Tŷ Celf

T哦 CELF

ART 路 PHOTOGRAPHY 路 WRITING

SPRING 2013

Naomi Saunders

T킷 CELF (pronounced: tee celv)

SPRING 2013

CSM CARDIFF C ASTUDENT R D I F F MEDIA

T킷 CELF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF LUKE SLADE ART EDITOR DAISY LONG PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR AMY BRUMBY WRITING EDITOR ROSEY BROWN

COVER KATARZYNA LEWANDOWSKA BACK DIMITRIS KYRIAKOPOULOS

CONTRIBUTORS

Emily Saunders

WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN THE TEAM & EDIT THE MAGAZINE NEXT YEAR? EMAIL: ART@GAIRRHYDD.COM FOR DETAILS

ALICE HAVARD EMILY SAUNDERS SARAH ROBERTS BETHAN PHILLIPS JAMES CUDDY LAURIE TAYLOR NAOMI SAUNDERS TATHAN McSHANE ALICE SCHWEITZER DOMINIC BOOTH FREDERIC ROCHEZ GUY KELLY LAURENCE ASTILL WRIGHT LOUISE SHERIDAN PHILIP JONES SAM ROBINSON SAMANTHA KEELING ALEX ALOI SIMON HEWITT

ON CREATIVITY

S

o this is Creativity made new. By this I mean that this is the new version of an old idea. For a few years now CSM has published a creative magazine twice a year, but with new batches of editors come new ideas and this year what once was Creativity was left behind. Standing in its place, however, is Tŷ Celf – somewhere for all the creative musings of Cardiff students to call home. I hope it serves you well.

The reason behind the rebrand is simply so that the editors and I could realise a new magazine as opposed to trying to fit in the place of an old one. And after working on Quench this year it seemed like the logical thing to do.

The new name, Tŷ Celf, literally means ‘Art House’ in Welsh but would better translate as ‘house of art’. It is named after a small gallery that used to be in my hometown of Newport.

I can’t say that I visited the gallery often, but I always knew it was there – like a haven in an otherwise mundane town centre. And I simply hope that the magazine can serve a similar purpose.

With the new stripped back design I wanted to take attention away from gimmick texturing and awful opensource typography and place the art, photography & writing as the focus.

This isn’t about fancy layouts or flicking through the pantone colour palette. It’s about the letters, words, pixels, grain, pencil and brushstrokes.

It is typeset in Baskerville and Avenir for all you type-geeks out there (I’ve never understood why this isn’t standard in the front of books).

I would like to thank everyone who sent in submissions, the response was quite amazing and I wish I could have included more. And I’d also like thank Rosey, Amy and Daisy for sifting through and checking everything – it’s been a pleasure.

Finally thank you to Chris for letting me take on this magazine and Elaine for being simply golden.

Diolch & croeso gartref !

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CARNAGE

by Dominic Booth

This city has indigestion; Drains full of hatred dream Of a life without congestion, They sleep when it’s light – When the half-baked kids Find the nutrition too bright, And grey roads wait for collision An insider’s paradise.

This street goes on forever; Brown stains and stomach pains Clash with unforeseen weather, Ice lollies pass with shorter skirts, Outside packed-out pubs, The stench of petrol wine Reminds them that pain is perfect; The body’s not meant to feel fine.

This club is too full tonight: Steamy toilet-talk is common, She can’t bear to dance while it’s light, Multi-mile excursions tire them More than vicious vodka, Packed out cabs wander back home Sky-high joy comes to land, hits ground, But someone tomorrow won’t be found.

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CURRICULUM VITAE

by Guy Kelly

H

e hadn’t answered the door in six years, until Alice knocked. It was a particularly attractive rhythm, no unnecessary jaunt or demanding gusto, just a rat-a-tat-tat, like they used to. It had promise.

‘Hello’ he began, conventionally. ‘Hello’ she replied, with just as much etiquette. ‘I am here about the job’. The man knew nothing of a job. She probably wanted upstairs, but had come all this way, so the least he could offer was an interview. He looked her up and down for a moment.

‘The job! Yes, yes come in and take a seat,’ he said, locking the door behind her, ‘I do hope you found the place okay, Alice. Just head on through and settle down in my living space. Don’t mind the animals, they’re just ornaments.’

