For the fifth anniversary of The Modern Caravan, we wanted to share our journey, where we began, where we’ve been, and most importantly, who we’ve become. While TMC is a business, one like any other with projects, deadlines, clients, bookkeeping, and schedules, we began and continue to do this work because of who we are, because of the love we share, and the stories that live within our bones. After a few years of turning inward, getting off social media, and focusing on our work, both personal and professional, it seemed only fitting to return to this online space and mark this milestone in our way.
The Modern Caravan was born in the backyard of a tiny duplex in the Midwest. Yet the story of how we, two women from Indiana and Kentucky, came to start a business designing and renovating Airstreams together, started back in a college dormitory in 2004.
We met first as friends, and seven years later, after losing touch and living separate lives in two different states, we fell in love over Skype. Our home cities four hours apart, we took the advice of Ellen’s dad to “keep driving” to one another, even when it was painful to be so far away. This became a mantra and sometimes, even a beacon of hope that we lived and breathed, and whenever life got tough, we’d look to those words. If we could simply keep driving, we’d get to where we wanted to go.
From our earliest conversations as a couple, we both knew that we each longed for an unconventional life. We talked about how that might look for us: perhaps we would become homesteaders or build a tiny house and live with only what we needed. We each wanted to pursue artistic endeavors in our work, to be passionate about what we created and put into the world. Our love and connection deepened because of these shared desires, but we were also aware of the real-life challenges and barriers to cultivating the life we wanted. To step into the unknown would require us to overcome so much.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. | Joseph Campbell
I was a single mother and was barely scraping by. Life, for me, was like a patchwork quilt made out of scraps of discarded fabric. I pieced together whatever I could, attending school full-time while working two jobs and raising a toddler on my own. As much as I wished to carve out my path, from where I was standing, saddled with debt, living under the crushing weight of stress and poverty, and needing to provide, I didn’t have time or resources to dream big. There was only survival. No matter how many jobs I worked or if I kept my college GPA in solid standing, I was still choosing between being able to pay for rent or childcare. Upward mobility was damn near impossible: my choices always seemed to put me further behind, never ahead. To add insult to injury, my every move was criticized and mocked by my emotionally abusive ex-husband, along with others in my life, people who’d never stood – and never would stand – in my shoes. I found myself trying to keep up a façade, looking as if I had it all together, while inwardly falling apart. I hoped that if I could figure out how to create a life for myself, one free of societal pressure and expectation, that I could be with my daughter instead of just working to (not) make ends meet. That I could give my daughter – and myself – a life of joy and exploration and creativity, not one of survival and desperation.
Ellen was college-educated, getting a master’s degree, and teaching art at her old high school. Her story was one of maintaining family and societal expectations, and she had dutifully followed the clear path that had been laid out for her. When she’d taken her teaching job, she promised herself that she’d only stay five years. Halfway through her sixth year of teaching, needing to get out was no longer an option, it was a necessity. She’d let herself down and was stagnant, burnt out. And while she loved teaching art, she had stopped creating art for herself. Making big changes, like moving to another place, intimidated Ellen. She’d spent most of her life, except for college, in the same small town. Taking risks wasn’t something she was practiced at, but she had a sense that life could be different, much bigger, than the way she was living it. Yet to get there, she knew that she was going to have to venture out of her comfort zone.
Though our individual stories and reasons were different, we shared a common goal: to live a life that felt true. It was as if the Universe had nudged us toward one another, knowing that we were exactly what the other needed. I needed someone who really loved me and my daughter, someone who could offer stability and strength, and Ellen needed someone who really loved her, someone with grit and gumption. We had not only fallen in love, but we were exactly what each of us needed, each the person for the other that finally gave them the space to examine, to be broken and imperfect, afraid and uncertain, and to get closer to who we truly were.
The early days of Ellen & Kate: Lexington, KY >> Indianapolis, IN
We had a tattered, well-worn copy of Lloyd Kahn’s book, Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter, that served as inspiration and later as a reference. Amongst those pages were people who were living outside of the expected. In the pages, we saw abstract glimpses of what our future could hold. Our goal, quite loosely, was to build a tiny house somewhere and to find a way to create a modest living through passionate, creative work. We wanted to become unburdened of the societal prescription, the unending checklist. What would it look like to create a life that looked and felt the way we wanted it to, not what others wanted for us? Yet we weren’t sure where we should go to start living the life we wanted – we knew we didn’t want to stay in the Midwest. Settling in one place felt like an impossible decision, because with our limited income, taking shorter trips to try to find our forever home wasn’t an option. Flying blind, choosing a place we’d never been before, didn’t feel quite right either.
On a cold morning in the winter of 2014, we had been living together for a little over a year in a simple house in a small Kentucky town, and I came across a series of photographs by a talented photographer, Michael Newsted. While on the road, Michael had been documenting his band as they traveled across the country. I was particularly drawn to the images of the bandmates on board their tour bus: a member of the band was traveling with a toddler. At that moment, seeing that it was possible to travel for an extended time with a child, I knew exactly what we needed to do.
If we didn’t know where we wanted to call home, perhaps we needed to go everywhere to find it.