That Purpose Is Art

You know you’re in trouble on a Monday morning when you feel like it’s a Friday morning, the level of tired is sand in your eyeballs and your head is reeling like you were out drinking, but you know you weren’t. At no point in time over the weekend did you make up the missing sleep…in fact, you are now deeper in debt and you will have to pay the piper at some point. Damn body, requiring shit like nutrients and rest. I can’t wait until Spring Break…I mean, I can’t wait, because lordy, school is weighing on me, but I really can’t logistically wait two weeks to get more sleep. I need to figure it out now.

Well, maybe not RIGHT now, because in about 45 minutes, I have to race the rainstorm named Goliath out of here to school. Since when do we name storms like this? I remember growing up in Southern California, fishtailing my parents’ car across Los Angeles County roads with never any knowledge of that storm’s name, or I might have yelled it to the heavens. It rained more then. It wasn’t a news item.

What art have I made in the last two days? I’ve done pretty well, mostly because after I finished grades late Friday night, I blew off school pretty much for the rest of the weekend. I sent the parent email. I posted one thing on Google Classroom. That’s it. And once I finished rolling up all the quilts, I started tracing stuff again, at least for an hour or so. I had to drop off a piece for a show where they were confused by my medium. I said, “It’s a quilt.” She said, “like a blanket?” “No, a quilt, but it hangs on the wall.” Blank stare. Oh well. This show was kind of a crapshoot. At least I’ll be educating people.

So I had almost half of the current quilt left to trace as of Saturday afternoon…

But all the pieces are tiny, so it doesn’t take long.

I think this is one of the biggest pieces in the quilt…

I kept tracing on Sunday night, and finished around 10 PM or so I think.

It took just under 6 hours to trace 819 pieces. Except there were two I never found. Sometimes I skip numbers in my head, count pieces that don’t exist. Sometimes I go the other direction and start numbering backwards for a while. And I found at least 4 or 5 pieces that had never been numbered, so they get to be a’s and b’s of the nearest number.

I fit it all on one yard of Wonder Under. Normally it would be like 4 yards of the stuff with that many pieces. Tiny pieces man. I’m gonna be in pain later trying to iron them all down. It’s like the Babygirl piece I did except much bigger…

This is 12 x 18 and the one I’m working on is 16 x 24. OK, not that much bigger. But lots more pieces, that’s for sure. Crazy numbers actually. I’m actually hoping I get no more shows with themes and crazy deadlines for a few months. I know I have some stuff to deal with over the summer, but I’m gonna need a break after this last run…and yes, I put myself in this position by trying to make pieces for shows with very little lead time, but whatever. So far it’s worked.

Anyway, I was watching the last episode of Downton Abbey and started cutting pieces out. I actually got pretty far along. It’s not going to take long…

Although I’m having problems with the fusible web releasing again. Seems we have come full circle with their fusible formulas. Sigh. Whatever.

Cats abound. Sometimes they sleep with me…sometimes they curl up far away on the other couch.

So I may get to the ironing phase this week. Which means some cleanup time in the studio. Aargh. Sleep? Or get ready to iron stuff to fabric? I know which I usually prefer. Even though cleaning sucks, it’s always for a purpose and that purpose is art. Sleep? Eh. I don’t do it well anyway. Best to leave it to the experts.

Made Shit Up

So I finished my trimester 2 grades last night. Around 1 AM. Because the thought of working on them over the weekend gave me the heebie jeebies. I really truly must have a break dammit. So I graded the last assignment and input a bunch of stuff and finalized all of it and analyzed the kids who were on the cusp and determined they hadn’t made an effort to bring their grades up, so they were stuck with the real-live numbers. I really am a numbers woman when it comes to grading. Let them fall where they belong. Rubics for all! However, I’ve decided I need to start using some new codes. I had one I was using with the kids that I can’t remember now, because I was tired of writing them same thing over and over again. So if they saw FRUP (or whatever the fuck it was), they knew what it meant. They already know WU is warmup (not to be confused with my personal life, where WU is Wonder Under…luckily I can tell them apart) and EC is extra credit and HW is homework and I is incomplete. And no. F is not Fabulous. It’s Fired.

I have two more codes to add after grading the last few assignments: FA for Fucking Awesome. Like you’re the kid who makes me get up out of bed in the morning and come into school, because you remind me that I know what I’m doing and you’re getting it and running with it and BLESS YOU MY CHILD. Luckily there are about 10 of these. Mostly girls. Interesting that. They really do help me survive this year. LOOK! I taught them.

