Our good friends recently did just that.
In pursuit of a life long dream artist, designer and entrepreneaur A.D. Cook and his wife Kathy (the webgeek), sold almost all of their personal belongings and hopped aboard an RV (not quite an old Winnabago) to embark on the journey of a lifetime. Armed with a small armada of computers, cell phones and their dog Dargo, A.D. and Kathy will quench their desire along the blacktop ribbon for the unseen. Along the way they'll also be tackling a special assignment; they'll witness, first-hand, the airbrush community in its entirty - the world's greatest Airbrush Tour. A.D. and Kathy will journal their adventure on their blog, AirbrushTour.com. I've recently spoke with A.D. during the initial stage of their adventure and here's what he had to say.
What motivated you and Kathy to decide to pack up, sell the house and hit the road?
It's really something that we have wanted to do for a long time now. We actually considered it about ten or eleven years ago after I left Hollywood Video. There's something of a rolling stone in both of us and we wanted an opportunity to indulge that urge and see the country in an intimate way while we're still young enough to enjoy it. This is the perfect time, because technology has finally caught up with our dream. You can be anywhere now and, and for the most part, be available just as though you were home. Cell phones are local calls, and the Internet makes staying in touch completely easy now.Beyond that, we wanted a complete paradigm shift. We'd lived in the same house, and were doing the same things for too long, and life was getting a bit too 'predictable' for us. It was time for something new - something that made us rethink everything. This lifestyle of travel and constant change does that.
What do you plan to do while traveling?
The focus of this travel project is to interview the best airbrush talent we can find, and share them and their culture through coffee table books. We're documenting our journey with our Blog: AirbrushTour . We're getting quite a following so far on our Blog, and it's a thrill to see our traffic grow almost daily. Also, I've already been invited to paint in some of the coolest studios on the west coast so far, which I plan to do as soon as my schedule allows. Beyond that, we plan to do touristy things as well. Think of the most famous tourist attractions you can, and we'll be making it a destination. We also want to stop and see largely overlooked little points of interest along the way and document each of them in our Blog. Basically, we want to immerse ourselves in our beautiful country and really get to know it like we never have before. that includes meeting exciting people and exposing ourselves to interesting experiences.
How are you going to spread the gospel of airbrushing?
AirbrushTour.com is really the ongoing tool for that. That's where we're documenting the most interesting airbrush industry art talent and personalities. We may find that we will be breaking news on the Blog about the state of the industry and the talent we meet. We will also be more actively participating in online forums on a regular basis in order to promote the viability of the airbrush in many different forms of art. When we have enough of the best content, we will be releasing it in a couple of books.
Will you visit all the 50 states, Canada and Mexico?
This is primarily a US tour. This country has a lot to offer, and there's a lot we've never seen before. There's also a ton of undiscovered talent out there, and a lot of artists we'd like to connect with here first. We're thinking it will probably take us a minimum of a couple years to just see the United States. After that, who knows? We're trying to not plan that far ahead right now. We'd like to see as much as we can before settling down again.
Where are you staying now?
Lake Elsinore, California. We found it to be a great little jumping off point because it's closely situated to many of the airbrush studios we are planning to visit while we're here in Sunny So Cal. Besides, it's breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful here... take a look:
What have you seen up to this point?
We've been to Southern Oregon, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Anaheim, Orange County, Temecula and Lake Elsinore. Along the way we visited Gabe from Artool, Craig Fraser at Air Syndicate, Dave and crew at Coast Airbrush, checked in with Ryno Templeton, and visited Noah at his new home and studio.
We haven't had a chance to visit many of the touristy destinations yet, but we plan to do that before we move on. We expect to linger in the area for a couple of months, so that should give us ample time to visit the best airbrush studios and tourist spots.Where are you heading next?
It looks like we'll be heading back to Washington state before we leave the west coast. From there it will probably be Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and then work our way east to Florida and up the eastern coastline in whatever way makes sense at the time.
Anything you would like to mention about living in a motor home? How was the transition?
You have to think about everything differently. The first thing that jumps out is that you really have to be careful and wise with the use of your resources. Every resource must be watched and managed in order to keep you from having problems. There's not a lot of extra room, so you can't buy in bulk. With low water pressure, showers take on a whole new meaning. And electricity... in places where you don't have a good source of electricity, you must make sure you have propane, which isn't always as easy to find as you might think. Many things can run on propane besides the stovetop including the refrigerator, heater, and water heater. But if you have ample electricity, (50 amp for example) you can use it to run your refrigerator and not deplete your propane. If you're plugged into a friends house, there's not enough electricity to use the microwave. When you are living in a house, you don't really have to pay attention to things like that. You just pay your water, your electricity and your gas bill and just use whatever your budget allows. This is the biggest adjustment, but once you get used to it, it's really not a problem. Living and working in a smaller space was also a big transition for us, because we were accustomed to about 4,000 square feet of space between our home, office and studio. We had to innovate ways to shoe-horn everything we needed to work and live - all in a relatively small space. It was a challenge at first, but we've managed to do it fairly comfortably, and we're getting very accustomed to the lifestyle of full-time traveler.
We've only been on the road for about three weeks so far, but we have been able to get acclimated to this new lifestyle and we're very grateful that we can do this. I'm convinced that when our tour is complete we'll be changed individuals, full of rich life experiences and perspectives that we would have not been able to acquire any other way.
Follow A.D., Kathy and Dargo on their ultimate airbrush adventure at AirbrushTour.com
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