I tend to keep politics off Substack but Wednesday night, I had the first bout of my usual insomnia since I left for the UK a little over two weeks ago. I sleep great here, which I rarely do at home. I’m also online a lot less when I’m here but I do keep informed, and the East Wing demolition was the proverbial last straw in a series of escalating last straws, so I am now officially afraid to go home. My Buddhist practice teaches me to stay in the moment and I will until it is time to go back in November, but what waits for me there besides the DC chaos are things I don’t want to deal with. Most of them are financial - a stack of medical bills, a rent increase, a significant drop in sales and opportunities. I didn’t fill a prescription right before I left because it went from $8 to $95 last month. I won’t die without it, but I’ll definitely be uncomfortable soon enough. That said, I know everybody is going through the same thing and some have it much worse. I don’t have kids or ailing parents and I don’t have student loan debt or credit cards. So yeah, stay in the moment and enjoy this UK reprieve. Last weekend, we went to Cullercoats again and I photographed the cliffs and caves along the beach. I also set up a workstation with the new drawing board and an easel next to the glass doors that lead to the back garden and get the morning light. I finished #24, the small piece above and then #25, a much larger one which is proving to be impossible to get a good shot of. Perhaps I can get a better one for next week. We hung the three little pieces of other people’s art that I brought in my suitcase and my sitting room now looks like I live here. We saw some work in Sunderland and an exhibition by Uta Kögelsberger in the Hatton Gallery at Newcastle University. That’s a picture of me below, a very rare thing, taken by my fiancé Paul Brewster, as I contemplate a photo in the show which is primarily video presentations. I love my life here. It’s the simple things. Onward.

I made it to Newcastle in one piece. The trip over was smooth except for a screaming baby and the woman in front of me who had too much white wine and threw up on herself. The wait at Logan and the layover at Dublin were long and exhausting, but I had window seats in rows by myself on both flights. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon and promptly went to bed after devouring a delicious steak pie from the Grainger’s Market’s Hunter’s Deli, and it has been non-stop ever since I got up the next morning. Saturday was all about a big teatime meal with friends that included quizzes which I held my own in. Friday we installed a washing machine and that was a bit stressful. Yesterday we explored the riverside across the Tyne in Gateshead and on Thursday we went to the local lumber yard to price wood for a work table Paul, my fiancé, wants to build and something suitable for a large drawing board for me. We wound up in the back looking at off cuts that were destined to be destroyed. One of the men back there offered to saw down a piece to 30”x36” for me at no charge. Paul joked later that it was because I was a right flirt, while I thought I was just being nice. Either way, I now have a huge, free, drawing board on an extra easel in the studio. Then on Friday we went to the Details art supply store after installing the washing machine and got several big sheets of paper for me to play with. In the meantime, I finished #23, above, but it is on the 12x12” watercolor block I brought with me. It has a new element I have been thinking about using - white acrylic paint. It was only a matter of time before I picked up a brush again although the charcoal and drawing are still the predominant components. The paint added a different texture and blending ability as well as a great base for more charcoal once it had dried. I’ll do a few more 12x12” pieces before going bigger but the white paint will come in handy whatever size I choose. I’ve also got a rich gold paint for backgrounds, could that be next? Stay tuned.

Two birds this week, #22 above, a mystery bird I finished this morning and #21, the macaw below. I’ve mentioned before how the charcoal pieces I like best aren’t always the most popular ones on social media. For instance, I love the macaw, but so far it hasn’t taken off like last week’s rooster or the stork from a few weeks ago. Baffling really, it used to happen with the painted birds, but with them I knew who would get the most hits. These two are a return to the smaller size the series started out with. I plan to do more in this size while I’m in the UK this month, partly because the paper, a smooth 12x12” Arches watercolor block, fits in my carry-on, and partly because I really like how the charcoal grabs the surface. In an effort to become a part of the Newcastle Upon Tyne art community, I have joined the Newbridge Project (https://thenewbridgeproject.com/) and am in touch with the Vane Gallery (https://www.vane.org.uk/home) which is having an opening the evening I arrive. And since I plan to also do much larger work while I’m there, I will buy some paper at The Newcastle Arts Centre (https://newcastle-arts-centre.co.uk/) shop where they have an excellent selection - although I’ll have to leave those pieces behind since they will be way too big for my suitcase. I’m taking a different route this trip since I loath Heathrow with a passion and got stuck in Amsterdam overnight after missing my connection on the last visit, I’m going through Dublin this time. The layovers will be longer but I won’t be tearing through an airport with minutes to spare because this or that airplane taxied around for an hour. I hate how these trips start with an hour and a half drive to the airport shuttle that may take two hours to get to Logan. And don’t get me started on being stuck on a plane although Logan can be easy or a total nightmare depending on things that are annoying and unavoidable. Given the US government shutdown and whatever may be happening with TSA searches and Customs, there are plenty of things that are out of my control. Fingers crossed I can get back in the country when I return in November. Onward.