Missing Enough to Feel Alright*

I’m fighting tired yet again. I managed to sleep a vast number of hours Thursday night and Friday didn’t seem so much like I was a dead blob of meat. Last night, I held it together through two full sets at the Music Box, and even drove home mostly wired…Puppy then set to barking at each spider that was spinning a web in a 5-mile radius. Ugh. Sleep. Sometimes it’s so far from my existence that it hurts. Right now I think I need a nap. Isn’t that what Saturday afternoons are for? Sweaty naps with your feet tangled in the sheets? A cat curled up next to you, because they’re perfectly happy to sleep whenever and wherever.

Oh if only I had the time and mental space for that right now. I graded last night before I went to the show (and after I spent an hour on the phone with my bank, which closed all my accounts due to some unknown suspicious activity, which no, was not me buying more fabric online. I don’t do that any more). I got up this morning and have been grading on and off. I’m going to grade tomorrow and every day until grades are due on the 13th of June. UGH.

This has meant an extreme lack of art in my life, which is why I am now grinding my teeth as well. Or that’s just the end of the school year. Really anyone who is NOT a teacher should be reaching out, hugging us, and buying us drinks with no questions asked. Do not try to fix anything for us. Just do the laundry, buy and/or make dinner, and don’t ask stupid questions. We don’t have the brain power for it.

See? She’s smart. She does the sleep thing.

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And the cleaning of the toes while leaning on the keyboard, which makes mom mad for some reason. (I’m grading shit, cat…you just gave a kid 3333 points out of 10.)

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Boychild entertains animals…there’s a cat and a puppy, and a dog in a giant cone still…

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This is stuck to the front door. I started it two years ago? Or maybe last year…so the kids would realize there was shit that needed doing. I swear, I think the boychild is the only one who looks at it. I crossed off some stuff. He tried to cross off something.

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It needs redoing. And a reality check probably. It used to all be color-coordinated. All the stuff in black was added right before Spring Break. Anyway. The Summer To-Do List is coming. Along with my brain. I hope.

OK, back to grading. I’m hoping to draw later. I did draw a little at the show last night, while I was waiting for the band I care about to go on…it’s hard to do that in public with people you know. I have no problems drawing in public with people I don’t know though. Explain that.

*Talking Heads, And She Was

I Ran So Far Away*

It’s hard to go through each day with the news the way it is…it’s hard to pick one or two things to focus on in your art, the things you think are the most important, when you’re being bombarded by absolute ignorant stupidity…well, I’m a middle-school teacher, so some days it feels like that too…but some days, the kids’ insights are amazing. I’m not getting that out of the federal government right now…although I’m consistently amazed by local and state governments and rogue entities that show me what America is made of. It’s disheartening though, to see such ignorance tossed up as representative of the country. It’s boggling. I’m teaching my students to question and search for evidence, and their role model can’t even spell or speak coherently.

So last night, after being frustrated by non-scientists trying to explain science, after listening to what other countries were saying about the Paris agreement, after reading the mayor of Pittsburgh’s tweet and hearing all the other mayors standing strong for renewable energy…I couldn’t draw. I swear, I am tired and overwhelmed and I thought about the gun drawing a lot and it will come to me, what I want to say with it. The two I had are not what I want to say. They were what I was thinking when I drew them. I can’t force myself to draw on topic sometimes. I am still so tired, to the point of considering I’m sick and trying to figure out what’s causing it (no other symptoms though). So I went to the copy place (which is now half the size? When did that happen?) and enlarged three of my smaller drawings.

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One is about climate change, sort of. One is about women. One is about the desert. I don’t know which I feel like doing right now. I was going to tape them all together last night, but even that was too much for my tired brain, so I went to bed (see, this is why I think I’m sick). I just know that I need to be doing something, so if I start on one of these, start tracing, maybe the rest will come. I mean seriously…there are 10 days of school left and I’m buried in grades and I can’t even think straight about all the shit I’m supposed to be getting done in the next two weeks. Why do I expect Art Brain to save me from that?

I don’t really. I just wish she would. It’s OK. I can spend time with one of these and then look back at the deadlines and figure out what I can do. Only one of them is coming up in the next six weeks…and then the next one is September. That’s doable. Until then, off to school, try to get caught up on grading, get that shit under control, so I can force time for art…remembering that in two weeks, there will be All Day for art (well and cleaning house and garage and doing all the shit I don’t do all year long because I’m a teacher. Fuck.).

