Sunrise Walking

 

   

    07.12 - 07.27 (sunrise) - 07.42

It is the fifth day in the 15th season of British Summer Time. The fifth day I got up in the dark and left my house exactly 15 minutes before sunrise to walk until 15 minutes after sunrise in the company of other sunrise walkers. They aren’t really there, those other walkers, they might even still be asleep or in the middle of their day, living in a different time zone, walking in a different place. But as our chief walker, Blake Morris, writes: we all see the same sun rise. And we all share the images and stories of our morning walk. Blake started the project in 2019 and the format is the same year in year out: twice a year, in the week(s) inbetween changing the clocks in the UK and the USA, people walk during the sunrise. Some people are there every season, some join for a day, some of them I have met in the real world, others Ifeel like old friends because we meet again online to be part of the sunrise walks. 

I haven’t posted here, Instagram is the place where we leave our traces. I don’t like being there, but I appreciate that we can connect there and I do enjoy leaving a first image there every day that isn’t very attractive and almost similar day in day out. The scrollers will ignore it, the curious people will give it a bit more attention. And maybe producing different kinds of images and content communally has a little bit of impact or is at least a statement. But I do struggle with the text limitations so today I post here. And if you want to join this week, wherever you are, or you want to know more about the project, check out “upcoming walks” on Blake’s website and when you are there, do wander around for a bit to see all the other wonderful things he has been involved in: https://thisisnotaslog.com/

Day 5

07.12 - 07.27 - 07.42, Speuld (NL)

Walking under a grey sky again today. I dearly miss the Catalonian skies but I do feel fortunate that it is the fifth dry morning in a row which counts as a miracle in the Netherlands in autumn. I was a bit jealous seeing Blake’s morning colours yesterday but there is a different kind of beauty here. Some mornings I think about chosing a different route but this is my favorite one and it is different every morning anyhow, but with the same highlight, whether it rains or the sun shines: walking out of the forest and seeing the wide space of the heath. In a way it is similar to my early morning walks in Barcelona, where after walking through the dense city, there was always the sea at the end of the walk. 
But not unimportant to realise and mention: it is a privilege to be able to walk wherever I want to under these grey skies. There are many people who can’t. Count your blessings.

As always when I am walking here in autumn I see many mushrooms. New ones pop up every day, and I often think about John Cage when I try to spot them. He had a special relationship with mushrooms and writes about them often. “Ideas are to be found in the same way that you find wild mushrooms in the forest, by just looking. Instead of having them come at you clearly, they come to you as things hidden.” There's one I recognise in a spot that was empty yesterday, or maybe I missed the edible “egg” that proceeds this smelly full grown mushroom, with a name that doesn’t leave much to the imagination: Phallus Impudicus. 

On my first walking day, last Sunday, I collected items I found while walking. It wasn’t a preconceived plan and when I posted them enthusiastically afterwards, thinking about doing the same thing every day, I immediately corrected myself, afraid my walks would be about spotting intruiging objects instead of just being in the walk. But then when you decide against things, the things might decide differently and ask for attention anyway. Yesterday I found a key and in my pockets is still the collection of pitch black stones I picked up the day before yesterday. Today, in-between all the brown, green and red of tree trunks, trails and leaves, a bright pink caught my attention, not only because its colour was so out of place, but because the out of place colour I was wearing was exactly the same.

The things are like the mushrooms. You find them when you don’t look for them. In that sense life is very much like a walk: the best opportunities come up when and where you aren’t looking for them, like mushrooms. Making art is also similar. It is about showing up and going through the motions, being attentive and ready to respond. Inspiration is only a small part of it. 

It seems I wandered off a little bit. And that is one of the beautiful things about these Summer Time Sunrise Walks. You think you just go for an early stroll, bring some lightness into your day, you don’t think about much while walking, you just walk and watch and listen and then you come home and the walk continues while you sit at your table in front of your computer. 

Join us tomorrow!

 

 

Returning. Tiny Spaces deep Connections, Day 29

Potsdam - Berlin - Hannover - Karlsruhe - Paris - night train to Toulouse 

Three weeks flew by. The sourdough starter and I are travelling back to Spain, taking a different route through France. I am leaving a trail of cosmos daydream seedbombs again.  

In the train I am embroidering the questions people left during the final presentation, "Wann machen wir eine Pause?" 

