What I’m Looking Forward to…

I did some math yesterday, some rough calculations, and came up with 26 hours of grading that I needed to do over break. Ugh. Seriously? I thought I was “caught up” (you’re never caught up until June). So I graded last night. It was frustrating because the iPad is getting increasingly slower and slower and I didn’t bring my school computer home. In fact, I was going to bring it home for break to help with all these assignments, but now they’ve told us we can’t because they’re doing an inventory. It’s amusing to me that they think we don’t NEED the damn things over break. I guess, yes, I could sit in here, in my office, to do all the grading, but I like to be mobile, to be able to go where I want to do this stuff…by where I want, I mean the couch. Way warmer, more comfortable, and I can watch TV while I grade, which keeps me from screaming.

But no. That will not be allowed. Whatever. I’m so pissed off at my school and district at the moment that I can’t see straight. Good to get a few weeks’ perspective. And I applaud the teacher who is able to relax for these two weeks, to do nothing school-related or home-related, but my two weeks look busier than the two weeks before break in terms of the to-do list. Not to mention those 26 hours of grading. Fucking job. Eats you alive.

I’m still doing this…

There’s always a point when it seems never-ending, like I will be cutting things out forever. And sometimes I am…it’s been over 20 hours of cutting before. This is a small quilt though, despite the numerous pieces. So I’m 5 hours in and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This is all that’s left…I briefly thought I would finish last night (ha!), but then reality kicked me in the head.

Reality isn’t a very nice thing sometimes. Kinda rude. 26 hours. Sheesh. And the fact is that while I’m teaching, I’m often grading at the same time. While students were watching a video yesterday, I was getting through the project grades that I could, but I have a huge pile of paperwork that’s coming home as well. I guess I can do those in front of the TV. Depressing though.

So fuck that. This is what I’m looking forward to: camping and hiking, sleeping in, peeing when I need to, napping if I’m tired, reading books, not dealing with other people’s children, going on walks during the day instead of when I’m exhausted after school, straightening up some of the shit around here that’s been driving me crazy that I never have time to do, making art. Hopefully getting this tiny quilt done and starting the next one. Which is bigger. And less insane. I suspect it will end up being more alone time than I need or want, but I have too much work to do around here to be out socializing every day (because that’s how I roll…yeah…not a particularly social person).

And now. Now I am going to school to take 140 kids on a field trip to the science museum. I have meditated (but not sufficiently) and have some caffeine in me, so hopefully I will survive it.

Take a Deep Breath. Take 20.

Some days, you just come home and wish you could take the dog for a walk or sit on the deck with a cup of tea and your book (my book being on the iPad). I came home and did bus lists for the field trip. And then tried to make my scanner behave so I could prep some paperwork for the unit after break. And considered the crazy I’ll be dealing with today. I really should be meditating every day.

And so I did…

I just did it with scissors. On the left, the pieces (tiny little fucking pieces) that I’ve cut out. In the middle, all the trash. I don’t toss it until the quilt is ironed, because sometimes I need some of it, or I’ve tossed some pieces in there by accident. I found two pieces on the floor last night. Don’t know when that happened. On the right is what I have left to cut.

So progress. About 2 1/2 hours of it. Because at some point, you can’t run at 110%. Everything needs to rest. Recharge. With electronics, they often tell you to occasionally drain the battery and then recharge the device. Except I’m not sure that works with humans. I do know most of the teachers around me are drained…possibly as of two weeks ago. Pretty sure you’re not supposed to keep going without recharging. And yet we do.

I have to leave early again today. I’m counting the hours I think until break. Seriously. I was in tears last night over the damn scanner thing. Ironically, I have a new printer with a scanner included that is sitting here on the floor, waiting until I have time to install it. And the scanner isn’t really the issue…it’s Windows 10. Fucker. So yeah. Praying to the teacher goddess this morning. Please o great one. Bless me with sanity today, enough presence of mind not to yell swear words at a child, and not to burst out into tears. Take a deep breath. Take 20. Take some Motrin. And keep looking forward.

