The Art of Storytelling

As I contemplate to what extent travel has shaped who I am, I come back over and over again to the realization that no other outside force has opened my eyes, piqued my imagination and challenged my beliefs as much as travel.  It has been a most formidable influence in my life, a knowing and obliging companion who consistently and relentlessly indulges my dreams, my passions and my taste.

I have already admitted here and to myself that a sense of entitlement to own, gift and experience life in a more discerning tasteful way is a trademark feature of my personal navigation system.  Through travel I have been able to discover and refine a deep seeded love for some of taste’s most quintessential dimensions - gastronomy, style and art. 

Travel has fed my insatiable love of flavor, inspiring me to try new cuisines, ingredients and taste profiles.    It has rerouted my love of fashion, inspiring me to adopt my own sense of style which has finally expanded beyond the yuppie, status brands of a career climber in her 40’s. And thankfully travel has patiently unpacked my veiled love of art, inspiring me to proudly embrace and hone my creative instincts in the pursuit of finding and collecting that which moves me.

I bought my first piece of art on my second trip out of the country.  It is a charcoal drawing of two couples on the South Bank Thames.  Simple, but romantic the 10 USD price was right for this 25-year-old first time art-buyer.  Since then, I’ve framed pieces from 17 other countries, added textiles from Morocco, Sweden, Indonesia, Vietnam and Turkey, and swept up objets d'art from Italy, Croatia, Australia, Columbia, Israel and Japan. The newest addition to my collection is 3 bottles of 2014 Montepulciano Nobile wine.  Their bright artistic labels are part of a colorful collab designed by an Indian-born American woman, Amrita Marino for the 50th anniversary of Avignonese Winery in Tuscany. 

From left to right above: Couples - South Bank by Mike Bernstein, Sofa pillows from Bali, Designer unknown,  2 glass objets from Rouge 39 in Florence, and limited edition wine labels by Amrita Marino.

 These travel artifacts are scattered about my home but there is nothing haphazard about where they’ve come to rest, lean or hang.  While each tells its own story, together they tell my story.  They are snapshots of adventure, discovery and interconnectivity.   They are statements of peace, rebellion and hope.  They are symbols of faith, enterprise and a shared humanity.  Most of all, they are intersections of when the universe brought two people together from two different parts of the world to share a truly one-of-a-kind moment over a single artistic endeavor.  

What I have come to recognize and relish about travel is that it always sends us home with surprise little treasures to unpack.  Somewhere tucked in between our favorite memories – those bites and sips, those sights and sounds, and the awe and the gratitude, lay remnants of exchanges and experiences whose impact are only most fully registered with time, growth or circumstance. 

In my experience never is this realized as strongly as when we stare into a piece of art we bought while traveling.  Not only are we reminded of the story of how it came to fall into our hands, but we are confronted with the work’s enduring vitality, its seamless capacity to be as fluid and self-reflective as we want or need it to be.  How remarkable to own a living and breathing work of art that comes to life out of one human’s soulful expressiveness but stays alive through the dreams and yearning of another’s?!  It is as if it knew all along it would one day adorn our walls.   

There are still pieces floating around this world that I regret not buying – a beautiful oil in Toledo, an amazing sketch in Vienna, and a vintage travel poster in Zurich.  But then again, I have to believe their stories weren’t meant to come home and unwind with me.   These pieces were instead meant to inspire, console and lift up someone else who will in turn extract just what was meant for them.  That’s the magic of buying art that always moves us – it transports us to far off places, brings us back to ourselves and nudges us forward even if we don’t know where we’re going.