Definitely late this week, sorry. The Commons show went very well - the opening was packed, as you can see from the photo above, and I held my own talking to strangers about my art. The show’s down now but while it was up, I began work on a complex grant proposal with eight essay sections that are similar but with slight variations. It’s project-oriented and yesterday I worked out the detailed budget for it so I’m almost done. This also stems from The Commons show as well, but let me backtrack a bit. The morning after the opening, I got a call that the Snow Owl had sold and they had cash for me to pick up. I assumed it had sold to one of the women I spoke to about it the night before, but it turned out it went to a woman who saw is image in the local press and drove forty miles to be there when The Commons opened to buy it. Her ATM only gave her enough cash for a deposit, so she drove the forty miles home empty handed but happy with her purchase. She then drove the same forty miles back and forth a few days later with the balance, but this time she left with the Snow Owl and I filled its space on the wall with the Harpy that had been on the Youtube show that I’d kept aside in case this happened. Very cool, very smooth, but while I was there that first morning collecting my cash, a man walked in hoping to find me. He was from the Provincetown Conservation Trust and had seen the windows project and wanted to talk to me about an event he was planning for next spring. I had already been thinking about the project I’m now doing the grant proposal for, and speaking to him pulled my ideas together. Also very cool, and this time serendipitous.

But wait, there’s more. Besides finishing Gatsby, the Starling above, while the show was in progress, and the SIDE Gallery online show that I have a photograph in going live, one of the women I spoke to at the opening was a curator and she contacted me a few days later about a show she was putting together. After some discussion, we settled on two large pieces that weren’t in The Commons show or part of what is going to the Ali Gray Gallery next week, and she came by yesterday with a contract and took the two pieces with her. They had been on my studio wall since my last Commons show in 2024. Luckily, I had the charcoals safely at home by then so my studio wall is not lonely. And if that’s not enough, I also went on a job interview last Thursday that reminded me of my internship at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Battery Park. I’ve written about it before at least a year ago, it was post-9/11 and part of a program I was in at Pace University, and I was very happy there. I spent most of my time greeting visitors at my reception desk, and on slow days, I read books about Native American art that I borrowed from their research library. I also was a hostess at their film festival, where I met all the Dances With Wolves Indian actors, and attended workshops for kids because they were stringing beads and making masks and corn husk dolls. It was profoundly inspiring and led to me making my own masks, like Feather below, and the papier-mâché sculptures that are some of my best NYC work. So yes, I’ve been busy, I still am, and time’s a wastin’ - on with the day.

Greetings from the lounge at the Provincetown Commons where I am hanging out for a few hours every day while the show is up. The opening is tonight, although I hung the work on Wednesday, and I am very happy with the results. Everything fit without being crowded, as you can see in these shots of some of the show. Harpy#2, which I kept in reserve, has gone to the set of the Wake Up In Provincetown YouTube hourly weekly show so it could be featured in this morning’s video. There’s a screen shot at the bottom of this post.

Besides the YouTube show, I also have nice blurbs with images in the Provincetown Magazine as well as the weekly arts section of the Provincetown Independent. This weekend is the first Friday evening Gallery Stroll in town, so there should be some good traffic tonight, especially since there is a huge collage show opening in another space at The Commons and it’s also getting a lot of attention.

The Commons, by the way, is not just gallery spaces. It is a multifunctional art community organization with studios and co-working areas for creative entrepreneurs plus a number of private meeting rooms of various sizes. It was built in 1935 to replace the 1892 schoolhouse that burned down, and remained a school for decades. Eventually, it was acquired by The Commons we know and love, which after extensive interior renovations, opened in 2017. They focus their solo shows on artists without gallery representation, which I was one of until a few weeks ago, and they let me slide because I am, gratefully, one of their success stories.

In the meantime, the art advisor I mentioned last week bought the two larger pieces of the collection of small works she had on hold for her project. She may come back for the rest of them for a different project, but the gallery is happy to take them since the summer season tourists like little paintings that will fit easily in their suitcases when they fly home. Speaking of which, have you seen the new limited edition US passport design? Luckily I can request the old format when I renew mine this fall. OK, enough about that, on with the day.