‘Oh, my name’s not Alice’, the woman said, ‘it’s Nicole.’ He ignored this, fixing her a drink.

‘I suppose you’d kill to work here, wouldn’t you, Alice?’

‘Yes, sir, for as long as I can remember I’ve been passionate abou-’. The man cut her off, thrusting a glass of wine into her hand, clinking it with his own.

‘Well then’, he said, ‘I think you’ll fit right in.’

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Bethan Phillips

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GUERRA SUCIA

by Alice Schweitzer

‘You have a moral sense of purpose and duty. You want to take this picture and you want to stop it.’ – Don Mccullin As if it were low tide and the seals lay stranded, So, the motionless bodies lay.

The mourners with their ululating cries.

The smell of cordite.

Seeping through the white lace, the man’s dark blood staining her widowed frame, her body rocks. Hands clasped, her eyes close in prayer.

The new gold ring on her plump young finger.

The gifts. Their ribbons still intact.

The exposed stone walls flash crimson in the warmth of the morning light.

My hand feels clammy against the cool of the lens like the coldness of the dead man’s body.

I fumble for the zoom I hesitate.

The lace and the women’s body now indistinguishable in its pool of blood.

Yet, I draw my face to the glass square.

I release the shutter.

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[UNTITLED]

by Samantha Keeling

stumbling through the streets, legs moving with no purpose: flailing, random placing of feet and --- step. (The street is busy this time of night, bodies careering in the brash artificial moonlight). Avoiding them, trying to keep upright, fighting the urge to crumple in to the ground, or implode into myself. Myself ?

A-self, rather.

A reveller crashes, catches (me) and (I) fall, breaking a puddle. Patches of face reflected in the fragments: brown, pink, what could be an eye (what could be an ‘I’?). Bashed into again and the bottle (I) cradled slips. A shattering of fragments. Unsure whether the images are reflections of the face staring at the glass, or reflections of reflections of the face. It could be anything. Anyone.

Hand in puddle, pushing up body. (I) try to gather up the fragments of the bottle. They cut the skin, stinging. Warm. Lurching to a bench, and collapsing onto it (unsure if intentional or accidental. Unsure if there’s a difference), knees bent over the arm rest in the middle. Like a homeless person. The thought makes (me) laugh, harsh, catching, rough on the throat

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Sarah Roberts

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James Cuddy

This echoes Motown mornings swinging faiths slipping grooves needles twisting my California Soul.

Laurence Astill Wright

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Tathan McShane

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HERACLES

by Louise Sheridan

When the full blue moon had risen into the sky, She beheld a house at the heart of Thebes.

Her guests cast their gaze toward the grass, Once green, now glinting with an iridescent blue hue.

Silent and unseen an eagle sweeps down from the sky, Heading for the window of the alone Alcemene.

As the creature, now perched on the window, Stepped into the chamber, his figure changed, Not perceived by even the most trained eye of time.

He had become Amphitryon the absent husband.

Noticed by the poor Alcemene, for she was deceived, The creature disguised, entered her wedded bed.

Love is a sin for it creates a virtuous hate.

But she lay there and to her, he was hers to love.

And he could not deny those scarlet ornaments.

As false as this love was, it was real all the same, Although this eagle had often deprived other beds.

When Alcemene had drifted back into her dreams, The old eagle left, leaving a new inhabitant at home.

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Laurie Taylor

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Emily Saunders

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ECSTATIC

by Dominic Booth

A

mber’s pulse soared. Only a couple of hours ago, she had been sat on her bed in her spotless bedroom, wondering how to spend the evening. She thought back to the last time she went on a night out, over a month ago – before she met Harri and Ella – and she was hopeful that this would be better; Harri and Ella were exciting and dangerous, Amber loved to be around them.

She was apprehensive, standing at the back of the group as the hoard of long-haired, tighttrousered boys and bright-haired girls were queuing outside the club. Her friends were standing in front of her, acting as a shield, protecting her from the alien surroundings of the alleyway. The cobbles were full of life: the green strobe lights from the club reflected onto the building opposite and Amber’s chest was alive with the bass swelling from the DJ booth.

The ecstasy hadn’t hit yet her, but Amber’s cold neck shivered with anticipation; she knew in about twenty minutes she would be buzzing. Harri was already wide-eyed and desperate to dance; she had done this before. Ella was behind her, motionless. As always she was cool and calm as she adjusted her fair hair. Amber fidgeted and shuffled from foot to foot behind them and started to go light-headed.

