Please Don’t Bother Trying to Find Her*

The reality is that if you leave me alone long enough with the furry beasts, I will start having long philosophical discussions with them. I’m particularly perturbed that none of them thought it was their civic duty to vote in the last election. I believe I have chastised them appropriately and that will not be the case in 2020. Of course, it’s too late now. They understand that. They are sorry. They will do better next time.

I have to admit that I’m not getting much but art stuff done. I don’t feel like grading things. I don’t feel like yardwork. I don’t feel like anything.

I did about 8 hours of artmaking yesterday, in between…um…what? Well I ran two whole errands. And I cooked a little. But that’s about it. Thanksgiving break is always like this…it’s not really long enough to recover from school AND be a productive human again. So we try to recover and manage all the family stuff, which this year, isn’t much. Last year, I was in Seattle this week…so no artmaking then. I could have gone there again this year, but honestly just needed to hunker down, finish this piece, and start the next five. I think it really is five too. Crazy.

I finished ironing the Wonder Under down to fabric in about 13 hours…way longer than it should have taken for 800 pieces, but whatever. I’m sure there was a good reason.

I made a small body cell in the last piece…and I used ALL the colors.

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The last thing I ironed was the cat…

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The fabric cat…not a real one…

Here’s all 117 fabrics…also more than I would normally use in an 800-piece quilt.

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Not a lot of blue…a lot of gray and brown.

I guess I did clean up the light table. And then I went through the drawings to see if there was another bathtub drawing in there (yes…but I don’t know if I want to make it next…I think it should wait.). And I cut a 24-inch square of paper for a piece that needs to be done in March or April…can’t remember which. I need to look at the calendar and make some quilt plans too. Maybe I will do that today. It’s finally sunny. I could sit out and draw today. Maybe.

It was cold last night, so when I finally sat down to start cutting pieces out, I had three animals at one point…some WAYYYY too close.

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They kept moving around. Occasionally dog parts would be on my lap.

Simba needs a bath…but I’m waiting until it warms up a bit during the day before I do it to him.

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Like maybe today.

So then I cut stuff out for hours…well, 4 1/2 hours anyway. Which explains why my hand hurts this morning.

I got a lot cut out…although it never looks like much, does it? Trash in the top one, stuff that still needs cutting in the middle one, and cut-out stuff in the bottom one.

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My goal today is to finish that and start ironing it together. Finish ironing tomorrow and get to stitch down? Maybe? I hope so. Quilt Thursday? I should check the batting stash, huh. (check. Got batting.) The binding will be another issue, but hopefully that will be Friday. Maybe. I’m still debating the weekend. The copyediting job got kicked until mid-December (not looking forward to having three fewer weeks to complete it)…so Saturday might be a drive and a dinner and another drive. Still debating that.

I’m totally taking the dogs for a walk today though. A long one. Out in the middle of nowhere. Because they need it and so do I. Although the one outside barking at me is currently standing in a pool of water…like that makes sense. I suspect I should also do laundry. I did buy a turkey. I’m going to start brining it today I think. Maybe do that and then walk the dogs. I got a lunch invite. Not sure I’m in the mood for that. I’d have to find the part of my brain that socializes appropriately. Not sure where I put that. Mislaid for the holidays.

*The Zombies, She’s Not There

Blue, the Color of Our Planet*

My brain wakes up at 6, panicking because I forgot to set the alarm for school. Then it slowly realizes, as the cat mews at me, that it’s not a school day. Relax. Go back to sleep. It’s amazing how fast that happened. The re-sleep part. Really I need some major sleep catchup this week. My brain is tired.

I’m perturbed by the crap in North Dakota. In fact, any time some white person complains about immigration or immigrants or refuges, I wanna slap them across the face and explain how we weren’t here first, you dumbass. Peaceful protest…pouring water over them in freezing temperatures. That’s torture. Nobody in the US should be doing that. This is their sacred land. More importantly, the pipeline will inevitably damage their water supply. But hey! The Texas company will get their oil. Screw the damn environment, right? Sigh. Frustrating to watch and know how little I can do. I think that’s the biggest problem right now…feeling like you can’t do anything that will cause major change.

