Hormone-disrupting pollutants in the urban rivers of South Wales may seem like a strange inspiration for an artwork.  But a Pontypridd artist has chosen to interpret the story of the dipper, and research by one of the UK’s leading pollution scientists, in a new and very personal work. 

River Canary is Tara Okon’s response to the discovery that decades after we thought Wales’s rivers had been cleaned up industry’s legacy is having adverse effects on the health and development of wild birds.

Tara, whose ink drawings have a geometric complexity reminiscent of her artistic hero M.C. Escher, uses a similar tessellation style to tell contemporary stories.  “I read about the impact of pollution on the dipper in an article by Professor Steve Ormerod, and something clicked.” 

Ormerod’s 35-year study of dippers showed that decades after the worst industrial and mining effluents had been cleaned from rivers like Tara’s local Taff, there is a lingering legacy.  The addition of newer chemicals creates a cocktail with surprising results.  Tara has noticed there are now more dippers on the Taff compared with years ago.  But Steve and his team at Cardiff University have found that urban dippers hatch fewer female chicks than those nesting in rural rivers nearby, while urban chicks are underweight compared with their rural counterparts.

Described as possessing a “naturalness and a philosophical bent at the same time,” Seattle folk-artist Wren’s haunting melodies evoke the lands and waters of her native Pacific Northwest, as well as Galicia, Spain, where she learned the traditional Celtic-influenced coastal music.

On May 19th, Wren will issue her first release in three years, the ‘name-your-price’ single The Road You Thought You Knew, with a new album of original songs about transformation, love, and the soul of wild lands due out later this year. A Kickstarter for the Galicia-themed album runs until May 27.

Wren, a.k.a. Laura Brady writes exclusively for NATURAL LIGHT, expanding on that deep connection with nature.

Growing up, my entire scope of reference was my backyard, its sunny, grassy center with currants and other fruits for the taking, and the dark, damp corners where earthworms emerged from the moist soil and snails left shiny trails. I delighted in capturing bugs, and stashed a collection of jars on the side-yard in which various gladiator battles took place between confused insects until I remembered, or forgot, to release them.

School simultaneously broadened me; stretching my thinking skills and teaching me about the world, but narrowed my greater awareness. It took me indoors, to factual books and computers and concrete reasoning. I forgot how to play make believe, and hunt for ants, and watch the green, hard ball of a currant slowly catch fire.

The years passed, and as my academic success grew, my talents receiving more and more recognition, my happiness and vitality plummeted. Something was missing. My health was a shambles (having been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder), and my mental health was suffering. I felt stuck in the same thought processes – an egocentric framework – that I could not escape.

Then, at age nineteen, I went to Quebec for the summer to learn French and work on organic farms and fell in love with the land. It was a euphoric, breath-taking experience of discovering something bigger than myself, something more. I would rush through my farm chores every day, then run out to the wild fields and woods to prance, leap, and collapse in ecstatic bliss, to watch the sky and breathe the sweet, fresh air. 

I road-tripped to Colorado to study primitive skills, and found the name Wren, which would become my stage name. I began to study permaculture, a holistic way of living on the earth. I moved to Galicia, Spain, a place where many of the old ways and traditions of living on the earth are still preserved, though in hiding. And there, on a tract of land with over a thousand years of history, I truly came home to the earth, finding a place that spoke to me deeply.

When I rediscovered nature, I also rediscovered music.  And as I have deepened my songwriting, I see more and more that each song is drawn out of the deep well that is the natural world. Making music is how I tap into the greater system, the web of symbol and form that is the wilderness around us. My singing is how I translate this process and bring it out into the world to share with others. I sing, and dream, that as a people we can ‘stitch an ocean,’ a new vision for our lives in which we are no longer separate from the earth, but instead a beneficial part. 

For 27 years Hay Festival has brought together writers from around the world to debate and share stories in the staggering beauty of the English and Welsh Borders. Hay celebrates great writing from poets and scientists, lyricists and comedians, novelists and environmentalists.  As usual, wildlife and environmental groups are closely associated this year.

Hay Fever is the young people’s festival within a festival, and welcomes nature enthusiasts Nicola Davies from the Really Wild Show, Piers Torday, Tom Moorhouse, Katie Scott and Virginia McKenna.  RSPB garden safaris and workshops are on every day, although many have sold out. Click the link for the full programme.

Hay on Earth is a programme for sustainability, and includes a day-long forum on Thursday 21 May exploring global sustainability issues.

Several other literary stars who have supported the campaign are taking part in the Hay programme including Nicola Davies, Melissa Harrison (At Hawthorn Time, 25 May), Tony Juniper, Helen MacDonald, Michael Morpurgo and children’s illustrator Jackie Morris.  Jackie’s beautiful book Queen of the Sky, about a peregrine and a girl who live on the west Wales coast, is featured on 31st.

On 24 May Canadian explorer John Hemming celebrates the Amazonian feats of three famous naturalist-explorers of 150 years ago:  Alfred Russel Wallace, Henry Walter Bates and Richard Spruce.  Closer to home, Britain’s shoreline is explored by Patrick Barkham (Coastlines, 28 May) in association with National Trust Wales.

Tough issues are tackled over two days on 28 and 29 May.  On the Thursday the Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales, Christianne Glossop, debates one of the most contentious issues in the countryside today:  badgers and bovine TB.  Later that day Bill Oddie will hopefully lighten the mood, although Bill is himself an outspoken champion of the badger’s cause, so who knows? The following day, economist Dieter Helm will argue that the environment is an economic asset and should be treated as such, and Tony Juniper (What Nature Does for Britain) will develop the idea of “natural capital.”  Prepare for some serious humour when Marcus Brigstocke tackles climate change later on 29th, before Jules Pretty addresses extinctions – in nature, and among human traditions and languages.

Click here for the full Hay programme, or visit our What’s On page for just the green bits.