She looked at Ella in front of her and then down again at the cobbles. Behind them, a group of boys with rolled-up sleeves were laughing, their hips loosening up as the music drew them in.

Amber didn’t know how to behave as she felt her knees give way to the music. She smiled at the bouncer, dressed in black and tip-toed through the doors. Soon she was surrounded by dozens just like her, buzzing off the chemicals and as they swayed to the drum and bass, Amber’s body crumpled.

An hour had passed, maybe two and she was alone. The club was no more than a room, dark and claustrophobic and sparsely lit up by greens and reds that flashed across the faces of the dancing cluster of people that filled the dance-floor to the point of overcrowding. The walls were musty and grimy, but the music made sure nobody noticed. Amber’s eyes became transfixed on the white light shimmering from directly above her. Another girl, with hair just like her – dyed black and wavy with a full fringe – danced across the room towards her.

“Your hair is amazing!” the random girl screamed, the beads of sweat on her cheeks were pouring off her, drenching her shoulders.

“Yours too!” yelled Amber, adjusting her fringe.

The girl gave Amber a warm hug, grinning relentlessly. Amber’s grin back felt joyous and warm.

The music was showing no signs of stopping, so neither did they, their legs weren’t letting them.

Amber hadn’t seen Ella or Harri for what seemed like hours, yet she felt at ease now, smiling at strangers. The green strobes caught Amber’s pale face like the first sunlight on a cold morning.

She was reinvigorated, energised, in love with the music.

Her focus kept changing. She stared at the DJ in the corner for an eternity, before suddenly

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smirking to herself as the song changed and she danced with her own body. This time, a boy in a snap-back baseball cap was blocking the low yellow light that Amber gawked into. His stark features made Amber look twice, his bright eyes capturing her gaze. As she flashed her own blue eyes at his, she felt two things: a desire to dance with this boy’s hand on her chest and a yearning need to take another pill.

Although this was her first time, Amber felt like she owned the place, dancing seamlessly around the black grimy floor with the boy in the hat and in her best grey leggings and high-topped converse. She looked in the mirror, adjusting her fringe again and felt like she could do anything.

With her black hair soaked in sweat, she reached yet another high. Her head began to spin faster and everything around her became blurred and bleary. She caught sight of some fair hair and fluorescent leggings – Ella – her friend was dancing at a snail’s pace, leaning against a multicoloured wall that seemed to Amber to be swaying in some impossible indoor wind. But Amber couldn’t move. She felt her whole existence die for a split second as her head seemed to roll off her shoulders and her legs were frozen in the ground.

“Ella… Ella… Ella!” she tried to shout, but she couldn’t hear her own voice. Then she tried to move, but her legs weren’t moving like before. She was crumpling up again.

It felt as if Amber had fallen down a flight of stairs. In fact she hadn’t fallen at all, her limbs had jolted in a split-second of panic. It woke her out of her trance and she was still happy; she felt nothing but the sheer bliss of the melody.

She stayed that way all night; more alert, more aware of the dangers – she wasn’t happy and friendly like before, she was on edge and even more introverted than normal. An hour later she felt like she had fallen again and pushed off the strangers that tried to help her up. Ella and Harri rushed to talk to her with eyes full of life.

“Leave it.” Amber’s voice was sullen and defensive.

“But Ambs..!” Ella tried to reassure her friend but Amber’s eyes were narrow now, she wasn’t on the same wavelength as the rest of the club.

Amber felt herself feel the need to sit down by herself. Her head flipped between wide-eyed and alert and desperately unhappy, but she could barely remember the unhappy parts, it was just a wave of emptiness occupied her mind for what seemed like a couple of minutes. Amber lost concept of time as she drifted into a state of semi-consciousness and she was ignored by everyone else; they were still jumping and dancing.

6am came and went before Amber Dixon was in her ordinary state. She found herself crawling under the duvet, breathing heavily. Amber smiled. A minute passed while she was smiling to herself, staring at the ceiling, and in her head in this minute, she remembered the first two hours and couldn’t help but let out an ecstatic laugh. All she could think about was the night before.

She looked at the clock – 9am. She’d had less than three hours sleep. Her body was battered, exhausted after her first night on ecstasy. And she wanted to do it again.

