Post navigation

Prev: (04/06/18) | Next: (04/07/18)

CHS Pics | A Capitol Hill walk with Seattle Walk Report

With reporting and pictures by Alex Garland

We met Seattle Walk Report at the Cal Anderson fountain. Our code word was “Henry Yesler.” Seattle Walk Report is the anonymous artist behind an ongoing series of cartoons capturing the sights and scenes of the city’s streets from the perspective of an inquisitive but on-the-go pedestrian. You can find her work on Instagram @seattlewalkreport. This day, CHS and SWR were taking a walk together.

Along the way, Seattle Walk Report would stop, look at something and write it down in a little green “write in the rain” notebook. We walked at a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow but with lots of stops for observations. She noticed a bag of dog poop next to a trashcan and she told CHS of how she once carried a ruler to measure the distance between a bag of poop and the nearest trashcan. We talked about footwear and rain jackets and SWR told CHS she was happy with her current setup but it took some time to find the right shoes and a “truly waterproof” jacket. She looked at every dog that walked by. There were more clothing items in trees than we had seen in a while: jackets, pants, and lots of shoes. We also found two Easter eggs in Cal Anderson, one tucked up next to the fountain and one hiding under a bush. They contained both inspiration and Robert Frost poetry.

We also asked SWR to answer a few questions about her work.

What’s important about staying anonymous? I didn’t go into Seattle Walk Report with a master plan of anonymity, or any master plan, really. Once I had a better grasp of the nature of the project I realized that being mostly anonymous really enhances my ability to be an invisible observer of Seattle, which in turn strengths my comics. I like that I can be among people at any time and they don’t know me or what I’m up to, just like I don’t know them or what they’re up to. I just want to take long walks, make comics about them, and share them with people. That’s what’s important to me. At this point, adorable selfies of me at Wild Waves eating sno-cones are not.

Who knows about what you do? Mostly my family, my close friends and a handful of my co-workers. There are a few folks that follow me and know me in real life but don’t know that it’s me behind Seattle Walk Report.

What prompted Seattle Walk Report? A little over a year ago I starting to enjoy taking really long walks. If I had a day off of work, I would leave my apartment at 9 AM and come back at 5 PM, having wound around Seattle’s streets from Capitol Hill to Lake City or Georgetown or wherever, discovering all these hidden gems and places I had never seen along the way. It was magic. The city unfolded before my eyes one step at a time. After awhile all these long walks started blending together in my head, so I thought it might be fun to keep some sort of walking journal where I recorded the walk by drawing a map of where I went or what I saw that day. I thought I would keep it to myself, as I have most other artistic endeavors in my life. But after making the first one and writing “Seattle Walk Report” across the top, I started to get this nagging feeling that there was something more to what I was trying to do and that I should put it out there for other people to find. I downloaded Instagram for the first time in my life, posted the comic, and it went from there.

What has the response been like? I started Seattle Walk Report in July 2017 with no expectations that anyone would ever see it. The response has really surprised me, not in terms of the number of followers I’ve gained in that amount of time, but in how deeply it’s resonated with people. I get the most amazing messages from people about the work that I’m doing. On a personal level, even though I’m mostly anonymous, Seattle Walk Report is so totally me. It’s an on-going love letter and celebration of everything that is important to me. As someone who has always been kind of a weirdo, it’s heartening and also a little strange to have this pure reflection of myself resonate with so many different people.

Where are your favorite places to walk? I really like Capitol Hill because of the variety of what you can find in such a short distance. I’ve also really come to enjoy the monotony of streets like Airport Way or Marginal Way.

Any close calls with cars? No close calls with cars where I really thought that the end was nigh, but I’ve been in a few dicey situations, especially at four-way stops.

Any observations really stand out? Very early on, maybe a week or two after I started posting on Instagram, I was walking to work and I saw a full-sized carrot with a straw through it at 19th Ave E and E Denny. It was just sitting on the sidewalk. I thought, is this a drug thing? Usually when I see something I don’t understand I assume it’s drug-related. But it was just a carrot, slightly dried out-looking, with a plastic straw fully pierced through it. It had nothing to say for itself. I will never understand.

 

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.

 

 

Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

8 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
kelly
kelly
5 years ago

Yesss thank you, I love Seattle Walk Report! Makes my day.

Troy Sterk
Troy Sterk
5 years ago

I have been following on Instagram for some time. Very creative and interesting. Great work!

elliott
elliott
5 years ago

Where is this mermaid relief sculpture located?

yoururbanbanana
yoururbanbanana
5 years ago

Great report–one of my favorite Instagram accounts

Max
Max
5 years ago

Great article. Followed their instagram. Love it.

Sarah
Sarah
5 years ago

Brings a smile to my face. I will follow SWR now.

Kayle
Kayle
5 years ago

I love Seattle Walk Report! :D

Josie
Josie
5 years ago

Ahhh! Love this behind the scenes look. Thanks!