Responsible Adult…

Adjustments made. Taxes started instead of quilting all night like I wanted. Have to be a responsible adult, dontcha know? Up early today to retrain on CPR and that heart device that I will hopefully never have to use. I had two students one year where we had to drag that thing with us on every field trip. I don’t envy my sub today…my kids are getting increasingly antsy and boisterous. We have one teacher out and the guest teacher is…eh. She’s eh. Four and a 1/2 more weeks until Spring Break. Then the math teacher will come back. I hopefully won’t kill them all in 4 1/2 weeks. Definitely in burnout. But it’s not just school. Life itself is wearing on me. Too many tasks. Want to run free in a meadow or something. But that would probably cost money I don’t have.

Really I’d be happy if I could remember to find the time to fold the towels and put them away. Plus whatever else has been living in that laundry basket for the last two months.

Quilting is so peaceful, so meditative, while I’m actually in front of the machine.

I don’t think about school or stress about people or money or college or taxes. I just quilt. Move the sandwich around and around. Listen to the music or the thing on Netflix. Don’t think too hard about it. Just draw the line, careful around the teeth and the eyes, draw around the tiny little words, thread breaks, tie it off, start up again. Bobbin runs out, fill it up. So simple. So linear. So peaceful. Don’t watch the clock. Don’t stop until you’re ready. Just go.

Sometimes I think I should just do this stuff every night and not be a grownup. But then reality kicks in. I graded. I did taxes. All very grownup. No one told me how much shit would end up on my plate though. I teach 12-year-olds. I spend all school year with kids who mostly have no idea how much work it is to be a grownup. They’re testing the boundaries of being a kid, growing up into teenagers, but not quite ready to take on the world. Last year’s failures just got lectured about not graduating. Some of them come to me and talk about their grades improving, but there they are, on the failing list. Some are just still failing, almost proud about it, beating their chests like it’s a plus.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the parent yesterday who said there were no consequences at home if he fails. None. No one taught her how to raise her child. He doesn’t have to be awesome. He just needs parents who give a shit about his future. Then he can too.

I think I need more walks on the beach and in the mountains. I need more hours on the elliptical. I need more time with my sketchbook. I need more time with needle and thread, fabric too. Having the kids gone gives me very little room for moods and stress. There’s nothing for them to bounce off of…they just reverberate in my own head.

Sigh. Off to learn how to save the world. Again. Damn hormones. They really fuck with you.

Burnout and Screaming Feminism

Yeah. I had a 3-day weekend. But the list of things to do was too long and frustrating. I kept staring at it and picking up this or that, staring at things, trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic really. And finally, instead of being responsible and checking off one of the more onerous tasks on my list, I quilted last night. Seriously. I know I have some stuff I need to get under control here, lots of stuff on the list, but I couldn’t get my head around any of it last night, so…well…I didn’t. I played hooky. Except I still did stuff. Quilting is on my list.

I’m about 4 hours into the quilting and I’ve finished most of the torso and all but one hand/arm. Then all that’s left are the heads and the background. It’s quilting pretty fast.

While I was doing the actual quilting, it didn’t seem fast though. Lots of tiny little details that took forever. Except not forever, because 4 hours isn’t very long for quilting. Not that I’m done yet. But the outline quilting will take the most time on this quilt I think. I quilted for almost 3 hours last night. I kept trying to find a good place to quit, and finally the clock made me quit. I look at it and think about having to work the next day, and I already knew today would be frustrating because kids didn’t turn in their assignments and I needed those assignments last night so I could make folders last night, and now I can’t. In fact, in one class, I have no idea what they’re doing today because the kids all blew off the assignment. Well, two out of ten groups didn’t. Sigh. Giant sigh. Sigh so big a blue whale could fall into it.

I am bordering on work burnout. I know that. I’m trying to manage it best I can.

I guess we’ll know in a few days how much quilting is left. Meanwhile, I have a quilt to ship to a show this week, plus I need to draw the next small one, which has to relate to a big one that already exists and is available to show in May. No small feat there. Plus Spring Break is coming and I like to have a big quilt to do over break, but I’m thinking I will just have this smallish one and one other not-so-big one I want to do, and THEN I will think about something crazy big. Maybe. I can’t even think that far out at the moment.

