Ghosts.
Tiny House Series
Over time I have noticed that when you leave a place you have lived for a very long time and then you return, whether for a visit or to live there again, there are ghosts of the past everywhere you look.
I remember the first time I visited Key West after being away for many years. Things were different and yet the same. People on bikes with small children were everywhere just as we had done before. I kept thinking I must know them until I realized I was older and most of them were not even born when I lived there. It is a very weird feeling. I was seeing ghosts.
Since moving back to Brookline I feel the ghosts everywhere. Walking past my grandsons old schools I hear the kids joyful screams in the playground. And I remember. I can still see him playing on the monkey bars. But wait that is not him. He is in the army now. I walk past my parents old apartment building and can’t help but feel sad that they are no longer alive for me to visit them there. More ghosts.
Walking past the Regency, an apartment building on Beacon Street, I remember my good friends who once lived there. We spent a lot of time with them in Brookline until we all moved to Arizona together and politics tore us apart. One of them recently died and I wish I could go back in time now and repair that friendship. Moral of the story, don’t let politics ruin a good friendship.
I find myself constantly looking into peoples faces to see if they are anyone I knew from before. I have seen a few familiar faces. We are all so much older now. I left when I was 68 and now I am 75. And they are all older too. It is a bit jarring I have to say.
They say you can’t go home again. I don’t know who said that but it isn’t true. You can. But with caveats!
The MFA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
I always used to love walking over to the MFA from my condo when I lived here previously, and so I wanted to see if I could still do it now that I am back and a bit older by seven years.. It turns out I can! It is exactly 1.5 miles each way. If I am careful not to walk around too much inside the museum, it is do-able. All together with the walk over and back and inside the museum I walked just under 4 miles. That is about my limit these days.
I am a member of the museum so I only have to get my membership card scanned and I am able to just walk in. I can go in to see just one thing and leave. I love being able to do that. To me art museums have to be taken in small doses if it is possible. It is easy to become over stimulated and exhausted by trying to see too much at one time.
I visited two galleries. The first was called “Beyond Brilliance.” It is a collection of some of the museums jewelry collection and really was quite stunning. There were quite a few artists that were familiar to me and others I had not heard of. Once upon a time I made jewelry. I loved making it but I had fears around using the torch. Especially in a small apartment so I gave up on it. I have a dear friend who makes the most stunning pieces of jewelry. She has a good sized studio and so plenty of space for a large torch and all the many tools that one accumulates making jewelry.
The second gallery I visited was called “Rachel Ruysch: Artist, Naturalist, and Pioneer”. These were still life paintings of Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750). They were paintings of floral bouquets combined with all manner of colorful insects and lizards. It was an impressive collection of her work. I had never heard of her before but I will go back for a second look now that I have learned more about her. The show is up until December 7th. If you get a chance to see it I think you will be impressed as I was.
Home at Last
“Red Moon Rising” Monoprint and digital
Well, we have finally moved back to our old neighborhood! The move went very smoothly. Now I just have to finish unpacking. So far everything has found a place but there is still a lot to be unpacked. The condo is even nicer than I thought it would be. It is warm and cozy even with the cooler temps. And so bright and sunny! The living room gets full sun all morning long. My art table will be very nicely lit!
Yesterday we did some grocery shopping. The Whole Foods in Brighton is much nicer than I remembered it being. And the Trader Joes here has expanded and is literally the same size as the Stop and Shop!
Today I will try and go for a walk around the Muddy River. I haven’t done any walking since Monday other than short trips to Coolidge Corner for this and that. Every bone in my body hurts from all the unpacking but with the kitchen set up I can now slow down and unpack a little at a time.
I do so love the sounds of the city. It is music to my ears. Before we moved, sometimes people would say “oh it will be so noisy there…” Yes. But I like the noise of a city. It makes me feel alive. I do not do well in the quiet countryside. It feels like death to me. I have lived in a rural area only once before and I did not like that either. I am a city mouse for sure!
