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| Meri Wells by the fireplace. |
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| Clive Hicks-Jenkins with a Meri Wells friend. |
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| The gallery by night... |
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| Leaving Meri Wells Welsh poppies by star- and porch-light. |
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| And when I return to Ty Isaf, a Meri Wells "bishop" stands by my bed. |
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| Meri Wells is everywhere at Ty Isaf. Here's the guardian of the paddock... |
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| ...or else the guardian of the garden below. |
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| Meri Wells with me and cups and the feet of Peter Wakelin. Clive Hicks-Jenkins behind my little camera. The barn ruins in the background... |
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| "We can't all be Mad Hatters" --Wizard Howl |
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| Peter's feet again leading the way over a slope decked out in English bluebells and mango-colored and orange Welsh poppies. |
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| A Meri-flock a-flying-- |
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| A rabbit friend, come to hide in the bracken and munch on bluebells and poppies and forget-me-nots. |
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| Up to the tiptop of Ty Isaf and the studio of Clive Hicks-Jenkins |
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| Aberystwyth flower steps. |
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| The pheasants take the stairs at Ty Issaf. |
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| Steps to Jack's world. "Throw my frisbee?" |
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| From garden lawn to paddock, past a Meri Wells tutelary spirit. At Ty Isaf. |
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| Castell Powis stairs. |
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| Peacocks take and fan the stairs at Castell Powis. |
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| What is that--precious jar of unguent, ambrosia gone soft and dangerous, clay cradling beads of gold to soothe the sea when the storms rise and the selkies toss? Perhaps it is a gift for my youngest child, who is 14 today. Happy birthday! |
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| Pensive, dreaming of landscapes we do not know. |
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| Gallery frolic and caw. |
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| He held my hand. Was both fearsome and sweet. |
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| Riot of forms... the house gallery. |
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| When I was Alice, I fell into the well of his eye. Took me years to climb back up and crawl out into the light. |
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| Caught, looking up almost in surprise. Find a pierced stone and look through it. You might find out what he sees. |
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| Another glimpse of Meri Wells and Clive Hicks-Jenkins, with Peter Wakelin on the grass. This time Clive is smiling. And I did not say, "Wensleydale." I promise you that. |
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| Close by was a little table with the words DRINK ME written on the table in gold letters. At Castell Powis, near Welshpool, Powys, Wales. |
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| A tiny, tiny house belonging to little Alis and her family at Ceinws-- but who could live in a house so small? |
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| Clive Hicks Jenkins invites me to climb up and pass through a portal between two worlds-- one of them inhabited by strange beings. At Meri Wells's house. |
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| "'One side of what? The other side of what?' thought Alice to herself." In this case, it is one side of the portal. |
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| The other side of the portal. |
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| Dave Bonta, as curious as Alice (or Alis) at a tiny portal in the "amorphous shrubbery." Castell Powis. |
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| Look at that Bonta-tongue! (Click for a closer inspection...) Here I think Dave must be a Green Man, vomiting the vegetative world, as the Green Man does so often in medieval church carvings. |
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| Dave snug in the portal, content between worlds. |
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| Wandering, I find pottery guardians in the garden. Am I in Wales? Elsewhere, I think. |
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| A glimpse of the ceramics studio and sheep field beyond, with a table topped with an old piece of slate that Meri traded for some concrete blocks. |
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| A headless and quartered creature pinned to the boards! |
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| Meri Wells's studio, with a view of field and mountain. |
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| Here I am rambling the yard-- earth alive with little scenes, cunning nooks and crannies and surprises. |
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| Table offerings... |
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| Guard of the boundary between realms? Warrior shepherd who bars the way? |
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| A peep at the seventeenth-century house. The thick flagstones inside are laid directly on the ground, and sometimes shift when the field mice tunnel underneath. |
