March Forth Walk 1 of 15
The March Forth walk was a 120 mile walk I did with the theme of celebrating and promoting sobriety, recovery, and marching forth from internal prisons. This walk was done in Freguesias Estombar e Parchal, Portugal.
My method was to print out 15 maps of the area. I then drew out a line on the maps making sure it travelled all these streets. Then I took these maps to the streets and followed the line walking all the streets.
As I walked I kept in mind the theme and wrote down things I thought about or encountered through things I listened to or read. I wrote these in my journal and did graffiti of them along the way. I then made art on the maps I used for the walk based on the writings in my journal and graffiti I did on the walk.
What I think is special about these pieces is that the maps went with me on the walk and guided me. I try with my art to give a piece of the walk and I think I accomplish this since these maps were a part of the walk. The sentences and art from the walk out onto the maps also makes these pieces a part of the walk as well as microscopic things such as dust and rain and debris that get on them from the land here.
These ones are special to me too because I am practicing the theme of the walk as I do it. This walk was to celebrate over a year sober and also free of nicotine. While physically free of these things I'm still working to March Forth from the prisons inside myself caused by the parts of me that atrophied from years of drug abuse. Part of my way to March Forth from these was to break from the ruts in my art and try new things such as working with mostly rollers and bucket paint and also coming up with new drawings and letters as well as two new characters.
One new character is Bastion. A Bastion is a fortified wall which blocks ones way. A famous Bastion was the French prison, The Bastille. Bastille is etymologically related to Bastion. The Bastille was originally a border wall blocking people from entering Paris from the east. Eventually this wall became a prison which held many famous writers who held rebellious views such as Voltaire.
My character Bastion represents a wall and prison which blocks movement. He represents anything stops Marcher from his walk.
The other Character is Camina and she represents the road, movement, life. Camino is the Spanish word for road or way. The O at the end makes it masculine. But to me the road is Feminine because it gives life. I changed the ending to an A,Camina, to make her feminine. Also, Camina is an imperative in Spanish meaning "walk on!" The road, Camina encourages us to walk and move and get unstuck. Camina helps Marcher to walk and helps him against Bastion.
The sentence in this particular piece is inspired by the old Italian Partisan song Fischia il vento. "Scarpe rotte eppur bisogna andar". Our shoes are broken but we must go on. I'm inspired by their fight against Mussolini, fighting against literal tyranny. My adaptation talks about soles and souls being broken but plucking up regardless and going forth.
