The past couple of years have been an adventure on many levels.
Now, I’m getting back to my roots as an artist, and as one of the early bloggers. (The pile of items in the photo shows the art supplies we just brought from our car into our current Airbnb.)
This journey started in Maine when housing costs soared, and my husband’s job had become more exhausting than meaningful.
Since then, we’ve lived in multiple states and visited many more – over 16 in the past three months – deciding where we’d like to live, at least in the U.S.
Now, we’re looking ahead… probably a year at the most, before putting down roots. We might remain here, or move to Canada or abroad. A lot depends on our respective careers, and how things look, globally.
Which countries appeal to us…? Well, I could talk about my love of Irish landscapes, or the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, or the coastal bliss of Prince Edward Island in Canada.
But mostly, it’s about where my husband, Todd, and I feel most “at home,” and that’s been our focus these recent years.
He spent most of his childhood years in Texas, while I spent most of mine in Massachusetts.
A brief history: We’d met online, in the 1990s, when conversations were just text. He was facing personal challenges and lingering student debt, and I was struggling when my then-husband announced that he wanted a divorce. (I insisted on staying in that marriage until our youngest was ready for college. Looking back, that probably wasn’t a smart decision.)
During those rocky years, Todd and I provided moral support for each other and – when I needed a place to land – Todd, as a supportive friend, offered me his spare bedroom.
From there, romance grew gradually, and – in 2011 – we married, and we’ve been in “happily ever after” mode, ever since.
Much of this journey has involved self-discovery. For Todd, his comic humor and musical talents are emerging… and probably long overdue.
In recent years, I’ve been juggling writing (multiple pen names) and art (including photography), but art is certainly most prominent.
Now, as AI is scraping websites so they may or may not have merit, I’m looking at redesigning mine… this one, as well as my EileenMorey.com site.
And that leads me to explain: This website started in the 1990s at Geocities. It was one of the earliest blogging sites, created by Yahoo!, and I was also in one of the very first webrings, Open Pages.
Back then, women were very much in the minority, online. It was prudent to use a pen name. (Even Todd didn’t know my real name for many years.)
So, I became “Aisling D’Art,” referencing art as well as my Irish heritage.
In later years, I taught art workshops using that name. They included events such as Artfest, Art & Soul, Celebrate Art, and – for nearly 10 years – I taught workshops at Dragon Con.
Now, I’m leaning into the “Aisling” name for my more experimental and one-off works of art, while using my birth name – Eileen Morey – for my fine art and photography.
