Kath Stathers - The Artists path in 500 Walks: Follow the inspired footsteps of William Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, Otis Redding, and more

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Thunder Bay Press

Publisher: Peter Norton

Associate Publisher: Ana Parker

Acquisitions Editor: Kathryn Chipinka Dalby

Editor: Angela Garcia

The Bright Press

Editor: Kath Stathers

Senior Editor: Caroline Elliker

Managing Editor: Jacqui Sayers

Editorial Director: Isheeta Mustafi

Designer: Tony Seddon

Illustrator: La Shuks

Cover Illustration: Lynn Hatzius

Picture Researcher: Susannah Jayes

Art Director: Katherine Radcliffe

Publisher: James Evans

eBook ISBN: 978-1-64517-310-6

eBook Edition: September 2020

Walking can be both a pleasure and a necessity. We can walk for no reason other than to clear our minds and enjoy the surroundings, or we can walk to the local shop because we need a pint of milk. Yet every journey can be an inspiration.

For every jaw-dropping view that has inspired the composition of a masterpiece, there is also the smaller, everyday joy in the overheard conversation, or the peculiarity of a street name.

This book celebrates many different types of walks, from epic pilgrimages across several countries, to small meanders around a particular neighborhood. Each, though, is inspired in some way by a writer, artist, or musician.

In some cases this means walking in the places that inspired great workssuch as in the Mourne Mountains in northern Ireland where C. S. Lewis found his Narnia, and where you can see the very stone that Aslans stone table was based on; while for others, it can mean discovering the place where your hero or heroine lived, the hotel where they met their lover, and the caf they sat in while they wrote their novel, as with Anas Nin in her bohemian corner of Paris.

The walks are long and short, rural and urban, known trails and those created especially for this book.

One of my favorites is in Washington State, in the U.S.A., a stunning trek in the North Cascades National Park from Ross Lake up to Desolation Peak. It is inspired by Jack Kerouac who took a job as a fire ranger on the mountain because he wanted to escape the frenetic hedonism of his life and thought it might feed into his writing. In retracing his steps, we know we are in the same place where Kerouac was, experiencing the same views; we can see the hut he lived in; we can breathe the same air. For many of us, these surroundings would be enlightening and uplifting. Kerouac, though, found it futile and dull. The fact that he hated it, tells us as much about him as had he loved itprobably more.

The real joy in working on this book has been discovering the stories, such as this one, behind the inspirational figures. For example, Ernest Hemingway is deeply linked to Key West, Florida, which he loved, but he initially only spent time in the town because of a late delivery of a car that meant he was stranded there for longer than he intended. Or Dorothy Wordsworth, who wrote a beautiful letter about climbing Scafell Pike, in England, but her words were published by her brother, the poet William Wordsworth, with no acknowledgement that he hadnt made the climb and written the descriptions himself. She only became known as a talented writer and poet after her death.

The stories behind the walks bring us closer to the personalities just as the walks themselves do. When we consciously follow in anothers footsteps, hunt out the views they painted, and visit the houses they lived in, we do so with them in our thoughtsand in doing so, we might hope to share a small window into their minds.

Walking and discovering are two of lifes great pleasures. It has been inspirational to bring them together in this book with a surrounding cast of the greats from the world of art, music, and literature.

There are walks that you might turn to if youre visiting an area, and walks that you might travel the world to make. Even without taking a single step, there are some that might inspire a walk of the mind, as you discover writers, artists, and musicians in here whose work you are driven to seek out.

Inspiration comes in many forms. I hope you find some within the pages of this book.

This book is organized by areas of the world, and within each chapter you will find entries organized under individual countriesor in the case of North and Central America by state, province, and territory. The entries are also color coded, as shown below, to indicate with which area of the arts they are closely associated. This will allow you to select walks based on the kind of experience that suits your interests.

LITERATURE

ART

MUSIC

Put yourself in an Albert Bierstadt painting in the Rocky Mountains, trace the walks of Anne of Green Gables on Prince Edward Island, and find Frida Kahlos inspiration in Mexico City, in this most diverse of continents.