As you can see, I’ve finished Athena, the owl I mentioned I was working on in my last post. She’s the same size as Encore, the 24x24” canvas from a few weeks ago. Although I’m getting more comfortable with larger paintings, I am currently reworking the vulture I did during my short stint into Fauvism before this summer’s trip to the UK. I’m planning a sub-series of vultures because I enjoy the challenge of making them beautiful. I also have another project going as well. I belong to a women’s art group called Sail Loft in honor of a much earlier women’s art group in Provincetown. At our meeting last week, we selected a folded pieces of paper from a basket that was passed around the room. On each of them was the name of one of the original members of the original group. We were then told we would be having a show at a prominent location in January, with the caveat that the work had to be inspired by the artist we had selected. My selection was Flora Schofield, whose work can be found in several major museums, and who lived Chicago as well as Provincetown. The only photo of her that I found in my research was her passport picture and I have already done a charcoal study of it in hopes of painting a portrait of her.

Meanwhile, since Monday was the 55th anniversary of my mother’s death and then yesterday was Veteran’s Day, I felt the need to post a shot of where she is buried in Arlington Cemetery. That’s her stone in the front of the second row from the left. She often said she wanted to be cremated and for her ashes to be scattered over water, so Arlington was not her choice. I used to think I would satisfy her wish someday until, on a recent trip there after not visiting since her funeral, I saw how beautiful the area around her grave is now and how going through with the plan would create a terrible eyesore, which DC has enough of going on these days. So I let go of the idea and held on to my memories, all of which are loving and positive. One I’m especially fond of happened during her last summer and took place in Germany where my father was stationed on a US army base. It was the week before I was to return to the States to go back to college and she took me for a drive along the Rhine. At one point, we parked by the river and got out of the car to eat sandwiches we had with us. While we were eating, two swans swimming by saw us, or our sandwiches, and came out of the water, shook themselves dry and marched straight over to where we were. The male, who was taller than I am, snatched the sandwich Mommy offered him while the female studied the buttons on my jacket. I gave my mother my sandwich to feed to them as well and the swans squabbled over it a bit before they each got a share. Then, sure all the food was gone, they marched back to the river and swam away. My mother was thrilled, I don’t think I’d ever seen her so happy.

Mommy committed suicide two months later. I was 21 at the time. That day with the swans, we also watched a family living on a barge go by. There were two kids playing badminton while their dad barbecued and their mom, her hair in rollers, hung out wet laundry on a clothesline. My mother said then that it would have been the perfect life. Some days, I wonder what she’d have thought about how mine has turned out. Above is a drawing of her I did when I was 19. Namaste.

I’m working on a large painting based on the owl study above and I delayed this post in hopes that it would be done in time to write about it. But it’s still not finished and I’ve surrendered to being late on top of not having it to show you. It’s four times the size of the canvases I normally work on so I’m not beating myself up about how long it’s taking. Especially since I sold the owl study to a friend of mine, and another piece sold at the gallery yesterday. There’s nothing like two sales in a week to cheer a penny-pinching girl up as we head into the craft fair season. The owl sale means I can order two new editions of giclees and I’ve already received and packed this year’s cardinal cards. Twenty of those have also sold so I should probably order more as well. This is that artist life situation again - when you’re flush you buy things you had put on a list when you were broke, and when you are broke you write lists and make art. I have been through it often enough to know something always sells just as I start to panic. And since this time last year I thought I would have moved to the UK by now, I let my craft fair inventory run out and I need to replace it. It’s good to know people are still spending money on art as the madness in DC keeps ramping up daily, if not hourly. As an Army brat who spent her childhood on military bases, I watched my dad look for Sputnik with a backyard telescope and burn official documents on a hibachi after he had memorized the content. I know what a political crisis feels like. It feels like this. But I keep reminding myself that I live in the bluest town in the bluest state where town hall just banned Flock cameras so I feel relatively safe. I also remind myself I have running water, electricity, WIFI and cell service as well as a cozy apartment with a studio and plenty of art supplies. Plus I get to see Paul online everyday and visit him in the flesh from time to time when I have the money. This is not Ukraine, there aren’t bombs going off outside or riots in the streets. If I continue to remain grateful for what I have and stay in the moment, everything else is gravy. Fingers crossed that sanity rules the midterms and there isn’t a big bloodbath afterwards. Is that asking too much? In a sensible world, probably not, but here, in these scary days, maybe. OK, enough of all that, on with the day. Namaste.

