During May 2008 (Museums and Galleries month) I worked as Artist in Residence at Plas Newydd, Llangollen www.llangollen.com

The journals and notebooks kept by Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century are full of curious, interesting and often amusing observations about their life together at Plas Newydd.

It is part of my professional practice as an artist to keep a sketch book diary, so for my month long residency it seemed a natural choice to create a diary for my project. Drawing from what I saw around me and relating my observations to the Ladies' writings I was able to make visual and written connections between then and now.

This idea was continued into the schools' activities. The pupils from several schools in Denbighshire looked at historical and contemporary examples of diaries, published and handmade. They explored the idea of illustration as a means of communication and enjoyed a hands-on art experience, producing diary pages based on their own daily lives or looking through the eyes of the Ladies, their servants or even their animals.

To celebrate Plas Newydd's seventy fifth year of being oxpen to the public I created a piece of artwork consisting of seventy-five drawings, original artwork supplemented with scans from the sketch book diary and extracts from the Ladies' journals. I documented (via drawings) all the previous Artists in Residence artworks and included them in the commemorative artwork.
A limited edition giclee print is available for £75.00 (signed edition of 75)

Artwork from the residency was on show during the Llangollen Fringe Festival, at Y Capel, Llangollen 17 July - 27 July www.llangollenfringe.co.uk