In 2010, two born-and-bred Seattle boys came up with an idea. It happened while James Mitchell and Jackson Quall were sitting on Quall’s porch drinking beers.
“We thought it would be a good idea to smoke a spliff in every Seattle park,” Quall remembers. And so, a journey began. “Somewhere along the way, we realized that we needed proof, so we started taking pictures next to the rainbow signs.” Quall is speaking, of course, of the signs found in every Seattle park highlighting the park’s name and amenities. But once Quall and Mitchell started to run out of parks they knew, they decided to keep going into the unknown, employing a checklist of all the city’s parks—a long checklist. With so much formality now in place (the list, the photographs, the plan), they eventually put down the spliffs and came up with the idea to make a book.
Almost four years, 334 parks, and one very successful Kickstarter campaign later, Quall and Mitchell have realized their goal, aptly titled Reasons to Go Outside—a beautifully designed catalogue of their experience, with most of the photography by Quall himself and the design by a friend, local artist Lola Migas. Though the book starts with a brief history of our parks’ key historical proponents, like the legendary John C. Olmsted, and a few other facts and figures, it’s not necessarily meant as a guide. “The book is basically three parts. Yes, it can be used as a resource because it lists all the parks, but it’s also a personal narrative and a piece of art—something beautiful you can put on your coffee table,” says Quall.
Each park visited gets its own page, with a picture of Quall, Mitchell, and whatever friends decided to tag along. Icons let the reader know the weather during their visit, the temperature, and what method of transportation they used to get there (usually bikes). Captions on each page include “anything we want to say about the park. It could be an anecdote of what we did that day, or it could just be a rambling story that we were talking about at that time.” In this way, Reasons to Go Outside is just the tale of two friends having fun.
Quall and Mitchell have known each other since both were 13, the year their parents started dating. Quall tells me, “They split up after about 10 years, but James and I, we’ll be friends forever. You can’t split us up.” Reasons to Go Outside is a time capsule of what it’s like to be in your 20s, riding bikes and spending time with friends in one of the most beautiful cities in the country, if not the world. “This book is a very accurate portrait of who we are. It’s not apologetic. There’s boobs and butts and drugs and drinking. It’s not a family book. It’s an accurate representation of what we, and young people in general, do in parks.” E
$55. reasonstogooutside.com.
