How the grass and the immediate surrounding of the camera seems to become changed in feel once the person has gone through....like the runner does something to the relevance of the surroundings.
A drawing runner's utensils
Memories of runs past
Each time you go out on a run, you carry all your previous running experiences with you. Some become more relevant than others. Some have bigger priority.
Visual arts....sculpture can represent them....give them a physical body, which might lock them in their relevance and order whereas the mind and feeling keeps them in a fluid arrangement...Maybe I should have set the drawing to swim on the surface of a pond, or down a river...send them on a journey....
I stacked them in the studio. When I returned the next morning, they had collapsed...Would this be runner's amnesia?
Video
Stopping, starting, returning.
Layered on top of each other, eventually crowding the screen.
Sound of drawing
....in a hidden away glade, by the side of the golf course....nobody saw me, ....
How to 'present'...
How do you present work that is made in a particular context, ....and retain their character and origin? In what context in a gallery space are they presented? What additional meaning do they get by doing this? What meanings get left behind in doing so?
Taking paper out on run: wax surface for protection
How can you take out sketching paper to sit down briefly for a sketch (whilst out on a run) and not loose the paper in the wind, or have it soaked by the rain, or torn apart by a tiny tear that gets bigger?
Still using the wax soaked chippy paper (newsprint) that the artist Lindsey Piper gave me, I hemmed in the edges of the paper, made the sheets only a certain size that folded well, and laced the sheets together with string ....no flying off any more.
At the time of making these drawings, I thought a lot about how animals are so superbly adapted to their environment and to the things they do in that environment. How their eating, sleeping, movement patterns are coordinated with the weather and vegetation on the land. I have to wear so many clothing, have to keep moving (in order not to become too cold) and only be out for so long till the cold, hunger and the exhaustion of my stamina brings me back.
I also wondered about materials, and how nature uses simple techniques like doubling layers with air in between for warmth and stabilisation. Fat, grease and wool....the essentials (we are in the realm of Beuys, I guess) is what is needed.
Post-run drawing
After each run, I would take prepared paper, fold it in a particular way and let the creases mark the surface of the paper. As the paper had been previously used by a friend to soak up excess wax from her batik fabric designs, the paper had enough wax inside itself to make folds and creases mark particularly well.
I then remembered the run, how it unfolded, how it felt, and made a drawing that represented these aspects.
Should I leave them here?
I felt it was somewhat 'right' to leave these drawings out there where they occured, where the running and drawing made them. The marker marks reminded in a way of some textures seen just there.
Running/drawing paper document
Customised paper surface
Using two sharpie marker pens, one in each hand, I let the hand movements as they naturally come about whilst running, scribe onto the paper. A steep uphill would scribe differently from running on the flat. There was choice as well, within limits, of how to 'draw' the movement, regarding on how to pick up the rhythm but also on how to use the movement shapes provided by the body's movements and the land's inclination.
.....ready to go out on run....
To be worn like that...
Paper drawing corsage
I have studied Fashion and Design, many years ago, and it felt like a liberation to be able to craft this corsage-paper-drawing surface without the precision needed in tailoring....on the contrary, ...the individual mis-haps....seemed to be character-building.
A paper drawing robe (or apron)
Would the hand movements that happen as a result of the running movement scribe onto a surface? If I had a marker pen in hand? Would there be a meaningful way of 'reading' this kind of drawing?
Surfaces
During a 45 minute run in Crewe, Cheshire, I collected images, short videos, paid a visit to the train station, explored a derelict area ....
Though the running journey brought me through areas that would not be my running arenas out of choice, it made me bring down my own barriers to 'liking' such environments, much of which had to do with feeling comfortable to be seen to be running around there ('What is she doing there, running in a circle on a car park, ....sitting amongst debris'......).
A certain kind of movement practise, ..running, ....walking or otherwise, comes with codes. Accepting them, breaking them (if not illegal), re-writing them can have astonishing effects.
Double sky
The plastic dome above my drawing....and the natural dome/sky above that, seems a bit of a doubled act. This could make a project in itself: Let the drawing's own atmosphere create moisture...drip drops onto the surface and change it....
Sketching under cover
The moisture inside my transparent drawing bag made me wonder how the act of drawing, in its own protective bag, created its own environment,..surfaces, atmosphere and all.
Urban
Loud and shaky.....the over-load of road surface seems quite striking. I have always felt strangely ambiguous to be running in such urban places. Where decay and loud sounds (not always fresh air) seems so prevalent. Ever more it is surprising how the running there still is a positive experience.
On-site drawing
There could be more to it...
....then just calling them static frames, that these stretchy lines did.
Further thoughts here about how to use them as a sculptural low impact practise outside.