The Walkit Story - Part 2
(This is the second part of the story of the Walkit sketching bags. In the first part I am writing about how Urban Sketching came to be a part of my life.)
“Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafing heroes of folk song, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars? Have they vanished along with footpaths, with grasslands and clearings, with nature?” (Milan Kundera: Slowness)
/Fresco in the Heraklion Archeological Museum/
So “my author” - Krisztina - and I set off to Crete for a week to walk along the scenes that would later all be written about in the children’s book Kréta-rajz (Crete Sketches). We visited the Heraklion Archeological Museum, Spinalonga (the Island of the Lepers), walked the Gorge of Samaria, Rethymno, the Preveli Monastery, and the palace of Knossos.
It was quite an unforgettable trip and we had quite a number of adventures and challenges. But this blogpost is to tell you about just one: while Krisztina took her notes in her small notebook in a few minutes whenever she felt like and then simply walked on, it took me ages to pick up the visual elements I saw along the way.
By the time I took out my painting kit from my bag, found a proper place and set up to work, the moment was long gone! And there was something to admire and sketch every few minutes!
/Praying figures in the Heraklion Archeological Museum/
/Sketching while eating Greek yoghurt with thyme honey in the Preveli Monastery/
I wanted to be swift, but did not want to be in a rush. I love walking, leisurely, contemplating, wondering. What is the tool that will allow me to slow down while helping me to be ready to sketch any minute?
The question stuck in my mind and started to germinate. The creative frustration led to me sewing my first sketching bag right upon returning home from Crete. I used an old pillowcase bought once upon a time in India, and made a bag with crooked, lurching handstitches. I did not yet make any pencil loops (like the ones in the bags now), only two large pockets and a few smaller ones. As I started using it, I made several corrections - some pockets were too deep, so I shortened them by a few quick stitches. The front pocket soon needed strengthening. And so the bag improved itself continuously. I had no proper strap so I grabbed a piece of shutter cord, and in lack of a buckle I simply tied it around my waist. It was a proper, sincere pioneer piece. This was in summer 2015.
/The “pioneer” bag/
I knew the brand name right from the very first moment. Walkit. Walk-it. Walk-kit.
Walking is the essence of what this bag represents for me, and what Urban Sketching represents for me. Walking is the pace which is slow enough to allow enough time for awe, admiration and taking in the world.
/The first Walkit bag, Samu, and me in Cinque Terre, Italy/
The bag absolutely lived up to my hopes, it became an inseparable part of me. People would often admire it and ask where I got it from. (This always puzzled me - wasn’t it obviously a DIY piece?) I slowly came to wonder if this was something that could serve others as well. Was my need also the need of other people?
Still, another 3 years passed before I did anything about it. It was in 2018 in Porto, at the 9th Urban Sketching Symposium that something broke through. I was so moved by being part of this community again - 7 years after the Lisbon Symposium, in Portugal again. (In the meanwhile the USK Symposiums orbited the Earth: USA, Brazil, Singapore, Costa Rica, UK…) it was euphoric to meet long not seen friends. Of course I was wearing and using my pillowcase-pre-walkit prototype, which received many loving and admiring comments.
/Porto rooftops, 2018./
/Porto railway station, 2018./
That autumn had in store two transformational sketching trips, both of which adding something significant to the product process.
The first one was a trip to Tajikistan, an expedition guided by my brother, Gyula. It was my first ever journey to this part of the world, as one of a small but most international team. We trekked for days, crossing 4-5000m passes in the majestic Pamir mountains, among breathtaking views. Capturing it all in sketches was impossible, but I had a few good tries. The story of this expedition would deserve its own blogpost, maybe another time.
/Brother and me, at Lake Zorkul, Tajikistan, 2018./
/Sketching at sunrise at the Tajik-Afghan border, in a fort built in 300 B.C./
Right upon returning from Tajikistan, in October 2018 Eduardo Bajzek, urbansketcher friend from Brazil visited me in Hungary. We share Hungarian roots and for three weeks we went to explore Őrség, a beautiful part of western Hungary where his grandparents are from. I felt privileged to accompany him and sketch through this deeply moving journey with him. He chronicled this 3 week trip in a number of beautiful posts on his blog, illustrated with his amazing sketches of villages, traditional houses of the area, old almond trees and old people. I am still to write my own account of this once in a lifetime trip, maybe another time.
/Sketching in Őrség, Hungary with Eduardo, 2018./
Porto and those trips pushed me over the edge. I made the decision: I will develop a product. If only I knew what it meant to develop a product! (Luckily, I didn’t.)
I only knew that there was something that was entirely born from me and it is asking for a place in the world. And this time it wasn’t an image, an illustration, but an object.
And with that, the story of the Walkit sketching bags has finally begun in early 2019.
In the next - 3rd - part of The Walkit Story I am going to tell you about the product development process, its steps, ups and downs, miracles, and learnings. Come with me!