Comments on the 2001 Motif Symposium – Traveling

Submitted by Lucy Venable - June 28, 2001


1. After thinking about & discussing this matter of meandering over a goodly number of years, I would propose to eliminate the Meandering Path as a "basic" path. As defined, it has an inner drive as well as a particular pathway. As Naomi points out it tends to slowness and drifting. It is more complicated than the other paths which have no inner drives or associated timings and therefore it should be written in a more complicated and informative way. One symbol should not embody so much information, particularly since the other pathways do not.

I have nothing against exploring & performing a meandering pathway as an activity. It is a delightful one. But it is a combination of things, not a basic pathway or way of traveling, and we will be forever trying to justify its inclusion in the basic paths.

2. This would allow the sign on the left which has been used most recently for meandering (rather unsuccessfully from my point of view because it looks like a curved path) to be used for a curved path. Adding the arrow would make the curving specific.

a. curving in either direction
b. curving to the right
c. curving to the left



3. Another thought: It seems to me there is a need for a sign which means "travel," "go," as different from "stay in place" when you don't want to be specific about the kind of pathway or when you don't want to have to choose from one of the "classified" pathways. This could be useful when you want to: travel about the room, run around in a space where other people are running around, moving from one stage area to another in a theatrical production, traveling and pausing as an activity. This might be the umbrella idea for traveling and therefore its symbol could be the overall sign for pathways.