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A CLEAN DAY IN SEPTEMBER

by Philip Jones

Now this is surfing;

translucent and rainbow glints of power

a diagram of sine waves rolling in blue,

and mass and salt and coolness roaring life,

your friends perform turns and flicks like crochets

their bodies above their boards, twisting crow shapes

but the poetry is yours when the water surges behind you, grabs you – push up with your arms that are tired and dusty from work, one more effort – then carve down the face – your knife through fish skin in a hungry dream.

Tuned, perfectly in tune, so that right now time is gravity and gravity is energy and energy is time.

You try and describe this, to your girlfriend,

leave early, arrive late, or not at all,

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or falling, that bombshell moment of change,

but it’s opposite, living instead of death,

fall asleep or stink of wetsuit and salt.

The closest you’ve come is that it’s a car crash,

to your boss, to your parents, they’ve seen you

eternity, not fear? Though it’s absurd

that opposites exist as they do, so blurred.

Simon Hewitt

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Amy Brumby

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HAPPY HERE

by Frederic Rochez

‘T

his is where we want to be,’ you said, as you reached up and hung the little ornament above the high, open doorway into the small kitchen. So what if I have to stoop slightly every time I pass from the narrow hallway into the sun-filled kitchen?

It hung there, swinging back and forth in the draft, a collection of small shells and hole-riddled pebbles threaded on a cheap piece of wire. I made it after one of our first dates, when we walked along the cold, blustery sea-side, eating ice-creams in defiance of the March air that jabbed through our coats.

I threaded the little pebbles and shells, and gave it to you as a gift on our first anniversary. And when we moved into the one bedroom apartment that neither of us could really afford, you brought it with you, to put above the doorway. In that simple, easy gesture you hung my heart above the door into the kitchen.

‘We will be so happy here’ you said, so sure of yourself.

You were, of course, in charge of the decorating. We spent hours together in the evenings, looking through albums of photos that we had begged off of our friends and family, looking for the pictures to hang on the walls. Somehow, you managed to capture both of us perfectly. The stories of our lives were mapped out on the walls, first separately, and then together. You framed the measure of my soul and hung it on the wall to decorate the rooms we shared.

You half-created the wondrous world you see in your own mind. You distributed cushions and throws on the sofa, arranged books on the shelves, settled rugs over the faded carpet. You knew just where to place everything, to make it all just that little bit better.

And gradually, you made the empty, chilly space welcoming, covering over the cracks and stains and the things that you didn’t want anyone- least of all yourself- to see.

‘We could be so happy here.’ Your voice a little wistful, perhaps, a little doubting, maybe.

The flat feels so much smaller now you’re not here, and now I know that this is the last time that I’ll see this place. It is completely the same as it always was, and yet utterly, irrevocably different. The spaces on the walls are strange; the redistributed and replaced photographs falling into a pattern which is ever so slightly different from what went before. Here and there a patch of brighter, cleaner yellow of un-faded wallpaper shows where one of the new pictures doesn’t quite line up with the one that you took down and threw away.

I stumble slightly as I walk pass through the doorway of the kitchen, my foot caught on the corner of frayed carpet which I promised to fix the day we moved in, and that I never got round to. The top of my head passes through the space where the string of shells and pebbles used to hang. Just like the words that hang, half-accusing, above the box of clothes you left for me by the door.

‘We could have been so happy here.’

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VIXEN

by Sam Robinson

A noise sharply awake to the window a fox the lamplight betrays her confronting her world and mine with teeth white as fear she opens a bin bag at my door embers of my life life blood of hers she bears the scars of a life in her walk and in her gaze the book of her body telling a tale as rich as yours or mine is she searching for love, as I am? almost certainly it’s in the way she watches the street corner she paces back across the road turns our eyes meet across streets across worlds is there more than a pane of glass between us? would it shatter as easily? the silence crescendos to an awareness of something something shared i see You in those eyes and for a moment i feel my gliding place in the family of things we breathe together the cold air, whisper of dawn she turns and walks away sound of her footsteps fading into openness; teardrops falling on the ocean

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Alice Havard

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James Cuddy

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Emily Saunders

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A LAST RESORT

by Alex Aloi

T

hey were in trouble; there was no doubt about that. The rent was due in a week and she had no job, no credentials, not even a high-school diploma. She had run away with that son-of-a bitch a year before graduating, and now look where she was.