The second one? MSU…for Made Shit Up. Because you did. Because I asked you to summarize what you just read and (a) you didn’t read it or (b) you don’t understand it or (c) you are just a jerk who thinks teachers don’t read assignments (sometimes we don’t). You just made up random shit and typed it up and turned it in and if I call you on your shit you will tell me “I tried!” or “That’s what it said!” at which point, I throw the story at you (I don’t do this in real life…just in my head) and demand you POINT TO WHERE IT TALKS ABOUT THAT in the story. I got that from the English teacher, who might be as frustrated as I am this year. Which helps, because then I know it’s not just me going off the deep end.

I think I’m probably gonna get in trouble if I use this one on a regular basis. But seriously, nowhere in the story did they mention surgery or cystic fibrosis. You just fucking made that goddamned shit up. And you alternately annoyed me and depressed me with your actions. So no. You get no points for that.

So I just needed to be done. With grades. And I was. And that would have been fine if I hadn’t had to get up this morning to take down my show. Which is now down. Took a whopping 10 minutes to get it down. And now I’m exhausted because I didn’t sleep anywhere near enough.

Now I didn’t put all those other quilts away that I pulled out while the show was up. Didn’t see the point. Wanted to reorganize the whole mess anyway, because sometimes I can’t find stuff. Seriously. Annoying. I had rolls of quilts I had taken and not used in the show, rolls of those I decided not to bring at the last minute, and rolls of those that were never in the running. One was on the floor in my bedroom next to the bed. I’ve been climbing over it since mid-January. Two were in the little living room and another smaller one in the living room.

So today was the day. Put it all away. In the past, I’ve kept them rolled up in old sheets on the upper shelves in my closets…or the kids’ closets. And that works pretty well, although sometimes lifting up the rolls (or quilt burritos) is difficult by myself. I’m still young! Well. You know. Enough. I’m not very tall though.

So I laid out two sheets, the one on the left for larger quilts and the one on the right for smaller ones. Although in this picture, there doesn’t appear to much difference in the size of what’s on top!

So this is another excavation. You may not know that I made my first “art” quilt in 1990. This may or may not be it. No seriously, I think it is. We were supposed to bring in a drawing, and then she taught us machine piecing of all the curved pieces and machine applique on top for some of it as well. Or maybe she had a drawing for some people to use. I know I had drawn this for a screenprint I never made. I’d taken classes from Susan before…one is further down this pile. But this one is dated 1990. And it has a small amount of silk ribbon embroidery on it as well. What’s amazing is I still have some of that gray street fabric.

Susan taught me traditional quilting as well. The one and ONLY mariners compass I have or will ever make. Seriously.

Pain in the ass. Then I started taking some art quilt classes from local quilt guilds and began to mess with the more freehand approaches they taught me. These were all pinned down and sewn down. Something to do with Frida Kahlo…can’t remember exactly, but I actually started keeping track of the art quilts at this point…this is 2000…probably based on how Joan Colvin taught me to construct quilts.

Meanwhile, I had been making applique landscape quilts with Susan all that time, so I tried an art quilt with hand applique. Oh yeah. That’s not fast. This is dated 2000, but I know the drawing was done when I was nursing my son, because it’s called Soda Sux, Wine Is Better. I had these nasty headaches during and post-pregnancy, but was encouraged not to drink tea. She suggested sodas (ironic considering my current status as a diabetic, but whatever). Dammit. We all know what’s better.

Anyway, I quickly realized I was never ever going to finish quilts if I did them all by hand. So with a few more teachers’ techniques under my belt, I figured out the way I make them now.

Anyway. More piling of quilts until the pile was big enough to roll. I needed a way to keep track of what was in the roll, so I wrote them down and put them in a plastic sleeve that’s taped to the sheet…

Rolled-up burrito o’ quilts.

I used to just have a paper list taped to the roll, but this makes more sense I think. Because they got all torn up and trashed over time.

Found this one too…Genesis. Very simple, bunch of embroidery on it. I had some weird idea and here’s what happened. Can’t always explain art brain.

I got the one big burrito rolled up and started on a second big one, while I kept the small one going.

And the final product: two large and one smallish burrito. About 90 quilts in there.

I pulled one big one that needs a bottom sleeve so it will hang better. It might be in another show this year. I pulled another big one because I’m going to hang it in the living room finally. And I hung one other one that had been out for the show. I have two more that I think I need help to hang. I’m only so tall and long-armed. Like not really. No one’s here to help me lift those burritos up either. I can do it by myself…usually. But I’m debating storing them under the bed instead. Just for easier access. Yes, there’s already stuff under the bed, but maybe it can find a better home. I’m thinking about it. So I’m not putting these away until I decide.