*Flock of Seagulls, I Ran (So Far Away)

I Never Did Anything Out of the Blue*

Fuzz brain. Ten-hour days at school don’t help. I’m just trying to give my body a little more sleep than normal. I know a lot of people are getting sick, so I’m trying to keep myself healthy. Making art helps with that, but art brain seems to have wandered off…or she’s still asleep. I pulled out all the art entry information last night, made a list of what was coming up in the next 9 months that I had an interest in, started looking at requirements, sizes, due dates, whether I already had a drawing that would work…one that I actually wanted to make into a quilt. I even considered just picking a smaller drawing and starting to make a quilt, even if it wasn’t going to fit a specific place in the to-do list…just to get me working and jump-started.

I’m still considering that. I have three drawings marked. I need to get them enlarged though. I might do that tonight. Maybe.

I have 5 quilts that need better photography for the solo show, so last night, the boychild and I went through the crazy pile of quilts on the girlchild’s bed (yes…she’s coming home in July. I will have a solution by then.) and found all of them. Well, one was on the wall above my bed, where it’s been for years. But otherwise, all in the pile. I ironed all of them and cleaned them up, ready for the photographer tomorrow…

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I think they’ve all been in shows somewhere before…but it was interesting to look at this older quilt and see how I was using color and fewer fabrics back then…and BEADS. Yeah. I love me some beads.

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I don’t use them much any more though.

I did some blue/brown variegated cross and herringbone variations on the right side between the light fly stitches, near the red flowers. I wanted to fill in some space.

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And then I sat there and looked through the sketchbooks. I knew I had some gun-related stuff in there that never became anything. Looking at the feet and the hands in here, I can see why I didn’t go anywhere with it.

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Plus, honestly, just drawing a gun is scary for me. I wasn’t raised around people who shot guns. I don’t like them. I don’t even like fake ones. They just scream out danger and death and pain to me.

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So I’m going to have to figure that out if I want to pursue that imagery. Mostly I sat and stared at a blank piece of paper while art brain curled up in a ball.

So I suspect I’ll have to jump start it with something else, something easy and light? Well. I don’t necessarily roll that way either. I have a couple of ideas. We’ll see. Or maybe I’ll come home tonight and the drawing will roll right out of me, right? It could happen.

*David Bowie, Ashes to Ashes

Don’t You Shiver*

I’m apparently still in recovery mode. Yesterday was long and exhausting, and my body responded with a few dizzy spells. I think it’s because of the diabetes…not knowing when I should be eating (my body…not me…I know when to eat…I’m back on California time…I just think my body is somewhere in Texas or something). I taught all day yesterday and did tutorial, and then went to the vet to pick up the dog. I wish they’d say what time she was ready, so we didn’t have to sit around there for an hour (ugh) waiting for her to be released. She had a fox tail that was causing abscesses in her foot, and finally we had to go surgical to clean everything out. The fox tails are nasty here this year because of all the rain…so she’s wearing a sock at the moment (not sure how long that will last…) and looking somewhat miserable.

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The cone isn’t helping. She has a new one now…hopefully she’ll be less capable of folding it out of the way to nibble on her wounds.

When I took the dogs out to pee (when I finally got home), there was a weird plopping noise in the pool. So I finished up with them and went back outside and there was this guy clinging to the side of the tile…

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I helped him out and he did that weird running lizard dance to the nearest bush. I’ve never seen one that color before. I was debating whether it was normal for his species or not. Looking at the California herps list…I’m not sure. I didn’t get a great picture of him, but he was really pale gray and white and spiky around the head…anyway, he’s in the yard now, doing his lizard dance.

I spent a bunch of time last night putting together stuff for the solo show. I need to take about 5 quilts to the photographer this weekend…then I’m done. I think.

So I came out to stitch for a while…too stressed to manage anything else. Both these guys were all over me, so I petted them and scratched them and combed them.

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I did three nights’ worth on the stitch a day (how did I get behind?)…some blues and browny greens and another green purple…honestly, I was just filling in spaces with straight stitches and French knots and fly stitches…all around the lower part of the hand and above the tree. Bullion knots as well, I think.

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I forgot to post this last week…this is what’s done on Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails, my hobby stitching. There are 6 blocks done…the block attached to the funny-shaped tree is not done yet. I think it’s part of the next month. I’m not exactly doing stuff in order apparently.