This quilt…Earth Day…I drew it years ago. Something about Earth Day and how we do it one day a year, celebrate the planet, while we spend the rest of the time trying to destroy it. And Earth Mother is yelling, Knock It Off…like that’s going to stop in the next four years. I think this was just after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami…there were two of them (quilts, not earthquakes).

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So we art on. We post shit. We send postcards. We march. We sign up. We fill out polls. We talk. We argue. We art on.

I did about 3 hours again yesterday, I think…no, closer to 4…I’m about 10 hours in on the ironing. It’s taking longer than I expected…or planned for. Oh well. It takes what it takes. My time management app is no longer being updated, so it sucks phone battery like crazy. I’m still looking for a replacement, one that doesn’t charge me monthly…because I’m not a business. I did pay a fee for this one, but just once. I guess once businesses got in on the time tracking idea as an app, the market rose to the occasion. So I’m still looking for one that will do what I want and not cost me a lot.

Here’s what ironing a heart looks like…one of two in the whole piece.

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There were a lot more of those inner body pieces than I thought. I ironed a heart, lungs, arteries, a mammogram, a metal arm, a watch, her hair (there was a lot of that), the sun, a cloud, some rain, a uterus (like you do)…but I still wasn’t done.

Here’s the pile of stuff ready to be cut out.

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I still have a giant tattoo of a cell, some tools, a teacup, an eyeball…well, more than one eyeball…and the bird up in the sky. And a cat. It’s at least another 3 hours, I think.

Here’s the pile of stuff I used before I cleaned it up. Added some more reds and purples and oranges and greens and grays. Lots of gray in this.

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Then I cleaned up, so I could see them clearly today. I added some yellows too. Forgot them.

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So I’m still working on it. It’s raining here today. I was hoping for some nice pretty, semi-warm days of sitting on the deck and drawing…it seems I might get that later this week, but not today. Today is a hunker-down in the studio day. We need the rain. It’s good.

Simba did not appreciate having the plumbago removed from his tail last night. Grandma is very patient with him…

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I’m actually spending most of my morning managing animals today. Gonna change that.

*Regina Spektor, Blue Lips

Gonna Go to the Place That’s the Best*

I know. I usually post Saturday morning. And not Sundays. But I was working with (aka following around like a puppy trying to figure shit out) the internet fixer-upper guy for over an hour yesterday to get all the pieces of equipment to talk to each other politely and consistently. He was worth every damn penny, because now everything works. Well. Until the kids get home probably, although we tested kid scenarios as well. We ran videos and Netflix in three rooms at once. So. For now, it will work.

And then I thought about writing, but I had made absolutely no art since Thursday night, so what was the point in writing about nothing? Or writing about the fact that I was on vacation, a whole week off the crazy. Honestly, I flailed about for a bit, and then managed to get my butt in here and iron stuff for over three hours. So that was nice. My brain appreciated it. Such a relief.

It took about 30 minutes before my brain fully kicked off the fuzz and detritus of school (I do still have shit to grade…let’s not kid ourselves. School cannot totally be written off, but I can certainly try to ignore it for a few days).

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Ironing the flesh and bones was a bit more complicated. There were scars and cracks, all the purples. There were only 5 actual flesh colors. And then three bone colors. I lay them all out, pulling from multiple bins, until I have all the fleshy bits on a fabric. It takes a while…I think the flesh pieces started in the 100s and finished in the 600s.

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And then I iron all of them down. Which takes a long time.

So although I’m in the 600s on the bottom part of the table, the two top rows are all the things on or near the body that aren’t supposed to be flesh-colored…like hearts and lungs and a mammogram and a bunch of other crap. Eyeballs. Teeth. So all those need to be ironed down, and that’s usually pretty time-consuming.

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So as much as I’d like to say that I’m up to the 600s, that’s not really true.

These pieces used up almost all of what I had left of this fabric.

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There’s what’s been ironed so far. I think I need a bigger box.

