Yesterday, one of the pair of beautiful magpies who visit our back garden sat on the window ledge and peered inside as I watched. Generally they announce themselves before patrolling the garden, which is an English jungle of sorts full of enormous ferns and spiky palms that catch on your clothes as you pass. Once they arrive, the magpies inspect the plants, the various things jutting out from the brick wall of the building next door, and Paul’s bike. We dare not feed them so as not to attract rats from the back lane, but one morning there was a tidy pile of mysterious droppings on the step outside the glass doors where I work as if, a magpie perhaps, had been sitting there peering in. Or admiring its reflection - years ago, in Provincetown, a goldfinch visited me several times a day and did the same thing. She got so used to me I was able to take photos without her flitting away. That’s a goal, my goal, to take pictures of our magpies before I leave on Monday.

There was a bit of a panic when we realized on Tuesday that I’m leaving this coming Monday and not the next. Suddenly our list of things to do got more urgent. After repeated but failed calls to an immigration lawyer’s helpline, which is only available on Wednesdays for two hours, we decided I should email my list of questions from home. Although Newcastle feels like home too, now that I have a great work station, some new-to-me clothes from local charity shops and we’re entertaining guests like a settled couple. However, I can’t help being anxious about flying and what’s happening in the US, or the hurricane which appears to be headed right for Ireland on the day of my flight even if it will probably only be a bad storm by then. Anyway, I managed to get a good shot of #25 above, the owl from last week that refused to be photographed properly, and there are two new birds this week, #26, the eagle in the middle and #27, the finch below. I’ve been confirmed for the Canteen Craft Fair in Provincetown for Thanksgiving weekend, and even though I don’t push readers to be paid subscribers because I’m more interested in building my audience than the money, one of you has switched to a paid subscription after last week’s post. Thanks so much Susan, I really appreciate it. Every little bit helps. Onward.

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.

Someone mentioned the other day that September is National Chicken Month. Is it true? I have no idea but it spurred me on to finally do one. I’ve never been interested in using chickens as subjects because the fleshy stuff on their faces bothered me even though I found their combs intriguing. I know people who have them as indoor pets or keep them outside for their eggs. These people often ask if I’ve painted one before or send me pictures of their birds. Occasionally I’m asked about doing this or that breed of parrot, but chickens have gotten the most inquiries. In fact, I received a request for more roosters after posting #20, above, on Facebook today. There have been multiple hawks and crows and owls over the years, so perhaps that will happen. After spending afternoon scrolling through chicken photos online, I found that as fascinating as the exotic breeds are, the basic white rooster with a grand red comb was what attracted me most. I did save a couple of images of fancier ones, but #20 is based on several haughty tough guys that caught my eye. With this piece, I wanted to get back to the lines and negative space that the Charcoal series started with and I’m happy with the result. Another result I’m sort of happy with is the outcome of the laser surgery I had Friday. I do see better in that eye - there’s still a bit of a yellow rim on contrasting edges like trees against the sky, but it’s not nearly as annoying as the obvious yellow halo that was there before. The yellow is only visible now in bright sunlight, and it may lessen even more as the calcium deposits that got zapped the other day continue to dissolve. Fingers crossed, it’s already a relief, and if not, I can learn to live with this thin yellow rim. They wanted me to come back for a follow-up in October but I had to postpone it until November since I’ll be in the UK next month. Unless of course the powers-that-be, who are rushing us towards the proverbial cliff, shut the airports down. Will they? Can they? Am I over-reacting? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll be pinching pennies this trip but am grateful to be going.

Only one bird this week, I’ve found having time and space between them helps the process. I also had the latest CoVid vaccine, almost as a political statement, and it knocked me out. These days, I feel like I’m living in an alternative universe and that what’s going on out there can’t really be happening. Then I remember this is why I started the bird series to begin with in 2017. They are, after all, at least to me, pint-size guardians and observers of us foolish humans. I did spend a few hours revamping my website (www.maureenmccarron.com) and dropped a page, moved another, then gave the charcoal pieces their own category. Also, since I noticed Archetypal Angels (archetypalangels.blogspot.com), my old Manhattan blog where I revise and repost these Substacks, has taken off again, so I put it on Linktree where more people can find it. Since then, my website stats took a big jump so all the SEO lessons a few years ago seems to be working. In the meantime, as I’m all about social media today, an interesting memory from 2023 popped up on Facebook this morning. It was from a post Kevin Sessums tagged me in about his visit with me at the gallery where I had a show. One of the paintings, Professor below, had a big spider meandering across the front. Here’s what Kevin had to say about it. "Her bird paintings have an eerie beauty, both otherworldly and of this world all at once. One even convinced a spider. I told her that was the definition of art: Convincing the spider.” Thanks Kev, onward!

Only one bird this week, #18, the raven above, because I’ve had a lot going on. For one thing, I was dismayed to read that Trump wants to take over the 9/11 Memorial the way he did the Kennedy Center and will soon do to the Smithsonian. I have already mentioned that the bird series started in reaction to his first inauguration. What I haven’t talked about is how I lived downtown and spent the Thursday following 9/11 at the police barricades on Houston Street handing out water and sandwiches to the first responders headed down the West Side HWY to Ground Zero. Mr Trump showed up in the afternoon because our crew was on the local news. When he tried to shake our hands, I turned my back on him. Then he pitched a fit when the cops wouldn't let him, in his long black coat and suit, through the barricades. I will not be showing you any photos from the 11th but here is one of the collages I did following the event when I was too upset to paint. There were a dozen in the series and ultimately I created a handmade book of them. This one is titled Femme Fatale, for I believe, obvious reasons. Onward.