There’s only one new bird this week, Encore, a 24x24” canvas which is another version of Temperance, the rook I did a last month as well as a third version called Ruckus from 2024. It utilized the technique I’m developing of blending gesso into charcoal and pastel to set the pigment without having to use fixative. It’s been a learning experience because the gesso works better with white or pale birds, so I had to expand the palette to include black, deep blue and burnt umber paint in this piece. I do like the effect though, especially the blending of the beak. In the meantime, I had a long, lovely phone call with a very old friend who I lost touch with when I moved to Cape Cod. I can’t remember how we met but it was definitely in the 70s. He is, sadly, losing his eyesight but he seems quite stoic about it as he continues to paint without really being able to see exactly what he’s doing. It made me realize how profoundly grateful I am to have been able to adapt my work to not being able to see as well as I did before the cataract surgeries. I suggested we do a show together since he paints trees, which feels like a natural fit, and he is as spiritual about trees as I am about birds. Perhaps it will happen. Let’s hope so - okay, on with the day.

Yesterday, I had a post ready to go but then I bought a new-to-me easel and had to rearrange the studio and my storage to accommodate the purchase. As you can see from the photo, once I moved things around, the easel was a perfect fit. You can see the comfy chair by the window where I write and have my morning coffee too. It’s Yard Sale Weekend in Provincetown, a long-established tradition because so many of the summer residents leave after Columbus, or as we say on Cape Cod, Indigenous Peoples Day. In addition to the easel, I bought a box of almost new sixty half sticks of the brand of pastels I’ve been using along with charcoal I am mixing with gesso lately. Oh, and a very sturdy, lockable archival hard case to carry art to the UK the next time I visit. And I only spent $60 on all three - yay!

I’ve been up painting in the middle of the night again, it’s a difficult habit to break. A couple of nights ago, I went to do a final touch to Witness, the piece above, but when I sprayed it with fixative, the fixative pooled into a nasty puddle that I had to clean up right away. Which also took off a bunch of color and I ended up scrubbing the whole piece down and starting over basically from scratch. It had looked like my usual work, lots of detail and texture, but I decided the fixative drama was a sign to do something less expected and more akin to how I see things closeup since the cataract surgery. Below is Witness in its earliest stage. Most of my work starts out like this. I love that simplicity and always miss it in the finished work but I’m learning to put the brush down before I revert to texture and detail again.

Witness works, as does Prophet, also charcoal and gesso, below. It harkens back to what the Bird series was originally about - my reaction to the 2016 election results. And since you-know-who never left, even during Biden’s term, the series continues. I slip in and out of creating images that are more viewer friendly, more sellable to the general public, but the gallery season is over in Provincetown so whatever happens in the studio now will just be part of my learning curve since I never stop developing as an artist. As it should be. The charcoal studies I posted last week were in preparation for the collection I’ve started here with Witness and Prophet. And now that I have an easel, I can go a lot bigger, as we head into the midterms and whatever chaos ensues afterwards. I got my mail-in ballot on Friday and I will be marching it over to Town Hall next week. I have no words for what’s going on these days, okay, I have plenty, but all I really can do is paint. Which I’ll be doing shortly - on with the day.

I’m spending a lot more time in the studio since I prepared it for the documentary being filmed here a few weeks ago. Not that it was a mess exactly - it was organized and I knew where I’d tucked things away, but it was my work space and not meant to be comfortable or inviting. So it wasn’t, but It is now and I start the day in the big vintage overstuffed chair by the window with that first cup of coffee and my journal. And when I am not actively working, I sit there contemplating whatever is currently on the drafting table. Which makes the process more fluid, or at least more sensible, so I don’t bolt out of bed in the middle of the night to look at the work I have been doing without really seeing it like I used to. The whole thing is more relaxed, less fraught, and less precious. At top is Avatar, one last canvas for the last show of the season at the Ali Gray Gallery, which will be continue to be open part-time during the winter, and below are two new charcoal studies of a magpie and a vulture that I am very happy with. I’ll let you decide if you feel the new routine has made a difference in the work.