The Golden Nugget of Spring Break

I have a friend who’s experiencing some of the same uterus stuff I did last year, when I thought I was going crazy. Sometimes I still think that, but I know it’s the hormones fucking with me. I have kind of a PTSD about the uterus at the moment right now. Even though the organ itself is mostly calm and well-behaved (well, as much as any uterus is), I still tiptoe around waiting for it to rear its bloody head up again, torturing me with its presence. It reminds me of this regularly by causing random pain and suffering, but also I know deep down that it is in charge of the hormones that rampage through me, making me cry through the stupidest stuff, things I didn’t even consider weep-worthy a year or so ago. I figure I’m still riding the last year roller coaster of menopause and hope that the moody crap mellows out with age. Maybe I will never mellow out with age. Who knows.

But when I look at the batch of drawings I’ve done without a purpose or theme, ie, for a show I know I want to enter, then there she is…that tiny organ, so evil sometimes, so dastardly…looming over me. You can track my life through my quilts. The females still cry a lot…well hell, so do I. On top of that, the girlchild is going through some major trauma at school. Mama Bear in me wants to fly out and fix it (it would probably get violent), but you can’t. So I worry about her. Luckily she’s very vocal and lets me know what’s going on. I’m worried, but she can handle it in the long term.

I finished ironing the wings last night. I was still debating wing fabrics in my head until I pulled open one of the drawers of black fabrics and two popped out at me, part of Mariah’s stash, long skinny pieces…I had a lot of one and not very much of the other. But it didn’t take long to iron all the feathers down, and then that was it. Here’s the 71 fabrics I used…although a couple are hiding because I don’t have very much of them left.

The ranges are always very similar. And yet the quilts don’t look the same. It took 9 hours and 39 minutes to iron 800-something pieces.

And then it was still early, so I started cutting them out. They’re freakin’ tiny…

But I got a lot done in about an hour. I’d like to have them all cut out by the weekend. I have a ton of stuff to get through this weekend, some of it prep for camping and hiking next week, but also probably will need to go in and clean out my classroom. We have a field trip Friday and two parent meetings (I swear, if I get another crazy request for a meeting this week, I might kill someone), so lots of work stuff going on. Today the major project my students have been working on is due and I had a ton of crazy online last night related to it. I can see when the kids are working on certain documents in Google Classroom and sometimes it worries me. That said, if a kid spent 5 days of class time doing diddly squat, then last night was probably a rough one for them if they actually want to turn in the assignment.

Today will be rough for me too as those who didn’t work show me the panic. Whatever. I’ve got a plan for the rest of the week. And although I’m not caught up with grading, I’m not as far behind as I was the end of February. This little quilt? It has to be done in two weeks though, maybe faster because it needs photography. That’s a little scarier.

OK. Parent meeting. Tired. Really tired. Trying to be healthy in mind and body. Trying to keep an eye on the golden nugget of Spring Break…right over there.

Just the Wings…

Some days it feels like I am just getting by until I can go back to whatever art project I am working on. I get through school and errands and exercise, except I really enjoy exercise, and then I get through cooking and eating and paperwork (is it paperwork if it’s on the computer?) or the technological equivalent, and then I look at the clock and calculate how much time there is left in the day for artmaking. I really wish it didn’t always start after 10 PM. Especially when daylight savings is already kicking my butt. The night owl self wants to stay up an hour later, but the morning self reminds me I have to teach 155 7th graders tomorrow and patience is one of those things that wears thin with little sleep. It already wears thin on project weeks. Gone are the days of scantrons and multiple-choice tests (well, they’re SUPPOSED to be gone…some teachers still use them), which means more work on both sides. Kids want me to give them all the answers. Then they get mad when they calculate their BMI as part of this project (yup. I brought in a scale) and realize they are classified as obese. Or that they have a higher risk for heart disease because of their gender or their race. Or that the parent who smokes around them is increasing their risk as well. Yeah. Well. Welcome to critical thinking.

So what little patience I have gets fully used up by 3:30 and then I’m supposed to do tutorial after school…unpaid tutorial, I might add, and I’m doing it today because of that project that’s due, but what I really want to do is come home and finish ironing. Well, that’s not all I want to do. Tonight is a little different, but it’s OK. It will get done.

