Moving and Standing Still

We are still at the same address, same website (www.basilking.net), same Flickr site for Basil King art.  But a move is a move, whether cross-country or just from upstairs to downstairs. We have moved within our house, up to down, to top half, to bottom half, to all, and now back to half.  Six different configurations since 1969…  But (no surprise) it took most of a year to pack, sort, sell, give away, and throw out…all the familiar wrenching drill of moving.

Now, we’re out of the top two floors, which have been converted into a nice apartment. No more stair-climbing. Plus improved income. Because while we we sat still, Park Slope became a pricey and desirable neighborhood. So desirable that we want to live here ourselves despite alluring offers from developers.

Now I’m writing downstairs at the dining room table.  Baz is writing in the living room where his desk fitted nicely. We have a few hideaways when we need more space for domestic life.  In fact much of the house is mostly unchanged…except for Baz’s studio. That was the big rub.

He’s now working in the front of what’s called in brownstones the parlor floor…   Very narrow and about one-third of the size he was used to. Higher ceilings, yes. Skylight, no. But it works. For now.

And since this April he’s been birding…18 are complete, as of today, September l6. All on paper, most in mixed media.   See one of them below. Do please visit the Flickr album called Bird Scripts.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/67642740@N08/albums/72157655813955188

Meanwhile all summer I’ve been working with Brigid Hughes, the editor of A Public Space magazine  (http://apublicspace.org/) on a very large condensed selection from my memoir, Outside Inside. It will be the feature of the fall issue.

I’m certain to trumpet this news more and again–in October when the print copies are in my hand and again in November. The November 5th Prose Pros reading will be a celebration of the issue, with brief readings from all the devoted Friends of Basil King: Mitch Highfill, Vincent Katz, Burt Kimmelman, Kimberly Lyons, and me.