Now I’m going to go trace some Wonder Under. Because I fucking can. Because I finished my work for the weekend (except I have to deliver a quilt…debating doing it tomorrow, although it makes more sense to do it today. Aargh). I hate this shit where you have to be responsible and do stuff you said you would do. And I want cookies. So there.

I Suck at Sleeping

Ahhh tired. I never think about you at 11:30 at night when I’m thinking it’s time to start tracing. Even though I had to take a 20-minute nap last night before I found the energy to go to the gym. I’m not sure why our culture is so against naps for adults except for the elderly. I’m starting to think they should be a part of every day, based on my nighttime sleep habits.

It’s not that I hadn’t done art-related stuff before 11:30 PM. I had to iron, dehair, label, cut slats for, and pack up a quilt for a show. And make a label for UPS. So that was like an hour plus. That was the problem. And I graded before that. And gym. So it’s no surprise that I started late. I could have justified not tracing last night, but I want to get this thing done and that means working every night. Even though grades are due.

Head down, getting it done. All of it. Whatever it is. Mornings are rough though. And tomorrow will be no different, as I have to be in early to take my show down. Sleep! It’s for the…sleepy. Ha.

I haven’t cleaned out all the photo files from last year yet…I have a weird system, and I’m not sure it’s a good one, but it helps me find the photos I need for art stuff. Anyway, the March 2015 files are mixed in with the March 2016 files, and I keep opening the old ones…what’s funny about that is I was tracing Wonder Under then too (I think for Earth Mother for Ventura), so the photos look the same…except that one had way bigger pieces. These are freakin’ tiny. As I keep mentioning…

The pieces are so tiny that they don’t take up much room on the Wonder Under. I’m only 3 1/2 hours in…and up to piece 476, which is the jellyfish in the larger figure’s hair. So I’m past the halfway mark.

You can see I group similar pieces together and then draw a line around them, so I cut them out as one piece of Wonder Under and iron them all together onto the fabric. It saves cutting time at this phase, and if they’re really small, like some of them, I’m less likely to lose them.

So maybe another hour tonight? If I’m lucky? Tomorrow is looking a bit hairy. So probably Sunday night will be the next tracing day…although it also has its challenges.

I feel like this every year about 2 weeks before Spring Break. Exhausted, overwhelmed, head down, trying to survive. And the girlchild is texting me about how shitty she feels and you can’t make an adult who is 3000 miles away from you go to the doctor. Luckily, there’s Google and she can just diagnose herself. And probably medicate herself.

Meanwhile, boychild has scored himself housing on campus again just by waiting it out. I know I didn’t want to have a roommate by my junior year, but it’s easier than finding somewhere else to live. And he possibly won’t come home this summer. Which is depressing. But again, I did realize they would go away to college and eventually they would not come back, and my future would be this house, mostly empty, a really annoying dog who is scared of the ducks next to the pool and cats and everything in the world sometimes, and two very needy cats who headbutt my hand while I’m trying to do stuff and lick me and want to sit on me and get annoyed if I don’t do what they want. And all the fucking quiet, even with Pandora and TV and Netflix, it’s just way too damn quiet and empty.

I guess it’s a contrast to my daytime job. I might sleep all Spring Break. Except I suck at sleeping. OK. Going to the job. The place that sucks up all my time and patience. Aargh. It’s chaos there right now. Too much.

Furiously…

I worked for 12 hours yesterday. I really wish I could say that I worked on ART for 12 hours yesterday, but I would have had to blow off my real job completely to do that. But wow, think of that. Getting up in the morning, having a cup of tea, then settling in for 3 or 4 hours of work, maybe go for a walk, have some lunch, another 4 or 5 hours…you can see how this day might go. Reality is that even when I have spring or summer break, I’m not that efficient most days. Some days I’ll pull 10 hours of artmaking, but never like I do with teaching. And it was stuff I needed to do. Yes, some was grading, but I have a project coming up for my students, and even though it’s probably the last year I’ll teach it because the standards are changing, I still felt a need to completely rewrite it. And I don’t know if that will help at all. It will probably still drive me crazy. It’s the nature of the beast.

But grades are due Tuesday, so there’s some of that stuff that just has to be done. I actually think I’m a little ahead of the game though. I have two more assignments that really NEED to be graded, and then a handful of makeup work, and then I’m done. Well. I still need to input all that crap. And take my show down at Grossmont. And deliver a quilt to another show. And pack up one for yet another show. So it’s not looking REALLY good over the next few days, but it’s certainly not as impossible as it seemed last week. At least I’m pretty damn efficient. Most days.

