru-student-roxana-quispe-collantes-thesis-inca-language-quechua

Reading List

Artful – Ali Smith

Beibl William Morgan

Cerddi – Gerallt Lloyd Owen

The Living Mountain – Nan Shepherd

http://www.totuusradio.fi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Benjamin-The-Task-of-the-Translator.pdfhttp://www.totuusradio.fi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Benjamin-The-Task-of-the-Translator.pdfhttps://slebog.net/y-dydd-olaf/http://archif.cymdeithas.cymru/dadlwytho/ned-thomas-the-welsh-extremist.pdfhttps://channelviewpublications.wordpress.com/2019/09/06/a-manifesto-for-decolonising-multilingualism/https://channelviewpublications.wordpress.com/2019/09/06/a-manifesto-for-decolonising-multilingualism/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/27/peru-student-roxana-quispe-collantes-thesis-inca-language-quechuahttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/27/peru-student-roxana-quispe-collantes-thesis-inca-language-quechua

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Dail Pren – Waldo Williams

Y Gododdin - Aneirin

Venice – Jan Morris

Ways of Seeing – John Berger

Cerddoriaeth

Tir Ha Mor - Gwenno

Y Dydd Olaf – Gwenno

Y Don Olaf - Lleuwen

Ysbryd Solva – Meic Stevens