Hey y’all. Two days of silence. Well, only here. The rest of my existence has been loud. I just didn’t have time to write in the last two days. But today, I am back to school, and this is part of my morning wakeup routine. I’m really not awake until after 9 AM, which is difficult, because I usually have students at 9. And they require interaction…energy I usually don’t have at 9 AM. Hence writing, which gets the word part of my brain in gear, plus also makes me reflect on the day and what I might need or want to get done.
Needs and wants are often very different, of course. I want to go back to sleep, because oh hells that was a shitty night’s sleep and I’m mostly braindead…but no, I get to sit through a few hours (or more) of meetings and professional development, which is pretty much the bane of my existence. I mean, I guess another colonoscopy would be worse, but I don’t need another one of those for like 10 years, so that’s a plus. These damn things come every week (although not the all-day version, which has its own special level of suckage). It is what it is. My day job pays the bills and is generally not boring and I even enjoy the teaching/kid parts (well, mostly), although not when I realize two of my top students were copying off each other. I’m disappointed in that.
I’m also sort of reeling still about finding out Saturday that my cousin Jennifer died. She was a sweet and quietly sarcastic woman and although she had been sick for a while, we all had hope that things would turn around. I did see her in October, but had plans to do that again…too late. So I’m sort of walking around in a daze with that one…trying to put something that makes sense in that hole in my head where she resided.
Saturday I was in Palm Springs for a class taught by Svetlana Shigroff…who I follow on Instagram. I’m not sure how I found her…Instagram has its algorithms…”you like this so your friends like that”. I had seen her work and then a video of her making the work, and I was fascinated by the process and the product. I feel like I should follow those urges to learn new things, so when I saw she had a class coming up (I actually missed the first one in November, couldn’t go then), I signed up. Yes, it’s a 2-hour drive. Each way. It was Winter Break. I felt like I could handle that.
And I could…the class was tufting, which is kind of like rug hooking…here’s the setup…
You can see the weird tool we used on the frame.
You work from the back…
It took me a while to get the loops regular and consistent…
This is still from the back. You can use a variety of fabrics, but I stuck to jersey because for me, it was more about the image than the texture.
There were about 13 people in class. I’m pretty sure I knew one of them from somewhere (odds of that)?
Still from the back. Definitely some new muscles using this beast.
I got as much done as I could…
Here’s the whole class with their pieces…
I’m famous! Nah. But if you want to follow the artist on Instagram, you can…
You can see I didn’t sit for this…
And she had a better picture of the group than I did.
I made it home by 5:30 and settled down for some cheery Chernobyl and brainless stitching.
The next day, I had an opening up at the beach…so you need to see the water…yeah?
I have two pieces in this show with Allied Craftsmen at the Front Porch Gallery in Carlsbad, California. This is my work, Desert Daughter, in front of Arline Fisch’s cool metalwork.
And my snarky self with Some Like It Hot…which meant I got to explain menopause to two college students.
Home to kitten activity…and getting ready for school.
Sometimes they stop moving. On me.
Finally started drawing again…this thing will be done soon, with or without Luna’s help…
It’s coming. All good. Meanwhile, school is back in the schedule. I can be irritated by the lack of work I got done over break, but there’s no need or purpose for that. I am trying to process Jennifer’s absence. I have a lot of grading that’s still not done. I can’t fix all that. I can just start now and see where it all goes.
Kathy Nida 