Speaking of trying to manage my burnout, I finally saw the new Star Wars movie yesterday. It had some plot issues, but I liked it. After hearing all the hype for months, I really liked that Leia had aged appropriately and wasn’t still a hot chick. It made sense. I thought Carrie Fisher looked great…as great as her male counterparts. And leaving Rey out of the merchandise? Y’all are assholes. She’s by far the main character in the episode, a great strong female who overcomes shit left and right, is smart and creative and a wonderful role model for girls, unlike what all we 40-year-olds had growing up in the sci fi movies. Early Star Trek and Star Wars didn’t give us women a lot of good characters to hold on to, and Rey is awesome. Although whoever designed her first desert costume…it certainly wasn’t made for running at top speed to get away from the bad guys. Normal people woulda tripped over all that long stuff. I noticed at the end she had dumped the scarf-like thing and went for a much more simple, non-run-impeding vest. Anyway. Kudos to the Star Wars writers for making Rey awesome…major face slaps to the merchandisers for leaving her out without fans having to yell. My nephews need to see strong women who matter in the stuff they watch…so does my niece. When are the dumbasses gonna realize that?

No idea. Why do women need to be screaming feminists these days? Because no one is listening and if we stop yelling, the dumbasses will put everything back the way it was in the Dark Ages. See Trump and Cruz for more information.

All right. Back to our regularly scheduled work day.

The Doing Is Where the Joy Is…

Busy weekend. Lots to do and see. Managed to finish stitching down the quilt on Saturday…not early, because apparently I needed sleep and lots of it. But it only took about 5 hours to stitch her down total.

Midnight was not at all helpful. She never really is. Mostly just tries to sleep on things and vomit up hairballs. This is why when I leave my machine for more than 5 minutes, I wrap the quilt around the machine. She can’t sit on it, she can’t eat the thread, and she’d be hard-pressed to vomit on it.

I only had about an hour left to do on Saturday. Yes, I spent all weekend trying to recharge, so I have not gotten as much done as I’d like.

It was necessary. Here’s what the back looks like. I look at the back to see if I missed anything major.

The batting was washed and dried, there was enough of the fabric I’d picked for the front to do the back as well AND have a little leftover for other quilts, so that was good.

This isn’t actually a huge quilt. There was a size restriction for this show.

Pinbasted in under 30 minutes.

No cats were involved in the pinbasting, unlike normally, when Kitten goes barreling through and skids through the backing.

Then I interrupted artmaking with art, food, more food, work, errands, more food, and work. In that order. Wait. I think sleep was in there. Not sure.

Then last night, I started quilting.

Late. I started late. Shocking really. But I got the legs and the lower torso done in about an hour and a half. Just have 10 arms, 3 heads, and the background left. No biggie…

That’s for later today I think. And tomorrow. And I don’t know how many days. I don’t think it will take me 20 hours, but what do I know? This is smaller than the quilt I’m comparing it to, which has a similar number of pieces. This one also has less background, but it’s the fussy outlining that takes a long time. So it’s really hard for me to say how long. I do know my plan is to get the binding on next weekend. Because I’m emailing the photographer. Yup. There’s a deadline for you. Anyway. It’s a plan.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to the art. There were a few openings I wanted to go to on Saturday…all in Barrio Logan, the new arts center of San Diego. One was at the Glashaus, but really I liked these pieces marked MANU…

I don’t think this gallery/office space had been open before when I’ve been here…

But it had a few of his pieces…

I love the blue line through the face…looked everywhere for his card. Not to be found.

Also revisited my favorite wire artist…Spenser Little…

His work is fascinating.

I have video of one of his lamps too, but haven’t pulled it off the phone yet.

