Mid-summer has arrived and settled around me. June passed by in a gauzy marine layer that wrapped the city of angels in a cushion of grey coolness. The days have been measured, not by the ticking of the cuckoo clock, but by the pages of mid-century spinster lit. From park benches under oak or sycamore, or window seats here at home I am engrossed. I closed the final Barbara Pym novel and new companions arrived: Marjorie Sharp’s Cluny Brown and Muriel Spark’s A Far Cry From Kensington. “Oh Yes!” I say into the quiet day. Good, very good.
My nose is also deeply buried in vintage copies of National Geographic. Here I am mapping out a solo autumn adventure deep into Burgundy. There is a specific romance to imagining new buses and trains to ride, and unfamiliar streets to walk at dawn and dusk. Routes that will carry me into an old world. I time travel through the yellow bordered magazines and imagine the history in which I will soon inhabit.
A year into retirement, the habit of counting the days has finally slipped away, though the urge to track numbers, data, and weather patterns lingers like old architectural scaffolding in the brain. The immense relief of trading loud classroom life, and dictatorial administrators, to pursue the quiet wandering of my mind at home and in the wider world is a gift. I read, I write, I gather things and people of my choosing around me and build a warm quiet nest.
Online Class Updates
I’m currently in the process of overhauling my online offerings. Registration is permanently closed for all classes, though current members naturally continue to have access.
While I’m no longer offering new classes and don’t have plans to create more, I do provide free access to a growing collection of former classes. As I add to the free collection, I’ll announce it right here in a new post
The only caveat is that access is entirely self-service. I no longer offer support for registration, lost passwords, login issues, or technical questions. It’s a firm boundary, born out of my desire to keep my days completely free of online class administration.
Directions for accessing the free classes are provided on the various websites. I hope you enjoy exploring them.
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I absolutely LOVE that you are planning your Burgundian sojourn with the help of magazine pages only current during a long ago political administration! I believe you’re not a big shopper, but perhaps an exception can be made for used and antiquarian bookshops in France to collect old Guide Bleu, Hachette, Michelin, and Baedekers guides? The ads, the lettering, the maps! I am just returned from five weeks in deepest rural France, where a latest vide grenier souvenir (it means ’empty the attic’ and is equivalent to our flea markets, found all over rural France on Sunday mornings) is ‘Indicateur des Rues Paris Metro – guide pratique pour voyager dans Paris’ by A Leconte, Editeur. 1940 edition. It smells musty, the cover is faded red, but the foldout map tucked into the back cover is pristine! Perfect for framing, and the collage possibilities are calling. Not bad for €1. Imagine the adventures you could get into with one of these trusty guides from a hundred years ago. Perhaps you read ‘The Tattooed Map’ by Barbara Hodgson back in the 1990’s? One of my favorites.
Thank you for making the classes available for permanent consultation – they are still so rich with detail and inspiration.
Mary Ann Moss…
Love,luv,luv ur art blog.
So inspirational.
Great house,views,gardens and funky decor.
Art books, travel journals are wonderful.
YOU look great!
🎨
Love the pictures of your home and cats, as well as the descriptions of your current life sans school.
Love, Tia ❤️🌻
big thanks, Tia xo
Hi! I’m writing to you from Marais! We are sitting in our breezy loft air b&b. It’s 29° outside, so I’m painting in my brand new journal, in my brand new, light weight Lap Studio! Today is our second full day, we love it!
thrilled for you and fingers crossed that you get to do some wild swimming as you dreamed of…
Can’t wait to see where you are off to next!
Do as much as you can now in case the knees get creaky like mine and everything slows down.
I’m two years retired, work? What was that?
Have fun, adventures, conversations, naps, cocktails……..
I hear you on the knee front. have had issues before, but thankfully none at the moment. how quickly and mercifully we forget the past trauma of work! hah!
I think every life needs something to remember fondly and something to look forward to. And maybe something we’re glad we escaped from! Glad summer is treating you well; the heat is coming, I know, but June has been so lovely. Oregon has left me a bit cloud-saturated, but the marine layer here in CA…that’s quite a different thing! Gone by 10 am and great at keeping the days more on the cool side. Those are my kind of clouds. Happy July!
Diane, Always love hearing from you. So glad you’re new life in California is agreeing with you. wish the marine layer would extend through September. ha ha
I’m with Sister!
You’re looking great. Retirements been good for you.
I love reading about how your retirement life is unfolding for you. It sounds just as it should be – a lovely gift of time after years of working. Thank you for the generous access to your old classes. I love going back to them.
aw thanks Linda, it is a lovely gift and one I appreciate daily.
I LOVE the pink light on the back patio! I will be over for my French onion soup tonight. I am bringing a lemon tart with meringue on top for dessert and some wine to drink. Make up the spare bed in case I get tipsy.
Sister!