Well hello. I am still supremely sad about Midnight. I’m trying to do all the stuff I’m supposed to do, like grades and errands and finding obscure lightbulbs (don’t even ask), but it sucks sucks sucks. She hung out in my office all the time, and now she’s not here, so it’s hard to be in here…
Her fur is still on everything, because she laid on everything. She’ll be in every quilt from now until I die. And beyond probably. Aargh. Dammit world, why?
It’s hard to be out in the living room too, because she was out there too…
Thursday night before she got sick, monopolizing my sketchbook. She seemed fine then. So it’s gonna take me a while I guess. The hardest ones are when you get no warning. You spend months medicating a cat and taking it to the vet and giving it subcutaneous fluids and it’s almost a relief for everyone, including the cat, when it’s done. I’m sure that’s true for people as well. For 5 years, my grandma had 6 months to live. We were somewhat ready when it actually happened.
So I’ve been keeping busy, because there’s just too much shit to do to NOT be busy.
Friday night was gaming…I sewed these blocks together and then worked on the bottom left block. That guinea hen needs feet, but apparently I need to sew something to the bottom of it for that to happen. I need to finish the flowers on that block and then the monkey has a bunch of stitching, and then I can move onto the sheep.
I did two nights on this (actually I did three, but the second picture is crap). I’m mostly trying to fill in on the left side now.
Then I was trying to get the rest of the June block organized, since I’ll need it soon enough. I wanted to keep all the blocks separate, because it’s easier to embroider a single block than a conglomerate, but that doesn’t work with the road and overlapping shit, so I gave up and sewed all this together. June is the three blocks that still have pins in them. So I’m still sewing wool down for those. Obviously.
All that happened on Saturday afternoon, when I was done with grades (well, for the day) and I had run errands and I had very little brain power.
Then we went to an art opening in the roof area of a hotel in Little Italy…great views, shitty parking. But it was a good base for hanging out in the evening, and a friend of mine was in the show, so it was a good excuse for it.
I was lame and didn’t take any photos of my friend’s work, Kim Kane Niehans, but you can go look at her website and know that she does beautiful work.
So this show is associated with 1805 Gallery, which does artist residencies in this tiny studio, all glass, on the street level in Little Italy, here in San Diego. The goal is to interact with the community, so artists deal with that in different ways. I was not consistent about taking photos, but I liked this work by Chantal Wnuk…very expressive.
And these pieces by Lauren Siry, the organizer/gallery curator/owner.
A view of the entire space…very cool…5th floor on a gorgeous San Diego night.
Then dinner down the street at Queensland Public House…
And home for some episodes of Orville and drawing…I added Kitten into the quilt. She stars in lots of them.
Still trying to persuade her to come sit out with me in the living room. I know I complain about them sitting on the light table, but I like their presence…just not their effect on the drawing.
Then I started adding more hands…an apron…80 cents to a man’s dollar (still trying to figure out how to show that), a uterus…
On the other side, I went for birth control…because that’s gonna get more expensive, harder to get, which equals more babies that people can’t feed and maybe don’t even want. Sex is a biological urge, but women aren’t supposed to have it? Men can, and we’ll even fund the drugs for them to have it longer and harder than their bodies will allow, but women, we’re supposed to be prim and proper and fuck you, seriously?
I’m pretty irritated with politicians and white men and a huge swath of the voting public at the moment.
I’m just filling in spaces at the moment, trying to visualize what the final drawing will look like. I’m close, very close. I just need some time with my head and some tea and a cat would be nice. Sigh.