No artist info on this cool metal sculpture…

Then we walked over to Gallery D, which is where my art group will have a show later this year. And guess who we found…

Yup. That’s Manu again…

But this time, we have artists’ names. I was there for Anna, who’s a member of the art group I’m in. But here’s the website for Manu…still unclear on whether it’s one person or a few…

Here’s Anna Zappoli, who I came to see…

And her original small drawing for her mural…

A view down one wall…

And another…

I liked this piece by Esther Gamez Rubio…

And the other wall from the other side…

Then we wandered around the back and finally found the Low Gallery (we’ve looked for it before…it’s in a dark alley). They were showing prints done by K-2nd graders at St. Therese’s School in Wilcannia, NSW, 98% aboriginal students. I’m a fan of kid art…how they view the world intrigues me…

These are from about 10 years ago, which I didn’t know when I was at the show…

So these kids are all now teens. Figure the one below out…they’re cutting trees down, it’s raining, and then there’s a rocket in the sky? I think?

Anyway, it was a good night for art and food and the like. Sometimes you just have to walk away from real life so you can go back to it later and not flip out. Try to remember why it is that you work…it’s not just to pay the bills. It’s to do the stuff you like to do. Make art, see art, occasionally buy art. Hang out and eat good food and talk. All good stuff. Certainly, when you’re having a conversation with a muralist who spent hours making a painting that will be covered up by the next show, never to be seen again…the making is very important. But you’re not going to be able to sell that painting. Hard to understand sometimes…but the doing is where the joy is…

A Wash…

So Friday was a wash for artwork. See! I do take days off. But it was sort of a mental day off. I spent all day with kids working on group assignments and me laughing at their arguments. The table that voted for the background color…democracy in action! The table with the bossy Arabic boy who when the other two wouldn’t listen to him, he just deleted everything they typed while they yelled at him. The two high-level girls who stated loudly that they couldn’t work with these people. I just about lost it. The two tables who sat there and stared at each other, waiting for someone else to do all the work. It was like a tiny little microcosm of all the work situations I’ve ever been in during my entire life. The table where one girl took over, designed the whole thing, and pointed at the other kids: You do this, you do that. She had already made the boxes with the titles in them. And then she critiqued their font choices because they didn’t “go” with the rest of the doc. The table where one kid was reading the text aloud while another kid typed. And the one kid who has been begging for groupwork? He’s absent. Of course. The 6 kids who were absent on a Friday before a three-day weekend? We emailed them their assignment. The one who was on his Chromebook but not in my classroom because a parent signed him out early? Sent him a message on our system. Why aren’t you here? Here’s your assignment. Yeah, I can see what he’s working on even though he’s not here. Creepy stalker, eh?

But I walked away from it in a fairly good mood, because I dumped everything on them. You deal. This is your team. You have to work with them. Think about how you’re behaving. Why are they mad at you? Why do you think you get to choose who’s on your team? Fun stuff. Plus everyone in the class is dependent on your information to do well on the test. So get on with it. That’s real world right there. Ask me about it next year when we’re trying to design science curriculum from scratch because California doesn’t have any. Why pay for that shit when you can make your teachers do it for free?

Wish I could walk out every day with that much lightness in my head. So it was OK to go out and have fun instead of coming home to work. Even artmaking needs to take a break, although I did go shopping after work. I needed batting and thread.

In fact, right now, the batting is soaking in hot water so I can sandwich later today. Same bathtub my Christmas card photo came from. Still dirty. Might be permanently dirty.

Couldn’t turn down a twofer on scissors for $7. Plus 20% off the whole ticket.

And there she sits…waiting for me. In a minute sweetie. Getting there…

Forgot to put in the link for the article about my show…in case you aren’t on Facebook with me…

Quilt Artist Depicts Stories of Women’s Bodies and Lives

It’s our local paper, which I don’t actually get in real life. No mention of my grandmother, so that’s a good thing. The writer did interview me and read most of my blog, I think, so she did a good job.

OK, so I need to get on with it and do quilt stuff and other stuff and making art stuff (holy crap, I need another new piece by the end of March. Yikes!). Plus art openings tonight. So that’s cool.

Art Routine

I seem to have the routine down this week. Work for hours on end, eventually come home, maybe even eat dinner (last night it was 10 PM…my fault…the chicken needed an hour), and then make art for two hours or so, talking to no one, but texting 2 or 3 people at the same time. There’s a dog on the floor behind me, sometimes a cat on a chair and a cat in a plastic shoe box (you know, like they do), but there’s not a lot of difference in the days otherwise. Sometimes what I do right after work is different: book club, counseling, gym, errands, library. Sheesh. I did three of those yesterday after work. Explains the late dinner and the late stitching start.