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And everything I’ve used so far…

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Kitten’s got it right. This is some of what I did yesterday, until the phone rang. Some survey. Nope. Not unless I can nap through it. Think I need another one today. Nap. Not a survey. I don’t ever really need a survey. Although I did this one; you should do it too. Interestingly, there were a couple of things where I actually agreed with our future Asshole-in-Chief. Like childcare and eldercare. But mostly he’s crazy. Nucking Futs as one friend says.

Sleep, Kitten. I’m sure he has issues with calicoes too, but I will protect you when they try to send you to an internment camp for your differences.

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My sarcasm abounds.

My goal is to iron more tonight, hopefully all of it, but probably not. Depends on how efficient I am, I guess. Finish ironing tomorrow and cut stuff out. Try not to read anything political for a day. Ha. Yeah. I know. Well women aren’t smart enough to understand what they’re reading, right? (Hello, Breitbart, I’m talking to you.) Oh holey moley. Sometimes it’s hard to just have a conversation with people without everyone getting angry or sad. Amazing that an election can do that.

OK. Gonna iron. Not gonna nap. Will drink more tea instead. I can nap when I’m dead. I think.

*Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

Into the Sea of Waking Dreams*

It’s a survival day. I’m tired, I’m emotional (for a variety of reasons, none of them particularly clear or definitive), the kids are psychotic (anyone who’s ever been on a school campus the day or so before a week off knows what this looks like…it’s worse than the day after Halloween), and I just want it to be done. I want everything to just stop for a while and leave me alone so I can think. And maybe read my book. Because it’s good but really long and I want to finish it before the damn library steals it back from me. It’s digital, so they can actually do that, instead of my just holding on to it for an extra few days to finish it. There’s over 1000 pages in it, so that doesn’t help.

I had an artists’ talk last night…I know my brain slowed down enough that I couldn’t remember the phrase “free association”. Amusingly. Some guy came up afterward and asked if that’s what I had meant. Sure. Yeah. Couldn’t free associate free association. It was a hard lesson to teach yesterday, mostly because I knew I was being observed in my last period, which is notoriously one of my worst, but also because some days I only barely have an understanding of what I’m teaching (as I’m quickly googling sublimation because I kinda know what it is, but not well enough to explain it to 7th graders). By the end of the day, though, I had reminded myself of stuff I used to teach that was related to what we were doing…and it helped.

But exhausted. That’s the place I was…and still am. So tired it hurts to hold my eyelids up. And I can’t get the puppy to come inside this morning. He just wants to be out and running around and digging at something that was out in the yard last night. I can’t leave him out all day because of coyotes, so he’s got to come back in. Fuck.

I’m nowhere near where I wanted (needed?) to be on this quilt dammit. And that basically means I need to finish everything before Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. Yeah. I know. That’s crazy talk. OK, maybe I can still have binding to hand sew at that point. So Saturday through Thursday. Probably another 8 hours of ironing, then say 6 hours of cutting, another 10 hours to iron it together, then stitch down of about 4 hours (I am totally making this shit up), then sandwich and pinbaste for an hour, then quilt for 6 hours. Sew binding on is another 2 hours for the non-handsewing part. Ha! 36 hours. OK. That’s only like 7 hours a day. Shit. OK. Sigh. It’s good to see that out in front of me.

I did iron a little bit last night…added some purples and yellows…

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Found those silly dirt pieces from the night before.

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Still need to decide what color the dinosaur is going to be.

I was tired.

Thing is, on a good day, I can work on art for 10+ hours…so maybe I just need to aim for that. And ignore the fact that I do have stuff to grade. And the house is a mess. And I have a copyediting job that’s showing up. Minor issue.

I’m still trying to persuade the dogs that it is warmer together (yeah, I had two cats with me last night in bed), but they are both wary of each other…

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Simba loves Calli’s bed and wishes he could sleep on it all night (he can’t, because he’s a destructive barky asshole at night). If Simba’s on the bed, Calli comes running to me to complain about the interloper. I try to tell her how BIG she is and how she should just lie down next to him, but it takes me forcing the issue for it to happen.

OK. 1. Survive today without crying in front of students (wow. That sounds pitiful.). 2. Make art like a crazy woman. 3. Meditate regularly. 4. Go out in nature and hike around with dogs. 5. Sleep more. 6. Fix and clean everything. Seems like a good plan for the week off.