Hopefully this city mouse will get back to making some art very soon!
Tucson.
Postcard project with Paperworks, Tucson AZ.
In 2018 we left Brookline to move permanently (or so we thought) to Tucson Arizona.
In the beginning it was quite magical. After living our entire lives on the east coast, living in the desert was like landing on the moon. We studied the plant life, the animal life and everything in between. We went on bird watching adventures and plant identification trips. We were quite smitten with the Sonoran Desert. And those mountains. The Catalinas, the Santa Ritas, the Tucson Mountains. Each range so different from the other. The Sky Islands as they are called. . Yes, summer was hot. We learned how to get up at 5 am and go outside early in order to be back by 7 am when the heat began to make itself known. I rode my bike nearly every single day.
In the winter the snowbirds came and we made lots of friends. Only to have to say goodbye to them in April and then not see them again until winter. That became a problem for us after a couple of years. The hot summer climate makes having a community nearly impossible. Summers became very lonely for us when everyone left to go “home”. I think that was the beginning of the end for us. Was Tucson “home” after all?
And then in 2020 the pandemic hit. And like everywhere else life changed and not for the better. We could not go back east to visit family and they could not come visit us. We were isolated like we had never been before and it was not a good feeling.
One thing that became very clear to us during the pandemic was how very important it was for us to live in a blue state. In Arizona we had a Republican governor who supported Trump 100%. We began to notice just how red the state we had moved to was. They were anti vax, anti mask, you name it and they were against it. And then on January 6th it was more than clear. Phoenix was ground zero for the far right lunatics. Trump flags were flying from every pick up truck. Profane anti Biden bumper stickers were everywhere. It was more than a little frightening.
We decided we had to move back to Massachusetts. But of course by the time we realized it, prices in Brookline had risen dramatically and we were priced out. So we moved to the western part of the state. We were so relieved to be back in a blue state. Of course we never imagined Trump would win again and that he would focus on making the blue states suffer but that story is for another day.
Working Digitally
Ghost Bridge. Digital Collage
When I worked in publishing I designed art mostly in Photoshop and Illustrator. I did some page layout in Quark (yes I know, I am old). I always had the most recent version of the software on my computer. I don’t know how to do without it. So when my computer would no longer support Creative Suite, I bit the bullet and signed up for the monthly charge for Adobe Creative Cloud.
It is not cheap. But I love it and I am addicted. Don’t judge me.
Mostly I have used it for scanning in my analog art and resizing for use in social media. Or printing out for greeting cards. But recently I began to use it more for the actual making of the art. Some of the processes I am using, I had never tried before. I feel a bit like a newbie even though I have been using Photoshop for many years now.
The first new thing for me is the use of blending modes. They are really like magic! When you use them each layer blends in some way with the layer below. So that your colors always harmonize. In the image above I used the “divide” blending mode on the bridge layer. The “divide” blending mode almost always turns the layer white. For the trees I used the “multiply” blending mode. That always darkens the layer, plus it removes any white areas. It’s one of my favorite blending modes. You never really know what you are going to get when you use blending modes. It is almost always a surprise! Give it a try!
For the background here I used an old watercolor. Using some of my watercolors like this is a great way to re-purpose them and make the work truly my own!
Again With The Packing?
Under the Bridge Collage on panel
Packing……..Didn’t I just do this?
Yes. Yes I did. A little more than two and a half years ago.
Today I started packing the books. Can we talk about the books for a minute? I love books. I buy them all the time. Art books…..and sometimes cookbooks. Mostly art books. I can’t help myself. I get inspiration from the art books. If I go to see an exhibit I always buy the catalogue. As for the cookbooks, I guess I like looking at the pictures of all that lovely cooking. In the meantime I rarely try any of the recipes. My bad. Well except for the books on bread baking. I love making bread and do enjoy trying various recipes. At any rate I have way too many of them and I keep schlepping them around wherever I go. I cannot help myself. I am a book-a-holic.