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I did do some of the next month while I was traveling, but not much, honestly. I was too tired last night to do anything else. I brought the sketchbook to the couch with me, but gave up to exhaustion. Today won’t be better…we have a World Cultures Fair at school until 6 PM. I’m hoping I’m still functional by then, but I don’t have much hope for getting a lot done tonight.

I think I need a week to sleep off the jetlag. Ask me when grades are due. Plus I have all the photos from Quilt National and from the other show…need to deal with all that stuff too. This is teacher survival mode even without all that! I’m laughing. Seriously. It’s all you can do at some point.

I am starting the pregnancy video today. What I really want to do is sit in my chair and stitch while the kids watch and take notes. I will not be doing that. My grading will be screaming at me instead. No rest for the public-school teacher (until June 16).

*Coldplay, Shiver

There Is a Light and It Never Goes Out*

I am home, but I think I left my brain somewhere en route between Ohio and here. Or perhaps it never got to Ohio in the first place. My brain was a little fuzzy there too. If I hear one more explanation of jetlag and why I still feel like I was hit by a train, I might…well…I might just go back to bed.

I told people at Quilt National that I do art every day. This is usually true. On Thursday, I did not. On Friday, I did not. Well, I did the one stitch on stitch a day. On Saturday, I did two drawings. On Sunday, I did one drawing. Yesterday, I finished the block for the big quilt we’re doing for the Don’t Shut Up show coming in July. So I guess I technically do art every day even when I’m traveling…I think even when I went to Northern California in April, I managed a stitch a day and quite a few drawings.

This was due Saturday, but I had already negotiated to deliver Monday. I got up early Monday (because still on Ohio time…and yes, I slept over 10 hours, my body desperately trying to catch up)…it just needed some outlining.

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Here she is at delivery. She’ll show up again in the quilt…plus I’ll probably make her into her own piece at some time.

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She’s small, 18 x 24″ I think.

Puppy is glad I’m back. He sat next to me, chin on my leg as I graded.

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Lots of chaos this week. An early meeting today, lots of school stuff, need to finish a slide show for Friday, plus grading grading grading. And a culture fair.

I’m a little in the air as to what art thing I’ll be doing next. I was expecting to have to sew the larger quilt together this week, but we’re going to wait until after the meeting next week, because people aren’t done yet. So I should take a deeper look at what I might want to enter in the next 6 months. First I have to figure out the final version of my Visions exhibit (tonight! Decisions will be made! If it kills me!) and get some of them professionally photographed. Then I’m hoping to do some drawing tonight. Even if it’s off topic. Whatever that means. Quilt National was such a great experience…I’m glad I went. I do have photos…just like I have photos of the opening for California Fibers last weekend…need to do a lot of processing and typing I guess. Plus you can see that my brain is still wandering all over the place…I mean, worse than normal.

At least it’s a short week.

*Morrissey (The Smiths), There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

I Did What I Could

It’s really early in the morning…it’s even earlier in California. Some Saturday nights, I would still be awake, for whatever reasons. On school nights, I try to pretend I am not as nocturnal as I really am. We’re leaving Athens, Ohio, and Quilt National. As usual, I feel like I should have seen the exhibit one last time, taken more pictures, something. But that was it. I did what I could.

Now we just hope we can make it home easily. Thunderstorms are all over the place…it’s peaceful right now, but it’s not supposed to stay that way.

Yesterday afternoon, we had quiet time. I sat and stitched and then drew. Trying to recharge my brain. I graded nothing. No surprise there. I’ll scramble this week. It’ll happen.

Drawing 1, while a thunderstorm passed over…

Some Sue Spargo, for it’s calming effect…

I managed all three days on this piece, all around the hand…fly and cross stitches…

And drawing 2…

I think I miss pizza.

Quilt National was very abstract this year, lots of channel quilting, very tight and perfect. I joke that I can’t quilt that perfect (it’s true), so that’s why I make the quilts I make. Some of the abstract was loose and free or big and open or detailed and complex. And sometimes talking to the artist made you feel something more about the piece then you did when you first saw it.

I missed seeing Pamela Allen and Paula Kovarik this time…I was here in 2013 with both, but never found a chance to talk to Pamela. They both had work in again this year. I really loved making it to the opening this time though! Even though I missed a San Diego opening, I think the interactions between artists are truly amazing here: people I’ve followed for ages and finally got to talk to in person. That’s the value in coming out.

