Home in Time for Tea

There are some paintings that end when the brush is set down.

And there are others that ask more of you.

This one asked me to cross an ocean. Cheeky painting.

I traveled to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England, carrying a painting to deliver it by hand to Anna. To some, that may seem excessive. Why not crate it, insure it, ship it?

Because.

Berwick-upon-Tweed sits at the mouth of the River Tweed, just south of the Scottish border, a town shaped by history and geography. It began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement (The Last Kingdom anyone?) and over centuries was fought over by England and Scotland more than a dozen times before finally remaining English in 1482. You feel that tension there still, not as conflict, but as character. Stone walls. Narrow passages. Wind moving off the North Sea. A walled stone village, a place that has learned endurance.

My provisions looked and smelled fresh as though it had been pulled from the earth that morning. My bag was filled with garlic, onions, linguine, parsley, rosemary, carrots, celery, double cream, & two beautiful bottles of deep red wine. The kind of ingredients that remind you food is art, too. The tomato paste was in a jar and bright smelling. The linguine was Italian. I've made this meal many times over the years and the anticipation of how these ingredients were only going to make it even better excited me. I suppose here you might realize that food and painting coexist inside me as one. Like conjoined twins.

That night, Anna, her family, and I made Bolognese together. I had purchased a mushroom and a salmon tapenade with all of the accoutrements, from The Atelier, for us to nibble on while we drank wine and cooked that evening. And so, that's what we did.

If I could describe this evening to you, I would try to convey what it felt like from my perspective. The relationship with this painting and this family in northern England began September 2025 with a "Hello! How do you feel about doing a painting for me? I love your tea cups, and I would like a painting done of my set." And from there it continued to that moment eight months later, in her kitchen with food, sharing my other passion, which is cooking and being together under the guise of a delicious meal. On her part, she shared her family, her home and her beautiful heart. She's been documenting the renovation of this home on Mama's_Renovation on Instagram, which is how we met. So to walk into her home/her life, eight months later, was surreal to say the least. My art piece "Anna's Tea for Three?" now at home on the wall in the dining room. We sat, ate, debated, and this evening is a core memory with her vibrant family, and their active interest in the world lodged deeply in my heart.

Two women, both mothers of five, standing over a stove in a small kitchen at the edge of England, talking about life, children, work, and the long joy of building something meaningful with this life.

This exchange was never really just about the painting.

It was about understanding the architecture of another woman's life.

Anna is building something, too. A life, a home, a future, piece by piece, with the same devotion so many mothers understand. The invisible labor of making something lasting. The investment of today into a future you may not fully see yet. A vision from the heart turned into something tangible.

And her children-young adult children albeit-were lovely. Warm, funny, grounded, present, talented. Beautiful.

The kind of children that tell you something true about the home they were raised in.

Knowing Anna and her family makes the painting feel more complete. Like it has found its rightful place inside a living home.

The painting is home.

All of that, is why.

Xx