But that routine is what helps me get work done. Lots of work apparently. It never feels like a lot to me, but I guess it is. In the last week, I’ve worked on art for over 16 hours. Granted, there was a three-day weekend in there, so that helped. So when I tell people it’s my second job, I’m not kidding. On breaks, that goes to more like 40 hours a week or more. The routine gets it done though.

So after I iron all those pieces down, I have to stitch them down so they’ll stay. I know people who don’t, who either use all hand-dyed fabrics, which stick much better, or they stitch it all down in the quilting. I like my images to pop out from the background though, so I don’t want to quilt them down. I use the quilting stitch more as an outline, even a drawing line sometimes. So this stage, before I sandwich it, is to stitch every single piece down with a small zigzag using a clear thread. At the moment, I’m using Sulky 100% poly invisible thread. I use clear. I used to get a smoke version too, but like the clear better. It can withstand ironing heat, which is a good thing. There’s another one I use as well, Superior’s Mono Poly, same deal, but harder for me to find.

I’m just under 4 hours into the stitch down. I have one whole side of arms to do…well, I think I did 1 1/2 of them last night. I finished the entire torso except the very top inch or so, and I need to do all the heads. So actually not much is left.

I wanted to be done last night, but I went to the gym instead. Although this process is very meditative to DO, it’s not very exciting in the photographs. It’s more exciting to know that I can pinbaste it tomorrow. Assuming I have enough batting. Hmmn. I should check that before I leave for school. The place I get batting is closer to school than home. Plus I have to wash the batting, so I could do that tonight. See? I often think ahead. Plus I’m pretty sure I have nothing that is the right color to quilt this. It has a definite green tint to it, instead of the dark indigo and navy I usually go for. So thread and batting are now on my list. No problem.

As far as quilting it…it will probably take…um…the last big one was 20 hours. Yikes. That’s a lot. This is the part that’s gonna kick my butt. So I have a 3-day weekend, but already have like four things happening, plus I really do need to grade stuff. Always. Forever. Aacckkk. This is what drives me crazy. I need a social life, but I don’t have time for it. Anyway. So that’s where I stand. Hopefully I can get a good chunk of that done this weekend. A girl can dream.

Both kids were texting me yesterday about winter and cold. Funny since it’s been almost 90 here the last two days. Boychild is having a high of 1 degree on Saturday. I’m so glad I can’t even imagine how cold 1 is. Girlchild was outside on and off for two hours working some event…they were smart enough to only leave people out for 15 minutes, before letting them come inside and warm up. I don’t think she got frostbite.

I miss the little buggers, but at least they text me about stuff that makes me laugh. And when they need help. This week has been housing and Shakespeare. And direct deposit. I was useless on the last one. Hard to help with online stuff from so far away. And the girlchild has a blog. Let me know if you find it. She won’t tell me the name.

OK, work. The one where I manage headstrong psychotic kittens with bad breath and untrimmed claws. Yeah.

Drawing Should Fit in Somewhere

I should plan better. I should not stay up late the night before I’m doing a lab in class where I have to keep them from sucking chemicals into their mouths. And then go to a long union meeting. And then home for about 40 minutes, where I try to persuade a semi-depressed Golden Retriever to eat. She eats Just Fine at my ex’s house. It’s only here (same food) that she refuses to eat and stares up at me with those doleful eyes, making me feel like a heel for leaving again. To go to book club, where I’m only 23% into the book and I’ll probably finish it, but only because everyone is saying how wonderful it is and I totally should just bully through the first third to get to the good stuff. Um. OK. Another 10.3% is what you’re saying? Of an 800-page book. Whatever.

So tired was I last night that I sat on the couch, and then laid down on the couch, and then took a short nap. Not a long nap, because cat and Golden Retriever, but maybe 10 minutes at about 9 PM, which is earlier than I ever leave book club. I wasn’t in the mood. Usually I come out of there really up and excited and invigorated to be with my people, even though they’re all significantly younger than I am. They’re still geek girls. Just not in the mood.

