LINE & SPACE in Nordic Skiing
Sporty LINES, and the SPACES they carve out, are artful expressions or gestures. These two elements of Art, LINE & SPACE are expressive and freeing especially when carved by our own bodies. In this way, we are performance artists with ourselves as the main viewing audience.
Are we ‘Objets d’Art’ when cross country skiing along LINES of track through white SPACES?
Cross country skiing is Nordic skiing, and is neither downhill nor back country. The biggest difference is the lack of metal edges on the flexible, lightweight ski, and in the bindings that secure the ball of the foot.
The heel is loose and adds pumping propulsion to the diagonal stride. Nordic skiers move in the track, or side-to-side, skating style, on shorter, stiffer skis.
Feature Photo by Kris Mirski at Nickel Plate Nordic, South Okanagan, British Columbia
As mentioned in Post #1 of the series, “I’m Not an Artist, BUT…”, https://www.joanboxall.com/im-not-an-artist-but/ LINES move and make impressions. Admittedly, they outLINE shapes. They show where we’ve gone and point to where we’re going. LINES leave their mark.
Cross country skiers follow LINES on prepared tracks. They may overtake other skiers, or be overtaken, all in LINE with the etiquette of the sport. “Track!” (Or better yet, go around. Use SPACE courteously.)
Grooming machines set the track on a smooth corduroy surface onto which a track is set. Tracks for Nordic skiers vary with temperature, snow condition and trail traffic. How soon we ‘hit the tracks’ on a week day or weekend determines whether the tracks hold their form.
Horizontal LINES of locomotion in Nordic skiing give the performance artist/athlete stability and calm continuity. In Art, horizontal LINES relay a pastoral feel, while vertical LINES pull the eye upward for a sense of movement and energy. A LINE of trees along the track moves past the main object (ourselves).
We pole and slide-glide along. The trees give a sense of uplifting verticality…something to aspire to. Our posture reaches up. We breathe it in. Our strength is in the downward weightshift, side to side.
As alluded to in Post #1, SPACE ‘swirls all around us. It is positive in its objective (positive SPACE is the main object). Negative SPACE is between, around and within…creating SPACiousness.’
The trees are positive objects that whir past our SPACial awareness, framing us in. The snowy canvas and the wide expanse of sky are negative in their objectlessness. Funnily enough, in Art these are also known as ‘white SPACES’ or ‘air SPACES’.
LINE & SPACE in Nordic Skiing
is a depth of 
movement which
gives a positive black-and-whiteness–
a dark silhouette
of foreground
mid & background
we progress… 
we digress.
The focal point being
we propel along the track’s
curved ways and straightaways–
the bumpy, the unclear.
We wobble. We crash. We plow on.
Strokes in our strides,
we are calligraphic scribes.
Inspired by the Ojibway art of Benjamin Chee Chee who used white negative SPACE with simple curved LINES to depict natural objects like Canada Geese.
In like fashion, we flow along snowy track, liquid as black ink.
We shape up, in LINE and SPACE. We become ‘Objets d’Art’.
