I needed something to fill the void. Motorcycles seemed like the next best thing.
I EXPERIENCE HOMESICKNESS like most people experience cravings, if you can imagine a craving plaguing you day and night. The good days are those when I can bury myself in an art piece that reminds me of home. Big skies. Mountains. Open spaces. And a lot of redneck. It helps for a time, but it’s really only a placebo.
I’m passionate about my home state of Montana, rural life, and motorcycling. I started riding motorcycles after moving to Portland, Oregon. I figured if I couldn’t ride horses as I had in Montana, I needed something to fill the void. Motorcycles seemed like the next best thing. I had no idea how important they would become to me.
When I’m on the bike, I don’t think about how much I want to go home. All I think about is the road and the scenery immediately in front of me. I spent my first two years or so riding by myself. I saw it as a great way to get to Montana and back at half the cost of my fuel-guzzling car. The only people I ran into on the road were dudes. I had no idea there was a whole subculture of women motorcyclists until I found TheMotoLady.com.
It was then that I really became inspired to be a part of the moto community and start creating work inspired by it. It is incredible to me how many people in the motorcycling community I’ve met and had the opportunity to work with because of my drawings of women riding motorcycles. I haven’t mastered the art of drawing from memory quite yet, so when I run across a particularly beautiful thing, I always take photographs to draw from when I return home.
AMANDA ZITO
