David Western Supports American Welsh Eisteddfod

Nov. 3, 2008 - PRLog -- The creators of Welsh social network web site, americymru.ning.com, are sponsoring a Welsh arts festival in Portland, Oregon in 2009 called the Left Coast Eisteddfod (pronounced eye-steth-VOD) in the centuries-long tradition of arts festivals, or Eisteddfods, in Wales.  Vancouver, BC, wood sculptor, David Western, is donating the creation of an original piece to raise funds for the event.

David Western is a renowned creator of "lovespoons," carved wooden spoons containing varied sculptural elements that  each have different meanings, which Welsh suitors traditionally created and presented to the women they wanted to marry.  David Western was born in Cardiff and emigrated to Canada.  He was a natural at carving and came to lovespoons as "a good way to stay Welsh!   It is, of course, much more complicated and longwinded than that, but hiraeth and a desire to hold onto an element of Welshness was certainly at the root of it."  He has been carving for more than twenty years, his work has been collected all over the world and appears in the St Fagans National Museum of History in Wales.

About his donation, David Western says, "To support the development of the Left Coast Eisteddfod next year, I am donating a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind Welsh lovespoon which Americymru will raffle off to help raise needed funds.  I'm proud to be able to contribute to the creation of the Eisteddfod and to help highlight Welsh people and their culture here in North America. Everyone knows the Scottish and Irish and it is through events like the Eisteddfod that people will come to know the Welsh."

Lovespoons may be carved with hearts to represent love, horeshoes for luck, wooden balls in a net or cage to represent the number of children the couple might have.  Western's design includes the Ddraig Goch, or Welsh red dragon, a maple leaf to represent his home in Canada, a star to represent the United States and dual bowls to represent the meeting of cultures.  The process of the creation of the spoon is being documented in photographs on an on line blog, http://davidwestern.blogspot.com.  Western hopes that this donation and his work will spur others to donate to the event and hopes that Welsh celebrities will join him.  

Americymru co-creator Ceri Shaw has begun collecting interest from performers for the Portland event. "Our intention is to have the competitions and performances by Welsh and local musicians, as well as cultural presentations to introduce attendees and the people of Oregon to living Welsh culture.  We hope to help create a greater awareness of Wales and its culture and to introduce artists from Wales and Portland to each other and I think people here will find that we have a lot in common. We are actively looking for new sponsors for the American Welsh Eisteddfod at the moment."

Americymru is establishing a charitable foundation to create and put on the event and hopes to create future events in Portland and other locations, as well as fostering the tradition of Welsh American Eisteddfods in schools.  "I'm a native Oregonian and I've always thought that the Eisteddfod was a natural fit for Portlanders," said Americymru co-founder, Gaabriel Becket, "We love art, we love performance and we especially love the written and spoken word."

For more details visit this url:- http://americymru.ning.com/Wpage/page/show?id=2111712%3AP...

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