Circle On Bigbury Beach

Oh my goodness

This journey of looking at my work has overtaken me.

I have come to a realisation that sometimes less is in fact more. I had had a plan a very involved plan. I had become stuck in the plan, in my note book. It was time to get out.

My question was. What was the fundamental element of my planned performance?

It was walking a circle. The other aspects I decided I can keep for future iterations. So from anxious moments of stuckness I had enough inner oomph to the act and realise the performance of walking circles. I decided to go for a circular walk on the beach at Bigbury on Sea. A public performance in public place.

A place where people walk alone, in groups, with their dogs. The tide was low it was possible. Who will see me?…

I was gone for about 2 1/12 hours.

Returning with photographic evidence and a sense of completion, completion of a circle, walked I don’t know how many times. I didn’t think to count. I am annoyed that I didn’t I walked 20 minutes exactly one way and more or less 20 minutes the other way.

Anti-clockwise first, then clockwise. My footprints marked out clearly the shape. The roughed up sand, evidence of my actions.

A large Circle of more than a hundred meters circumference.

Here comes the poeticness.

Walking a circle, walking a line a curve line that joins onto itself. The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning, true at any point around its circumference.

There is a difference between a walk that is a performance and a walk to the shops. If I intend the walk to be a performance my state of mind is more attuned to how I will respond to the unexpected encounters and experiences.

Walking for me always has the opportunity for an encounter with a friend or stranger.

The circular walk on the beach last Friday was no exception. I had several people talk to me about what I was doing. Some admiring the form I made as they walked across it. Another man uncertain wether to cross the line and enter the circle. I gave permission, even though he didn’t need it.

End of first part …time for a break.

Too much time in front of a screen I’m going for a walk, a circular walk.

Walking for fun is an important activity for me, not just coming and going, but as an adventure. The act of walking, exposed to the elements will always have some kind of surprise. For example, on the walk just now, I had three conversations with fellow villagers. Conversations about trees and how the tall ones can obscure up to an hour of sunlight from their garden, how seaweed is good for the asparagus on the allotment. Tim asked if I was good at counting. I said I’m OK. He wanted to calculate the average age of the workers on his house build site. Mainly because the digger driver was 80 years old. The answer was more than 67.

Circle or cycle, day follows night, low tide follows high tide. As predictable as the earth circles the sun and the moon circles the earth. This walk today, is a break from writing and is to get light and fresh air. It is only possible if the tide is out, otherwise the road is flooded with the high tide. The cycles of nature are circles of time. Endless circles.

I think about other performance artists who have made work about walking and circles.

The mark making of Richard Long, ‘My footsteps make the mark’. 'My legs carry me across the country. It's like a way of measuring the world. I love that connection to my own body. It's me to the world.’ His 1984 walk Walking a Circle in Ladakh, marked out with his footsteps a circle on the terrain.

I like the work of Bruce Nauman his neon sculptures shaped like a spiral has the text. ‘The true artist helps the world by unravelling mystic truths’ and his video of his gestural walking in his studio. Walking in an exaggerated manner. 1967.

I like the provocative walks of Vito Acconci and of course the Situationists embracing the concept of the Flaneur, a term coined by Charles Baudelaire for a dilettante observer, went on aimless walks with the sole purpose of observing the city.

So here I am continuing in the art of walking, observing and making circles.