The first months of 2025 have included many walks, some more momentous than others, so I will write about just a few of the highlights.

When I was still in Edmonton, Sheena and I were able to lead a walk for City employees, to move and think together about winter walking and accessibility in the downtown core. As it happened, our walk took place on one of the coldest days of the year, which made for some excellent learning. We saw firsthand how snow and ice impede mobility, where shelter might or might not be possible, who walks on the coldest days, and more.

From Edmonton, Sheena and I flew to New York in mid-February for the College Art Association annual conference, where I chaired a panel for the Women’s Caucus and Sheena gave a talk about our work on walking as climate action. A highlight was reconnecting with Myrel Chernick and Jess Dobkin from our days of shared research on maternal art activism. And I went for lots of walks outside of the conference, of course.

In the middle of March, I had a work trip to Chicago but was able to add on a couple of days to spend at Compound Yellow, a community art space. Founder Laura Shaeffer and I went on an excellent 10-mile walk together one day, talking about lessons of care in community and making possible plans for the future.

In April, Tim and I traveled to the UK. We started in London, where I ran a walking workshop for PhD students at London South Bank University. From there, we traveled to York, where I gave a talk at the Association for Art History annual conference, on “Shifting Understandings of Wellness in Higher Education through a Pedagogy of Walking.”

Once my work was finished, we then spent a week walking the path of Hadrian’s Wall, from Carlisle in the west to Newcastle in the east. While I always teach a bit about the wall in Art History when we cover ancient Rome, I knew only the broadest strokes of the history. It was wonderful to learn so much more and think about how I can convey some of that to students in the future. And while our days were very long and sometimes quite difficult, the April lambing season proved a wonderful distraction, as the right to roam meant that many of our paths went right next to them through the fields.

While that week of walking was not “for work,” per se, there was such amazing learning and we will be processing all we experienced for some time to come.