So. I’ve been back to school for Two Whole Days and my routine is completely screwed up and I couldn’t even mentally TRY to sew last night, even though I technically should have been able to, and some of that might have been because the girlchild was ranting at me because I made her go to bed in a strong-arm parental way. BECAUSE I’M THE MOM DAMMIT.

If you don’t like run-on sentences because they offend your grammatical sensibilities, you should read some Faulkner with a glass of wine. Then read some Hemingway with a cold beer. Then make a decision. I did. There are too many carbs in Hemingway.

The new word in education that has been forced upon us in the last few years is RIGOR.

I groan when I hear it. All I can think is rigor mortis…stiffness caused by death. You know. I see dead people. And that chart above makes my brain skitter. You know, like when you’re trying to do complicated math and your brain objects? And it sort of skitters off, like the spidery things in Alien or Aliens or Alienses (isn’t that the name of the 3rd movie?).

That is exactly what I feel like when they start talking about Increasing Rigor. I grit my teeth and my brain gets sucked out by one of those things and I try not to obviously wander off.

It’s supposed to mean holding kids to high standards and expectations and all that, even though we’re not yet being subjected to merit pay, and when we are, only the teachers in the schools where parents pay attention to their kids’ grades will get any money. The rest of us will pay the state to come to work every day.

Yup. It’s been a rough two days. It will get better. We have to be mean and demanding and expecting for a while until they realize it’s not still vacation and they’re not having a bad dream with their teacher in it.

But meanwhile I have to listen to high-level people in education spew about rigor (not mortis). I get the high expectations thing…I don’t water down what I teach because I teach in a neighborhood that is challenged and diverse ethnically and socioeconomically. They work hard. Many succeed.

Please go HERE to see the rigor mortis picture that used to be here. I found that too many people were coming here just to see that picture and it’s not mine anyway and I’m not even sure it’s THIS guy’s, but he can have my traffic back. I still like “ur doin it wrong.”

I love that rigor is another word for “chills” in Dorland’s Medical Dictionary (because that’s what that word gives me…horrendous chills), and that in most of the online dictionaries, it means “strictness, severity, harshness, especially in dealing with people.”

It’s my observation year. That means the administrator in charge of me needs to come in and do some formal and informal observations. I’ve never had so many observations in one year, and what’s amusing is that I think I’m rocking it every time…and I am. It’s not because I’m clueless and I really suck, but because the kids are paying attention (even to mitosis, of all things…probably because I mentioned sex…aSEXual reproduction). And yet she still keeps coming in. Like she’s looking for something to be a problem. And I don’t care. At all. I used to stress and now I don’t. Is that rigor? I’m teaching. Leave me to it. My kids will remember stuff. Not all of it. But enough.

Rigor.

Then they talked about our being Warm Demanders (no kidding) as teachers.

I need to make more art. This eduspeak is driving me bonkers. I need to set limits and come home and get some quiet time and read a little and then be able to sew. I need to exercise regularly.

I have not read this book. She obviously doesn’t agree with me. Well. Rigor is NOT a 4-letter word. It has 5 letters, sometimes 6 (rigour, if you couldn’t figure that out). Most of the swear words I use also don’t have 4 letters.

I wasn’t going to do a resolution, but I am now. My resolution is to avoid rigor mortis in every endeavor. Move it. Get it done. Walk away from the staff meeting and drop all those words that mean nothing onto the pavement. Turn the music up louder so that the voice that is ranting and raving in my head about the newest whatever-I’m-supposed-to-do-and-be-and-fill-out (you don’t even want to hear me go off about the other key word: DATA) will just fade out. Turn that raving maniac into someone who can draw and sew and walk away from the crap.

Wish me luck.

Waiting for WordPress

I’ve posted a Gotye video before. I just don’t remember when. I looked a little, but realized it was taking too much time. I did use the (apparently useless) search function on my website and it was…apparently useless. Whoops…here it is. I searched for video instead of his name and it popped up (along with 20 other posts).