That said, after the nap, I came in here and stared at the quilt top, which is looking pretty fine, and remembered I was missing a fingernail and a finger wrinkle…I thought. I made a new fingernail and then tried to find the missing finger wrinkle, but apparently I had already fixed that little problem. So I started to stitch it down…

Stitching it down is a very meditative process, because basically my brain is saying, “Stitch there, now don’t forget that piece, go back and stitch it down, and then to get to the next section, go that way, and then stitch there,” so there’s really no room for other crap, except when I was really depressed and the other crap was screaming at the top of its lungs. Now it’s more low level, so I just ignore it and let my brain move my hands move the fabric move the foot until I look up at the clock and go, oh shit, I can’t stay up super late again because I was tired. Wasn’t I tired? Well, I’m still tired, but not like I was on the couch.

I stitched all the legs and the rug and the beautiful twat (thanks Sion) and the lower torso. I somehow lost the bellybutton or maybe there never was one? That doesn’t make sense. There’s always a bellybutton. So it’s here on the floor somewhere, who knows where. I cut a new one. Maybe it’s not as fancy as the other one (one piece instead of two…yes, my bellybuttons are usually two pieces), but it will do. And then I headed down one of the arms and found I was missing another fingernail, but I think that’s another case of something falling off, unfortunately, which occasionally happens. I didn’t do the best damn job of ironing everything down at 1 AM on Tuesday night. Shockingly.

Two hours in…at least another two…maybe three…to go. Tonight hopefully. Still trying to stay on track.

I finished the baby quilt. At some point will get a picture of it. There was a joke going around that the baby couldn’t come until I was done, so Tuesday night, I texted the mom to say I had finished. An hour later, she texted that her water broke. Baby was born Wednesday morning. This is a superpower I don’t need, so don’t tell anyone.

All I really wanted to do last night was draw, though. I felt it on the way to work. While I was at lunch. During the lab, when I was very busy, I could hear art brain complaining. During the union meeting. On the way to book club. It had subsided by the time I got home, or I think I would have drawn instead of sewn. Sewing was easier. Fewer brain cells needed to be employed. But drawing should fit in somewhere. Sometime. Will have to think that through.

Up All Night…

So I stayed up too late. Not all night, but even this morning was just troubled sleep and I couldn’t fall asleep last night, despite the late hour. My brain’s in overtime. Overload. Overwhelmed. Just over. But I wanted to finish the ironing…I started with the eyeball tree growing out of her head…

And then the other two faces got done. That was it, really. A hundred pieces or so in that space.

Then I ironed her legs onto the torso…I’d kept them separate. At this point, I started pulling the arms and heads up off the teflon sheet.

Then I looked at the clock. It was that in-between time…in between when I might go to bed and when I should go to bed, and my brain just wanted to be done. So I grabbed one of the two fabrics I’d picked for this quilt and ironed her down…

That was fast. Well. 12 hours and 45 minutes total. Not uber fast really. I’m hoping to start stitching down tonight, but I have two meetings tonight, so that might be too much hoping. Finish stitch down tomorrow night, sandwich and pinbaste Friday night and start quilting. I think I might actually make this deadline. Which is good, because there’s another one right behind it. Aack. I did have something I wanted to do next, but it won’t work for this next exhibit. Luckily, it only needs to be mostly done by the end of March and there’s a Spring Break in there. I might go into overload schoolwise before I get there though. Speaking of. Need to go there and do stuff.

Ironing Arms…

I so wanted to be done with the ironing yesterday. I ironed pieces quite happily for 4 hours until I realized I needed to go to bed, although honestly, with the amount of sleep I got, it would have made more sense to stay up another hour or so. I’m 10 hours in, but I’m not done. I did have a 3-day weekend, but it doesn’t feel like I got a day’s more of work in. I’m not sure where it all went, but it did. Errands. Stupid little stuff. I only crossed two things off the post-it note weekend list. That doesn’t feel good.

So keep making art. That feels good. And another tight deadline just popped up after this one, so I need to get moving.

On Saturday, after finishing a bunch of errands and other crap, I started on the torso.

That was easy, so I started torturing myself with hands and arms.

The arms all were drawn basically the same, so I got into a rhythm of ironing them down, knowing what piece came next. They were tiny pieces though.

Each arm/hand has something about it…sometimes two things. One thing near or in the hand, like the needle and thread, and one thing on the arm…although some don’t have both.

