It is with very mixed emotions that I sit here and reflect on Norman Ackroyd’s three etchings of Anglesey. Delight that after 18 years, with Norman’s encouragement, we have been able to complete this amazing project. And huge sadness to know that he had passed away on the 16th September, just days after its last details were finalised.
This adventure has been a lesson in alchemy. Ideas into reality. Rocks into copper. Copper into plates. A transformation of time. At last, the magic has worked, and Alchemy on Anglesey can now be revealed.
So how did we get here? Well, let’s roll back the clock and I’ll tell you…
The coloured landscape of the disused opencast copper mine on the island of Anglesey in Northern Wales
2008
Robert Kennan, an old friend of mine and now Head of Modern and Contemporary Editions at Phillips, London, approaches me with an idea that he has been working on.
Hi Ceri,
Back in 2006 Norman Ackroyd held a retrospective of his prints at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. There was a map, and every location NA had visited on the British Isles coastline was marked with a red dot. Noticing the omission of a dot on Anglesey set me thinking about commissioning a print from Norman.
Last summer staying at our cottage on Anglesey I discovered that there is a copper mine on the island called Parys Mountain. The mine was one of the largest in its heyday and made Amlwch, the local port, the second most important town in Wales during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Copper halfpenny work token from the Parys Mountain mine on Anglesey, 1788
As copper is used for etching plates, I approached NA with the idea of making an etching on copper from Anglesey. He was interested. Sadly, the mine is presently not in operation, so I was stumped as to where to find Anglesey copper.
I had heard that the hulls of Nelson's fleet were sheathed in copper from the mines. The copper prevents “stuff” growing on the hull, slowing the ship down. With a copper lined hull, they moved more quickly through the water and it is said that this assisted Nelson's victory over the French at Trafalgar. I contacted the salvage company who recently stripped the copper from the hull of HMS Victory and produced ingots of copper. Sadly, the ship was re-sheathed in late C19th in copper from Sweden.
By chance, my Nain (Grandmother) gave me a very worn coin and asked me to find out what it was. On one side there was a trace of a profile. Visiting Parys Mine, the signage/logo, for what is now a heritage site (runner up in the Restoration programme on BBC 2), was a coin with the profile of a Druid’s head.
The coin was a copper penny, and as I discovered, was a token used to pay workers at the mine. The Druid Head token is regarded as one the finest of its kind and millions were made between 1780 and 1800, a great many by Matthew Boulton at his Soho Foundry in Birmingham. Boulton was a giant of the Industrial Revolution.
The Druid was used because of Anglesey’s rich Druid tradition and that the owner of the mine, Thomas Williams, known as The Copper King, lived on the site of the last stand by the Druids against the Romans.
So, find a load of worn Druid tokens, melt them down and make a plate. I do have reservations about melting the coins down, however, they are the only source of copper that was made from ore mined at Parys Mountain that I have found so far.
I took the coins to Henry Abercrombie and the AB foundry who said he could produce an etching plate for Norman. He also said that he was able to make a plate from ore found on Parys Mountain.
So, Norman is going up to Anglesey in a couple of weeks to do some research, and I'm making a copper plate, out of some old coins or boot full of rubble...
Chatting with Norman, he thought the whole project had potential to be made into a film and should be documented.
Norman is a great historian and an old-fashioned craftsman. His studio in Bermondsey is fantastic, so is Henry's foundry in the East End. I think I mentioned he makes sculpture for Marc Quinn, Anish Kapoor, Gary Hume and Barry Flanagan.
Roll the credits!!
Cheers,
Rob.
The fire has ignited… I have no hesitation in getting involved.
Norman Ackroyd, The Great Open Cast, etching
2009
Rob and I visit Anglesey to find copper to make the plates for Norman to etch upon. Rob has bought a large amount of work tokens but thinks it would be great to find some rocks in the mine and turn them into copper. And so, on a cold and wet day we finally disappear into Parys mine with Dave Jenkins, from the Heritage Centre and Dave Chapman, a historian of the area, and collect rocks to burn in a modern version of a Bronze Age smelting pit back at Chapman’s studio in his old church. He also gives us some extra pieces of Anglesey copper, comprising the lightning rod from his church and remarkably some sheets of original copper from the hull of the HMS Victory, Nelson’s boat at Trafalgar.
