Me and my travel sketches: Looking ahead…and back.

“The future enters into us long before it happens.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke

You know those mornings when you’re in the shower and an idea hits you mid-shampoo-scrub-down and you think, “Now that was worth waking up for!”?

That was me a few weeks ago, shortly before leaving for Book Passage, and the idea went something like this:

I want to do something with my travel sketches.

I didn’t know what exactly, but I wanted to do more than I had been – i.e. not letting them see the light of day outside my sketchbook.

* * *

In the world of travel writing and blogging, one of the most oft-repeated mantras seems to be, Find your niche. It doesn’t matter what it is, just get one – and get one quick. Budget travel. Luxury travel. Solo travel. Couples travel. Travel with your pet. Travel with your kids. Travel with your fridge. (Hey, it exists!)

Since I started this blog, I’ve never had an idea of what mine is – let alone how to find it. Indeed, the very idea of pigeon-holing myself into a category felt opposed to the way travel has opened up the world to me.

But that morning (with tropical-scented suds stinging my eyes, no less) it hit me:

Let travel sketching be my niche.

Let it become – as my marketing director sister would say in her snazzy marketing lingo – “part of my platform.”

Later that same evening, I received an email from a guy asking if I’d be interested in doing travel sketches for the chapter headings of a book he was helping put together. He didn’t know about my revelation that morning, but it absolutely felt like it.

So I wrote the man back and then I got to work setting up a little new travel sketches page on my website (just to make it official, yo) and when I arrived at Book Passage two days later, I realized just how fortuitous the timing of all this was – that opportunities are now presenting themselves to share my sketches with a wider audience than, say, my sketchbook. Which is always a thrilling prospect for an artist.

* * *

In the midst of all this, though, my mother started rooting around in the deep, dark abyss that is our cabinet of family photos and found some shots of me, hard at work on my sketching even as an appallingly-dressed 12-year old.

“Here’s to a few days that have brought you to this place today,” she wrote in an email when sending me the photos.

Because a huge part of my vision for this blog has always been sharing the journey itself with you – not just the excitement of arrivals, but stepping back and saying, how did we get to this point in the first place? – I felt compelled to share them with you, too. As exciting as it is to look ahead to the future, sometimes there’s value in looking back, too.

And if nothing else, seeing me layer denim on denim is bound to brighten your morning.

Enjoy!