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you and me on a long walk
approx 60 x 60 x 15 in
The tides swell and recede four times daily, the ground beneath our feet shifts imperceptibly to accomodate a water table in perpetual flux. Until they don’t, and the water dries up, and a hole tears through the earth and swallows your car. What does it mean to make a home in a place defined by change? Storms batter the coastline, real estate developers batter the map. The neighborhood started going to hell 500 years ago and we’ve been building it up to tear it back down ever since. How can we orient ourselves within the instability? How do we know the moon will get full again when it dissapears every month? Maybe we can take each other’s hands and go for a walk and try to figure it out.
You and me on a long walk is a prose poem that exists in physical space. It is written in red underglaze across the backs of twelve handbuilt ceramic houses, each measuring approximately 15 x 15 x 15 inches, with a doorway on the front and small windows on the sides. The houses are arranged in a circle around a mound of shell gravel. The work is installed on the floor. Movement is an essential part of the piece: to read the poem, the viewer must circumnavigate the installation, starting at no particular point and ending when all twleve parts have been read.
You and me on a long walk was first installed at the Tampa Museum of Art in Tampa, Florida, as part of the 2024 iteration of the Skyway triennial. It currently lives in a private backyard in central Florida, accumulating weeds, spiders, and dust.
Full text:
I.
Do you feel lost too? In time? In space? Here, take my hand. Let’s go for a walk
II.
The only thing before us is the open road sunbleached and endless no exit means no escape means no relief or resolution behind us the same unwavering double white lines and on either side the glittering sea a gasp caught writhing in the apex of our hearts we are frozen in place with nowhere to go but forward
III.
They keep filling only the cracks in the pavement with new tar black tributaries of hot asphalt too hot to swim in too hot underfoot our strides lengthen frantic and irregular to outpace the shifting ground by the time we make sense of the patterns new ones begin to emerge
IV.
We can only take with us that which we have given a name. Even then: the sky a mirror image of the sea
V.
We gather before the setting sun as if it’s the first time we’ve ever seen it as if it’s the last time we ever will it hangs like a question too long overhead when at last it dips below the horizon we exhale relieved the answer does not belong to us
VI.
The tide comes and goes but we remain still it covers our feet and ankles up now to our knees thighs hips waists now above chests shoulders arms stretched high in surrender now around throats chins cheeks breathe in breathe out breathe in breathe out it will soon surely recede
VII.
I think I’ve been here before but I can’t remember why or when
VIII.
We stood like stones and watched as each grain of sand was carried from the coastline sometimes the water came as a dripping sometimes it came as a deluge but it never once stopped we wondered aloud when it would we asked ourselves in silence if it should
IX.
Air heavy with water bodies cells walls breath the sagging boards the wide-cast net eggs eyes clouds time the gnarled root the climbing vine the endless wait the coming night all heavy with water all waiting patiently for their turn to burst open
X.
In every change is death and life together
XI.
We pause to rest for a moment I lay my head on your shoulder and inhale salt from cool gulf air salt from slick skin fresh earth dug from the riverbank mixed with decomposing eel grass further below magnolia gardenia citrus peeled in the shower a thousand algae-choked fish rotting in the sun I’m not ready to leave this place just yet
XII.
My body cracks as it tries to settle into ground too soft to support its own weight I ignore hairline fractures spiderwebbing into fissures into ruptures into breaks in both ceiling and foundation a great hole opens beneath me I collapse in on myself and am swallowed by the earth
Press:
Skyway 2024: A Contemporary Collaboration
Tampa Museum of Art’s ‘Skyway’ showcases the range of today’s creative zeitgeist | David Warner, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay
Exploring All Five Skyway Museums | Tony Wong Palms, Creative Pinellas
11 reasons to check out Tampa Bay’s Skyway 2024 art exhibitions | Jennifer Ring, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay