Deborah Jones is a Welsh artist now working in Bristol who has a lateral way of drawing new work out of a community and putting artworks back in a site-sensitive way. She spent much of the first 5 weeks of her residency working with two local schools, Hedd Wyn Primary School in Trawsfynydd and the local Ganllwyd Primary School. She worked both in the schools introducing her work and back in the forest for extended visits. In these sessions she worked on ideas of mapping the landscape, listening to the landscape and recording impressions in drawing and words and activities in the landscape such as walking, den-building, fighting, hiding and playing. The river and the 'glay' ( a clay-like substance) found in its banks featured strongly as did the midges. During this time she also asked mountain bikers, pumped-up with adrenalin after coming off the trails, to contribute drawings of their experience. These chinagraph drawings on acetate, which also featured the midges as well as various cuts and scratches, would form the content of books to be left in the Café and became the designs for the final artwork of this part of the residency.

This artwork takes the form of 40 trays, routed-out in the sign shed with designs from the bikers drawings, inlaid with various colours and then used in the café. This simple but effective work involved all the people at Maesgwm in a collaborative project, which included research into materials, contact with the local Milliput factory in Dolgellau and the valued co-operation of staff on the computer and routing machines. It needed the creative input of Sian and Dafydd in the café, Wil in the shop and the ever-present mountain bikers.

Following on from Deborah's very speculative research-based residency, Pippa Taylor was asked to work in wood to make large scale musical instruments. These would be sited near the Visitors Centre and be a legacy for anyone to enjoy for years to come. Importantly, it was also possible for children and adults to contribute and to learn the joinery and musical theory that goes into these works. Pippa Taylor is a sculptor, mainly in wood, who lives and works in Maentwrog and was able to use a studio/workshop on the Maesgwm site as well as her temporary gazebo workshop to welcome visitors, particularly on the successful August Bank-Holiday weekend workshop sessions.

Again the sign-making and forestry facilities would be essential, selecting and cutting timber that would be long-lasting and resonant from the timber stocks or from the trees in the forest. Some oak was selected for the schools workshops but local Douglas Fir was used on site. The first part of the project with Barmouth School resulted in a wooden xylophone or marimba being designed, tuned and constructed, the making done in small groups who sawed, chiselled and drilled to make and decorate the marimba and the beaters. The scale used was the 5 note pentatonic scale found in African and Far-Eastern music. A short workshop at Tan-y-Grisau School near Blaenau also contributed an instrument to the school.

Pippa worked on the larger scale instruments, 3 log drums or slit drums and a larger marimba, on site at Maesgwm involving day visitors. The log drums are vertical sculptures carved from single logs, their tops carved and coloured with wood dye and the interiors of the drums chain-sawed out and charred. Heavy sticks are used to beat them and they are also tuned to different notes. As this article is written, the staff at Coed-y-Brenin are making a wheelchair accessible path to a new intimate site amongst trees, rocks and moss where the xylophone and drums are to be installed. On a slope facing the bowl of the Afon Eden valley the hollow sound of wood on drum and wooden keys will soon join the sounds of forestry workers, birds and the occasional shout from a mountain biker.

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