The Tall Tale
You know what stays the same wherever you go? The manic joy of local parks on Sundays. No matter the latitude, green patches across City X or Town Y fill with reckless abandon come Sunday. Morning 'til dusk, they're charged with the timeless friction of thrills 'n' spills we call play. Weaving age divides. Passing caffeine packed defibrillators over chasms of experience, and possibly a dog. Who's lead's round your ankles for a moment, like a shoelace you can't untie, but just as soon as you're bound up it unravels from your grip and you start wondering who got wrapped around what.
There's an inherent risk in play that makes the world bigger and smaller at the same time. Makes you want that rush again before it's even left you. And so goes the cycle of biological treats we've been riding since we were born. With little difference between the world's biggest rollercoaster and that curly-whirly slippery dip you whizzed down as a kid. A simple plastic mould coiling smash-n-grab shrieks from a revolving line of thrill seekers. Bending between joy and terror then back again as windswept parents huddle on benches. Chiaroscuro brushed across their faces while the trees shimmy-shake. Everyone craning to see if their kid's intact without getting up, so they don't lose the best and only seats in the house.
As I watched these parents in parks over the years — passing by on my way to who knows where — I saw them, time and again, wriggling through emotions as wild as any carnival ride... sleep deprived but never enough to get in the way of their kids playtime. And I figured these parents could do with a theme park of their own. A place for them to escape to. Finding catharsis in the grip of a giggling fit. That same wild elation they make space for their kids to get swept up in. That same adrenaline we all love to toy with — still — our toes hanging over the precipice of watered down danger we call thrills... after too many margaritas, obviously.
Sources Of Inspiration
Families eye-spied in parks on Sunday afternoons across four continents • The universal, timeless power of thrills and spills • Stuffing your face with so much sugar your teeth start to hurt
Details, Details
100% digital paper cutouts, flat-packed plants, 2D fabric walls, oxidised beetles, a skeletal critter and more • Available as fine art prints, forest friendly greeting cards and more — from 5x7" up to 24x32"
