My Loves,
Welcome, welcome to the new Travel Write Draw. You have no idea just how thrilled I am to FINALLY be sharing this with you. This site has honestly been in the making since this past September 2017, without me even knowing it. By that I mean, I wasn’t quite sure what it was I needed to do, but I knew I needed to make a change, a BIG one.
The past three and a half years have been an absolute blessed whirlwind. I have visited every continent (less Antarctica) and partnered with a multitude of my dream brands, from Dior to Louis Vuitton to Condé Nast Traveler, and the Ritz-Carlton. I have filmed campaigns in Hong Kong and Dubai. I’ve seen my artwork in magazines around the globe. But last Summer, somewhere around June or July, I hit a wall and it wasn’t pretty.
Jumping back and forth between various timezones, racing to pack and promptly unpack my luggage, answer client emails, negotiate rates and contracts, prepare for projects, execute projects, deliver said projects, post to social every…single…day, laundry, groceries, pay bills, see friends, then head back to the airport for another international flight, just about killed me. I realized that this pipe-dream I had willed into reality, while at times was every bit as glamourous as you might imagine it to be, was also completely unsustainable.
By September 2017 I bowed out of New York Fashion Week. I opted to take my Mom to the shows while my parents visited so I could finally reconnect with family. I cleared my calendar of any travels and decided to be still for the first time since September 2014. I had no idea what or why I was doing any of this anymore. My life had started to feel like a performance; a frantic marathon on a hamster wheel with no end in sight.
That period in my life was terrifying, at times downright ugly, and at other points, completely enlightening. I had to face myself – the me without the exotic travel, high-profile brand partnerships, and critical praise. I had to ask the hard questions, what do I want now? Where do I go from here? Is this the end of Travel Write Draw or is this just the beginning?
What I learned during that time is this: Travel Write Draw may have started as a desire to travel the world and illustrate the journey through a fashion-art lens, but that motive felt tired, self-centred, and outdated. I realized that Travel Write Draw is so much bigger than me. Travel Write Draw is about us, we, community. It’s about celebrating that which makes us unique. It’s about the color and culture of each destination visited; the color of life.
Travel Write Draw is for every creative who works more than they wish, who dreams big and starts small, who always looks to the light even when surrounded by darkness. Travel Write Draw is for the fashion, art, travel lover with a serious case of wanderlust, who yearns for the colorful, eclectic, and illustrated take on any given destination. Travel Write Draw is for you.
For the first time since the start of my brand and blog, I’ve been able to house in one place a more comprehensive and user friendly guide to my travels in Passport. You also now have access to my fashion musings in Fashion Lifestyle, current updates on my events in the city PLUS art shows and cool exhibitions on the TWD team’s radar in Happenings. You’ll be able to find helpful resources and tips for freelance life under Mentor, shop from the new collection in Shop, and learn all about me and how I partner with brands under Work with Meagan.
So today we start here but this is just the beginning of the new Travel Write Draw. And wherever it is we go, we go together. Every new product offering, resource, meet-up, workshop I intend to rollout over the next little while will be explicitly designed for you and what you seek most from TWD. So grab your passports, art supplies, and your favorite souk slippers and join me as the journey continues…I really owe this all to you.
With love and absolute gratitude,
Meag xx