In the meantime, as I debate whether to go to the UK to be with Paul for the holidays or stay here and make money at the craft fairs, I’ve been distracted by the Cornell case. First of all, it bothers me that the word rape has been reduced to SA, but I am heartened that social media is on fire about this and half of the commentators are men in their twenties and thirties. For the record, it is no secret to those who know me personally that I was assaulted by a serial rapist in NYC back in the 80s. It is a long and complicated story that includes him escaping during the first trial and my being under police protection, and the FBI catching him in Florida six months later. He was convicted at the second trial and after twenty-five years, there was a fifteen year cycle of parole hearings. During those hearings, instead of painting, I worked on a memoir about the incident and aftermath which I was unable to finish because the story didn’t have an ending yet. So I picked up the brush again nine years ago to save my sanity. Enough, on with the day.

Things have finally settled down enough that I can get back to my little Provincetown life. In these times of political, dumpster fire chaos, I am grateful to have a nice, safe place to live with room for a studio that happens to be in a nice, safe, beautiful coastal town full of other artists who stop and chat with me in the street. I am also grateful I can see the grocery store from my side windows, and the bank and post office a five minute walk away. As is the library where I get my Sunday puzzles and sometimes free fresh produce, although it is in the other direction. The clinic, where I was a few days ago, is further off, a fifteen minute walk, but the dentist is there and the hardware store with a smattering of emergency art supplies for those times I can’t wait for the delivery of an online order. In other words, even though I’m in the throes of missing Paul and Newcastle desperately since moving there is too complicated and expensive at the moment, everything is fine.

As far as the painting goes, I just finished Vigilance, the harpy eagle at top, which reflects my feelings about what is currently going on in DC. I finished Temperance, the rook above, as well, which does not. Or, perhaps it does as I try not to give into the panic I feel when I think about Trump. A few nights ago, I saw the documentary “Anne Packard: An Artist’s Resolve”. I worked off and on for almost ten years at her grandson’s gallery that was devoted to her work. The film didn’t reveal anything new for me, but I was intrigued by how they left out the family dynamics and history I was privy to while working there. It was, however, a moving homage to a local icon who is and has been very much her own person. At ninety-three and now in a wheelchair, she still finds purpose and solace in the paint. And the seaside. And the light. I can relate to that. Forget the midterm elections and pressure to finish one more canvas before the last show of this season at the gallery. Hand me a brush and I know who I am. OK, on with the day.

This time I’m not really late because I have given up following a schedule these days. Especially since I’ve only been back on Cape for ten days, three of which were gobbled up by a wicked case of jet lag, although the trip back was tedious but smooth. I’ve only now stopped thinking Paul is on the sofa with me when I wake up after falling asleep in front of the TV. Anyway, the malaise of not being in Newcastle with him has finally worn off. Before I left, I finished Mersey, above, the Work In Progress piece previewed in my last post. It and the Whip-Poor-Will from the post before the last one are still in Newcastle as I build a body of work and develop an artist presence in the UK. Paul took the photo below with the two paintings to use for that purpose. Sorry about the resting bitch face, but being an artist is a serious business.

Also, two days before my leaving, we went to the Fatfield/Coxgreen part of Sunderland where Paul used to play along the River Wear, pronounced Weir, when he was a kid. One side of the river is more wooded than the other, but as you can see from these two photos above and below, both sides are beautiful. The Romans were in the area at one point and I saw some of their obscure brickwork on our walk. Newcastle has remnants of the fortress walls that surrounded its medieval town, and remains of Hadrian’s Wall are scattered around the region although most of it is west along the 84-mile coast to coast trail you can hike if you are so inclined. Newcastle definately ain’t London but it has a fascinating history that has nothing to do with football or Geordie accents. Yes, some of them talk funny but it’s charming and I miss it.

Meanwhile, I have news about the project I‘ve been hinting at recently. In a nutshell, a production company making a video series called The Story of Art in America was in Provincetown this week to shoot an episode for their sixth season. They included our library where we locals read Moby Dick, from cover to cover, every April. They also featured four artists. One whose resume would make your socks roll up and down, another who’s a well-known performance artist, the third is a muralist who was just voted Best Provincetown Artist by our art museum, and, well, me - because of my Guardians installation at the Tourism Building. They squeezed into my studio with their equipment for an hour-long interview and then we went to the installation for some more footage there as well. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea and even scheduled my return from Newcastle to accommodate the filming, but you know, little ole me and three of Provincetown’s most important artists - Yikes. Best start using my resting bitch face portrait, Baby’s about to get famous. Maybe.