A mixed bag of metaphors this week, too many balls in the air, too much on the proverbial plate. First off, big news from the UK. Ebb Tide, my photo above, has been selected by The SIDE Gallery in Newcastle for an online show titled Local Color and will be shortlisted for a future physical show that hasn’t been announced yet. They are highly respected and known for their photography archives - here’s a link to their website. https://sidegallery.co.uk/ In other news, the build up for my show at The Commons, which I’m hanging next week, is going well although I’m on the fence about framing one more piece. Here’s a link to my page on their website’s calendar of events. https://www.provincetowncommons.org/commons-events/2026/4/29/works-on-paper-the-charcoals-by-maureen-mccarron. Also the press releases I sent out got responses from both Provincetown publications, and the Independent has asked for more images so they can feature me on their Indie’s Choice art section of the paper the week of the opening.

In the meantime, the art advisor who has a number of smaller paintings on hold for her building interior project will be here Friday to make her decisions. I have added a few to her selections as suggestions because they work so nicely with what she has already picked out. A couple of them needed a bit of retouching, and this led to some more serious reworking. Calliope, the black cockatoo above, is one of them. I wanted to see if that which worked with the charcoals would work with paint, and I have to say I don’t hate it. There’s another one that’s not done but now has a hot metallic background because Regina, below, one of the art advisor’s picks that needed a little retouching, has one as well. I’d forgotten how much I love a gold background - the way the color changes with the light or when the viewer moves, the contrast of the shiny surface with the matte satin of the bird’s colors. I may be doing more of them as a result soon. OK, on with the day - let’s go.

No photos of New York this week, there’s been too much going on. First is the press release I put together for my upcoming show at The Commons. And BIG NEWS! I signed a contract with the Ali Gray Gallery here in Provincetown. I’ll be included in a group show at the end of May, and a show of my own in August where I’ll share the space with a sculptor who creates what she calls spirit birds, it will be a good fit. Here’s the link to my page on the gallery website - https://aligraygallery.com/artist/maureen-mccarron.

Also signed this week was a new lease on my apartment since I’m unable to move to the UK at the end of May, as I mentioned last week. I can leave with a month’s notice if the opportunity avails itself, but since airfares are now more than double what I paid for my trips there at this time of the year, it may be a while before that happens. In the meantime, I met online with the art advisory consultant who I thought was interested in my doing a mural. In fact, she wants a group of smaller paintings for an office interior she’s working on. Luckily she likes the older work, and this motivated me to bring out some of the earlier birds to show her. One of them, Ichabod above, got repainted this week with a much warmer palette. He’ll certainly look good with the ones she’s selected so far, as would LeRoi, below, which is the oldest piece I still have on hand and was my first bird chosen for a juried show.

Anyway, the galley contract - check, the new lease - check, the press release - check and the art advisory consultant meeting - check, what else happened this week? Ah, right my old lady foot which my GP said needed surgery but the podiatrist he referred me to said it’s a bone spur and surgery wasn’t necessary. Maybe cortisone down the road, but I’m not in chronic pain so why mess with it. Interesting, the gallery owner, the art advisory consultant and the podiatrist are all women. Sensible ones, flexible ones. No bullying or bombast, I like it.

As promised, I’m continuing my NYC photos theme from last week. One can not do a Manhattan spread without water towers, so here are four favorites. Next time, it could be construction sites, because I love them. In the meantime, Facebook has reminded me that it’s been two years since I bought my first tickets to visit Paul in Newcastle. It was a stressful experience. Hitting that final Pay button and dealing with visas and such should’ve been the worst of it, but, no. Getting from Provincetown to Logan in Boston takes almost four hours regardless of how many cars and or buses are involved, and on that first trip, I was halfway there on the airport shuttle when I got a text that my flight was cancelled. The driver, who was listening to my frantic phone calls, said since I had to stay on the bus until it reached Logan anyway, I might as well relax and demand British Airlines put me on another flight once we arrived.

Eventually, I ended up on KLM, which took me to Amsterdam instead of London. But even with the extra couple of flying hours, I was in Newcastle almost on time. I liked the Amsterdam airport enough that I took KLM again for the next trip. The third visit was that disastrous British Air experiment to save time and money, where everything that could go wrong without actually crashing did. Never again. On the fourth trip I went KLM again, but you may recall my being stuck in Amsterdam overnight on the way home. For the last visit, I tried Aer Lingus to Dublin which was shorter as well as cheaper, and because Logan and Dublin have a special arrangement, getting through US Customs was easier. Now that I’m this experienced traveller, that will be the way I go. If I ever get to go, that is.

