Travel Journal

I’ve been preparing my travel journal the last couple of days. Basically I make a big huge mess with paint, stencils, stamps, and some spraypaint . Then I add pockets to tuck street finds, paperclips for holding onto stuff, rubberbands to hold it all together. Next goes your basic detetective’s evidence gathering kit. You know – labels for dates, envelopes for bottle caps, pebbles, love notes, grocery lists, shoe buckles, rusted nails, ticket stubs, phone numbers, teeth, flower petals, dead butterflies, tiny plastic baby dolls (found one of those last year). Just regular stuff you see if you’re looking down. I also like to collect dirt and water samples from places I visit. I already have the dirt from San Miguel’s streets and this year I’ll collect some water from a street fountain. I like to look up at my bottles of earth and water and know I have pieces of places with me. Real pieces.
Tonight I gathered together all of my travel journals from adventures in Greece, France, and Mexico. I piled them on my art table to take these pictures. I’m not on a quest to see the most places in the world. I want to see and experience each place DEEPLY. And to do that I have to return. Sometimes over and over again.

I found this beautiful blog today of an artist & bookmaker. Go HERE to see her thumb through her travel journal. How cool is that?

Here is a page from an old travel journal of mine. And below, some of the new book all ready for my pen to start flying across the page and chronicalling my trip to Mexico. This one will go everywhere with me and my large art journal will stay put at the art station I’ll set up at the dining room table inside my casa.