I post this because I liked the song (thanks Susan), but also because if you really want to know where my drawing ideas come from, this is a good example. I have a whopping big drawing in my head now with a whole ton of hands coming out of nowhere. I like how the heads and the hands don’t even seem to be connected. I mean, of course they are…but in my head, it all starts to blur and there are just hands and heads and they are wandering off. So if you see a drawing out of me in the next few weeks (I’m a little buried at the moment), and it has hands and heads wandering all over, now you’ll understand where my inspiration comes from…it’s not logical…I see something and it tickles my brain (must insert pictures of Mary’s nativities here…later…because right now I have to go grocery shopping and finish my lesson plans)…and then I draw something that is an offshoot of all that.

Simple, eh? Yeah. I know.

I went to a 12th-night party at a friend’s house and we flew the kings to the manger, but I was fascinated by all the color…

and the sorta pissed-off looking baby. Maybe he’s just resigned…not pissed off. I remember in art history classes talking about why many of the babies in Mary and Jesus paintings looked way older than they should. So that’s wandering around in my brain right now along with the hand video.

So the title of this post is just a note that I am still waiting for WordPress to respond to my query about why typing the password correctly doesn’t seem to work. I found something on the forums that told me to clear cache and cookies on MY end, and somehow that would magically fix it for all of you. I don’t know if that’s true, but it seems to be working now for the two guys who are willing to check it for me; plus, I’ve had no complaints from your end. If you do type in the password (which is in the right sidebar and is always the same) and it doesn’t work and you’re sure you typed it properly, just use the contact page and let me know. I don’t know what the deal is, but it seems to be OK today.

I go back to school today. In fact, I should be leaving in about 4 minutes. I’m not ready. Everything is physically ready, except for part of my room, but my brain is still wandering off and trying to get stuff done from the holiday. It’s always like that…I feel like I could have been MORE efficient, gotten MORE done. I realize that when school starts, there are so many things I have to do on a daily basis that a lot just falls by the wayside.

That part sucks.

I am mostly done with grading, though (although I’m assigning two things today that are due Friday, so the never-ending roller coaster starts again…plus I think progress report grades are due next week…bastards).

I started quilting on Saturday…

managed a whopping 25 minutes before I had to be somewhere about 15 times over. It was a busy day. I did start the new year with new Machingerererers.

OK. That’s not how you spell it. But this is what I use when I quilt to help me grip the fabric and move it around. I’ve tried other things, but these hurt my hands the least and work the best for me. I love it when they’re clean. I do sometimes wash them, but eventually the grippy part on the fingers wears off and I need new ones. Soon after I started, Kitten did this.

Grr. I need to clean off the table so she can jump off without knocking stuff down. Plus I need to find the lid. Although I was sitting right there sewing when she did it, and I’m unlikely to have the lid on while I’m sewing and pulling pins out, so that wouldn’t help. She was not sorry.

Password Problemo

I’m having a problem with the password…working on it…trying to figure out what craziness WordPress has inflicted on me now. Be patient, loveys.

Protected: How Many Safety Pins Are Too Many?

I’m Not Crazy Update and Prospectus

The prospectus is done and posted on the SAQA website, so I can put it here too. You do have to be a SAQA member to enter. I’ve been a SAQA member for a few years this time around (I was a member, then I was very poor and newly divorced, so I wasn’t a member, and now I’m a member again). The website for SAQA is here. Membership is not particularly cheap at $60/year, but there are lots of opportunities for shows, if you’re interested in that. I have a local group that meets regularly too, there’s a quarterly journal, some opportunities to be published, a Yahoo list, and lots of online information via SAQA-U (a wiki). Two of the major exhibitions I’m in at the moment, Sightlines and Creative Force, are both SAQA exhibits. Their focus is the art quilt, which is why I joined in the first place. As a Professional Artist Member (PAM), I have opportunities to be published in the annual Portfolio and to be involved in the program that is allowing this exhibit to take place, the Curator-in-Training program. So for me, it’s been good.

(Anger Management)

My goal in doing this program is to get the experience I need to put on shows by myself, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. The juror for this exhibit is Sue Reno, an award-winning fiber artist who lives and works in Lancaster County, PA. Her work focuses on the natural world and historic architectural themes. She exhibits widely in art, fine craft, and quilt venues, and her work has been selected for the U.S. State Department’s Art in Embassies program. She has been a SAQA Professional Artist Member since 2009. Sue has served as a juror for Sacred Threads in 2009 and 2011, and for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in 2011. Sue and I have been reading each other’s blogs and seeing each other’s art for years, and I know she will choose a wonderful show…but for her to do that, y’all need to enter.