Well I started writing this at 5 AM in Athens. Then we drove to Columbus and that’s where I’m sitting now, waiting for my plane. Hoping for trouble-free travel. Looking forward to my own bed and normal water pressure in the shower and a non-sticky floor…plus hopefully some mental space to process what I saw and heard.

Art Brain on Art…

I’m posting at night just to confuse you. Plus my brain has absolutely no freakin’ idea what day or time it is anyway. I think I have to be up at the equivalent of 4 AM again tomorrow too. I think. I survived two flights and a lot of driving in circles.

We made it to Nancy Crow’s Art Barn this morning…

Then had a nice lunch. I recorded a video about my quilt, and then enjoyed two openings, one for artists only, and one for everyone. Then a banquet for the artists, where I really enjoyed talking to other artists. It’s always nice to hear how others make. And why. And with what. Talk of solids. Hand-dyes. Drawing or not. Design wall or not. Windows in the studio or not. A studio? How big. Where. Do we stitch by machine or hand. When did we learn to sew. What did we do to get to this point in our art.

If only I could figure out when to be hungry.

We call the hotel The Sticky Place. That’s not a good thing.

Ohio is beautiful and green.

Quilt National is amazing. And overwhelming. I couldn’t even read artists’ statements. My brain was trying to process images and people and the big picture. My brain drew 17 new quilts while I wandered around. This afternoon. This is not my first time at Quilt National …but it’s only my second, and I missed the last opening, due to a canceled flight.

More about the art later. Right now it’s late (in some time zone) and I’m tired, although I wanna be drawing. Gotta be up in the AM though, so to bed it is. Sleep sweet sleep…let art brain mull over the lines and colors while my body rests.

Hello Quilt National…Hopefully

It’s not really morning. It’s still night, as far as my brain is concerned. But I’m up! Woo! Ouch. It hurts to be up right now. There’s something in the backyard that made really weird noises and the dogs totally ran away from, which seemed like a good idea to me as well at the time. And apparently my sprinklers are possessed. They’re set to go off at 6:45 PM, and one of the sections went off just a little while ago, at 3:18 AM. Confused beastie.

So I’m on my way to Quilt National in Athens, Ohio. This is the second time I’ve gotten in. The last time, Delta cancelled my flights at the last minute and I was late, missed the opening. It was depressing as hell, being stuck here and not being able to get out. We missed it by about 6 hours. My parents were there though.

This time, I’d like to be there…and hopefully I will. Neither flight has been cancelled yet. Maybe the boychild’s delayed flight, night in Newark, and lost luggage will be the karma balancing out my perfect flights. Yes? Are the airline goddesses smiling upon me today? I hope so. I’ve got art to see and online friends to meet in person for the first time.

I had high hopes last night of grading assignments that turned into stressed-out panic about the girlchild’s insurance, state testing, and packing. So I did the only thing I could…I stitched…I did blue lazy daisies to the right of the hand.

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I am taking this with me.

Then I finished the 6th block of Sue Spargo’s Folk Tails…

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I did actually go back and add all the damn bullion knots around the tree. More texture good. I’m taking the next three blocks with me. Hopefully I’ll finish at least one of them and they won’t confiscate my kiddie scissors or my needles. My good scissors are in my checked luggage.

Beyond the Concrete is the piece that’s in Quilt National…

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I originally made it to enter in SAQA’s Concrete and Grasslands exhibit. It didn’t get in. I’m quite happy to have it in Quilt National instead. Plus it is now concrete proof (ha ha ha…see what I did there?) that I can get a nude quilt into QN. The first one I got in actually had no nudity and no uteri, let alone a penis (this one doesn’t have one of those either), so I needed to get in again. I’m OK now. It’s OK if I never get in again.

I think this might be one of the first earth mother-type quilts where I put animals all over her body…I was trying to contrast the earth mother who cares about, well, the EARTH vs the mother of the Earth that we have made…the concrete and asphalt and electrical wires and power plants and smoke and cars and lighted buildings. (I think I did a good job of that.)

I know who I want to win…

Anyway, if you’re on your way to Athens, Ohio, say hi. I’ll be the one with my mom and dad (please. Help me. I’m joking. They’re nice people. And they’re paying for me to get there, so I’m immensely grateful.). I’ll be the one pleased to be missing school for two days during testing and sex ed. Hopefully I’ll be the one on time this time, instead of stranded in an airport on the other side of the country.

