Description

The theme of ‘belonging’ in my work acts as a visceral response to Dylan Thomas’ Return Journey. I see in it Dylan’s expression of his barely concealed love of Swansea – its physical seaside setting, its inhabitants, their language, foibles, and interrelationships. Undoubtedly, Dylan firmly identified himself with the city. I feel that, at that moment, despite his years of working in London, he was still a ‘Swansea Jack’ at heart.

Nowadays, the term Swansea Jack is commonly used to describe people born and bred in Swansea. I wanted to find out the origin of the expression. One of the earliest derivations of the term describes how in the early nineteenth century, Swansea sailors were so highly regarded for their mariner skills that they could join any crew merely by virtue of the fact that they came from the
town. They were dubbed Swansea Jack ‘Tars’ because of the tar painted on their clothing to make it waterproof. I was so intrigued by this story that I decided to use tar to create a portrait of Dylan.

The medium dictated a continuous-line technique for the drawing which was made by dripping boiling tar on paper. I particularly liked the unpredictability of using
the hot tar which changed its mark depending on the distance it was dripped and on its temperature. The original tar image was scaled down and transferred to a silk screen. In my print I tried to portray Dylan as I pictured him on that visit, devastated by the loss of his beloved home town. I hoped to create some sense of Dylan’s anguish and ‘hiraeth’ for the certainties of
his youth.

The deliberately incomplete white text to one side of my print, lists the names of some of the ‘…remembered, invisible shops’ (Dylan Thomas) that were obliterated in the three-night blitz that afflicted Swansea in 1941. It was recorded that local Swansea people of that time were particularly shocked by the destruction of the Ben Evans’ Store. To me, this has a strong resonance with our contemporary situation where the rapid disappearance of familiar shops is risking the erosion of a city’s communal spirit.

Jane Jones is a Swansea-based artist. Initially trained in Graphic Design in Newport College of Art, she recently completed an MA ContemporaryDialogues course in Fine Art at Swansea
Metropolitan University, graduating in 2012.