The anticipation of what will be removed from the fire is palpable. When, after two days’ work, we are ready to discover the fruits of our labours, we open the pit and the transformation is revealed. It is true alchemy as we are left with small beads of copper. It may not be much but the symbolism of the moment as our rocks have turned into shiny copper is exhilarating. Thank God I wasn’t around in the Gold Rush! This Copper Buzz is more than we can take.
Norman Ackroyd, Pearl Engine House, watercolour and ink from sketchbook
Rob takes the collection of Anglesey copper to AB Foundry in the East End of London and the pour is made into the casts for the plates. Norman comes along and breaks open the casts to reveal the newly formed copper plates. They will be sent to be polished and then we will all move up to Anglesey for the next stage in the process.
“It’s what Francis Bacon called, the grin without the cat. You want to get something that is really the essence of the place.”
At the Pearl Engine House, Norman stands in the rain mulling over the place to work from. Once decided, he paints a watercolour sketch before working on a plate for an etching. It’s as if he is making friends with the world around him and beginning to absorb the place as he connects with it through each brushstroke. He creates a union between himself and the landscape.
Norman Ackroyd, Pearl Engine House, etching
Oblivious to the persistent Anglesey wind and rain, he uses the water pooling at his feet to clean his brushes. Watching him switch to working on the recently made copper plates is enthralling. There is a resolve in everything he does. His process is an old companion, and I feel privileged that he reveals so much of himself to us. He is in a near meditative state as he searches for the “grin without the cat.” He lays down the lines that he sees as the future of this project, working with an intense fluidity, impervious to the downpours as he continues to work until he throws the plate on the ground. He has finished and the sun comes out. Perhaps in honour of his commitment to his work.
Back in London Norman works on the prints but the thickness of the Anglesey copper plates threatens to irreparably damage his press. A few impressions are pulled, but the work grinds to a halt.
Time passes… The project has lost impetus and gradually becomes a distant memory. An unfulfilled endeavour and an unsatisfactory ending to our adventure. Have our hopes been dashed forever?
2024
Goldmark Gallery releases its spring magazine, and I see that Norman is featured in it. It takes a moment, but the cogs begin to whir and I pop in to see Mike. I tell him the story of everything that has gone before, and one thing leads to another. New life is breathed back into the Anglesey project.
Norman Ackroyd, photographed by Jay Goldmark at his Bermondsey studio
The Goldmark team move into action and come up with fresh ideas to create an object of beauty. Their master printer, Ian Wilkinson, discovers that the plates need a device to hold them in place due to their thickness. It is a laborious process, and each image must be managed carefully as the press is used. After several weeks of work the edition is finished, Norman is delighted with the results, and this writing is the last thing to be added to the collection of ideas, people, places, objects, materials that have made Norman Ackroyd’s Alchemy on Anglesey series a reality.
What we have are haunting images of a landscape that once was so different. Amlwch Harbour had been teeming with boats transporting copper to all parts of the world; the Pearl Engine House, built in 1816, pumped water from the mine and pumped it to other engines uphill; the windmill pictured in the Great Open Cast, was built in 1878 to assist a steam engine in pumping and winding and was the first five-sailed structure of its kind in Anglesey. It was closed in 1904 when work at the mine stopped. Now the derelict windmill stands guard over the once precious copper mine. One imagines what the mine looked like back then.
Norman Ackroyd, Awlwch, etching
Questions pop into my head as I look at the images. Do people always leave the landscape they find themselves in? Do we lose interest once we have removed that which we deem is of value? What should our relationship be with the world around us? These prints conjure up thoughts of the effects of humanity even though no human is in view.
The echoes of the past resonate through Norman’s work. And now these images have been revived, revitalised and brought back to life, we can finally present the finite transformation with this realisation of The Alchemy on Anglesey – Norman Ackroyd’s Journey into the Copper Kingdom.
Ceri Levy is a filmmaker, writer, and ‘gonzovationist’. As a creator of many music videos and documentaries, he is best known for his 2009 film Bananaz, following the cartoon-band Gorillaz. With the artist Ralph Steadman he co-authored the successful Gonzovation Trilogy of books, comprising Extinct Boids, Nextinction and Critical Critters. In 2006, Levy was invited to film the process of Norman Ackroyd’s Alchemy on Anglesey, a project that aimed to produce a series of etchings of Anglesey on plates of copper mined from the island itself.