Carol slumped into her armchair. Empty. The entire apartment had never felt so empty, so devoid of life, despite the fact that her baby son was sleeping quietly in the next room. It seemed so desolate and hopeless, yet there was nowhere else.

She rested her gaze on the nightstand. There, next to a picture of him, was a small jewelry box containing the few meager items of adornment that she owned.

She could pawn all of it, but it would not yield nearly enough. However, if she could double the amount…

Carol was tense as she dialed the phone. For the life of her she could not stop thinking that what she was about to do was desperate and crazy, that it would never work. The phone rang and rang and rang. Stephanie should be home, and even though Carol knew that Steph had her own fistful of problems right now she needed a babysitter. The ringing stopped, and someone on the other end said “hello?”

“Steph, it’s Carol. I-I need you to watch Jessica for a few hours.” Carol’s voice was shaking.

“Carol? Are you all right? You sound worried.”

“I’m fine, Steph. I just n-need to run a f-few errands.”

“Alright. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

They barely exchanged pleasantries when Steph arrived; Carol was nervous, and decided it would be best to leave right away. Steph’s face showed concern, but she didn’t pry. Good old Steph: Carol could always count on her to listen.

The drive happened in a blur, as though she was watching a movie in fastforward. There was the pawn shop, now she was selling her jewelry, now the man was inspecting it, now she was taking the money and on the road. The highway blurred past in a blaze of red and yellow lights that must have been other cars. The world moved past as if she was in a dream.

Now the Casino loomed over her, tall and ominous, a commanding tribute to opulence. Jazz music flowed from within, dancing upon the breeze, a dazzling tune of sensuous sound. The neon sign mocked her, daring her to step inside. She clutched an envelope in her chest. Inside were a few hundred dollars, the sum total of everything the pawn shop had bestowed upon her. She would need to at least double it if they were to make rent.

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BADR

by Alice Schweitzer

21/11/12 Islahiye, Turkey ‘Muhammad alayhi s-salām, Muhammad alayhi s-salām, Peace be upon him; Muhammad alayhi s-salām.’

Badr had been at the refugee camp in Islahiye for sixty-four days now. He knew it had been sixty-four days because at each sunset the Kurdish boy in the opposite tent would position a stone in the dusted ground outside the canvas entrance to mark the passing of another day. He had made a game out of keeping count.

‘Muhammad alayhi s-salām,’ he squealed at the top of his voice.

‘Come be our liberator, Muhammad, Muhammad alayhi s-salām.

Badr giggled uncontrollably; his whole body clenched in excitement. He clasped his fingers together, his arms rigid and swaying at his side as joined in with the other children and their chanting.

Come chop Bashar’s arms off.

Come chop his ears and toes.

Come rescue us children Muhammad; Muhammad alayhi s-salām.

He’s shot our fathers, He’s jailed our brothers.

Please give us weapons to fight.

Muhammad alayhi s-salām.’

‘Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.’ The children shouted, raising their hands up high as they wrapped their fingers into the shape of guns.

‘Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.’

In his excitement he had forgotten about his hissing stomach. It churned and lurched in pain. Grandnanna Rafa would be so disappointed in him, Badr thought as he patted his ever-expanding stomach. For Grandnanna a big stomach was a sign of gluttony and foolishness. ‘We must not place our stomachs above Allah’ she explained when Badr would be caught sneaking a baklava out of the kitchen during Ramadan. Yet, Badr hadn’t experienced the sweet taste of sugar, pistachios and pastry for sixty-four days. He had only eaten watered oats and beans; he could not understand why since entering the camp his stomach was steadily expanding? He wondered what his ummi was going to say when she came?

There are quite a few children who are waiting for their ummus. Badr sometimes pretend that the Kurdish boy in the opposite tent’s ummi is his auntie, his khala Rushia. He imagines that it’s summer again in Damascus and he’s gone round to play draughts with his cousins, Radeem, whilst his ummi pops out to the market, and that she’ll come soon and sit and chat and laugh with his khala Rushia. The Kurdish women’s laugh is much deeper than khala Rushia’s, but if he scrunches his eyes up so tight and hums at the same time, he sometimes can almost believe that he is back in Damascus and that ummi will come home to him very soon.

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Bethan Phillips

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