This is a messy pile. I don’t like messy piles, but even if I straighten it all up before I start, this is what it ends up looking like…

I had a lot of little fussy things to iron last night: a cat, some hair, a uterus, lungs, a jellyfish.

I actually had myself convinced at some point that I would have no problem finishing the ironing last night, but then it was after midnight and I stood there staring at this pile…

Totally exhausted and still completely undecided as to what color(s) the wings should be. And that’s all that’s left. The damn wings. Hard to make decisions at that hour. So I packed everything up, turned off the iron, peed the dog, and walked down the hallway toward the sweet comfy bed, and the solution popped into my head.

Yeah. That’s how it works. If you make art every day, even on the days when there is no inspiration and nothing strikes your fancy, and all you’re doing is picking up fabric and moving it around or drawing godawful things in your sketchbook, or even just stitching something down because it needs to be stitched and you don’t feel like being more creative than that…if you do all that, then your brain gets in the habit of solving those creative problems while you’re too tired to even consider them. My brain figures shit out while I’m doing the dishes, while I’m driving to work or on errands, while I’m standing in a line. I let it wander and it does. It wanders until the answer is just there.

This is not an instantaneous thing. You have to work at it. I make so much work because I work at it. It seems so easy now, but there’s almost thirty years of practice in there, some years better than others. More intensely now than ten years ago. In fact, that might be my greatest fear about getting old is that I’ll lose that. I won’t have art every day. So when I talk about getting old, there’s a few things I want: I don’t want to be that old lady with the cane or the walker. I want to be the one who’s still hiking the mountains. She may have poles and she may go slowly, but she’s still moving. I want to make art every day. In fact, I will have worked my butt off for years and I deserve to retire and make art every day. No, I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to afford to retire, but whatever. Those aren’t the only things I want, but they are two of the most important.

With that, I guess at least I know what color I’ll be ironing tonight…just the wings…and then I’ll be ready for the next step on this project. Time to cut out all those little tiny pieces. Way better than stressing out about school.

Sustenance

Deep breaths. It’s only 5 days, 1 major project, 1 unit of study, 2 parent meetings, and 1 field trip away from Spring Break. You Can Do This. Seriously, though, Friday was a bitch. So was Friday night and most of Saturday. I didn’t get anything done at all except art, because that was all I could handle. So that’s what I did. Friday night I drew…

I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, so I messed with one of them…

The cats kept me company…they don’t really like each other, so this is as close as they get.

No, that heating pad is not on. I guess it’s possible it had residual heat on Friday night, because my neck was still a mess. It’s better now.

Then I went into the studio and tried to iron a bit…

Exhaustion took over at some point. I got up the next morning, made my post-it list for the weekend (this is becoming a disturbing habit), and stared at it for a while. Then I ironed fabric instead…these are the flesh fabrics…

I needed to cross something off the post-it, so I went and picked up the dog from my ex’s house (soccer tournament) and walked her about 3 miles. She was very excited to see me. I brought her back here and she lolled around on the floor for the rest of the day. And I kept picking fabrics…

Honestly, most of this piece is the three figures, so lots of fleshy bits. At the end of Saturday, I had this stuff left to iron…

Basically everything that wasn’t flesh. Notice I still have all those loose bits of fusible web on that blue lid over there. Honestly, it hasn’t been that bad finding the missing pieces. I’ve only had to redraw a few.

At the end of Saturday’s 5-hour ironing binge (yeah, you read that right…I only got two things crossed off the damn post-it list and one was walk the dog)…this is how much I had ironed down.

I went to watch a band play. The waitress really liked this one…

The sitting at the table part is a piece of another drawing in my head. I think I’m going to try that one in a bigger sketchbook.

And this one…

Three drawings in 25 hours…not bad.

Sunday was busy. I crossed two more things off the post-it list and did a bunch of stuff for school that wasn’t even on the post-it. Plus the grocery shopping and crap around the house and cooking for the week. And I graded. Shocking. But I tried to stay away from it most of the weekend. I want to be sort of caught up for vacation…which is actually impossible, because see above…one major assignment and one unit due this week. It will take a long time to grade those. Oh well.