So I didn’t start tracing until late. In fact, I had a really hard time getting up off the couch. I didn’t even grade on the couch. I was just tired. I ran a lab in class yesterday with a ton of water, and the kids did really well with not spilling TOO badly. I had 20 towels in there and they were all significantly damp by the end of the day, but that’s normal. Last year was a lot worse. I should thank them for that…for not being as bad as last year.

But in an hour, I did manage to trace about 350 pieces, so I’m still going faster than I normally would. Because those pieces are tiny. Seriously tiny. Aargh.

This part is never very exciting to photograph. But that’s what 350 tiny little pieces look like on Wonder Under. I’m about halfway up the second torso, having finished the first one, which was only her butt and up. I don’t think the girlchild is thrilled that she’s naked in another quilt of mine. The second one is a full torso, so it will take a little longer. I’m almost at the halfway mark. So if I figure another half hour to halfway, that’s about 3 hours…so 6 hours total? That’s not bad. I might be able to finish by the end of the weekend…because this weekend is kind of a mess. I might try to start cutting them out on Friday at my meeting, although they’re pretty tiny and I don’t usually like to trim Wonder Under away from the house. It’s too hard not to lose pieces.

I’ll have to think about it. Speaking of thinking about it, I’m deep in my head at the moment. Reflective I guess. Trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be, where I want to be. How.

I stare at this every day…

The computer screen and then that crazy raccoon behind it from The Bloggess. Furiously Happy is Jenny Lawson’s new book (Lawson being The Bloggess) and no, I haven’t read it yet, because I don’t own it yet and maybe I should see if my library has it, because they bloody well should. They DO have it…and holy crap, it has 75 holds on it. OK. I can handle that. I requested it. I might be reading it over the summer. But I can read her blog while I wait. The real point is that phrase “furiously happy” because I really do think I don’t do happy the normal way, that I’m just not one of those happy perky people who can just BE happy with things, but I also think that’s what makes me good at the art and teaching and crap, because I’m never satisfied with what’s done or what’s out there. I need it to be better, to make more, to try this, to draw that, and if I were just normally happy, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. So I’m gonna get FURIOUSLY happy about some things, like mailing two quilts out in a week for shows that are a long way away and getting an article published and almost getting on top of my grading. And then Ima gonna (like my students say) get some of that furiousness (way better than furiousity) and channel it into making stuff. And maybe even cleaning the house and doing yardwork, but honestly, that’s more furiously irritable than furiously happy.

So if you live near me and you see me out in the driveway yelling like a banshee, it’s OK. I’m being furiously happy. About the dead leaves piling up. It happens.

Art Is My Superpower

I have this pool vacuum that sometimes tries to climb out of the pool. I’m listening to it now, realizing it sounds like a wild animal devouring burgers in the backyard (sorry, neighbors…I don’t know how to make it stop doing that). It doesn’t seem to bother the ducks…they avoid it, but they don’t stay away because of that. Nor do they stay away because of the Golden Retriever who swims in the pool and barks at them. Halfheartedly. Like, “get outta my pool bitches…eh…stay awhile. I don’t really care.”

I’m barely awake, despite the shower and a reasonable (for me) amount of sleep. My sleep app tells me 4 AM was troubled sleep. I don’t doubt it. I already know I have to be up early on Saturday, my normal morning of rest. Oh well. Sleep is wasted artmaking time. Might as well rejoice in what little I get.

The plus is that the tracing is going well…

I traced over 150 pieces last night in less than an hour…because they’re small pieces, so they don’t take as long to draw. Duh. That’s a plus. So there’s only 600 pieces to go. Too bad grading is competing for my time. I did grade papers last night. I might sort of get caught up (maybe). Don’t hold your breath. I don’t think teachers are ever really caught up. Even in the summer, we are prepping for the next year, how are we gonna change things or fix things, or in the summers that follow for the next THREE years, how do we transition to new science standards with no curriculum. No problem! say the districts. There’s the INTERNET. It’s like magic. Curriculum just appears. Well, it appears after hours of searching and tweaking and messing and collaborating. It’s a giant time suck. I know because we started doing that kind of stuff this year.

