All tagged travel
There’s anticipation and excitement in getting ready to ‘eat the road’ as Australians head off for the summer holidays between Christmas and New Year. I love consulting maps to plot all the road stops where we will break open the thermos and left over Christmas cake, stretch our legs and change drivers for the next leg of the journey.
What does a landscape reveal? In Ireland the west coast is full of the relics of stone towers and castles where lives were lived and battles fought. What we learn when we travel is not always aligned with the histories taught at school.
Bodies of water and their crossing will always fill me with the siren call of adventure. The anticipation of exploration and (self) discovery are strong allures so I headed out to the small island of Lismore on my own kind of pilgrimage.
Stretching yourself is important in art as it is in life. What is also important is to acknowledge and celebrate each milestone, big or small. Like finishing a project or even touching my nose with my knee!
Learning new things is exciting. But it can also be really, really challenging. The first days of mastering life on the road in a motorhome have been eventful in the extreme. It’s been a crash course of leaning, with plenty more adventures to come.
The call to adventure is strong in me as I succumb to weeks of restlessness, like the Sea Rat in The Wind in the Willows. Taking any kind of journey, creating movement of one kind or another, changes the energy, exhorting us to become wayfarers all.
It takes courage to follow that path less taken when the ‘crazy restlessness’ of creative adventure takes hold. Rather than throwing out your early artworks as ‘ugly ducklings’ they can be viewed instead as creative ‘markers’, leading you on a journey of discovery.
This week I listened to my inner voice, booked a ticket to London Heathrow, caught a train to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire and bought a motorhome. Some people thought I was mad to do such a wild thing, but there were others who encouraged me to keep going, so I did.
I’ve lost count of the number of synchronicities that have happened in my life. When you say yes to opportunities and chance meetings with people, sometimes the best experiences present themselves.
I have been lucky to research and create art about a specific place on artist residencies. But it wasn’t always like that. In many cases it has taken years before my art about place could be be expressed as a placemaking ‘retrospective’.
Your body knows when it needs rest. Ignore it at your peril. So I travelled while I slept and woke up to icebergs for breakfast. An inspirational reset in Greenland.
Each place and landscape has its own story, but it is relative to who is the storyteller. Shetland for me is about knitted jumpers and the BBC series Shetland. As I walked along the streets of Lerwick, rain shimmering on wet concrete, I felt like I was a character in the this story of place and identity.
It is surprising what art you make when asked to express your emotions, starting with anger. I hadn’t realised how angry I am with a government that denies climate crisis. My art started with bushfires and floods and ended with the happiness I felt being in this Hebridean landscape.
How do you challenge ageism, live an adventurous life and inspire other women to live their dream? Creating a passion filled life is an act of courage. As an artist travel is one way to create passion and inspiration.
The first part of any residency is always reconnaissance, getting to know the lie of the land. Much of the work is site-specific, responding to the new environment with your own ways of creating. Ideas emerge as you walk the landscape. Lots of photos, sketches and writing. As I write, I right my path and find my way forward.
How do you apply for an artist residency and how do you prepare to go to one? There are three key components in each application process that I use when writing my submissions. You need to articulate what you do, why you do it and how it fits the application criteria.
Take the germ of an idea that helped build a community thirty years ago and transpose it into the digital age. The Travel Art challenge has its roots in screening 16mm films in a rural library and building a socially engaged audience.
How much do you value yourself? Do you give yourself permission to go on really wild and scary adventures? I have given myself permission to take a helicopter ride to view the active volcano in Iceland, if it is still erupting in April 2022. It is something even a year ago I wouldn’t have contemplated.
Finding your true north could be as simple as tearing up the maps that define borders and map our connections to each other instead.
Spontaneous adventuring can feel a bit daring and dangerous. Saying yes to chance gave me the opportunity to “get over myself” on an unplanned midweek road trip north.
