How Does Travel Affect One's Work?

In two weeks I leave for an art retreat

in MO which my friends Dorothy and Sue

are organizing. I have been promised lots

of play and all the gin & tonics I want, sooo

I am there! All of us are bringing something

for show and tell, and I am bringing my

art journal which Sue and I sent back and

forth. Our chosen theme was "Inspiration,

Fear, & Desire"....and though we began by

interpreting this rather clearly, both of us

became looser as we went along. I needed

a few pages to complete mine, and these are

the pages I did after my return from Peru.

The last two are printed on fabric, the cactus

is overpainted, and the "framing" is paper

toweling. I am much too close to it, and not

enough time (and work) has gone by for me to

know how much Peru has influenced my work. I know that going to Mexico did! Peru, by contrast, is a bit less colorful and less developed. It also has much less of a general Colonial or

a Catholic influence. I felt like I had gone much further back in time when visiting Peru.