(Blue Moon)

Theme: Mental illness carries with it a stigma; many of us have experience with disorders, temporary or permanent, curable or not, that in the past and in some cultures even today would be labeled as crazy. That stigma can make it difficult to admit its effect on our loved ones or ourselves. Disorders as common as anxiety or depression, or less common, like schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder, can have a devastating effect on families and friends, and on ourselves. Negativity towards those who have these disorders often causes many people to keep the diagnosis hidden from friends and family.

What does “crazy” look like?
What does it feel like?
How does the world look through the eyes of someone experiencing a panic attack or depression or other mental disorder?
How does loving or caring for someone with a mental disorder look and feel?

We’re looking for work that covers these experiences: from the eyes of the caregiver, the friend, the family member, and, of course, those who have experienced any of these disorders themselves. Your work can reflect the disorder or the chaos it holds on our lives, it can be humorous, it can be sad, it can be crazy or incredibly calm.

(tradition fragment violate)

I use my art to work through stuff…sometimes it’s worldwide stuff, like tsunamis, homelessness, and climate change, but more often it’s personal stuff, like divorce, health issues, stress, and raising kids. Some people become depressed after childbirth or a divorce; some people carry genetic markers for a disease and deal with it their entire lives, not because of some single event that triggers a reaction, but because their genes change the way their brains work. Whether we experience the disease ourselves or through caring for a family member or a friend, it has an effect on us, one that we can express through our art.

The exhibit already has multiple venues, thanks to the Mancuso shows. Starting with:

World Quilt Show – New England X, August 16-19, 2012, Radisson Center of New Hampshire, Manchester, NH
Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XIX, September 13-16, 2012,Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, Philadelphia Area, PA
Pacific International Quilt Festival XXI, October 11-14, 2012,Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA
World Quilt Show – Florida IV, November 8-10, 2012, Palm Beach County Convention Ctr, West Palm Beach, FL
Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival XIX, February 21-24, 2013, Hampton Roads Convention Center, Hampton, VA
The Quilt Fest of New Jersey IX, Feb 28-March 3, 2013, Garden State Exhibit Center, Somerset, NJ
Denver National Quilt Festival VIII, May 2-5, 2013, Denver Merchandise Mart, Denver, CO

There is a possibility that there will be additional venues.

Eligibility and Guidelines:

• Entry is by digital images only (directions on the website…you do need to be a SAQA member to access this page).

• You may submit up to 3 entries.

• Quilts must be created after 2007 and not shown in a previous SAQA exhibition.

• Entries must be 20″ – 48″ width, and 65″ maximum in length

• 3-D, free-standing works will NOT be accepted.

• Artwork must meet the SAQA definition of an art quilt: a contemporary artwork exploring and expressing aesthetic concerns common to the whole range of visual arts: painting, printmaking, photography, graphic design, assemblage and sculpture, which retains, through materials or technique, a clear relationship to the folk art quilt from which it descends.

• Artists are responsible for shipping and insurance to the SAQA Shipping Center in Ohio and for return shipping to their homes from the last venue. SAQA will arrange to insure the artwork during the exhibitions and while it travels.

• Artwork MAY be for sale. SAQA will charge a 25% commission on all sales; exhibiting venues may also charge a commission, but total commission will never exceed 50%.

• Work MUST be available to travel for up to a year. Travel details to follow.

Calendar:

January 1, 2012 Call for entry

May 1, 2012 Online entry open

May 30, 2012 Online Entry Deadline at 11:59 pm EST

June 1-20, 2012 Selection Process

June 27, 2012 Notification of acceptance (All notifications will be forwarded via email)

July 18, 2012 Artwork to be RECEIVED in Ohio

August 1, 2012 Quilts shipped to Manchester, NH

August 16, 2012 Exhibit opening

May 5, 2013 Exhibit closing

June 15, 2013 Return of work to Artists unless more venues are scheduled.

I’m really excited about this exhibit and hope there are lots of entries. If you have questions, you can contact me through the contact page here or email me directly using the SAQA link for the Call for Entries.