When people ask why the hell I’m still here, I avoid politics and blame it on money. I just know when I was in Newcastle last October, our plan was for me to move there after my Commons show closes in mid-May. But these days I have been renewing my lease and looking for a seasonal summer job. I’ve begrudgingly accepted having to stay stateside and keep busy here for the time being. I’ve ordered new business cards and the announcement for the Commons show. A new gallery owner is coming for a studio visit later today because she wants to include me in an exhibition. I was also contacted by someone else who wants to discuss a possible mural project. Oooh, I see a giant bird head, à la the Easter Island totems, and a landscape with castle ruins on a distant hill in the background.

Yep, I’m up for that - Onward.

Over the years I’ve been a painter, when I take time off from it, I turn to photography. I do have that painter’s eye from color and composition, and it is another way of seeing. These days I use my cell phone, although I still have my camera. Given my post-cataract surgery issue with not being able to see well enough to paint intricate detail anymore, I have the same problem with taking pictures. It’s hit or miss now, I have to guess at what I’m shooting and take a series of shots, then deal with editing them on my laptop later. I still get good images, but not like I could on my Nikon.

The longest break I took from painting happened in New York in the years after 9/11. I took up collage back then too, but the paintings I was doing were too much like what I saw that day and I needed to get away from those feelings. I’d also taken a job at a Soho gallery on West Broadway. I was good at that job and have worked as a gallerist ever since, but it’s hard to make art and sell art at the same time.

Hence the camera. There are at least 1,000 images in my archives, which I could probably boil down to a hundred really good ones from New York. I also have around the same amount of good quality shots the Cape, but I realized that if I was behind a camera all the time, I wasn’t living my life here. And besides, I wanted to paint.

So, as I chip away at the admin stuff and have no new birds for you, I thought I’d do a couple of posts from the New York City. archives. I’ll start with shots of and from the Houston Street pier, which was only a few blocks from my house. I was over there all the time, I found solace in the stillness way out in the water. It felt like God lived on the river. And maybe he does. Or did, way back then. I think He lives in the dunes of Provincetown too. Anyway, as Kevin likes to say, Onward.

With everything for the show framed and ready to go, I thought I’d show you something other than birds. In addition to grant submissions I’ve been working on, I had an opportunity to enter an open call at the Side Gallery, which specializes in photography in the UK, and while I was editing them to meet size restrictions I decided to desaturate them of color to see how they’d look in black and white. Here are five.

All of these were shot on Cape Cod. The scene at the top and the trains above were taken in Hyannis. The rest are in Provincetown. They seem better, if not fresher, at least to me, in grey tones. But then again, this snowy graveyard is actually the natural color and only appears to be black and white because of the weather that day.

The street scene below was an interesting undertaking because the lines in the road and the house on the right are the same shade of yellow in the original version and it’s quite dynamic. But I think it works this way too, especially since the sky is more dramatic. It’s a bit like the shift away from the vivid colors of my earlier paintings as I took up charcoal as a medium.

And since one can’t do a Provincetown spread without the beach or the dunes - I’ve already spared you the classic rowboat and lighthouse shots - I close with this one of my friends Ron and Michael on the day I took them exploring while they were visiting one summer. Mind those footprints in the sand, they are how you’re going to find your way home.

Fashionably late again. I’ve been deep into art-related admin tasks. I spent a few days revamping my website (www.maureenmccarron.com) and in the process discovered that my membership page at The NewBridge Project in Newcastle Upon Tyne (https://thenewbridgeproject.com/artist/maureen-mccarron/) is up and running so I’m officially international now and very happy with the results. Today I hope to tackle the essay I need for one of the grants I’m applying for. It would simplify things if these application requirements were more uniform but alas, even the image sizes and resume character counts are different each time. Having to cut my resume down from over 8,000 characters to 2,000 for this particular grant was a trip. Bye Bye New York history, Welcome abbreviated, initialized venue titles.

