Everything Looks Perfect from Far Away*

In summer, I lose routine. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, with school routines being so much a part of daily life. It’s good to have some freeform days where you don’t know exactly what minute it is and how many more minutes until you’re allowed to pee. It’s OK to let time just sort of wander…well, unless you have appointments, in which case, you should have some idea of time. I’m not in that freeform place yet. I had a quilt to be picked up in a 2-hour time frame. I had an eye doctor appointment at a specific time. My rug shampoo machine needs to be back by a certain time or I’ll get charged more. So time is a little fucked at the moment. It’s better than when I’m in school, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am efficient. In fact, I’m really not. My calendar is chock full of things I’m supposed to be doing, and I keep stopping to finish reading my book. Or resize pictures. Or pee a dog. Or heat up a cup of tea…lots of that.

Late at night, I finally get some space in my head and I just sit and read or think about what I’m drawing next or how to finish something. Or how to be more efficient. I’m using my free time, my brain space, to think about how to be more efficient. And then I go to bed too late and get up too early and feel tired all day. Not ideal. Working on that.

It’s OK. This is where I am right now. I have about 17 school things clamoring to be done as well, as a result of our two days of planning, and I’m afraid I’ll forget about them if I don’t do them soon. School brain…SHHHHH.

The dogs are both recovering well…

Although he got a donut (instead of a cone) because he was chewing on the leg that had the IV. I took it off last night…we’re watching the leg for now. The other one hasn’t tried to lick anything, but she’s definitely got a cone on. Because stitches. So there’s that.

Yesterday was crazy chaos of working, shopping, then renting a rug shampoo thing and cleaning carpets that might never have been cleaned. The plus is the big black spot in the hallway is now gone. That makes me happy. My carpet is still from the 1980s and falling apart, but it’s clean, dammit. I kept putting it off because I thought I’d be replacing it, but I can’t deal with that right now…so clean is better.

I did do some of this after dinner…

It’s not fast. I worry that I will run out of thread on these…the more complicated ones. So I’m watching that pretty closely. If someone buys a kit, I don’t want them to run out of a color if they want it to look like my sample.

Then I ironed eventually…all I had left was the face, and then to iron it to the background…

Tonight I will start the stitchdown, which shouldn’t take long…and then I can sandwich and pinbaste tomorrow, hopefully. I do have other stuff going on tomorrow, like half the country (maybe more). I will have no tanks and nothing I do will take away money from the National Parks, though, so you don’t have to hate me for it.

This Desert Daughter is part of a series…Earth Daughter was the first one. I want to draw a bunch for different ecosystems. We’ll see how long that takes me…

These works below were up in the In Between Gallery space that exists in Bread & Salt between the Athenaeum Art Center gallery space and the Print Studio that is also there. I didn’t see anyone’s name attached to them…and I just spent ten minutes on both websites and Facebook trying to find any information. If you figure out who the artist is, please tell me. I’m going to keep trying to figure it out.

They look like paper collages or prints that then have stitching over them…

They’re not straight, which I also like…

I really want to be doing some different stuff this summer. Maybe this is a place to start? Draw on fabric, add fabric or paper, then just stitch? I could maybe do that.