If You Can Hold On, Hold On*

Holy crap we’re in chaos mode (me, not we). Did I make any art last night? Well if you count collapsing exhausted on the couch and stitching two pieces of thread down art (I don’t), then yes (no). I taught teens about periods and sperm. I coached two lovely ladies during tutorial on what they should have been doing for the last week. I talked to a friend. I drove home and graded stuff. I texted the boychild about his missed flight and the wonders of New Jersey. I FaceTimed the girlchild about her new (not new) car and how to deal with insurance and license plates. Like I know anything about license plates. I graded while I did that. I think I ate dinner at 9:30. Then I started cleaning out where the washing machine is, because a new one is being delivered tonight.

It was exhausting. I was exhausted before 5 PM. It only got worse.

I leave at holy shit in the morning tomorrow. I am not packed. A washing machine is being delivered this afternoon. Today we have state testing for math and a science meeting. I think I have 30 seconds between each task. The grading is still hanging over me. Like a slavering monster. I feel the hot drool. Oh yeah, and the boychild will finally show up today. His flights get screwed up about 75% of the time. We got a voucher this time though.

No panic. I did this.

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What exactly did I do on it? Brown tree things off the hand, then filling with orange French knots.

Oh yeah. I helped Calli soak her paw. She can’t do it by herself. She requires talking and pets. Some scratching of the chest as well.

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My dope daughter and her “new” (no it’s not) car. She’s picking names for it now.

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And the two doofuses who would not leave me alone while I was trying to veg out on the couch.

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Needy little beasts. I combed the pale one. He needed it.

OK, off to school. I’m a little crazy in the head right now. Not enough caffeine. Plus interaction with an insurance company first thing in the morning. Ugh.

*The Killers, All These Things That I’ve Done

I See the Bright and Hollow Sky*

I woke up this morning and a terrorist group had taken responsibility for bombing concertgoers. I still live in this world, where hate makes this acceptable, where this is not the first or last time this will happen. I woke up this morning and DeVos had released Trump’s education budget (because you know she didn’t write that thing…she didn’t have a pencil)…and not only are my students hit hard, because I teach in a Title I school, a school where poverty is everywhere…but my own children, needing to pay back federal loans for college, are now going to get hit harder…and me too, in helping them. I’ve seen a few (ignorant) friends say that if the teacher unions are against DeVos, that must mean she’s a good thing. I can guarantee you that all their children go to those rich white schools where immigrants and refugees are few and far between. They certainly aren’t showing any sort of empathy to humanity.

I think that’s the problem…no empathy. And being so sure your way is right, without any exposure to other. I’m not sure why we think that’s OK. It’s not. It can’t be.

This world. It pains me. I make art in response, sure, but it doesn’t stop the shit we keep seeing, the bad behavior, the crazy talk.

Last night, before I saw all that, I tried out a couple of backgrounds before I ironed her down…

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I always lean toward the dark…

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Then I started the stitch down…

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I finished watching 13 Reasons Why…it was hard to watch.

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In the first few episodes, listening to Hannah speak, I didn’t have much empathy for her…because as a middle-school teacher, all I could think about were the kids who would think a revenge suicide where you blame everyone else for your decisions would be a bad plan, that they wouldn’t have the fully developed frontal lobes for seeing the bigger deeper picture. As the show progressed, though, I could see how her brain processed (and again, I’m not sure my students would) and remembered lots of the shit from high school, which is now just exacerbated by the existence of the internet. Negotiating that is huge. There is no safe space…not at home, not anywhere. And they can’t see the future…they don’t have enough life experience to know you can get up and get past. Because most of us do. And we sit there and want to yell and hit at Bryce for her, want her to get out of the bathtub after the first cut and go find a phone, but none of that happens.

So I kept on making art. Because sometimes that’s all I can do. It’s gotten me through some intensely bad times in my life. And I’m still alive, so it works.

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After stitch down, I layered it with the interfacing we’re using on this quilt…

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This is for a larger quilt that will be in a show in July. So I started outlining…

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I didn’t quite finish, because I needed to sleep…

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But I got mostly done. And I have no idea what I’m working on next.

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I drew during my staff meeting…

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I met this snake on the way home…pretty sure it’s a gopher snake.

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Conversation with the boychild…

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At least he has a sense of humor about it. He’s coming home today. I spent time yesterday cleaning his room, putting his bed back together, and trying to persuade my vacuum not to die. Now I’m going to go to school and talk my way through menstruation and sperm production. Fun stuff.

*Iggy Pop, The Passenger