Caroline Palmer

CMR Director

Caroline Palmer has been involved with CMR for some time, since the year she was part of the crew for Bittersweet/Hwerow Hweg, the first full length Kernewk language film ever made, largely by CMR members. She got involved after completing an HNC in Media at Cornwall College. She moved to live in Cornwall in 1998 and has no plans to leave!

She is a writer, moving constantly between novels, short plays, films and stories, often with a local flavour, and a ongoing history of Porthtowan, where she lives. Her short books, written in the noughties The Cats of Tregoyne and What the Cats of Tregoyne Did Next, were a parable on change and economics in Cornwall seen through the eyes of a bunch of cats living in a chalet park in Porthtowan, sited where Caroline lived and still lives, though the chalets have gone.

She is the co-founder of Writers Ink and has had stories published in various anthologies, as well as winning a Best Documentary at Buxton for her film, Some Scenes From The Life Of John Harris, in 2011, in which Sue and Paul Farmer participated.

She has a strong interest in art, though she mainly looks at others’ work, and also in getting writers and artists together to collaborate. She enjoys photography very much., and spends much of her time on the beach trying to catch that special sunset.

Dragon

Vermilion, armoured and hideous, I skulked in my lonely cave. Everyone feared my huge horse-like face and fire-breathing nostrils…not withstanding that I am a gentle, vegetarian dragon who enjoys carrots, peas and cauliflower. I longed for friends. No-one would let me get close, just hid as I flew over. All I had was my internal fire to keep me warm.

I woke one night to a multitude of squeaky vices, feeling tiny paws touching my sides.

“Shove over, you lot, I want to get warm.”

“This is champion, lads, full central heating free of charge!”

Gently I spoke to the mice. “Stay as long as you want.”

“Thanks, Mister, that’s right friendly.”

It’s worked out well. I think I’m too big to worry the mice; they consider me talking furniture. I keep them warm; they keep me company.

Caroline Palmer © 2010

(published in Anticlockwise by Slingink)

About CMR

CMR is an artist-led initiative designed to create a community of artists who will exhibit and flourish within this three storey building. It is a voluntary-run organisation and project. We aim to be all inclusive; we aim to encourage adventurous work that will respond and challenge not only to CMR’s various spaces but also the broader Contemporary Art landscape of Cornwall.

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Membership is open to artists, makers, curators, writers and thinkers at all stages of their careers who are interested in developing a rigorous, critically engaged level of contemporary practice, and who are interested in actively contributing to help promote the overall well-being of the project.

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