The first documentation of Walking Man from 1998
Country and City Walking Men, 2005
Another early drawing of Walking Man from 1999
Walking Man looking out of a window 2001
The following is an early description of Walking Man as it appears in the play The Two Deaths of John Beartrist Laceroot:
Walking Man does quite a good bit of doing things, but often
is found plainly walking; in circles or in unjoined lines.
Also with regularity, in simple curves as well as complex
compounded curves accompanied with series of strait lines.
Less frequently, but often enough to be mentioned, he walks
in lines forming letters that sometimes are random and do
not spell out any sort of thing, but at other times they
make up words or sentences.
Walking Man is found often to have walked from one geographic-
al location to another geographical location extremely far removed from the
first, kicking the leaves underneath the trees.
For the ‑ uhmm… individual, the imagination is much more endued
with the powerful swaying grip of reality than that of the
actual objective reality. That is to say that, umm…ahh, to some people,
the life experienced within the imagination is just as real, if not more real,
than the life experienced outside the imagination…
if…the…ahh…two can be separated at all. In this consideration,
Walking Man is John Beartrist Laceroot.
The School of the Transfer of Energy 
An evocatively written description of walking man. He is random but purposeful at the same time? He has tasks but exists in his imagination? You invented John Beartrist Laceroot? The two guys shaking hands are either going to collide or be intertwined shortly or do a quick two step to avoid colliding. Are they two aspects of himself? Interesting to see how you’ve developed this character.
I appreciate having your insights into this character, Steven. He is hard to describe in one sense. On the other hand, simply, he began as one part autobiographical one part everyman. Over time he has come to be my spiritual journey questing after the heart of God. John Beartrist Laceroot is my invention, and the title character of my puppet play. The name is a play on John the Baptist and Lancelot of Arthurian legend. I hope that you will keep engaging the drawings and character as I post them.
Thank you for your explanation. Very deep stuff and I’ll follow this ‘walk’ with great interest.
Hi,
I hope you don’t mind but I put a copy of “Country and City walking men” on my facebook page with a link to this article as a source. I have been a follower of your blog for a long time now. I am from France and practice traditional woodworking with hand tools (green woodworking : spoon carving and timber framing) and that’s what my page is mostly about with my other passion traditional sailmaking and canvas work. If you don’t want your drawing to be published on my page, just tell me and I’ll delete the post. Thanks for you wonderful blog and work. I use a scythe too. Great tool !
http://www.facebook.com/bois.toile (“bois et toile” means “wood and canvas”)
Antoine
Maussion, thank you. I don’t mind at all. Your work looks great.