*Sarah McLachlan, Possession

Saying It’s Not a Catastrophe*

I think my brain just stopped. I woke up to news (again) of internment camps and registries, woke up too early because I have to be at school to help with a rewards breakfast, probably for a couple of Muslim kids, as well as other types of kids…honestly, if we’re going to do internment camps and registries, let’s start with those who kill the most in our country: white males with guns. OK. Once we have that camp going (which probably includes a goodly number of my neighbors and even probably my dad, although not my brother, hallelujah), THEN we can talk about the next largest group who kills people here in the United States. And just a clue…it’s still not Muslims. How does any of this make sense? Is there a white male politician internment camp being planned? I say we pick a state who wants them and put a wall around it. I’m pretty sure I could write an fairly entertaining dystopian (except NOT so unreal and in the future at the moment) novel about this.

I know I’m not the only one waking up every morning at the moment dreading what’s being reported next. I guess there is solace in that. I’m gonna go hug some kids today…ALL of them. I talked to one kid yesterday who hates (with a passion) the US military. You know why? They bombed his town. He lay in (under?) his bed at night listening to glass break and bombs fall, he heard how our soldiers talked to his people, and he hates them. I don’t blame him. We had a good discussion. He doesn’t hate America. He doesn’t hate all Americans. He just hates the military. He’s incredibly intelligent…and I talked to him about finding a place for that anger…about processing it. Meanwhile, very few kids want to say the pledge of allegiance still, and there are days when I feel the same way about it. You want white supremacists and women-haters and Jew-haters and Muslim-haters and let’s just break it down here…HATERS in charge. I don’t get it. I won’t pledge to that.

I made art. Slowly. Tiredly. I went to the gym and the chiropractor before that…so it was already late. I keep forgetting how much I like the gym. I should remember that more often.

You may not know that I have to escort (with flashlight) two dogs outside multiple times a night. They’re both scared of the dark, and one doesn’t like water either (sometimes that shit falls from the sky). I’m not sure I understand why she likes to stand in the ferns, but she does. She’s not peeing. She’s not doing anything but standing in them.

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Weird dog.

Here’s all the fabrics I used last night…lots of browns. I just realized I cut out all the dirt except for the dark part around the hole, and I put all those fabrics away. Dammit. I was tired last night.

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And I didn’t even use that pink one on the right. It was too much trouble to put it back though. I need to install a light under the desk so I can see the fabrics under there better. Home Depot trip in my future.

Here’s everything I’ve ironed down. I haven’t gotten very far…I’m in the 100s. But it’s taking me forever. Deciding which browns and grays…I stared at the grays for about 20 minutes last night trying to find a lighter brownish gray to go with the other two I’d already picked…this for a mole who is about 2 inches across. Sometimes my brain doesn’t work well. It probably didn’t matter THAT much, but eventually I found a third fabric that worked.

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Today is a long day…and I’m not sure I’m ready for any of it. Too tired really to handle it well, I think…and yet I will have to. True for all of us, I guess. Although if you’re one of those who is currently fist-bumping the air over the internment camps, I’d tell you to piss off, but maybe, really, maybe what you should do is come visit my classes for a day. And meet some of them. And tell me why those kids (or their parents) deserve to be harassed. Or you can just quietly decide to stop reading my blog. I really don’t care which you choose.

*Aimee Mann, Humpty Dumpty

I Ran So Far Away*

I’m having a hard time with the artmaking process lately. Most of it is about finding the time, but also just wondering if there’s a purpose to it. Will it solve any of the shit that’s going on right now. And I know in the long run that art and music and drama (the good kind…not the kind I see at school) will be part of the solution, but certainly there needs to be some yelling and protesting and organizing that needs to happen. Just as an antidote to the stupid shit we keep seeing. It’s not enough to just shake our heads and go back in our houses, close the doors, and hunker down on the couch with the TV. You can go check this website out…yeah, it’s a little jokey at first, but there’s some real info on there. It’s a place to start…but acknowledging where many of us are right now. Marching in January is cool, yes…and don’t be one of those haters who thinks it’s childish for us to protest. It’s the American way. We can and you will just have to suck it up and let us. We don’t want anyone to be unclear on how we feel. It needs to be loud and in your face and right now. For as long as it takes. Until my future president disintegrates in a 3-AM Twitter rant about it? Nope. Even after that. But something needs to be happening now and every day without let up until 2020. Maybe after. Maybe forever.

