'Capturing our Creativity' - the words, music and art of Maeve Bayton

Our vision

LiterArties vision unites us. Each of us is 'Capturing our Creativity' through many modes and mediums. Change is a feature of every moment and as creative people we strive to 'capture' the essence of  a moment, or moments, in our transient lives using our 'creativity' in words, images, music, clay,... any vehicle possible. Not only is this creative process very rewarding, but through it we can share our inner worlds and experiences with others, hopefully to make their life more pleasurable as well. 

Mixing it up

Naturally we can explore our creativity through individual mediums, such a writing a book or taking a photograph, but mixing up mediums to convey our inspiration as an integrated whole is a wonderful challenge.

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Maeve Bayton - sound, images and words

Maeve is a multi-creative LiterArties member. A published author, lyricist and musician, her creativity blends writing, music and painting. Here is 'Missing You' (released May 2013), a heartfelt song of loss and sadness, something so many people have experienced. She shares her emotional experience with others through a simple, soothing song.

​"Among those in the know, Maeve Bayton is something of a local hero, or, rather, heroine. She has a long and distinguished musical record in Oxford, fronting the city’s first all-girl band, 'The Mistakes', in the ‘70s, while her second band, 'Jane Goes Shopping', were also a regular fixture. She remains a respected blues artist, has lectured on music at Ruskin and written on the subject of women in rock. That experience comes through in her second solo album – a collection of sweet, whimsical folk moulded in the tradition of Joan Baez or Sandy Denny.

​Featuring only five tracks, each tune has space to breath, particularly on the title track, which weighs in at eight-and-a-half minutes long. And it is genuinely lovely and uncommercial.

Maeve’s heartfelt, pastoral songs, exploring sadness and loss are soothing, pastoral and, at times almost psychedelic in their simplicity and naivety. The title track even comes with a birdsong soundscape recorded at dawn near Maeve’s Otmoor home. The heartmelting lyrics, meanwhile, were written about her husband’s terminal illness.

The standout track is opener 'Missing You' – with Jane Griffiths’s dreamy Celtic fiddle. But really the record works as a whole. The beauty of the music, Maeve’s clear voice and the sparse instrumentation by Griffiths and guitarist Ian Wycherly lend it huge charm. Here is music to soothe most frayed of souls." (The Oxford Times Review, May 2013) 
© Copyright 2001-2013 Newsquest Media Group

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The Oxford Times

A work of pastoral beauty.

Contact

For the full album please contact Maeve.

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The view from Maeve's window

​​Maeve's love for nature, simplicity and colour comes through in her paintings. Her description of the view from her desk illustrates her writing talent and evident inspiration for her paintings and music, especially 'Missing You'.

"​Gazing from my window this morning, I see verdant swathes of  green: many species of trees (viridian, olive, sap), then meadows and fields (pea, salmon pink, yellow ochre) gradually turning into  the misty blues of  hazy far north Oxfordshire.  The few distant village houses and church towers are toytown small. Whilst above, the vast dome of sky fades from cobalt to cerulean to pearly chromatic greys.  In the wetter months this colourscape is further heightened by a reflected silver and blue from the wide flooded fenland of the RSPB Otmoor Nature Reserve.

Closer to hand, I spy three rooks and a green woodpecker, spiking the grass for ants. A horse, a pony and two pheasant, like me, are at breakfast. Above, two whistling kites slowly circle.  At other times I have seen March hares boxing, a row of newly fledged owlets strung along the fence, swallows having their first flying lesson, a fox stalking a rabbit, and deer of course. But today there is sparse activity and also little sound, for it is August and the birds have quietened. Later, dusk will bring bats and a pre-roost gathering of rooks.

Spring is very different. I shall never forget my first May morning here. Living on main roads in cities all my life, yet always yearning for the country, I took the leap in ’97, leaving noisy crowded sociable Iffley Road for pastures new.   I was woken by a cacophony of birdsong. There was a clattering of jackdaws on my roof and a clamour of rooks in the trees. A great spotted woodpecker was hammering a trunk and I counted many  sparrows, a wren, a robin, blackbirds, a thrush and a blackcap amongst others. The church bell tolled the hour, 4 am, and I thought, “This is paradise”. I walked down into the nearby copse and recorded the woodland song. This magical experience fed directly into two of my songs, 'The 2nd of May' and 'Missing You'. A photo of the blackcap adorns both CD case and disc and the title track has my recording of the dawn chorus (with robin) running though its entire length. 

How blessed am I….." (Written for the ​Writers in Oxford newsletter)

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Indeed, how blessed are all of us that we are able to create sensory experiences that resonate within us and others through words, images and sounds.

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