My heart was not filled with joy as I drove with the film crew to Llandudno. The very name of that exquisite Edwardian resort is associated in my mind with its role as the venue for the annual conferences of political parties and trade-unions.
I was always a notoriously bad attender; I'd rather sit in a dentist's chair than have to sit for hours listening to one turgid, cliché-ridden conference speech after another.
So it came as a great relief to be in Llandudno and not to be subjected that particular form of cruel and unusual punishment. Instead, we visited the brand-new, multi-million pound extension to Oriel Mostyn where we filmed contemporary Welsh art expert, Karen MacKinnon. She explained the work of Tim Davies, an exhibitor at the Mostyn gallery and the artist chosen to represent art in Wales at the 2011 Venice Biennale.
For someone like me, about to interview Tim himself, and having spent weeks rediscovering, through the process of filming these programmes, the wealth of art created across the length and breadth of Wales over the last hundred years, Karen's great expertise began filling me with doubts.
She talked with such great energy and commitment. We knew, already, that there were, in Wales, a score of wonderful, influential artists we could easily have featured in our films. But names fell from Karen's lips like machine-gun bullets, ripping through any sense I had that we were doing art in Wales justice.
Mercifully, she had no doubt about the great talents we had interviewed: artists like Mary Lloyd Jones, Joan Baker, Shani Rhys James, Terry Setch, David Nash, Ifor Davies, Charles Burton and Kevin Sinnott. Here's a clip featuring Shani from the programme:
Karen thought it was very helpful that Iwan Bala had spent so much of his time explaining his work to us and that the painter and teacher, Osi Rhys Osmond, had shared ideas about how best to nurture future generations of artists. Experts like Gill Fildes, Kirsten Dunthorne, Barry Plummer, John Smith, Ceri Thomas, Mel and Rhiannon Gooding, Robert Meyrick, Anne Price Owen, Jill Piercey and many others helped us understand how and why artists worked as they did throughout the 20th century and through the first decade of this one. But had we done art in Wales justice?
I am certain that there are many fine artists, working in Wales, to whom we have made no reference. To cover everyone BBC Wales would have needed a series as long as The World At War.
Hopefully, we have reminded all those who consider the visual arts to be important that there has been art produced in Wales over the last 100 years that stands comparison with art produced anywhere in the world. That is a fact, not a nebulous assertion to be used in some wider political debate. It should give Welsh artists all of the confidence and encouragement they need to continue creating.
The final episode of Framing Wales can be seen tonight, Thursday 17 March, at 7.30pm on BBC Two Wales, or afterwards on BBC iPlayer.