Speaking of numbers, last week was my second anniversary on Substack. My first post was about Flaco, the owl who escaped from a Manhattan zoo and lived feral for much longer than anyone expected him to. At the time, I only sent it out to 26 people. Today, that post has had 180 views so clearly some of my followers have gone back to read it. So Hello out there! I love that you’re here. You are very much appreciated! In the meantime, two new birds - Scout the parrot above and Atticus the frigate at the top - are framed and ready for my show this spring. I spoke to The Commons about expanding my allotted space and we’ve come up with a few options. Still, I’m teetering on the brink of having too much work, especially since the new ones are bigger than usual. Also, Atticus brings the series full circle since he was inspired by the first of the little charcoal studies, below. This makes my focusing on grant applications right now feel timely, even though I intend to stick with birds and charcoal. Yes, yes, busy busy, lots to do - let’s go! Onward.

Today’s my birthday, and I’ve been thinking about when I turned 60 and left New York. It was a really rough year which started when my seasonal temp job at the gift shop in the Plaza Hotel ended after they’d kept me on two months longer than expected. Then there were other short term situations that culminated in August at the big Kahuna of retail madness - the Barney’s Warehouse Sale. In the meantime, I’d been sucked into a vortex involving the DA’s Office and the Parole Board Commissioner because they wanted me to testify against someone who had assaulted me decades earlier and had come up for parole. THAT is a whole other story. In fact I’ve written an unpublished memoir about it, but once it was over my landlord suddenly offered to pay me to move out of my rent controlled apartment, and in six weeks I found a job and a place to live on Cape Cod, sold almost all of my belongings and then tossed the rest into a UHaul and never looked back. 

It was as if the Cosmos had kept me in New York to testify against my assailant, then let me go. And while I don’t feel trapped like I did back then, I do feel a bit stuck at the moment here in Provincetown, given my stalled plans to move to Newcastle - but there are plenty of things to keep me busy while I wait for the Cosmos to shift again. Such as a possible promotional project for the windows installation and more big birds like the cockatoo at the top and in the screenshot taken to give you a sense of scale. There’s also the same sized parrot below. Both are charcoal on the new paper I bought, which I am currently in love with. I’d thought about adding a touch of color to each of them similar to the pink beak of Zhivago from last week’s post, but I got over that impulse once I started the work. Next one, maybe. Although, in spite of editing the series down to accommodate the gallery walls for my upcoming show, I’m running out of space. I can probably squeeze another one in, and I just got a birthday check in the mail that will cover the framing. So it’s all good, I can wait - Onward.

I started this post during the first day of losing power during the big cyclone bomb blizzard that entirely knocked out electricity on Cape Cod. With hurricane force winds, the storm was terrifying, especially when the transformer blew and turned the predawn sky neon lime green. All of my windows were coated with snow so I couldn’t see what was going on. I also couldn’t open the outside door downstairs because snow had piled up against it. I’ve been through New England blizzard blackouts before, but we usually got power back within 24 hours. Which did not happen this time. 63 hours, without heat, lights, WiFi or a working stove ended with me curled up under a blanket on the sofa in my down coat, a wool hat, a puffy vest over several sweaters, two pairs of leggings and Uggs. When the power came on Wednesday evening, I was desperate for a hot shower but waited until the morning because it was still freezing in my apartment. That shower, and washing my hair, was heaven. And it was only later that day that I learned the full extent of the storm’s impact on Provincetown. Numerous utilities poles had snapped in half or fell over. Live power lines were on the ground, broken tree limbs were everywhere. Repair companies came from others states to help. The team I watched repair the pole across the street were from New Hampshire.

In the meantime, while I was trapped in the house, I did the piece at the top of this post. It’s the biggest bird yet and I titled him Zhivago because of the weather. Right before the storm, I did the landscape above. Paul has convinced me I can combine the landscapes with the birds by hanging them next to each other instead of integrating them into one piece. In fact, while considering how to hang the charcoals for my solo show at the Commons this spring, I saw context and narrative in several groupings. Speaking of context and narrative, here are photographs from the windows project. The side wall on Freeman Street, has the feeling of stained glass church windows. The birds could be saints, although I think of them as guardians. The front facade is more intimate, as the birds address the viewer to welcome them to town or into the building.

I’m happy to report that the Provincetown Office of Tourism sees this as a permanent installation, so if you’re ever on Cape Cod or in town, you will have the chance to take a look for yourself. It’s at 330 Commercial Street, and if you travel from east to west, you can’t miss it. Onward.

