I have always loved to travel, even if it was on a budget and just going as far as we can go in a day and drive back. When I was young, we lived in Southern California and my parents would take the family on day trips, as well as camping trips throughout the state and visits to family in Northern California. I always loved to go, whether it was to the beach or the mountains surrounding Los Angeles or the long trek up the valley to Sacramento.
My husband and I continued that tradition, at first on our own tight budget and then when he joined the Army, courtesy of Uncle Sam. The first adventure associated with the Army life was when I drove from Sacramento, California to Fort Rucker, Alabama, taking six days in my tiny Honda packed to the brim with my dog to go join my husband in flight school. It was exhausting and wonderful. We lived in Alabama, Germany and Colorado, and always did what we could to see everything possible and I always took photographs along the way.
After coming back home to Northern California and realizing I was an artist, we had two small children and traveling was trickier, but we did what we could. Now that our children are young adults, we have more freedom again. Everywhere I go, I take at least one camera, if not two or three, and very often artworks come from those travels, sooner or later. Most of the time we don’t travel far, it’s still very common for us to take day trips and we are so blessed to live in an area where there is so much to see and so much beauty. Sometimes we’ll drive into the Sierra Nevada, or into the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, or over to the coast and head north or south. Recently I took half a day with a friend to visit a new spot in the Sierra foothills just two hours north of home. It almost doesn’t matter. There is one park not five minutes away from my house where I sometimes walk my dogs – and always bring a camera – and I can almost count on coming back with images that are fuel for artworks. Nearly everywhere I go I find something that will provide the basis for a new artwork sooner or later.
Recently I’ve started traveling a little further for artistic fodder. Last year I was invited by a gallery in Sedona, Arizona, to see what I might do with their local landscape. My husband was game, of course, and last May we took a road trip down to Sedona, then through the desert over to Joshua Tree National Park in California and back home again. I got plenty of wonderful images and got even more when I returned to Arizona in November and got representation not only at the Lanning Gallery in Sedona, but with Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale as well.
When I get to a location, inspiration sometimes just hits immediately, when the light is just right or the landscape particularly moves me. Sedona is one of those places that is so naturally spectacular, it’s almost like all I have to do is point the camera and shoot… Other times it’s not so easy; I’ve had days out on the road where I never even took out a camera, but thankfully that doesn’t happen very often.