I think that’s where I stopped on Saturday. Not sure…wait, I only had two arms on Saturday.

Then Sunday, I kept doing arms, but I didn’t start until almost 10 PM. Dealt with grades and school stuff. Not sure where most of the day went. I think I even took a nap. Crazy, huh? Things I would never do on Sunday during the school year without Monday as a holiday for catching up.

By the end of Sunday, I had 7 arms of 10.

The pieces on this quilt are tiny. That’s what happens when you draw most of it to size. Well. That’s what happens when I draw most of it to size. You might be smarter than I am.

See that iPhone? Yeah. Too small. Tiny pieces.

Hearts with wings. One thing that’s interesting about looking at them on the white teflon sheet is that they will end up on a dark background, so it will all look very different.

When I drew the flying hearts, I squished them in too tightly, so when I traced them, I made sure the one that was originally UNDER a hand had all its parts so I can move them around and make them fit better.

So Monday I started on the upper torso, which had a lot of little pieces.

And the last set of arms finally. As I was picking fabrics, I was trying to make sure I (1) used the same fabrics on each side for each set of arms (not an easy task) and (2) each set of arms was layered so the darkest fabrics were used on the arms that were furthest back. For flesh fabrics, I usually do a run of 7 fabrics…this quilt had 11 I think. Or 13. Something like that.

Oh yeah. And a rocket ship. Plus the inevitable dog I picked up on Monday.

Calli is my daughter’s dog. She travels between the two houses while her mom’s gone because I’m home more and Calli’s lonely, but she really likes her grandpa more than me. He lets her do stuff I don’t do. So she escapes my yard. During the week, I drive her to his house every day, and on the weekend, she gets to stay with him. Crazy really.

I started on the head…well one of the heads…last night. I usually iron the eyes as a separate unit so I can place them on the head and make sure they’re not crooked.

There she is! Except there’s stuff growing out of that head and there are two more heads on the side.

So that was at 11:55 PM last night and I knew I had to leave for school early (in fact, in about 5 minutes), and there were at least another 100 pieces to iron. So an hour, maybe more. I guess that’s tonight. Sigh. I wanted to be stitching down last night. It’s OK. I probably won’t get to that tonight though and tomorrow night is busy. So maybe Thursday night stitching down, Friday night pinbasting and starting to quilt. Time’s a runnin’ through my fingers here. That said, technically I still have three weeks. Barely. And it needs to be photographed. Minor issue.

OK, need to go to school. Tired, not enough sleep, still cranky. Aargh. I did fight the crank last night. Was absolutely fine for the four hours I was ironing. Keep that in mind. Grading papers makes me cranky. Making art does not. Making art does, however, make my brain wired and unable to fall asleep for hours. Whoops.

Head in a Hole

I didn’t get any art done yesterday. It happens. I’m pretty good about doing something most days, but I didn’t have the energy to stand and iron at 10 last night. Strangely. And this morning…this morning, I’ve written out the weekend post-it note and it’s a bit ugly. Why oh why. And it’s supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow. A stark contrast to the girlchild’s photos from Friday morning…

Meanwhile, I’m considering putting my pale winter legs in shorts. I haven’t been outside yet. I’m in hermit mode. My post-it note sent my brain into an overwhelmed frenzy. And I have a 3-day weekend to deal with all of it. What does it mean that the only thing I really want to do is iron the damn quilt together? Oh yeah. It means I’m an artist and an overworked teacher. Fucking A.

We did decide that it’s my fault my co-teacher hasn’t given birth yet. I haven’t finished the binding. I got side-tracked and never finished. So that’s what I did when I got home late last night…worked on that.

But did I finish? No I did not. So she still can’t give birth. Bad Kathy.

And then I walk in the studio this morning and there’s the next batch of 100 pieces laid out with the bins on top that keep the cats from lying on the pieces and messing them up and walking off with piece number 117 stuck to their tail. This has happened. Most of the weird shit I do is because of experience.