So with all that in my head, I’m working on a piece right now that was started before all that. And it’s got some things that are sort of relevant to how I’m feeling, but it seems a little light and easy when facing the future. Which is fine. I’m not going to stop working on it. It needs to be done. But the next batch of pieces is going to be a bit different. I got some of the solo show worked out in my head last night…and there’s opportunity for me to work some of this out in fabric. And that’s a start. I’ll figure the rest of it out. The politics…the protest…how to make the best change…and that might just be in my classroom, but I think it has to be more.

Meanwhile. Art. I hung the drawing…it’s tall. More of those long skinny ones coming your way in the next few months. You can see some portion of my crazy fabric storage. I cleaned up in there for about an hour before I started last night. It needed to be done.

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The triangle of ironing board, iron, and table where all the pieces go…and more fabric storage. Really, this room is all about efficient storage.

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From the door…the ironing board gets in the way of computer work during this stage, but I deal. It’s not a huge room.

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I laid out the first 100, which were all in the dirt and water.

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And I ironed a bunch of dirt fabrics. Although I found one piece in the hallway this morning. Just the Wonder Under. I know puppy ran off with something last night, but I’m not sure how he got it (I must have dropped it), so I’ll have to figure out which fabric it is supposed to be and iron it down.

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There’s a lot of brown in the bottom of the quilt.

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Dirt.

I didn’t get very far last night, but I did get somewhere. And that’s progress…movement in the right direction. And I also know that it will make me feel better, calm down the brain that keeps waking me up in the middle of the night with worst-case scenarios…I’m still looking at the tax scenario NPR put up and going…fuck…really? My taxes go up significantly. You know why? Because I’m not married. And my kids aren’t in child care. Because they’re cheap right now? Holy shit. That makes my stomach tie in knots. I’m already stressed about paying for college.

OK. Stop thinking about shit that hasn’t happened yet. I mean, don’t stop, because you need to protest that shit in art and in writing and in groups and in politics, but don’t let it take over like that.

Yeah. So. Chiropractor today. Oh hallelujah. It hurts.

*Flock of Seagulls, I Ran

Did You Know You Brought Me Around*

I think when I finally get to the chiropractor tomorrow, he’s not gonna let me leave. I’ll just have to stay there until my neck and back are fixed. And that might be days. In awesome-sauce news, I finished grading the giant science unit, so now I can breathe a little easier. I still have grading to do, of course, because it’s not the end of June (seriously, that’s the only time it stops), but the big ugly thing is gone. Whoo! I really wanted to celebrate with someone at 10:30 last night, but everyone I knew who would care was asleep. So I did a little dance, scared the crap out of the animals, took some deep meditative breaths, and tried to stop grinding my teeth…that’s been going on for over a month now. Not a good sign. Think I either need a vacation where I sleep and sit in a hot tub and nothing else, or about 17 massages.

But in other good news, I did manage to finish cutting out the rest of the Wonder Under…only 6 hours and a few minutes to do that. And then I sorted it…

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That’s the easy part. Next is the fabric choosing part, which is fun. But hard to do at the end of a school day, because of all the standing. I’ll do it, though. I need to be ironing by Monday. And that means about 10 hours of ironing and another 6-8 of cutting shit out before then. Plus everything else that’s happening this week.

Luckily, the animals just lie around and sleep all night…

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Or look cute.

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That makes some of it easier to think about. Progress. I wanted to draw last night. These two drawings are wearing on me. I need them out of my head.