Tomorrow I will tackle the art supplies. I already threw away all the old dried up paint and brushes. So now it is just packing up what remains. I have to do it a little at a time. When we moved from Tucson I was much stronger. It is hard to believe in only 2 and a half years I have become so weakened. That is what age does to you I guess. I am still trying to reconcile the fact that I am now 75 years old. There is way more past than future now. I do walk 3 miles a day but it does not get any easier. Instead each day feels a bit harder. Every day I see a woman walking with her walker. She says she does 13,000 steps a day. With a walker. OK. I guess I should stop kvetching. Keep moving. As long as I am able to.
When I get back to Brookline I will join the Brookline Pool again. I think that will be a bit easier on my feet anyway. They seem to be the one part of me that suffers the most from all the walking. I know someone my age who still runs in races! Good for her I say. I think it is pretty amazing.
Too Much Art
Water Tower in the Mist- digital collage
Is it possible to have too much art? As artists we keep making art no matter what is going on in our lives. We end up saving everything too. Just in case it is worth saving.
I have been painting now since 1976. It was the year my daughter was born and I was living in Key West, Florida at the time. I met a wonderful artist named Eileen Seitz. She encouraged me to start drawing and painting. Before I knew it I was selling some of my sketches to a newspaper called Solaris Hill. I was hooked. I still have some of my artwork from back then.
Needless to say, it is all piling up. The sketchbooks, the gel plate prints, the collages on panels (very bulky to say the least) , the watercolors (both matted and unmatted) , and the fabric collages. Not to mention the art supplies needed to keep all this artwork going! The inks, the acrylics, the multiple gel plates, the gouaches, and on and on.
My new condo is a one bedroom. This means that I will not have a studio. I know. How will I manage? But the truth is, I have not always had a studio. I will keep my desk which will work for watercolors as well as my digital work along with my Wacom drawing tablet. My dining table is rather large so if I have a large project I can work on it there. I will just have to be sure and put down plastic and clean up afterwards.
My overwhelming need to get back home has been so powerful that I was willing to give up my studio space.
That is a lot. I am ready to go home.
Fast Forward
I have decided to resurrect my blog. A lot has happened in our lives since my last post in 2022. We did end up finding a condo in Amherst MA. But it never felt like home to us and we remained heartbroken that we still could not afford to go back to our home.
I never really understood before I moved here just how far away from Boston Amherst is. It is over 2 hours just to get to Newton. Then another half hour to get to Brookline. To get to my son's house on the south shore is nearly 3 hours. Unless there is cape traffic. Then it can take over 4 hours. All this driving was wearing us down. Plus we could not do the drive in one day so no matter what we always had to stay in a hotel overnight and drive back the next day.
I stopped driving a few years ago and my husband really no longer enjoys driving. So we were essentially "stuck" out here with no family nearby. Plus no one wanted to come out here to see us since it was so far away for them too.
Our sadness was palpable. I had my art to keep me busy. Plus I joined a wonderful organization called "The Amherst Woman's Club". I ended up doing alot of their graphic design as well as going to some lovely events in their beautiful house. But even in spite of all this we were still sad all the time.
Living in an over 55 community is not easy. It is hard enough to be getting old. The only young people we ever see here in the community are the caregivers. That is depressing in itself.
So we had essentially given up. And then a miracle happened. And it was a miracle. My grandson was visiting in Brookline for a few days before he moved to his new duty station. So we went into Brookline to spend some time with him. Being in Brookline is very hard for me. I have to entertain my family at a hotel instead of my home. The hotel is also right around the corner from my old condo. I was happy to see my family and sad to be where I wanted to live.
The night before we left I looked on Zillow. I found a condo and clicked the "Take a Tour" button. A realtor called me right away. We set up an appointment to look at the condo. He also showed us another one. A better one. The best one. It was a one bedroom but had two bathrooms.
We bought it. We are going home.