A Stroll Around the World

This illustration by Josh Cochran accompanied The Times Opinion article, ‘A Stroll Around the World,” published November 22, 2013. The author of the article was on a journey on foot that would span seven years and 21,000 miles. The image is part of our collection of editorial illustrations being offered for the first time ever to the public as unframed or framed fine-art prints.

As he walks around the world, author Paul Salopek comes to distain automobiles. He also appreciates the pleasures of traveling at three miles per hour, “the speed at which we were biologically designed to move.” He writes, “There is something mesmerizing about this pace that I still can’t adequately describe. While roaming the old pilgrim roads in Saudi Arabia, I came to understand how the journey to Mecca — the hajj — in the pre- airline days was perhaps as important as reaching Islam’s holiest city. Watching the Red Sea slide by my left shoulder as I walked north, seeing the white desert coast dance with ink-blue waters as one bay after another scalloped by, put me in a meditative trance that must be primordial.”

Artist Josh Cochran grew up in Taiwan and California. He works as an illustrator based in Brooklyn specializing in bright, dense and conceptual drawings and paintings. His work has received many awards, including a Grammy nomination for album artwork. He has a number of side projects, and sometimes exhibits his work in galleries. Cochran is currently working on a children’s book.