I wish it were MORE of an art weekend, like a retreat somewhere with a hot tub and a great natural outlook and lovely meals cooked by someone else and lots of creative time away from my house, which cries out to be cleaned. Because I know those exist. I also know I can’t afford them. So I take what I can get: SAQA opening Friday night. A friend’s husband said my piece at the SAQA show was the tamest thing he’d ever seen out of me. His wife said someone was looking at my quilt and mentioning mental illness, which is amusing, because HER quilt in the show IS about mental illness (it was juried into the show I created called I’m Not Crazy), and Eyeball Tree is about harvesting organs…yeah, it’s weird, but there’s no nudity and them’s the rules. And it’s NOT about mental illness.
Last night was the opening for Quilt Visions (whatever the name of the new version is), and I’ll write about that later…I’m a gonna REVIEW that sucker. Because I’m not in it. And there’s a good reason why. And then it was the second opening (my SIL says I’m not allowed to call it a Soft Opening, because that’s gross) for the Fence/Barda show with a slide show from one of the Mexican artists. So it was a busy night. Weekend. I talked to lots of people about art. Generally that’s a good thing, but my head does it’s weird-ass thing and turns it into sad. I did my best to ignore it. Came home, persuaded myself to start ironing, despite exhaustion. Seriously, I think I’m fighting off a virus. Been exhausted all week, sinuses are clogged up but not like a cold really…maybe it’s just allergies, except I don’t have those! Yeah right. It’s something. I slept a lot Friday night and then woke up and went to the gym, came home, ate and showered, and fell asleep again. That’s telling. Of course, I didn’t sleep WELL Friday night. Or last night. Can’t tell if that’s hormones or stress (can you really separate those two?). Either way, same effect. Napping…when you have time? Might as well nap. I didn’t really have time. I never do. I’m buried in papers that need grading, so I made a concerted effort yesterday and will again today. I need to get caught up before Houston, because the week after I come back, grades are due again. FUCK! And I have another unit finishing up with a test and a journal unit to be graded, which is not a small number of hours. Sigh. What life?
So it makes sense that I just scheduled a hike for next weekend. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve hiked. I’m getting the nonhiking jitters. I need to get out in my boots and pee behind a bush in the middle of nowhere (OK, you’re right…I could do that in my backyard, but it’s not the same). So this balance of sanity and crazy workaholic, school crap and art crap…it’s feeling like a rush, not a good rush, the rush of someone chasing you into a dark alley. I need it to stop. To slow down. I need some relaxation time. I need to learn to do that on my own and not depend on someone else to be the calming influence. To be the relaxation for me. Because I don’t have that and I don’t see having it in the near future…so it has to be me. I have to be able to walk into the house with all my crap and sit down and relax all on my own.
I probably didn’t fall asleep well on my own when I was a kid either (I didn’t. I actually remember that. Hours of tossing and turning and reading books under the blankets.).
So. It would help if I wasn’t chastising myself for not ironing Thursday and Friday nights. I did finally iron last night, because that voice was in my head screaming at me about blowing stuff off (see, I do it to myself…on the other hand, I get stuff DONE.). So I ironed for a couple of hours…
Still on the female figure. I’m going to do more tonight. I swear. Despite all the work crap hanging over me. Despite a really messy house. I asked the girlchild for 30 minutes of cleaning help today, and I swear she spent 30 minutes telling me why she couldn’t give me 30 minutes. Next time I should just hand her the vacuum and set a timer. No words. Let her scream at me. Maybe she’ll move the vacuum around while she’s screaming. I could push it into her hands, plug it in, and turn it on, and then run away. If I were fast enough and planned my path well enough, I could get her to vacuum the living room.
It would probably be easier to go out on the street and wave a $20 around to get someone to help. And I don’t have it this month…after I pay the Visa bill from hell, we will not be able to buy groceries for the rest of the month. Fun stuff!
I did finish the female figure last night…
Well, except for the fingers of the left hand, but that’s because they wrap around the hand of the male, and I need to iron him together before I can do that. So he’s next on the list…I’ve been ironing for a little over 7 hours and I’m around piece 570, so about halfway on pieces and halfway on my predicted time. The male will be easier. Female holding baby? That’s a lot of overlapping pieces. The male body is less complicated.
So I’m sticking to my Friday night goal of having it all ironed down. I picked Friday, because I figured I could get it sandwiched and pinbasted over the weekend, but I just realized that I have to stitch it all down first, and I don’t think I figured that into the calculations. Fuck! Seriously running out of time. Maybe if I get it all stitched down by Friday the 24th and sandwiched and pinbasted over that weekend. Then starting to quilt the week I go to Houston. Might work. Tight, though.
One of the annoying things last night is that I kept losing pieces. So I’d cut another one out, because I couldn’t find it (I think exhaustion was part of this), and then I’d find the damn piece in the wrong pile. Gaarg…
So annoying when I do that. Yes, I get annoyed by wasting that tiny piece of fabric and the tiny amount of time it took me to retrace, recut, reiron, retrim. They add up, though. It’s time I don’t have to waste.
Anyway. So I’m still trying to figure out how to pull off a REAL art weekend…not any time soon, for sure. Too many other things impinging on my time. At least there’s some progress…
Kathy Nida 