Welcome to Lee Studio,

Inside you will find Leslie's Travel Companion books & artwork.

Leslie's
Armchair Travel

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Wednesday 8 March Dingle The Water’s Edge Apartments It’s 8 a.m. and I’ve made myself comfortable at the dining room table, coffee at my elbow, brilliant yellow daffodils fill a glass vase in the center. Flowers! How delightful the shift from wintery snow at home to spring here, even if it is only 45 degrees. This apartment is solid, clean, and elegantly comfortable. I look out the windows across the lawn, across the small roadway, and out to the harbor at high tide framed by a green patchwork of hills beyond. The wind whooshes past the windows. The sky is lead grey and spitting light rain every now and then. Seagulls flap and dive at the surface off the far spit, and hills glow in a variety of shades of green and ochre quilted by hedge rows and rock walls. It’s beautiful, vivid, mysterious. —Excerpt and images from Leslie’s Travel Companion Journal: 2023 Ireland and Scotland (2023 03 08 Ireland, Dingle, Looking Across to the Patchwork Hills) https://www.leestudiotc.com/ #Ireland #Dingle #traveljournal #DingleHarbor #artwork #leestudio
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Monday 6 March Detroit, Michigan, to Boston, Massachusetts, to Shannon Airport, Co. Clare, Ireland, to Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland "After a leisurely in-room breakfast, we checked in for our Delta flight from Detroit to Boston. Security was a breeze with TSA precheck. The flight was fine—just snacks. After a few hours waiting in Boston, we boarded our Aer Lingus flight for Shannon. When flying east overnight, a day disappears and you wake up on the day after. Tuesday 7 March Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland The Water’s Edge Apartments Slept at least a few hours, because I woke remarkably refreshed to pick up the rental car, a VW Tiguan. We had reserved a BMW mid-sized SUV, but I always ask what else they have available and then go out to look. I reject low-riding, wide, or curvy-bodied cars because I’ve been through flooded rivers and down rock lined narrow two tracks in Ireland where every inch counts. Instead of the BMW, I chose a VW Tiguan for its straight sides, good visibility, and seven-inch road clearance. Why is navigating out of the rental car parking lot more complicated than the entire rest of the journey? Ditto for returning the rental cars. As my fellow passengers try to congratulate me on the turn into the city airport, I say, “Not yet! We need to get into the correct rental car company return slots before we’ve succeeded.” The exit out of Hertz rental and the first left lane mile came back to me as a vague recollection. I hoped to stay awake enough to drive two and a half hours to the town of Dingle on the Dingle Peninsula where I’ve rented a three-bedroom apartment for four nights. The GPS directed us along the toll road, through Tralee on the north coast of the Dingle peninsula, and over Conor Pass and down the mountain into the town. Before ascending to the pass, signs warn large vehicles to turn around, and for the rest of us, if it’s cold to watch for ice and snow. Lengthy stretches of the pass are single lane with small bump-outs to pull into if you see an oncoming car, or if they have the bump-out, they flash their lights at you to come ahead. A gigantic section of rock intrudes into the lane at one point over our heads making us want to duck. At last, we passed the summit to wind down the south side. Success! To get to the apartment which sits on the harbor, we only had to drive straight to the harbor, then west along it. Parked in back, we let ourselves in, threw our bags down, and napped two hours. Long before we left for Ireland, Byrdie made scores of lodging and restaurant bookings. It seemed at every restaurant our night was their season opening. Dingle is a foodie paradise all within walking distance. Tonight’s dinner was at Solas Tapas on Strand Street, newly opened, painted bright red, and already claiming great reviews for its small plate Mediterranean style cooking. As usual, the venue was small—a vertically split door flanked by bay windows led to a dozen or so tables. Inside the cozy, yet elegant interior, our orders arrived in succession. All was excellent, but still road-weary, we didn’t last long before we headed back down the street, along the harbor and off to bed." —Excerpt and images from Leslie’s Travel Companion Journal: 2023 Ireland and Scotland (IMG 5440.jpeg) https://www.leestudiotc.com/ #Ireland #Dingle #traveljournal #artwork #leestudio
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It’s a quick trip to Detroit on the first leg where I’m booked in at the airport Westin. My travel companions, Judy, and John, will meet me there. I’ve learned over the years that since I have time, to stay overnight before a mid-day flight. That way I get a good night’s sleep without waking to an alarm or anticipating a rushed morning. That extra rest is crucial for staying well. Now that I won’t be driving again until I pick up the rental car in Ireland, I take time to visualize driving on the left—open the door on the wrong side of the car, go out the rental car exit in the left lane, turn left into the roundabout and stay in my lane on multi-lane roundabouts, keep my right shoulder to the centerline, use the farthest left lane as the slow lane, pass on the right side of other cars, and exit the highway to the left. The hardest to remember is on a right hand-turn, one must cross a lane of on-coming traffic coming at you on the right, so to look first to the right, then left, then right again or else you may turn directly into an oncoming car. I visualize that one repeatedly.
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About the Author