But later Sunday night, I got started again…slowly. This is ironing a tea set. You know. Like you do.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far in a remarkably messy pile.

And here is the dog…still lolling around at my feet. She groans if I step over her.

Here’s what’s left to iron. Two sets of wings…I don’t know what color to make them. Should they be the same? Different? Bright? Dull? Earthy? I just don’t know. There’s a set of lungs and a uterus in there too. And her hair, which involves some seawater, a jellyfish, a starfish, and some other fish.

Here’s what’s in the box as of last night.

I’ve been ironing for almost 9 hours. Almost all this weekend. Yeah. I wasn’t really in the mood to Real Life it this weekend. Art. It’s what’s for dinner. Actually, no, bacon/leek risotto was for dinner and it was quite good. But art is my late-night snack, my dessert, my sustenance.

Upcoming Shows

Yeah. I blew off writing yesterday. Head in a place. May write later. Well, technically writing now, but just about upcoming shows.

Primal Scream will be in a local show, The Power of Feminine Energy, at the Centro Cultural de la Raza (in Balboa Park, one of the round buildings on Park), San Diego, CA, March 19-April 3, 2016.

The opening is March 19 from 6-10 PM and will have 50 women artists and over 100 pieces of work.

Then if you happen to be in Pennsylvania (there are some good fiber reasons to be there), I have a piece in Art Quilt Elements, Work in Progress.

In Deep will be at Artist as Quiltmaker XVII, FAVA’s 17^th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Quilts, Firelands Association for the Visual Arts in Oberlin, Ohio, from May 15-July 31.

Then I just found out Friday that Mammogram will be at the Oceanside Museum of Art in our next California Fibers’ exhibit, Eclectic Threads.

The opening is June 25 from 5-8 PM. There will be at least one other exhibit there at the time, Love Letters in Metal: Jewelry by Svetozar and Ruth Radakovich. Lots of work out there. I keep reminding myself of that when my brain goes for a swim in depresso-soup.

Minor Flail

Don’t you hate waking up in the morning and struggling to remember what day it is? Yeah. It’s Friday at least. That’s a plus.

I can’t say I got much done last night. I did a lot before I considered not getting much done. Like counseling and the chiropractor (yes!) and the gym and dinner and then it was really late. So I finished the last of these three birds…

I have two months left to finish (6 birds). Yeah, it’s taking forever. Here’s why I do this stuff though, because people always ask why I’m not working on my own stuff. My stuff requires brain power a goodly percentage of the time. Sometimes I don’t have brain power, but I want to stitch or handle fabric or whatever it is that lowers my blood pressure (actually, mine’s always low) and makes me less likely to yell at inanimate objects (it could be argued some of my students are inanimate objects, but usually I mean computers or the fridge or a couch). Last night I just wanted to veg out and so I watched one show and stitched on wooly birds.

Yesterday my principal said something about our classrooms being reflective of us, but the words he used were “you get what you put into it”. And wow. Did that bug me. Because I still have a massive number of Fs. And I had to walk away from how that felt, because as a teacher, you do assume that if kids are failing, it is entirely your fault. And then you try to fix it. And the trying to fix it was driving me crazy. So I stopped working so hard at the fixing it part, because then I’d meet with the parent(s) and I’d think, wow. They raised him. I can’t fix that. I can offer a variety of assists, but at some point, I can’t do a thing if the kid doesn’t want to do the work and the parent isn’t going to do anything.

I’m in the middle of a big project in class, and I’ve chunked it into smaller progress checks so the kids who flail when given big things don’t just stop working. I’m monitoring them regularly, which means I’m walking the entire room in circles. I’m physically exhausted from walking the room by the end of the day (hence the not-getting-shit-done last night). The hardest part is the kids who just sit there and try to fake working all period. Are they gonna keep doing that for four more days? Yes. Yes they are. So I get what I put into it? Yeah. Fuck you. Not even.

