See Swansea

Multi-storey car-park walkway to Wellington Street

This walkway illustrates nicely one of Swansea Council's better policies of decorating some of the dingier areas of the City Centre with public works of art. These particular paintings, depicting scenes of the city from yesterday, turn what could otherwise be quite a daunting route connecting the Quadrant Shopping Centre, the multistory car park and Tesco Marina into something a little more amenable.

Kingsway

Another spectacular scene greeted me as I stepped off my work's bus and onto the Kingsway tonight. Swansea City Council have some fairly major plans in store for this street over the forthcoming months. I am hoping the golden veneer loaned to this street by this evening's sunset is an omen for some great things to come for the Kingsway.

Oxford Street

Winter, at long last, seems to be withdrawing its gloom from Swansea's streets. For the first time in 2016, after a full day at work, I caught the sun setting over the city instead of the usual gloom of dusk. And how it transformed the place! I half expected to see Dick Whittington and his cat to walk out of the glare at the end of this street paved with gold.

Dylan Thomas Leaf Sculpture, Castle Square

Sitting atop a cascading stepped waterfall and overlooking both Castle Square and the fountain which forms its centerpiece, Amber Hiscott and David Pearl’s half leaf / half boat sculpture is one of Swansea City’s most attractive public works of art. The piece takes as its inspiration the line ‘We Sail a boat upon the path, paddle with leaves down an ecstatic line of light’ from Dylan Thomas’ poem ‘Rain Cuts the Place we Tread’. The glass sculpture, unveiled on 27 November 1996, stands glistening and proud even after nearly 20 years of display - a remarkable feat considering its location at the entrance to the city's infamous Wind Street (a controversial area that is often castigated and which has been described by one of the city's own MP's as 'an area of drunkeness and debauchery').

Amidst a long, gloomy and very wet winter, the Leaf Boat, with its gold-tinted glass panels aglow from the rays of long-missed sunshine, was a real tonic to my eyes today. Swansea is often much maligned for its love of concrete, its poverty and disrepair. But this jewel of a scene reminded me there and then that Dylan Thomas' description of Swansea, as being both ugly and at the same time lovely, stands as true today as it did in his day.