Correspondence Art

Stephanie--whom I met in a shop called Midnight Sun today--told me that she used to be an avid correspondence artist, writing collage letters to others who do the same thing:  If you Google this subject and look at images, you'll see that they are like extended artist trading cards: letters written, colored, ripped, glued, layered....

When I told her I was "traveling solo in a Mini," she told me about a friend of hers who travels  around the country in a roadster and has written a book about her road trips.  She met this friend as part of a project called correspondence art--in which people write letters to strangers (using aliases until and unless they decided to meet.)

Her friend, the roadster woman, was one of the friends she met in person after corresponding.

The more she told me about her friend, the more certain I was that I need to meet this woman--who is my age, maybe older, and exploring back roads solo.

When I left, Stephanie and I hugged and traded email addresses--and I have just this minute gotten an email from her with a link to a video about the very friend I was writing about, which I'll send to you

In Santa Rosa yesterday, a woman named Mary asked me, "Where are you from and are you alone?"

When I answer that question, I usually get, "I would be scared to travel by myself!  Aren't you scared?"

But Mary--like Stephanie--was intrigued, and she began telling me how she used to do that in a hippie van back in the day.  "I don't believe I'd do it now, though," she said.

When I left, she hugged me, and she said, "I'm going to tell you something your mama probably tells you and maybe you're not going to like it, but please be careful out there."

Julia Campbell in The Artist's Way advocates taking "an artist date" every so often--in which you do something solo that you love.

Whether it's poking around in an antique store or riding a bike or trying on hats: the idea is to indulge yourself and do what you love, alone.

A friend of mine once asked me, "Isn't that what you do every day?"

I thought of that today as I was trying on hats.
This new hat is not a Texas straw hat, but a wool felt hat with a big flower on it.
I have decided to wear it every time I'm having an artist's date with myself.

Writing to you all now, corresponding with all my friends at once--I need to run out to the car and get it and put it on right this minute!

I have decided that the little thisses and thats we buy on a trip are presents to ourselves that will remind us of the special day and place where we found them.  The owners of Bella (the hat shop) took a picture of me and put it on their Facebook page.  Does that count for 15 seconds of fame or what?