Summer in the Desert

It has been really hot here with very little rain. I am hoping to leave this place soon for good. But for now I am rather stuck here. We go back east for a visit in August and will be meeting hopefully with a realtor to find a place to live. We were hoping to find a place in Amherst but they don't have a lot of housing stock there. The houses are either out of our price range or dilapidated wrecks with nothing much in between. Down towards the cape where my son lives is very nice but way out of our budget I am afraid. Housing has become so unaffordable these days it is hard to imagine really. I am going to try and stay positive. I have a very good friend back in Amherst who has offered to go look at places for me. We have known each other since high school and it would make both of us so happy to be able to live near one another. Like when we were kids! Anyway, as a result of all my house hunting on Zillow I have not been making much art. It is hard to concentrate with all this going on. Normally we would just sell our place here and go rent back east until we find something but the rents are astronomical! We would spend all our money on rent with nothing left to buy a place. Thats it. That is all I've got for now.

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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 w...

Tiny Landscape series

Whenever I am away from my studio for any length of time, as I was this past week, it always takes me a few days to get back to where I feel comfortable again. I forget what I had been doing before I left and so whatever I try to create turns out not so great. Being back east was a bit startling for me. Everything was so green and the trees were so large. I guess I forgot how big both the trees and the leaves are. Here, our trees are smallish. And there are pretty much no leaves on anything. The mesquite tree has some tiny little leaves but for the most part it is all about dry, dusty brown and thorns. Today was the first day I began to feel comfortable in my studio again. Although I put trees in my landscapes. I guess I really needed trees. I am still reeling from the realization that Massachusetts is so expensive and I have no idea if we will ever be able to go back. I am heartbroken over that thought. I try not to think about it but it is hard not to.

Tiny Landscapes

One thing I have been doing a lot of is painting small postcard sized landscapes. I am taking a lovely class with Kateri Ewing It has helped me get out of my head for a bit anyway. Mostly it is about abstract art making but as usual I can never be totally abstract and everything ends up being either a landscape or a floral. Oh well. That's just me I guess.

Roberta Warshaw Art and Design

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