So why do I do this job? Well, it is creative and requires most of my brain. I don’t like to be bored at work. It’s also cool when kids get stuff, like holy moley, so that’s what a heart looks like. And they can see the muscle. And middle-school kids can be funny and loving and all that. But it is an incredibly stressful and demanding job, like no other job I’ve had, and sometimes I just need to talk about it. That’s always been an issue with non-teachers. There’s a difference between complaining and venting. I vent and it’s out. I don’t have to think about it any more. Frustration released. Moving on to the next daily challenge.

Maybe that’s why I’m still in counseling. Because I just need someone who listens and lets me get it out without taking it on themselves. You can’t fix my students. You can’t fix my school (and next year, based on the plan we’ve heard about, is gonna be hell on wheels with no teams). You can’t fix what’s wrong with public schools. Seriously. It’s unfixable as long as parents don’t care and politicians are involved. Or parents care too much and are ignorant of how a school or classroom actually run, and politicians are involved. I can handle my job…most days…I just need someone to say uh huh, that sucks, have a hug. Or a glass of wine. Or both.

My joy in life doesn’t come from my job. It comes from my art. And I wish I could make more of it.

Today I’m running a lab that requires 17 towels. That should be interesting. Labs are exhausting, especially with water or chemicals or dissectable things, but the kids get a lot out of this one, so I do it. I’m still trying to prep for next week’s project, so I’m a little behind. Hoping to get caught up by the end of the weekend. Might not be socializing much between grading and that. Ugh.

All this is why I make so much art, people. The job sucks my brain out and spits it on the ground. The rest of life is somewhat stressful and often lonely. Art makes it all OK. It’s my superpower. Certainly doing taxes and financial aid apps and going to the store and cleaning out the litter tray and trying to analyze the tire pressure light in my car all just make me crazy. I need something to tip the balance in the other direction.

I was interviewed for San Diego CityBeat. You can see the article here. I think he did a good job of capturing me and my art. And he didn’t mention my grandmother’s quilts, so that’s a win.

Quiet Meditative Tiny Little Fucking Pieces

Some nights I think I’m going to get all this artmaking done, no constraints, and then that just falls apart. Sometimes it’s for a good reason, like your kid face-timing you from college or taking the dog for a walk, or both…like last night. Sometimes it’s your brain…it’s tired and can’t deal with even getting off the couch. It’s easier to stare at distractions on the TV or the phone. It’s too hard to stand up. You know you have to clean up first before you can start. Most people have already gone to bed. What is wrong with you? Don’t you know lack of sleep is unhealthy?

I guess that’s the part I’m pretty good at: getting up and starting, no matter what. I have grades due in a week, so I can’t really take a break and blow off grading, because I need to get caught up, best I can. So I’ve spent the last two weeks basically making myself try to grade a thing a night, although sometimes “a thing” is one class’ worth because it’s a time-consuming assignment, or more common, their answers are so off the mark that if I grade more than one period, I become so incredibly frustration and convinced I’m the worst teacher in the world, until I come to one where the kid did it right, and it’s not the smartest kid in the class, and I say to myself, “Well if JOEY got it (there is no Joey, just to be clear), then everyone could have understood me.”

Yeah. Those are not the best nights. Except it means it will only get better. If I do something else afterwards.

Last night’s grading session wasn’t hard, but there were head-banging-on-the-desk moments where I thought the cats might call 911, because I was a little frustrated. Talk about ignoring simple instructions. Anyway. It’s done. I’m getting down to a reasonable number of assignments left to grade, if I don’t think too hard about the last unit that’s piled up at school.

So after a 3-mile dog walk/hike hybrid, cooking dinner from scratch, face-timing the girlchild, and grading homework about hiccups, I almost just went to bed. It was late enough. I was tired enough. But it really feels like shit to go to bed, wake up the next morning, and realize I did no art stuff at all the day before. Especially when I’m working to a deadline.

So I spent about half an hour doing art stuff…because even a half hour a day counts. Some days that’s all I can do, but it’s better than nothing. And it got me started on the next task for this project, so that’s a good thing. I cleaned off the cover on the light table and then moved that off the top and got started with the tracing.

I am a whopping 50 pieces in. Of 819. Yeah. It’s gonna take me a while. But I got my butt off the couch and did it, so yeah, I feel better this morning than if I hadn’t. I actually find the tracing process very meditative. I look forward to it. Some of the artmaking tasks are more heinous, like trimming Wonder Under, but this part is nice. It’s just following the line and deciding what overlaps and drawing that in. Finding the next piece. Doing the same thing over and over again. I know it sounds like it would be boring, but it’s not.

So that’s what’s in my future for probably the next 8 hours of artmaking…quiet, meditative, tiny little fucking pieces. Yup.