*Zero 7, Somersault

I Blame It on My Own Supply*

Interesting couple of days. I really really really wish I didn’t understand HTML. Because I spent about an hour last night editing it…

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Why? Because Blogger is a piece of crap sometimes. Sigh. Some bug in the fonts was driving me nuts, so I just went in and deleted all the code until I could make it work. Just so I could write a post about the Night Stand exhibit I’m in with Feminist Image Group…go check it out. We’re having a pajama party (no really) on Thursday, aka an artists’ talk, but not really? But if you want to hear the artists talk about their pieces, that would be the time to go. In your pajamas. There’s food.

This might be the closest I got to making art this weekend…photographing the cat next to the cold iron.

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Oh wait, I did buy background fabrics. I couldn’t choose. I will use the others (I use blue a lot for some reason), so I’m not worried about having extra, but I haven’t made a decision yet.

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Which is fine, because I still haven’t cut out the last yard. Tonight. Hopefully. I went back to school yesterday and graded more science units, plus spent about 4 hours on that post (resizing photos, pulling all the text, editing the text, at least I didn’t have to type the text, fussing with the damn stupid code. See a non-copyeditor would have said “Oh Well” and moved on because they wouldn’t have known what to do.).

I don’t think this is art. Although it seems like it.

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But I did make it to art on Saturday night. This is amazing work by Marianela de la Hoz, currently at ArtProduce.

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Her work is tiny and delicate and incredibly detailed…

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And political on top of it. This is Paradise Lost and the Big Bang.

The detail on this piece…The Absurd Monologue Between Adam, His Image, and His Likeness…

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I stared at this one for a long time…

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The skulls alone…

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Behold the Man I…no joke there.

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Definitely fitting work for the times. I really enjoyed this show.

Anyway. So I’m still not getting art time in, although my plan is to spend almost all of next week arting. I now have two full drawings in my head, and I still need to start ironing Wonder Under to fabric this week. Somehow! Seriously. I’m not enjoying this. My chiropractor is gonna have a field day with my neck and back this week. Deep breaths. I can survive this week and have a week off with all the goodness that I can save up until Winter Break. I can do it!

*AWOLNATION, Sail

If I Just Lay Here*

It’s amazing how two full nights of sleep help. Although things are still looming, I think I can handle them. For now. Ask me how I feel about that on December 1, though. Or in January, when the politics get worse than they already are. Friends are worried about their posts becoming an issue with the change in political climate. Artist friends are ramping up their political pressure. I know where I stand on that, I guess. I’ve been apparently making controversial art for a long time…I suspect that’s going to continue, based on the drawings currently in my head.

I was grading yesterday at school…there’s A/C there (it was in the 90s yesterday here in sunny Southern California), plus the construction noise here was driving me bonkers. I’m going back tomorrow. But I’m sitting there grading as both my kids are going back and forth about political stuff they’re involved in at school…and you worry, because you’re the mom, but I’m really proud of them. Good kids. Go out and change the world. Because this sucks. Big time. I feel a disconnect between their marching in protests and the like and my sitting here and grading papers about atoms.

Meanwhile, I got about halfway through the piles. That’s it. I’m going back today.

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It was about 3 1/2 hours yesterday. Probably will be the same today, if I can find 3 1/2 hours. I still need to finish a worksheet for Tuesday, write next week’s warmups, write and send next week’s parent email (these are the things I do on Sundays), and who knows what else. But my goal is to have all those graded before break so I don’t have to worry about them then. I can work on the quilt that has to be done in early December and the copyediting, when it comes. And maybe clean the house and clean up the downed branch that’s been in the back yard for about 6 weeks now.

I walked the dogs too…and myself. A nice 3-mile hike to clear the mind. Those are harder to do with the time change…it gets dark too damn early.

I went to an opening, shopping for pens (there’s only one place I’ve found to get them locally, and it’s in Hillcrest, which is a pain in the butt for parking), made dinner, and then settled down to the long boring task of cutting out Wonder Under pieces…with Midnight supervising.

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It’s actually sort of meditative, and I kind of get surrounded by animals…it’s hot during the day, but chilly at night, so they gather around.

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Simba isn’t sure about being next to Calli…but she really doesn’t care…unless he’s biting her.

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Of the 5 yards, this is 4 of them cut out on the bottom, a box of trash on the top. Just one more to go. Not sure if that will happen today, but I did give myself Sunday as well…because sorting them will probably take an hour as well.