Another parent meeting this morning. Hopefully this one will actually show up. I’m really tired. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning (hear that cats?) and Spring Break in a week, even though it will be altogether too quiet and lonely. I do have a quilt to finish, and if I keep flailing at night, I’ll need a chunk of that time to get it done. Last night? Minor flail. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some stuff done tomorrow so I’ll feel better about this thing being due in 2 1/2 weeks.

Which Parent Will You Be?

Neck is still messed up. Call to chiropractor today. Same with the pool. Whatever. I survived yesterday with about 300 people saying or singing happy birthday to me. I think 6th period was the most melodic AND in tune. Fourth period was just screechy and although 8th period was a nice volume, they only knew three notes.

I sat through a union meeting and drew this…

I have two drawings in my head that are Big Heads (way bigger than this…the sketchbook is probably 6×9″). Need to find time for that.

Then a quiet evening with pizza, Walking Dead, and my sofa companions, some more needy and some more verbal than others. Then I did the dishes and put the dishwasher stuff away, wrote an email to my union people about what happened at the meeting, moved a bookshelf (17 other pieces of furniture had to move first), and finished putting fabric away. While I was doing that, I remembered Amanda Palmer had posted on Facebook about a new song, a serious song, not a last-minute plinking of the ukelele (not that I mind those), and I scrolled through until I found it…listening to the song, I read the story behind it, which is sad, of course. But this part got me…photo of babe in suitcase while she tries to finish writing a song all night. Being an artist AND being a mom…two of the hardest jobs to juggle at the same time.

And I like that…“you are either going to be the person who stayed up and wrote the song, or you’re going to be the person who went to bed and didn’t write the song.” I don’t care about the boring fucking parent side, but I guess I was always the one who stayed up and made the art. Who made it despite parenthood and divorce and all the other crap. I think that’s the artist’s drive, the one that woke me up around 2 AM with this vision of a drawing in my head. Anyway, the song is good…see link below for the story and the song. I read it while I listened, which I think is the best way to do it.

Amanda Palmer: Machete

So in the light of being that person, the one who stays up late to have her other artistic life, here’s what I did after 10 PM last night. First of all, the damn Wonder Under is being an asshole. Here are all the released pieces.

So when I’m ironing, if a piece doesn’t have the web on it, I do this kindergarten-level pattern matching. It has a pointy bit here, it’s long and skinny there, and I try to match them up. If I can’t, I trace a new one. It is a rancid pain in the ass. It’s like an online intelligence test.

Here’s the first 100 laid out.

I honestly didn’t get far, through the 50s and into the 60s I believe. Tiny little pieces and a tired little brain. But I started and that’s what matters. Now I have a plan for the next few nights. This is one of my favorite parts of the quiltmaking process, picking out the fabrics. The piece isn’t even colored in my brain. I just stare at the drawing and imagine it in a variety of colors as I’m picking stuff.

It’s a little crazy actually. The background is on the left. The stuff I’ve used so far is on the right. This drawing is small enough that right now I have it just sitting on the ironing board. Easier to see what’s what, cuz that’s some tiny-ass pieces.

I got to a stopping point and was trying to straighten other stuff up in the studio, when I realized I had a piece of dowel that would work for the SAQA auction piece I bought last year and hadn’t hung yet. I cut the dowel, stuck eyebolts in, and then realized it was REALLY tight. The sleeve was tight against the piece…making the dowel bulge out…

It’s hard to see in this picture, but look on the left, where you can see the bulge of the dowel. I hate that. I always leave room in my sleeves so that won’t happen.

So I ripped the bottom edge of the sleeve and repinned it.

And then I’ll sew it down where it belongs. So I can hang it up with all the other art that needs to get hung up.

Wow. Tired. Sore. But looking forward to that late night tonight when I can hang with the fabric again.

I Got This

Another day, another parent meeting. Gotta book outta here early. Long day with a union meeting at the end.

I have a hard time shaking some sense of fate. It’s my birthday today. I’m OK with the age I’m turning, I’m not down about getting older. I have a birthday gift to myself planned that’s been in my head for about 20 years. It’s all good.

