Of radishes, potatoes and travel

Do travel stories inspire you? Are there places you have been that you really loved? I'm thinking about all those places and ways I've travelled while being in isolation. 

This week I’ve been turning my old passport into a travel journal, adding tickets and sketches and bits of writing I did while on on the move. I found a quick sketch of a donkey I did when in Ethiopia and an observation about waking to the sound of sweeping stick brooms in Dili, Timor Leste in 2009.

It’s meant that I have finally been able to repurpose my travel ephemera and transform it into artworks. I will be sharing five of these creative techniques I used in my free 5 day Armchair Art and Travel mini course which starts tomorrow. (you can still register for it here)

One of my favourite places to visit was Mexico. My trips in 2003 and 2011 have now resulted in two pocket books made from old maps I kept.

The first time I went was just before Christmas in 2003. What I didn't realise was that the 23rd December was the Night of the Radishes, (Noche de Los Rábanos) an annual art event in Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ka).
The entire town came out to the Zocalo (central plaza) where trestle tables were set up and farmers with their families arranged tableaus of giant radishes carved into dioramas complete with priests and worshippers.

It made such an impression on me that years later I received a grant to run a potato carving event in north eastern Victoria in the farming area where I used to live.

Now, when we can't travel anywhere, I revisit my memories and unpack my mementos of those times in Mexico. It has made those travel memories all the richer in the process.

Revisiting these travels while in social isolation has made it bearable. I find bus tickets and relive the bumpy trips in buses with chickens and goats while being serenaded by musicians, or stranded in a town eating grilled corn while waiting for a bus connection. Those tickets too now feature in my folded pocket books.

If you are feeling the urge to be creative and to go travelling in your imagination, then join me and fellow creatives from all over the world as we create travel art. Thereis still time to register here.

One of the pages in my altered passport with a donkey sketch from Ethiopia.