People at markets often ask me if I do this work full-time and they tend to be surprised when my answer is “No”. I tell them, “this couldn’t be my career” and they smile. Perhaps they think I’m being bashful?

“Why wouldn’t you want to make money from something you love?” they reply. 

It’s meant kindly and is quite encouraging. In a society where creative work can be difficult to sustain, the idea of turning something joyful into a career sounds like the obvious goal. But, it’s not mine.

The truth is that this project would still exist even if nobody bought a single print.

It would be a collection of artworks on the walls of my home. A growing record of walks in a folder for me to look back through when feeling nostalgic. Perhaps a quiet blog on the internet or an instagram feed? Mostly, it would act like a journal of the places Pika and I have been together, something to look back on long after the paths themselves become too difficult to walk.

The artwork is a way of holding those memories, keeping the shape and colour of an experience and gently placing ourselves in a moment forever.

Selling the work has become part of the story, and I’m grateful for that. It allows a little extra income that can be funnelled back into the adventure; helping us travel, eat, sleep, and buy new boots when needed. However, something unexpected happens when someone recognises a place in a print, or hangs it on their own wall. My memory meets theirs, and together we create a third thing. A shared recollection of being somewhere that mattered.

I want to be careful about what that exchange becomes. Because if Marking the Wild were to become my full time income, something might shift. The pleasure I take in creating the work could easily become pressure. The walks might start to feel like research. The artwork might need to appear on a schedule rather than arriving slowly, when a place has stayed with me long enough to deserve attention.

I don’t want to make work every day because an algorithm expects it.

I want the work to bloom when it is ready, not because someone else decides it needs to exist now.

The pace of this project is 'walking pace'.

Sometimes that means a new piece appears quickly, while the memory of a place is still vivid. Other times it takes weeks or months for an image to settle into something worth making.

And sometimes there is simply walking. Imagine the irony in starting a project to celebrate walking, and that project stopping you from walking. 

This also matters to me because Marking the Wild began with companionship.

Pika has been beside me on these walks from the beginning and she doesn’t care about finished artwork or Instagram posts or whether a route was impressive enough to mention later. What she cares about is being outside. The smells on the wind, the movement of grass, the endless curiosity of a new path.

Her joy in those moments is uncomplicated and contagious.

The project is, in many ways, a record of that time together.

One day the walks will continue without her beside me, but the work will still carry the memory that she was there. That she was the catalyst for many of these small adventures.

So when I call myself a hobby artist, it isn’t because I’m trying to downplay the work.

It’s because the word protects something.

A hobby is allowed to be slow.

It is allowed to meander.

It's allowed to exist for the pleasure of doing it.

And for me, that matters far more than turning something I love into something that needs to pay the bills.

Because in the end, Marking the Wild isn’t really about making a living.

It’s about making sure I remember where we’ve been.