I didn’t know if I would retire in Scotland until almost the day that I did. But things happen during a life if you say “yes” to new opportunities. And now, this former elementary-school teacher from New York lives happily in the windswept Orkney Islands, where I focus on my paintings, friends and activities.
It all came about slowly, and unexpectedly. In 1983, I was on a Fulbright scholarship as an exchange teacher in Paisley, Scotland, when I discovered a remote archipelago off the northeast coast with the skies and landscapes of my artistic dreams. On my first visit there, the place tugged at my heart. Even the calligraphic shape of its name, O R K N E Y, appealed to me.