Very late with this post, things kept getting in the way, although I do have three new charcoals for you. First is #33, the 22x22” kite above, and whose head is noticeably bigger than my own. Then there are the landscapes inspired by my last UK trip to the ruined Priory in Tynemouth and the mysterious caves further up the coast along the beach cliffs of the bay at Cullercoats. I’m not sure how many landscapes I intend on doing, but I have a vague idea of adding context through narrative to the background of future birds, and perhaps landscapes will work. There’ll be at least two more, and I’ll be breaking out of the square format I’ve been working with for years by using full sheets of large rectangular paper. I will, however, continue using charcoal because I really love the medium. And so far, I don’t miss color or the brush in spite of those reworked paintings from a few weeks ago.

Speaking of those paintings, I sold Jasper, the little hawk from that particular group, at a craft fair I worked at this weekend. The man who bought it was the owner of the gallery here in Provincetown who gave me my first show with the birds. He had been asking for a little crow every time I’d seen him lately, but when he saw the hawk, he didn’t hesitate in saying he’d take it. I believe he held it to his chest for a moment before I wrapped it up. It felt full circle, and I was glad to know Jasper was going to a good home. In the meantime, there’s some news on the window scrim project. The curator did the tweaks I suggested and I schlepped out into the heaps of snow we’ve gotten lately to take pictures. They are still being Photoshopped to fix glare and crooked angles, etc, but I will post them next time, I promise. I may also include a shot from a group show at the Castle Hill Gallery in Truro of me standing next to the bluejay portrait I did last summer. Or maybe not. Either way, onward.

I’m done reworking pieces, although I may at some point go back over the Kite from last week as he is much too tidy now. Paul says he sees this process as my continuing to resolve pieces that weren’t finished instead of reworking them. Semantics. He also says that #15 above, #23 below and #14 at the bottom, are all crackers. He means they really good by the way, and I agree. It would be hard to choose my favorite, I like them each for different reasons. They also signal that I am ready to take what I have learned these last few weeks of combining charcoal with color and move on to the next level. Meaning bigger and on the new, heavier, paper.

In the meantime, I haven’t gone to photograph the building with all my bird scrims in the windows because we, along with everybody else, got buried in snow that hasn’t melted yet. So it’s difficult to go anywhere on foot, which is how I get around. I did get a ride to the Castle Hill Gallery in Truro yesterday to drop off a piece for a group show that opens tomorrow. I have a ride for that as well, it will be nice to get out of the house and wear something fancy on top with my utilitarian snow boots and jeans. But first, taxes. And address the pile of paperwork I have been ignoring. I should give the apartment, especially the studio, a thorough cleaning. I have a powerful urge to throw things away, but later for that. Taxes first - Onward.

I’m a little late this week but I’ve reworked six more pieces. Here are four of them in reverse chronological order. Above is #21, the macaw with a bronzy brown background. Next is #34, below, a kite that was one of the earliest charcoal studies that I painted over and has the same bronzy background as the macaw. Further down is #18, the raven which is one of three with gilded backgrounds. And finally, at the bottom is Jasper, a small wood panel piece from four years ago that belongs with last week’s group. All of the reworked pieces involved a return to the brush, which was inevitable. I’m not giving up charcoal though, but every time I rework something, I want to rework another one.

Why so many? Because the news has been so mind-bogglingly bad and my reaction has been to disappear into the studio to paint. It gives me the illusion of being in control when, out there in the real world, it’s mayhem and chaos. May I just say that the videos and subsequent lies from the powers that be about the content of what I can see with my own eyes has brought me to tears on several occasions. Granted, there’s been the teensiest shift out of DC but not for the right reasons. It’s only more ass-covering and gaslighting. And please don’t get me started on blizzards and Davos.

Whatever. I do have some exciting good news though. You may recall that last year a historical building in Provincetown hung scrims of two of my birds in their front windows. The manager of the building came by my booth at the craft fair last month and then contacted The Commons, who had arranged the original project, to commission ten more. I’m not involved in the hanging of the work but they went with my suggested images. There’s still some tweaking to be done but the installation is impressive. I only have casual snapshots so far, but once they’re finished, I will go by and take better photographs. So, Yay. And onward.