Last updated 13:39, Wednesday, 21 May 2008

In 1831 Jonathan Dodgson Carr hauled a sack of flour onto his shoulders, took a deep breath, and embarked on a new life.

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The Miller's Way - a

The baker from Kendal trekked 50 miles to Carlisle and helped to transform the Border City with the biscuit empire that bore his name.

This Friday Carlisle artist Rich Webster, 48, is due to arrive back in his home city, grimy and footsore, after following in Carr’s long-faded footsteps.

Webster set off yesterday with 10 kilos of flour on his back, walking north and sleeping wherever he can, all in the name of art.

He is following part of the Miller's Way; a recently opened walk from Kendal to Carlisle along the route said to have been taken by Carr.

Jonathan Dodgson Carr’s journey is Rich Webster’s contribution to the fourth Carlisle Arts Festival, which begins on Friday and runs until next Monday.

Webster’s aim is a celebration of myths, for there are many who feel that Carr did not make his journey laden down by flour but instead travelled more comfortably, more sensibly. But where’s the fun in that?

“In Margaret Forster’s history of the Carr family [Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin] she goes into a lot of detail about why he wouldn’t have done it because it wasn’t practical,” says Webster.

“But people don’t always do practical things. He was 25, he liked the outdoors. Picking up a sack of flour and walking to Carlisle would have appealed. It would have been a really good laugh, the equivalent of getting drunk or going to the football.

“We are in an age when we try and prove definitively whether something happened or it didn’t, rather than taking something from the myth that is useful and saying ‘That’s a good story.’”

Webster’s journey is due to end on Friday morning at Hooper’s department store on Castle Street, where Jonathan Dodgson Carr’s journey began. His first Carlisle bakery was on the site and Hooper’s will be giving away 150 bread rolls to mark Webster’s return.

Carr may well have approved – he campaigned against the corn laws which kept the price of bread high – and Webster too has an eye on the common good.

His contribution to last year’s Carlisle Arts Festival was a yellow box on Castle Street marked by the words “Demonstrate Here”.

This was inspired by peace protestor Brian Haw, whose seven-year vigil outside Parliament has been restricted by police.

Says Webster: “It was ruled that he could only protest within an area of three metres. By doing that they’ve just defined what our freedom of speech looks like.”

The theme of freedom is also apparent in Webster’s forthcoming exhibition which begins at the Bank Gallery, Court Square, next month. I Fought the Law (but they changed the legislation) And the Law Won brings the style of graphic novels to images of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

“I started to think how close this society is to a position where they can start locking people up and taking away their liberties on very sketchy grounds. The more you allow governments to make decisions the more you give your freedom away.”

Webster’s current Cumbrian trek is the prelude to a 500-mile epic in July, when he and his wife Ruth will follow in the footsteps of pilgrims to the Vatican via Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

“A lot of my work is about spirituality, a sense of having another facet of our personality. It might be intuition or a connection with a greater force. It means different things for different people.”

Webster will be making a piece of art in each supermarket he passes, each with the theme of a religious painting. Twelve tins of soup, for example, will represent The Last Supper.

Originally from Yorkshire, Webster began working as a full-time artist seven years ago and came to Cumbria soon afterwards to study an MA at Cumbria Institute of the Arts.

He has been involved in Fred, Cumbria’s annual festival of site-specific art, and laments the lack of council funding. But why should taxpayers help foot the bill?

“As a society we need to spend money on culture. Culture is a calming influence on society. If you take that away we’re nothing more than yobs and vandals. It might not be enjoyed by everybody all the time, but nothing is.

“There are definitely better places than Cumbria for implementing art. But all the artists I know here have made the decision to stay and try and improve things.”