Catrin Saran James

Yesterday I tackled my favourite concrete sculptural mural with a bit of Guerilla Restoration. The sun was shining and my cleaning products did me proud as did some passers by. Here are a few stills from the short film that will be on https://catrinsaranjames.com/ soon

I came across these adverts in my day to day work as an archivist.

They come direct from a Silver Jubilee souvenir edition of The Evening Post from June 23rd 1977.

I think they speak for themselves.
John Ham’s music shop, John was the brother of the gifted Pete Ham of Badfinger. George Harrison’s Gibson SG was located in the window of the shop as he gifted it to Pete, the rest is tragic pop history as we know….

Wonderful to see David Evans adverts. Again the panels from the facade of the David Evans building are now located in the garden of Swansea Museum.I wonder what happened to the department store archive? I’m off to find out.

We had a great morning at the gallery first thing. Artist Anna Barratt is working with the Glynn Vivian on summer workshops with young people between the ages of 14 and 20.
There is something for all young creatives through the summer and beyone via the Black Kettle Collective events hosted by The Glynn Vivian: http://www.glynnvivian.com/

Photos were taken of the city centre prior to the workshop and then printed to create photo montage work in response to ‘of time and the city’.

Lawrence seen here is keen on architecture and planning in general and we had great discussions on the city centre and what young people would like to see structure and public space wise in Swansea.

We’ve had many wonderful visitors to Galerie Simpson since ‘of time and the city’ opened a few weeks ago.
Visitors from far and wide, inquisitive locals, artists and tourists. What they all have in common is their reaction to the exhibition and work on show. They all have happy memories and their own interpretation of the era that the exhibition evokes. Job done.

Here we have a few pictures of the colour archive film of 1950s and 1960s Swansea. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had exclusive access to hours of footage from the film archive at West Glamorgan Archive Service. I feel very privileged to have these films as part of ‘of time and the city’.
The films are shown within Swansea Museum’s 1960s television case, which is part of their collection and what a smart object it is too. The films and the case are a perfect match.

Visitors are coming in and spending time, having a cup of tea while watching these films and each person young or old have their own appreciation of the moving images on show.

Some of the footage shows the 1966 centenary celebrations organised by the famous department store Lewis Lewis that was situated opposite Galerie Simpson on the High Street. It was a much loved store and my grandmother Gwennie Morgan also worked there in the drapery department in the 1960s.

In my professional working capacity I work in the Archives sector.
I’m currently working an a private archive in Gower. I was cataloguing a magazine called The South Wales Observer from 1953 and as I flicked through the pages I found these marvellous shop adverts for the then newly built part of Swansea that was heavily bombed in ‘The 3 Nights’ Blitz’. Most of these businesses existed prior to WW2 and you can see how proud they are rising from the ashes by advertising in this quite prestigious magazine. They were too good to not share as it doesn’t get more relevant than this to my exhibition.
The only advert not from 1953 is The Thomas Thomas advert, which is from a marketing brochure for Swansea from 1971.

Here are some marvellous photos from the late 1950s of the exterior and interior of The Mayflower restaurant that was situated on the then brand new glamorous Kingsway, Swansea.

Wouldn’t it be smashing if we had our lunch there today?

The building now houses the Co-operative bank and is still one of the better maintained post-war buildings on this now unloved and misunderstood stretch of tarmacadam.

Images Swansea Museum, City and County of Swansea.

Wendell Nicholas, Chemist. Located near Swansea Market.

Rich The Chemist, Swansea town centre.

Looking at dating these shop fronts as 1958/59.

Saturday 8th August
5pm-8pm
Galerie Simpson, 222 High Street, Swansea
FREE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1443468659314237

As part of the ‘of time and the city’ exhibition currently on at Galerie Simpson, we are having an early evening showing of short films from the Free Cinema movement of the mid 1950s in Britain. In a nutshell the Free Cinema is now acknowledged as a highly influential moment in British cinema history, which not only re-invigorated British documentary in the 1950s but also served as a precursor to the British New Wave in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There will be tea and cake at the gallery and comfy seating. http://www.galeriesimpson.com/

The Weaver & Company Ltd flour mill
Built: 1897 
Demolished: 1984

These tiles bricks from the Weaver & Co. LTD signage are on display now at Galerie Simpson on loan from Swansea Museum. Come and see these historical architectural features for FREE on Swansea’s High Street. 

These tiled bricks are part of a large collection of bricks that made up the huge Weaver and Co. Ltd signage that sat on the top floor of the building.

This huge mill dominated the skyline of Swansea from 1897 to 1984.
Weaver & Company Limited flour mill was a large grain store and processing plant situated near Swansea’s North Dock.
Today the site is occupied by Sainsbury’s supermarket car park.

Weaver’s made flour from imported wheat and then distributed its processed product to the many local bakers in the town and beyond. Such was the importance of Weaver’s in the food chain of the locale that it was targeted by the German Luftwaffe during World War 2 and has been seen by some historians as being the primary draw for the intense bombing of the town in the Three Night’s Blitz of February 1941.

The rather imposing building of Weaver’s was built in 1897 by the French engineer and reinforced concrete pioneer Français Hennebique and was Europe’s first multi-storey reinforced concrete building.

The mill looked very modern architecturally at the time compared to the traditional Victorian splendour of the rebuilt Swansea around Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee that same year.

Miraculously surviving the full might of German bombing during World War II, the company finally closed in the latter half of the same century. The reinforced concrete building proved very difficult to demolish but has now been built upon by the supermarket firm Sainsbury’s.

Further buildings associated with the flour mill have now also been lost to history – their space now occupied by part of Swansea’s main arterial road – Fabian’s Way.

Thank you for reading.

http://www.galeriesimpson.com/artists/13/catrin-saran-james/41/to-market-2015

Catrin