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.