Mizzle & Mist

Finally, after over a year, my new site is live! What an absolutely strange year 2025 was. I have been told I should write a book or How To Guide about my experiences moving overseas in the last year, but considering it has taken so long to complete my website and I haven’t sent a newsletter in almost 2 years, I am simply going to bare my soul briefly and catch my subscribers up on what we have been up to. Also, my memory is shit at times, and the details drift off into the daily ether. If you have received this, you were in my original mailing list and won’t need to become a subscriber again. I will continue to send out newsletters from the blog, hopefully every quarter, but will be doing regular posts as well.

After about a decade of scheming, saving, and planning David and I made the leap to England over last summer. It required selling the house to make it happen, but we are here! It is the first time he has lived here in 30 years, and our daughter and I are experiencing my first true fall/winter. She is settling into Secondary School and we were extremely luck to find a great studio space in the heart of town.

After 4 months of house selling, 4 months of temporary housing, crate shipping, visas, vets, 26 hours of travel with 2 cats in 2 countries, and a month and a half apart, my daughter and I arrived with 4 suitcases, to a couch, tv, 2 beds, and a coffee table. I’m grateful whatever ribbon of universal confluence unfurled for us to be here. It is a strange thing, when you arrive somewhere that you have only been to the train station (once) and go, yep this is exactly where I should be. For someone who doesn’t often feel like they belong somewhere, it is quite a revelation.

While not blind or deaf to the state of the world, we are going to try our hardest to dig in, and dig deep into this tiny little piece of Shropshire. Guilt is mingled with joy, but as I learned a long time ago, nothing comes without a price. I must hold both, and find the balance. Finding the frustration of keeping my mouth shut to protect my legal status too much sometimes, I want to pad myself in damp soil and fragrant leaves, insulation against insanity, and just make things. Pretty things, ugly things. Baking, walking, and striving to calm our nervous systems. That being said, F*ck Fascists!

Thank you for staying a part of my artistic journey. I have been working to branch out in England and was accepted into the Annual Friends of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists show in January. RBSA is a great organisation and I was honoured to be included in this group exhibition.

David and I have just opened a local show February 15th at The Bear Steps Gallery. It is a continuation of our Home-Ing exhibition in Scottsdale in 2023. You can follow along with what we are both up to on IG @oldgrammarstudio.

All my best- Judith