Texas performance artist skates her way through area on 1,100-mile trip

Wheels on the ground, heels above the pavement, Natalia Victoria skating her way over state lines in her trip from Texas to Illinois.

Houston-based performance artist Victoria started her 1,100-mile trip — Victoria described the trip as an outlet for learning life lessons and presenting a challenge for herself — on June 15.

"A lot of it (the trip) is like these life lessons that, you know, we learn, everybody learns through many circumstances. It is just taking a long time to sort it out and process how I feel and taking some of those lessons and then recording them. So that way my daughter has them forever," she said by phone last week after passing through Southeast Missouri on July 4 and 5.

Victoria said she views her experience on the trip as something that will not only help her but also help her daughter.

"We learn a lot about ourselves, and we connect with others. In a way, when we process what we're going through and I'm processing, I'm processing how I can achieve all my dreams, how I can be empowered and inspire my daughter," she said. "Other people, too, who might not believe in themselves, it's about believing in yourself and doing something bigger than yourself."

Natalia Victoria sleeps in her vehicle before continuing her skatng trip to Chilcago.Submitted

Victoria got her love of skating from her mother, who was also an artist. Her mother lived in Chicago, which is Victoria's final destination and where she'll meet up with her daughter.

Victoria said one of things she learned from her mother was to "skate it out" when working through emotions.

"She was my safe place, my person to go to with vulnerability to share my personal struggles and ask for advice," Victoria said in a news release. "She would listen and then encourage me to go 'skate it out.' Throughout the years, I've reflected over many miles, and she was right. The answers always came from within me. Skating is my meditation, a way to recharge myself. This is where I find peace and resolution. It's also a place where dreams are born and develop into goals."

Victoria chose her end location in Chicago because of its significance to her mother.

"She was from Chicago, and we often drove back and forth to visit family," she said. "Skating through these places where we've made memories over all the years is something I'm looking forward to because, more than ever, I find comfort going to places we've been together, and enjoying things she loved. It makes me feel closer to her."

Performance artist and skater Natalia Victoria Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, on her way through her 1,100 mile trip.Submitted

Victoria — who's being followed on her journey by a car driven by her publicist, James Bolen — said one of the hardest parts of trip has been, of course, the skating but also staying at hotels.

"The skating, the skating. There's a lot of hills and I'm skating almost every night. So I'm not really getting the rest I need because a lot of the hotels, they won't let you check in until 3 (p.m.) or where I get to a hotel at 6 or 7 in the morning and they make us leave by 11 (a.m.). So, you know, I take naps in my car. ... Hotel accommodations and skating — probably the two hardest parts of this trip."

Her skating is also being filmed for a possible Netflix documentary done by a friend, Debra Gutjahr-Hale.

"I'm taking the GoPro footage of skating, had it mounted to my car and she wants to do a series of interviews. ... We haven't really like made any big announcements ... because, right now, we've got something like more along the lines of a documentary-in-the-making."

Victoria said she has also set up a way to raise money to make it through the trip, but she plans for rest of the proceeds to go to building of an arts center in Houston.

"So if there was money left over, from the donations, I've had this dream of wanting to start an art center, a performing arts venue," she said. "I'm wanting to do a community art center in my town and if I did have the funds left over, I would want to get my art center going."

For more information and to follow Victoria's trip, visit www.facebook.com/livicopro.