After a lifetime of writing, Leslie has decided that it’s time to share. She is now publishing her travel journals, non-fiction, poetry, and essays which will be available for purchase here on the Lee Studio website, at bookstores, and on the web. Her most recent project has been to edit thirty illustrated travel journals as a series called Leslie’s Travel Companions, referring to the little black book and tiny paint kit that she carried everywhere in her pocket.

In 2020, Lee completed Book Two of the Travel Companion series, Leslie’s Field Guide to Ireland, a pocket-sized reference to the history and culture of the land along with her favorite sites of interest in Ireland. It’s meant to be carried, referred to, and written in until it becomes a cherished memento of the trip itself. Book One, We Are the Land, Ireland, published in 2019, began with a search for understanding her Irish ancestry and ended on a romping road trip with her sisters across the Emerald Isle that brought them to a surprise conclusion.

Leslie wrote the poem, “Sacred Space” in 2014 to accompany the beautiful architectural photography of the iconic Michigan home, Pine Hollow, in her book Sacred Space, Pine Hollow. Reaching deep in the past to her first book, Lee edited and authored, Backcountry Ranger, the Diaries and Photographs of Norton Pearl in Glacier National Park 1910-1913 while cozied in her tiny home-built cabin on the edge of Torch Lake, Michigan beginning in 1976 and finally publishing in 1994.

Lee lives in northern Michigan where she raised her family. She’s a lover of nature, travel, history, genetic ancestry, linguistics, and her home on the Great Lakes. Always hoping for one last adventure, she’s holding off on completing her memoir.

“I was completely charmed by this insightful and heartfelt portrait of Ireland. Leslie Lee’s descriptions of the people she met and the places she visited are so well written, so immediate, that I felt like I was there.” Jerry Dennis, Michigan Author

About the Artist

Not formally trained in art, Leslie began to draw when she traveled as a way to see more clearly what was around her. She carried a notebook, pen and tiny paint kit instead of a camera, and when everyone else was clicking away, she whipped out her kit and painted—fast. The simplicity of her paint palette and the speed with which she painted has become her signature style.

Northwest Lower Michigan defines her. She considers herself part of the landscape among the bluestems and butterfly weed, beneath the cedars, willows, and maple trees. The wind of the woods and water speak her language and sing the songs of her childhood. How will a visitor know us if we don’t know who we are? How will we venture out in the world if we have nothing of ourselves to offer? If we treasure our origins, we take these gifts out to the world as we travel, and come home again, enriched twice over. Wherever we are, every day, we create the story and the adventure of our lives. Here are her favorite stories and drawings.

After a lifetime of writing and painting in the margins of work and family, now semi-retired, Leslie has made it a priority to share. Thirty years of travel journals and paintings have been dusted off, edited, and excerpted and will be appearing here on her website as books, fine art, folded note cards and postcards, and other gifts and products for sale.

Leslie's Note Cards

All of our fine art reproductions use archival inks and paper and are suitable for framing. Giclee is another term for this process. The color and quality of the reproductions are so impeccable, it’s difficult to tell they’re not the originals until you turn them over to read the printed details of the image. Framed, they look great on the wall and make wonderful gifts.

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Leslie's Artwork

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