Prespa 2021: Participant Drawings
Walking a Line: Encounters Through Drawing
D R A W I N G S
by participants of
Walking a Line: Encounters through Drawing
a drawing activity led by Ruth Broadbent
for
WAC International Walking Arts Encounters / Conference
4 – 17 July 2021
Prespa, Greece
From Prespa to around the globe, participants kindly emailed their drawings to me so that I could collate them here for us all to view. Enjoy!
Together we collectively mapped the ground through drawings made during the 2021 Walking Arts Encounters/Conference creating a visual language and system of communication that crosses borders and boundaries, opening up a space for reflecting on walking as a question.
A collective recording and mapping of the surface of the ground
through walking and drawing.
Pausing to listen to the ground,
connect to the past, present and future,
cross boundaries and borders
and notice what is often overlooked.
N O T E S & O B S E R V A T I O N S
Here is documentation of my Walk A Line.
It was a very short walk from my front door to the garden gate and back:
2 paces East
#1 drawing
Turn a right angle to the left
4 paces down steps north
14 paces to gate
Turn 180 degrees
2 paces South
#2 drawing under the Wheatley Elm
7 paces continuing south
#3 drawing by the drainpipe with dead grass which didn’t come through
3 paces South
3 paces up steps
Right angle turn to the right
3 paces into the dry
ED Edinburgh
6B and 2B – pencils used
The Walk and The Line Walked photos have a rather unsuccessful tree rubbing too.
Information regarding my walk.
The line was from Cheesefoot Head to Winchester city centre, Hampshire, following the route of The South Downs Way.
I walked yesterday 5/7/21 setting out at 9.30am
The weather was dry, sunny intervals, low heavy clouds, a slight breeze, about 18 degrees.
I cut 3” x 3” cartridge paper, weight 220 gsm and used a 9B
The first rubbing was taken about 200m from the A272 on the path that ran between stunning barley fields that were gently swaying in the breeze. The clouds shadows created a wave of colours.
I was looking back along the path to the car park.
The ground cover was dry and incorporated with chalk and flints, typical for the area. Photograph 4048 attached.
3 mid 20’s walkers approached and a runner passed as I was taking the rubbing on the path.
2nd rubbing
was taken on the foot bridge crossing the A31 and M3.
At this point I was elevated about the motorway. Deafening noise of traffic. Fumes could be smelt. The bridge rattled and shook but I stopped and rubbed away. I wandered where everyone was speeding off to? Such a contrast to the slow meditative walk along the fields we had done just minutes before, listening to the skylarks and slugs and snails crossing our path.
It felt alien being here.
The urgency of everyone passing below worried me. The fast pace of life that we all encounter at times. The harshness of the surface, manmade. The stress of such behaviour.
So pleased to get off the bridge, but what destruction the motorway had caused and how it continues to affect the environment it travels through.
Taken at journeys end for this walk. Just under 4 miles from the start.
About 11am inside a bell tower on flagstones.
The tower was part of St Maurice’s church built in the 12th century. The church no longer exists as it was demolished in 1950’s to develop the shopping area just the tower remains.
The tower survives with its arch a Norman doorway. So who walked here before me?
The smooth passage, shining with use over the years, small cracks of age.
I felt very awkward taking a rubbing here because there were people all about, shoppers, tourists, families etc
It was not my original planned destination because it was just too busy, a very tight space and beside a busy road.
I have not got a picture of the rubbing as I did feel rushed.
Today I had time to “Walk a line“ (and the street wasn’t wet anymore). Thanks for the proposition.
I had fun doing it and got in contact with the floorspace I would like to do it once in a natural surrounding too.
My walk was short, but very revealing and transformed a very familiar walking route in interesting ways.
I walked from my house straight along the road on one side and back along the other, about 500 meters in total. On the way I noticed and counted manhole covers and other portals into the earth – metal and concrete human made covers for human made holes in the ground. I decided to stop at the 10th portal to do my 2nd rubbing. I was amazed at how many of these covered holes there were, most of which I had never noticed before. Now when I walk over one I will think about how it offers an entry point into the earth! I live on the edge of a town called St. Ives in Cambridgeshire.
This walk is part of the original route from the medieval residence of the bishops of Exeter to the Cathedral in Exeter around five miles away. This section of the walk is still lined lined with a beautiful avenue of trees and begins in the centre of Sowton (a small hamlet near Exeter) and ends by a large field below the Bishops Palace. It is approximately .5 km long and is quite narrow in places where the vegetation has been allowed to grow over the path. The start of the walk still has vehicle access although the path is now mainly a footpath. The path crosses the river Clyst via two small bridges and my dogs will often play in the water there.
Middle (c.25 km)
\
End (.5 km)
It’s been such an interesting experience; a walk I have done many many times but never evaluated it in such a way.
Thank you to all who took part and sent in the images shown here.
Jacqueline, Marie-Anne Lerjen, Penny Simons, Sally Stenton, Sarah Taylor, Sharon, Tamsin Grainger