I Hope I Put It in My Phone

I’m never really sure what throws my brain in a hole. It’s stuff that happens all the time, but then my reactions are different for some reason. Like a switch flips up or down and that’s it. There’s the hole. I’m in it. I often blame hormones. But who knows if that’s really it. I had a really successful weekend. I got a lot done. I went to an opening where I won an award. I don’t know what the deal is. Hopefully it won’t last long. Usually being around middle-school kids all day has a tendency to banish the blues. And calling it “the blues” is kinda lame too. It’s just a bad place my brain goes, a place it’s been before, and apparently a place I’ll never forget how to fall into.

With that, here’s what I got done on Saturday. Kitten was the model for this one…

She’s cute. Another quiet one.

Then the second owl…this is pulled from one of the bathtub drawings…in fact, it might be the one I’m going to make next into a quilt.

I haven’t decided for sure yet. I tried him on multiple blues, but this one worked best.

I finished all of that before going to the Interpretations opening at Visions…where I won the Director’s Award. Which is cool. Never won an award there before…me with my giant boob. The show is open until um…January 3. Long time.

Several people asked if it was me in the story…and yeah. I dealt with about a year of excessive mammogramming and ultrasounds and twisty pokey stuff, and then they proclaimed it a normal dark spot. I did actually see it on one of the scans. It’s been there for over 7 years now and hasn’t changed. It’s the alien in my boob. Much like the aliens in my uterus. Who might all be gone now. Who knows.

So that was Saturday. Sunday was filled with errands and getting ready for school, sending emails and fixing the website and trying to organize the week and get caught up on grading (I will never be caught up).

Then I came in to iron. It was late, but I’d been fighting that mood for hours and there’s no way to make it go away, but making art helps it feel less awful. So I ironed the last of the cats. Yeah, this is the weird one.

I drew it during a staff meeting…or a union meeting. Can’t remember which. The woman next to me kept watching me and it was annoying me, so that’s where the eyeballs came from. Anyway…I’m not really expecting this one to sell (although someone bought the eyeball bird last year, and it was a weird one). I like it anyway.

The next step, hopefully tonight, is to start sandwiching all of them, getting them ready for quilting. Progress…slow but sure.

So I was getting ready to go to sleep last night and looked up at my bedroom ceiling…

Yeah, so I had to get a stepstool and a tupperware and some cardboard and then he kept running, but eventually I caught him and set him free in the front yard. My biggest freakout with this is How do they get in? Because there was the baby lizard on my pillow a few weeks ago. I feel like there’s a lizard family living in my bedroom. But Kitten lives in my bedroom. You think she’d be aware of these things.

There’s also this…

I needed a fried egg in a circle. I was actually fascinated by the patterns of the oil in the tin foil. I once painted a whole 3×4′ painting of tin foil. It’s in the garage somewhere. Ah, the things you do in college. There’s also a 4-foot green penis. And another one of a tin can. That one’s cool. It would make a great quilt. I did it as a screenprint too. I was talking to one of the artists at the Interpretations exhibit about all the stuff I want to try and how I don’t have time, and she just straight up said I needed to retire. Then I would be able to do those things.

Oh. OK. I’ll get on that (excuse me while I roll around on the floor laughing, because I won’t be able to afford to retire until I’m dead).

Meanwhile, I make art in the middle of the night. I draw in my head while I’m in the car. I compose quilts while sitting in meetings. I color them in while I’m grading papers. I get ideas while I’m teaching (I got one the other day and yelled it out, and my students were amused. I don’t remember what it was now. I hope I put it in my phone. I usually do.).

OK. With that, I need to go earn a living.