So I really just want to ignore the post-it. But I can’t. Too responsible. Maybe. Certainly some of the things on the post-it make me want to put my head in a hole. None of it is easy. It’s all a pain in the butt. I didn’t even put the standard stuff on there, like laundry or groceries. Or sleep. I did put grade stuff on there. Ugh. So tired of that. Taking a break this week from tutorial and detention at school. I’m burnt out. Funny because school admin was just talking about how my team goes above and beyond to deal with parents and support our kids, and I’m going to totally blow it off this week. Maybe the next as well. I’m going to blow it off until I can stand to do it again. Just to clarify, I don’t get paid to stay after school. And it’s not in my contract. So I’m just going to work to contract (sort of…because you know I’ll come home and work) until I can be a better teacher again.

I can’t even think straight this morning…can’t pick one of the things on the post-it and do it. Too much fluff in my head. Alphabetical order maybe. Or just crumple that bastard up and start ironing.

The Whole Nude Thing

Sometimes it’s so easy to come home and blow off school. I had my monthly stitching meeting, where I embroidered bird parts, birds I may never finish, although that part doesn’t really matter. I embroider because I like it and it’s relaxing. And not everything I do has to be art.

Then I came home and made art…even though some student emailed me about her missing assignment that she turned in last week and I haven’t graded it yet (I actually have time this weekend set aside to deal with the pile of late work, which is always a pain in my butt). I totally ignored her. She’ll get an answer today, no worries, but I might explain that if she turns work in two months late, I don’t feel any real urgency to grade it. Maybe I should take two months to grade it?

Oh yeah, I need that 3-day weekend, let me tell you. Even if I will spend a chunk of it working.

Sorting all the fabric the night before was smart, because it made it really easy to start ironing last night. I started with the rug and the stuff on it…

Here’s where I work…Kitten supervising. Looking at this makes me think I should spend some time cleaning up the desk, and that is true…because taxes and financial aid need to be done soon and I will need to get through all that paper to do that. Not really looking forward to that.

Oh yeah. The obligatory Nida crotch shot. The thing is, if you’re going to do nudes, you have to work pretty hard to never show an open crotch shot (and this one isn’t done, by the way). So many male-created female nudes have these lovely lines and fluid motion, but she’s never just sitting there…and if she’s sitting down, legs crossed, dammit. There’s a vulva. And why we’re scared of it? I don’t know. To me it refers to childbirth, to creation, to sexual pleasure, to where we all came out (except those C-section kids). The path we all traveled into existence in the free world. Why are we scared of that? Why does that offend? Why do people FREAK OUT at a crotch shot?

One of my art friends said something at the opening about where are ya gonna go to see crotches just Wide Open in front of a lot of college students? A Nida exhibit. OK. So there we are. And it’s not porn. I’ve been accused of that too. Why is the vulva porn? None of my work shows pornographic sex or even sex for that matter. Very few penises even, and certainly not used in a pornographic matter. The plain existence of the vulva is porn? Really? When we deal with it every day? It brings periods, delivers babies, gives pleasure, excretes pee? This is porn? That’s pretty utilitarian if you ask me. Nothing to fuss about.

Same with breasts. Hey! There’s gonna be breasts in this quilt too! Breasts are for babies. Yeah, they also apparently stimulate male brains and are good for a number of nerve endings and fill out bras (not a good thing in my book), but we can live without them. And they aren’t evil. Seeing a breast shouldn’t cause paroxysms of outrage. Appreciation for the human form…understanding that when the figure is nude in art, there’s fewer clues about their status, their upbringing, their culture. It’s more about all humans, all women. It’s universal. Even by choosing skin color, hair color, eye color…those already color a viewer’s perception. And you want me to add clothing? I’ve never been a fan of drawing clothing. It’s too fussy. I like bodies and their parts. Always have. Assuming the body is transparent and what’s inside is clearly visible. The systems that make us go, that also can kill us. Way more interesting than pants or a skirt.

So yeah. That’s why the whole nude thing. You’d never ask a white male painter about why he paints nudes. You wouldn’t.

So that’s what I got done yesterday, about 100 pieces. It took longer than I thought it did. Not sure why.

Torso next. Then 10 arms. Gonna take a while to get through all of those. Yes, 10 arms. Gonna ask me about that too? Well hang on. Wait until all the other stuff is on there and then you can tell me what the quilt is about. Universal theme, I think. At least to a large chunk of the population.