...do you walk fast or slow?
While I was in Melbourne in May, I was walking down Victoria Parade with Henry and our friend Viv. I was way ahead of them both, when I heard their conversation behind me about walking speeds - apparently a friend had commented that he had become a fast walker, which he suggested may have been because he had spent lots of time in recent months having to catch up with me.
Viv on the other hand, was more of a dawdler, meandering her way from place to place in no great rush. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that she lives in an Indigenous community a couple of hours north of Broome, where life is understandably much slower, but it sparked a shift in the conversation to how it might have a bearing on the type of work we make.
She often works with birds and the sky, and I have noticed that a lot of my work lately has been focused on the ground.
We wondered: was this because slow walking allows for more time to look up? Was I moving too quickly and therefore had my head down as a way to focus and thinking mainly of what was beneath my feet? Were we perhaps over thinking it?
And so I wonder, now that Polly has made this differentiation in our works also, does our theory apply to you too?
Hmm interesting theory Jessie! And I like how you have positioned those two images!
ReplyDeleteI would normally say that I am a pretty fast walker when I'm on a mission to get somewhere, mainly because I have gangly long legs. But certainly in recent times my pace seems to have slowed a fair bit, which probably if I think about it does correlate to an increasing interest in the sky and the air. I also allow myself to stop much more frequently than I did before. But yes, I look up A LOT which is probably very frustrating for anyone who is walking behind me, and is for me too because I bump into things often.
I notice these days often when I've left a building or a plane or whatever the first thing I'll do is look up at the sky... I always feel like a bit of a weirdo, but surely most people do that too - maybe just not as enthusiastically as me haha!
I find I do it in New York often because I can't look out so easily since the landscape is so built up, so to get any sense of a vast distance (which seems to be the thing that re-energises me) I need to look up. Perhaps it's different for people who live in flat open country, or on the sea (oh to live on the sea!), they may look out at the horizon more.
MAYBE you look at the ground often because you grew up on the water, sailing (as I've recently found out!) and so to feel the connection with land is a significant force for you??