‘Birdwalking Conversation’
Birdwalking Conversation (2013)
hilary winkworth
After I left tour I had a 40hr/wk costume shop job for the first time. I didn’t know what to do with myself. That aimlessness in down time was only intensified by the solitude of moving for a job without knowing anyone. At the same time my now late sister-in-law was in the last few years of her fight with cancer a few states away- & at least with my move we were in the same timezone again.
I had never experienced anything like it. My life to that point was pretty solitary. & let’s not kid ourselves, it’s not like I was magically socially attuned to expectations in such a circumstance. What I knew was, at that point, she had been more of a sibling to me than my own ever had. She was only 9-months older than me & things weren’t looking good.
I started marinating on cancer & infections & spreading & started my first woven sculpture. There are so many ways ‘x’ can spread & take over. I was overwhelmed by the negative so I went deeper.
I was missing my people- though they were only ever a phone call away. I missed the people that I had already collected in my journey & all of my moves. (With all of the challenges in the entertainment industry there was never a shortage of fast friends through the fire.)
What I was missing most was the brain bouncing. You know the conversations. The ones that you can’t track that seamlessly travel from one topic to the next & may circle back & you may question at one point how you got there. I’ve known these conversations to be birdwalking conversations. You follow the wind or the birds or the patterns you discover in a conversations evolution. (Now, as I’m learning more about my own brain- & how I got to here in my own life & times- I’ve been introduced to other neuro-spicy definitions).
In my mobile of sorts, ‘Birdwalking Conversation’, there are many tangents & repeated themes & colors. Depending on where it is hung it has a shifting balance & more than one rotating element. What draws your eye? How do your eyes travel the piece? Do you see how the breeze nearly floats some elements? Do you hear that?
