Alicia's answer:
I'm an artist. I love working with clay: It's my material of choice.
Over the last few years I've taught, worked in my home studio, and fired with various communities doing atmospheric firings. While these have brought me great joy, they made me realize that as an artist one of the most important things is to keep pushing your work: in content, craft, and engagement. Some of my happiest moments over the last two years have been traveling to work with artists in different communities. But honestly, the travel back and forth was rough. For these reasons over the last year I have been contemplating a change. At first, I contemplated residencies and trade shows but then I started to add up how travel costs would interfere with my creative time and business. The numbers didn't add up, which got me thinking about travel options. One of the biggest expenses was hotels. Inspired by the Artstream Nomadic Gallery, which is an Airstream renovated into a traveling gallery, I started thinking "Could I travel to shows and bring my own gallery and place to stay?" The other large expense in travel is the act of going to and from a place. This also got me thinking, what if you didn't have to travel back from shows, just to them? Thus the idea was born to travel across the country. I love exploring nature and look forward to seeing how immersing myself in new environments, cultural traditions, and situations will affect my art as well as myself. Home, in my mind, is not a sticks and bricks structure, but wherever my husband, dog, and cat are with me.
Trail to the headwaters of the Colorado River, Rocky Mountain National Park
Scott's answer:
I've loved traveling the country for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, my family used to take long road trips during the summer camping along the way. While I was fortunate enough to see a lot of the country, there's just so much more waiting to be explored. I really don't want to wait until I'm retired to do that. I've done some cross country motorcycle touring and a few Jeep trail rides mostly in the Ouray, Colorado area. It was always hard fitting everything I wanted to see into my work vacation week. I think it'll be a great adventure, selling the house and moving into a RV. Another plus is that I'll be able to experience living in and not just visiting so many different areas of the country. There's plenty to love about Louisiana but traveling will give us the opportunity to see what other areas and climates we enjoy. When we decide to plant roots, we'll have much more data to work with in order to make the best decision about what is right for us.
Approaching California Pass, South of Ouray, Colorado