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Then later this week, I can start ironing them down. Although one other thing I’ll need to do today or tomorrow is find or buy a background fabric. Which means staring at the drawing for a while to figure out what color that might be. I don’t have a clear image of this in my head at the moment, in color at least, so that might take some rumination. I’d really rather be ready to go today…so that’s grading, drawing, and fabric today. Plus an opening. Plus some version of socializing. Well. Maybe with just one other person. Not sure I can handle more than that at the moment. Says the woman going to another opening tonight. Sigh. OK. Whatever. Still crying at the drop of a hat. I am so worried about the future of my students…about the future of my own children. There is too much crazy in the world.

*Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars

I Don’t Know Why Sometimes I Get Frightened*

Yes. I have the day off. Thank you, veterans of the world. I’ve been reading too much (as many of us over-educated people apparently do) lately, and am disturbed by references to how major conflicts and wars began in the past and what we are seeing with Brexit and TrumpWorld. Though I am not pro military in many ways and I wish we could coexist in this world without always trying to force each other to behave, I also realize the Hitlers and Putins and Mugabes of the world probably need a military force in order to make them behave. A worldwide force. So for stopping concentration camps and dropping atom bombs, I will say thank you to our veterans. And for anything that we need to do in the future…protecting human rights for all…not just whoever seems to be in charge.

That said, holiday or not, I am going to work as soon as I finish this. I have a pile of work that is taller than I am, I think. I can’t go into this weekend with that hanging over me. I want to get a good chunk of it done. Especially since I know I have a quilt that needs to get done over Thanksgiving week…because I’m starting a copyediting job right after that. So time is tight.

But my brain is in this place. We met last night for the next show my women’s art group is planning and we revised it in light of the election. And on the way home, the drawing for it popped into my head. I need time to sit out on the deck and draw that. Although the mosquitoes are back. So maybe not on the deck. Sigh. But the world does not feel safe at the moment, not for women, not for LGBTQ, not for my refugee and immigrant students, not for anyone who does not want to feel attacked all the time. There is a call for people like me to better understand those who voted for Trump, and I have a hard time getting past the reality that a lot of it was probably a sexist choice or a choice based on fear of change. But I will listen. And I will act…if that act is making more art, or if it is marching in solidarity somewhere, or if it is speaking up against racism and sexism and xenophobia everywhere (I already do this in my classroom), then so be it.

I came home and finished tracing the Wonder Under on the new piece…just over 10 hours…

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It’s 5 yards…about…of Wonder Under. I almost met my revised schedule on this. I think I wanted to be done tracing on Wednesday and cutting on Thursday.

Midnight. You are such a dork.

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But I did start cutting…got two yards cut out. And watched all of Colony…dystopian societies with revolutionary groups fighting for freedom and rights. Huh.

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This morning, there’s the remaining three yards waiting for me. Tonight?

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If I get enough work done, yes. Finish cutting them out this weekend and sort them. Start picking fabrics by Sunday night? Maybe. Ouch. Way too much to do. Grading. Finishing that worksheet for Tuesday’s class (waited a bit too long on that one). Planning for after break…just getting the normal school stuff done on top of this grading pile. And the holidays coming…

Yesterday, I had this one group of kids fighting over the lab equipment, and then the two boys were denigrating the one girl who was trying to do her part, and I finally went off on them. Quietly. Which I think scared them. And I asked them what we were learning in homeroom about how to listen to other people respectfully, and I asked them why they were trying to make the two girls feel bad for “not doing it right.” They froze. And their faces dropped. And they heard me for once. Hey, that age…when they DO hear you, that’s a big one. I’m keeping that moment in my heart and head at the moment. That was a success. They worked together after that. Mostly. Because one of the boys has some major shit in his head. But those moments give me hope.

Yeah. I need a hike today too. I bet the dogs do too…so despite temperatures in the 90s and early sunset, I’m going to push that into the schedule. Because I have to take care of this stressful, panicked feeling. One of my art friends said, “Make Art Loudly.” Yeah. That.

*Split Enz, I Got You