Found Art Tuesday April 17, 2007: TRAVEL

Travel (Click to enlarge)

This is a traveling ticket. I used a real Airline ticket booklet and I made a collage on the first page. I used a tarot card, the two of wands, I think, and he's holding the world in his hand The loteria card "La mano" and a map on the background. Traveling requires having the right paperwork, and depending to where you're going you'll need airplane tickets, visas, passports, in one word: permission in your hands from someone else,  to travel. Today I got  on an airplane in the United States, I felt safe in my seat, is there a reason why I shouldn't feel safe? I try not to think of that and I just concentrate on the task at hand: trying to entertain two very active kids. I get out of the plane and find myself in transit in yet another airport. I am always checking my tickets, my passports, my paperwork. I would feel completely desolated without them, I would have no identity. I get in yet another plane, this time a shorter ride. And then when I finally arrive, I feel I don't really need the paperwork so much. These people look more like me, they speak my language, I contain the urge to give the custom official high fives when he checks my Mexican passport and lets me in just like that. Not even checking my forms, there's not too much to it: I'm back, I have the right papers, I'm in. I try to enjoy this welcoming gesture, trying not to think too much on how it'll be when I go back home again, how unprotected I will feel standing in front of the scrutinizing eyes of the American customs official. Even though all my papers say I live here now, that I am now an American too, they still have this power to just send you back. Like you are some defective merchandise, you are "returnable".

I wonder if this is because I'm trying to enter a country I wasn't born in, and I feel somehow anxious, even though I find everybody else really welcoming, there's something about Customs officials, it's their job to be intimidating, I guess. I wonder if we all feel this way while entering a country you're only visiting, maybe so. But here's the thing, this country I'm in right now, my country where I was born, Mexico... is not home anymore. Home is where your life happens, where your children are growing up, where you feel safe. Tonight I'm enjoying the sense of belonging, the familiar smells, sounds, and landscape but at the same time, I terribly miss my bed, my house, my husband. I can't wait too long to go back home.

I left this ticket in the Dallas airport.

Please see these contributions for this week's topic:

Guide Book by Katie (An Odd Duck). A prompt to stop in your steps and listen to the rain.

Travel France by Kathy LaRocco. Longing for a place you yet do not know.

One more link: Lena's Art A brand new blog!

And one final note... please support your emerging artists and visit my Etsy store! :)

Update on Friday, April 20, 2007 at 12:47AM by Rosa Murillo

Hey everyone, lets give a big round of applause to Robyn who just took the big plunge to Found Art Tuesday, head first on the deep end and no arm floats!

And another link: Pacha's travel log

Comments

[Marilyn]

Rosa, I love your ticket! And I really love this post. "Home is where your life happens..." So true. And this post made me think about how I felt the one time we flew 'home' from the tropics when we lived in the Caribbean...and how scary it felt to return to the U.S. after 9/11. Our tropical home never truly felt like 'home' to me (I always felt like my heart and mind were still on the West Coast)...but when we left for good...on a tiny plane...and I looked down on that beautiful harbor for the last time (in awhile)...I realized that it *had* been our home for 5 years...for just the reason you said.

[Kathy L]

Rosa

Lovely work and post. I fear that caution and uncertainly has a grip on this country...I think it must be very stressful to be a customs agent post 9/11.

k

[Pacha]

I know exactly what you mean. I wasn't born here either. But the weird thing is, it doesn't feel more (or less) like home than the country I left. It feels like the United States. For me home is people. Mostly my husband right now. When I'm with him, I feel home, wherever that might be. I don't have any connection to the Central Coast, and I don't have any connection to my home town. When I go back to visit, I have feelings of nostalgia and I notice things I never noticed before. It's like looking at childhood dress: It's cute, it brings up memories, but it doesn't fit anymore... I've outgrown it. When I was there I always wanted to leave, I didn't feel at home either.

Hmmm...it might have to do with the fact that I was born in East Germany, a country that doesn't even exist anymore. Never thought about that...

Anyway, beautiful piece, thanks for the blog.
I feel connected (oh, that's so last week... hahaha)

[Rosa Murillo]

Kathy, I just realised when I read your comment: ohh.. they're stresseed, the customs agents. Of course they are stressed, how could they not be? I think it's just they look so serious all the time, they look like they have everything under control, but maybe they're just trying to do their job the best they can, they are concentrated on doing it, it could be a very serious if they don't. I see them now in a different light,

thank you.

[Hol]

Rosa, I happened to find your blog today and must say I love the ideas you have! Your pieces are beautiful. (It's a shame many people pass them by.)

[Lena]

Rosa, thank you for your mention of my new blog, and for your comment as well.
I like your ticket and i like that the backdrop for the photo of it is "Indian style" legs in denim.
I visited your etsy store, great work, my favorite is La Sirena.