Y Neges (‘The Message’), cast concrete, Wnion river pebbles and paint, 1974. Ysgol y Gader, Dolgellau (destroyed). Photograph: Robert Greetham.
[In 1974] Jonah pioneered a scheme, ‘Artists in Schools’, for the North Wales Arts Association. He worked with students at Ysgol y Gader comprehensive in Dolgellau to produce a sculpture. For inspiration he again returned to the second branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen Ferch Lyr.
He described the work in a letter to friends: “I use the length of a stretch of lawn (in fact … 20 yds from pole to pole) – there are two parts, one sending off, despatching – the other receiving. It’s called Y Neges (‘The Message’) and although people say it is abstract it is a memory of poor Branwen, beleaguered in Ireland, and cruelly treated, and the only way she can get help is to train a bird to carry a letter for her 7 knightly kinsmen in Gwynedd. So one end has a white rippling form sending off a black arc. The other end has a sort of arbour or little temple of 7 columns, in the middle of which the folded wing shape arrives.”
Under Jonah’s supervision, the students cast the component elements in concrete, then set them up on a lawn and painted them (white for Branwen, white shading up to brown for the kinsmen, black for the starling). They paved around the base of the two units with cobblestones from the bed of the Afon Wnion.
Like much of Jonah’s public work, Y Neges no longer exists; all that is left today is a single patch of cobblestones.
Text by Peter Jones from the catalogue for the centennial exhibition in 2019 at Oriel Plas Glyn-y-Weddw.
Students from Ysgol y Gader Dolgellau working on the sculpture.