It is exciting but mainly sad to encounter two elephants when exploring the area close to the railway station in Karlsruhe. And the same goes for the planters in front of the station entrance, a mix of real and plastic flowers in bright colours. It has been intruiging to see how they deal with plants and nature in and around railway stations, a subject I never really thought about until I went on this journey. Something to explore more in the future?

In Paris Austerlitz I leave a small jar with starter in public space and eat at an Asian restaurant called Le Petit Bonheur, simple and delicious. "C'etait un grand bonheur!" I tell the owner when I leave.  

I share my compartment from Paris to Toulouse with five people and their luggage. It is a tiny space and it is a bit of a puzzle and sometimes a weird kind of dance to get everything and everybody in place, but the beds are comfortable and there is something soothing about moving while sleeping.

 

Welcome. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 27

 

 

 

 

 

Activities. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 24

Transforming the leftovers and failures from the ceramic workshop into clay powder, to be reused in seedbombs. I like the fact that the material has been going through different hands and will have a new function. Testing the material qualities of the seedbomb mixture, creating different shapes, some random, some conceptually thought through (or at least to some extend). Dreaming about a human size seedbomb rolling through streets, being pushed by many people. Embroidering somebody’s question at the meeting point/book exchange at the entrance. While distracting seeds from their pods (I am still collecting as many different seeds from the garden as possible) I discover somebody sleeping in one of them.

Whereas we human beings tend to get slower on a hot day like this, the sourdough starter becomes super active. 

 

Balance. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 21 - 23

Days for reflection and thinking about final work, letting everything slowly fall in place. There is a little garden in front of my temporary home I like a lot. The tree stump resembles a pedestal. Could I install something there? I do some balancing exercises with stones and look at the shadow play of the light filtering through the trees. The Japanese have a word for this, komorebi, I learned this when watching Wim Wenders’ film “Perfect Days” in which it plays an important role. I read a little in the book I found in the yellow phonebooth that is a public book exchange and doubles as a meeting point. I always trust I find the right book at the place where I will be living and working and I was delighted to find Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees as mentioned a few days ago, a book about a boy who decides to live in the trees after he gets tired of his wealthy parents’ lifestyle and never comes down again. More seed collecting and drying plants for teas. And after being hosted by the community here for a barbecue, I return the favour unplanned to a homeless man who sneaks into my outdoor kitchen and cooks himself a feast meal with all he can find. 

Also: making a little video to go with the interview for TaikaBox, the Finnish partner organisation in the Tiny Spaces Deep Connections project (the third one is Communitism in Greece). You can read the interview, "Rewild your mind" HERE

 

Many things. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 18 - 20

During the public presentation on Thursday, where I talk about my work, I am very inspired by Van Bo Le-Mentzel who speaks before it is my turn. He is an architect and designer and unconventional thinker who became known for his simple and inexpensive self-assembly instructions for furniture and then continued working on the idea of democratic design by developing tiny houses and living spaces. 
On Friday we visit an interlocking tower where there is the possibility to install a video projection, visible from the outside, as if there is a whole different world inside. Most railway interlocking towers, once used to operate switches and manage signals, have been replaced by centralized electronic operation. Inside it is as if time has stood still. In the S-Bahn I embroider a question somebody shared with me the day before: “Was inspiriert dich?”, what inspires you?
The workshop in the weekend is wonderful. We walk through the garden and discover all the wild plants and their uses, we hang out with plants (an exercise or way of spending time with plants I learned from Mark Watson), we make drawings with natural ink, prepare lunch with some of the things we found and some of the vegetables that were used to make ink. Last but not least we make seedbombs and when I explain that they don’t need to be little balls, Lana comes up with a plan to make catnip seedbombs and shapes the clay and soil mixture into little cat heads.

(Text on the photo: People don't want big rooms, they want big dreams. Interview with Van Bo le Mentzel HERE) 

Colours and flavours. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 17

 

I made natural ink in the last days for my own use and for the workshop this Saturday. Different colours and different preparation methods. There are alcohol based inks (f.e. yellow, curcuma, light pink, rose) and water based inks (f.e. red: beet, green: spinach, pink: rose, brown: coffee, purple: wild cherries) but I also like to experiment with other ways to catch the colour, for example by using beets as stamps, or the yellow sap from the greater celandine straight from the plant, or even just putting a used teabag on a piece of paper. 
I prepare a dough with rose petals and lemon balm in the oven house. It would have been wonderful to use the old traditional wood oven, but this only makes sense when you bake a lot of bread or pizza, since it needs a lot of wood and a lot of time firing it.