And then I wake up with a massive crick in my neck (no chiropractor on the schedule any time soon), and get rejected from a show (second this week; I’m on a roll), the pool’s gone green and is making noise, so I was out there on my knees trying to get the pump cleared (I have a guy I pay for this because I hate the pool stuff and I suck at it), and everything starts to feel off. The universe! Out to get me! I don’t know where this mindset comes from, but I just told it to fuck off. Loudly.

The crick is because I slept really heavily for once. This is a good thing. If it doesn’t work itself out, I’ll call the chiropractor and schedule for tomorrow or Friday. Meanwhile, there’s Motrin. And maybe a neck rub, if I can persuade someone to do so.

The rejections are common…and I’ve never gotten into this particular show with any nudity, so maybe not so surprising. Besides, and maybe this is more important, my work shouts. It’s loud. It’s out there. It doesn’t always play well with others. That’s why it was so cool to have a show with just one other person, because our work spoke to each other, but it worked. So reject me. Go on. You know you want to. It’s OK. I know the work is strong, it’s good, and it will find a place to hang. The voice in my head that’s whining will soon figure out those pieces are now available for another show.

The pool guy? Calling him this morning. Hopefully he’s not on one of those random vacations he never tells me about. But if he is? The pool is still his problem, not mine.

It’s not fate. It’s just shit happening on the same day. The world doesn’t know when my birthday is. And if it did, it wouldn’t care.

The rest of the day will be survival for sure. And I can do that. I’m good at that.

I finished cutting out Wonder Under last night. I had to retrace some, and in the end, the little pieces just didn’t do well. I have a lot of released fusible. So that will be a pain in the ass. But it’s a pain in the ass I already know.

Ready to sort all those tiny pieces into bins…

It’s such a tiny pile.

All done. Didn’t take long.

Then I went into my office and started cleaning up from the last quilt, putting fabric away. Trying to find room for everything. The bookshelf in the back left needs to come out so dad can fix the shelves. Maybe I can do that tonight.

I need help with about three things around the house. The pets are remarkably useless with hanging art and moving furniture.

Alright fate, I’m going to school now. Whatcha gonna throw at me now? Huh? Bring it. I got this.

Finished! Sort of…

Well one art rejection down…two more notifying this week. I’m on a roll! I’ve been entering art shows since I was in high school…been rejected to more than I can count. It’s no biggie. You realize how many entered and how they tried to put a show together that made sense. It’s not the end of the world. It feels like that sometimes when you get rejection after rejection, but if you know you’re making good work, work that shows your voice, and I’m sure mine does that, then you don’t worry too much about it. It’s a dry spell. Rain will come. Although if you live in Southern California, rain doesn’t come often.

Plus now I have work I can enter elsewhere.

I finished cutting out Wonder Under yesterday…

I think it was a total of 3-4 hours. I still have some pieces I need to retrace and cut out, but then I can sort them and start on the ironing stage…

The web completely pulled off those pieces. Annoying. I keep my Wonder Under in a plastic bag, but maybe age is the issue. Can’t remember when I bought this bolt. And it’s worse on this quilt because the pieces are so tiny. If you have larger pieces, if some part of the fusible starts to release, there’s usually some section that’s still holding on, so you can use it anyway. As I got near the end, I was tracing larger pieces near the edges just because of that. I could also just stay away from the edges, but that’s harder for me to remember. I thought about trimming the edges, but I don’t know if the release would just occur further in if I did that.

I do like that there are little goals to be reached in the quiltmaking process. The drawing is done. The numbering is done. The tracing is done. The cutting is done. The ironing is done. It makes it easier to get a big project done because you have all these little tasks that add up to the big thing. There’s satisfaction on a regular basis. Cross off that task! Whoo!

Whatever. It’s done. Next step.

Next step should be putting the quilt burritos away…

Although the dog does seem to be enjoying the new floor pillows.

OK, busy day. I’m tired. Hoping to make art tonight. And maybe go to sleep early. Some day I have to make up for all the missing sleep. Just not sure when.