Eclipses are cool y’all. That’s all I have to say about that.
NASA has way better pictures than I do…not surprisingly.
I’m realizing that I’m still adjusting to new eating times…blood sugar was wacky yesterday, but then I figured out that we have a different schedule on Mondays. Hence my body’s complete confusion by the end of the day. Working on it. Still. Forever.
I’m a little tired this morning. Sure, I went to bed late, but I do that a lot. Puppy wanted to bark at everything last night though, so I remember 1:53 AM and 3:21 AM and 5:38 AM. I think those were all coyote responses, but I’m not sure. Ugh. Still can’t keep my eyes open all the way. Blargh.
Tired the dogs out after school yesterday…apparently not enough for Simba. We did over three miles…
I love how the old seed pods are mixed with the new…castor bean plant. Freaky beast.
I did…um…oh yeah! the three roses on the bottom right. It’s a stitch called rambling rose, which consists of French knots and stem stitches. Very simple.
I was mostly horizontal with Simba. He liked me then.
Eventually I made it upright and cooked some dinner. On Mondays, that usually means reheating leftovers…because if I’m not getting back to the house until after 7 PM, it better be easy.
So I had enlarged this one just because I thought it should be a quilt. And I taped it just to get it done. It’s not huge.
Who knows when she’ll get made…I have a waiting list at this point.
Then I started tracing the newest piece. The pieces are bigger than what I usually do.
I was really trying to keep it simpler than some of my recent pieces. We’ll see how that goes. I only traced about 87 pieces in an hour. Not bad. Not spectacular. But because I don’t have a lot of grading when I get home at the moment, it means all I have to think about is art stuff. So as long as I can fight the tiredness, I can get some stuff done. That gets harder as the year goes on. That part always stresses me out. I’m trying to keep my head in a positive place about school…I wonder if admin realizes every crazy-ass thing they do, messing with the master schedule, assigning yet another thing to teachers to keep track of, making us do a 2-hour homeroom with lunch 45 minutes late. We absorb all of it, try to cope, adjust the peeing/eating schedules, take lots of deep breaths, and come home and walk three miles out in nature to clear our heads. Yeah. Well.
Well I’m staring out at a cloudy sky that will probably clear by 10:23 AM, but it won’t matter, because our school district is not letting kids leave the classroom for the eclipse. It’s also not letting the teachers leave, which I find irritating (although I guess understandable). I teach science, but we can’t actually experience this part of it. Wait until they find out we do labs in the classroom. They’ll pull that as well, citing liability. I hope wherever you are that you get to go out and see it without burning your retinas. I’m trying to figure out how I can see it…and yes, I know there are live feeds, but how do you get kids to believe in science in a video when so much video is made up and contrived. Faked. Sigh. Frustrating day.
In the not-frustrating part of my life, I finished the drawing yesterday. In the long run, I think it turned out the way I wanted. I think. We’ll see.
Lots of doggy play these days with only me to entertain them after school…
So I did a little over an hour of drawing on Friday night, after a bunch of work stuff got done. I really tried to keep it simple (don’t look at the heart when you hear me say that)…
On Saturday, I did another two hours. This hand had to go over an arm that was already drawn…hence the white out. It happens. These are working drawings…
Again, trying to decide how to put the message in there.
I’ve been avoiding these spiders in my yard for weeks now…there had to be one in the drawing…
This was last night, while trying to meditate. He’s not particularly helpful with that.
I did two nights in here…more feather stitch in green in the bottom left, plus lazy daisies. I think Saturday was the blue French knots in the top feather stitch. Not sure.
Midnight is very judgmental sometimes…
So then last night I did another hour…
And finished it…
It’s not small. That’s why I was worried about time and number of pieces. Keep it simple.
OK, there’s nothing simple about his back…
Or the chalkboard behind her head…
Almost 5 hours into the drawing full size…there was more time in drawing the two starter heads, but I don’t usually keep track of that because so many of those drawings don’t become a finished piece.
Then I spent about an hour numbering it…
Good news, though…it only has 800 and something pieces. Fewer than the last one. It’s about 50″ square I think…maybe a little bigger than that. Tonight I start tracing Wonder Under. I actually have a decent amount of time to finish this…but I say that while knocking on wood, because y’all know how plans go, right? OK. Well. I can probably finish tracing it this week…maybe. We’ll see. It was hard to keep the recent events with the Alt Right and protests out of this, because it’s not really about that. It creeps in, though, and that’s hard. So many things to not stress about…hence the meditation. Tonight I’m going to try the other type of meditation…the one with dogs on a leash and outside in nature.
First Saturday attempt to sleep in after school officially starts. Pseudo fail. Puppy bark. Cats cleaning butts. Neighbors banging doors. Today’s list is a mile long. That’s what got me out of bed…the to-do list. What’s new?
I had some serious artbrain meltdown last night. I’m still not sure I’m past it. This drawing is just so difficult. I often work in symbols or metaphors. I don’t always draw an actual event, but sometimes the effects of the event, or I hide the issues in tattoos or the objects someone holds or wears. It’s easy enough to tell a story with words, but I also tell them with pictures. This story is so easy to tell with words…it’s one most of us teachers know at the moment, but it’s harder to show. But I’m trying. I don’t know if I’m happy with it though. I almost pulled the whole thing apart last night and started over. That’s rare. But it wasn’t working.
I did this first…played ball until they were both tired…
Then I did a green feather stitch over the orange one in the bottom left…
And all that was after working on school stuff for about 2 hours, finding all the student photos and trying to print them and going to buy a new color ink cartridge and I still need to print the damn things.
Finally, after all that, I stood up (feet recovered…I think I need new shoes. My arches are killing me by the end of the day) and headed to the drawing. This is near the end…the wine didn’t come out until after 11:30 PM. I did a bunch of stuff in pencil before going to ink, which was good, because I changed my mind about three thousand times.
Pencil first, vague lines showing where shit should go. I don’t use pencil most of the time. But this thing isn’t fully coalesced in my head, so I have to see it somewhere first. This is probably how most people draw.
Then ink. I’m trying to keep it simple. It’s big. It can’t be super complicated. I won’t get it done in time.
Says the woman who just drew octopus tentacles.
I didn’t want to fight violence with violence. I write that as my daughter is considering going to the protests in Boston. One part of me wants to tell her not to go, but I’m fully aware that we need to stand up and not be afraid in the face of this crazy shit that’s happening. If I were the mother of a child of color, I would be terrified all the time of sending my child out in the world. As a mother of a white kid, I still get scared…they’re adults, but I worry about them. But they have privilege; this means they and I have to be willing to stand up against all the racist, sexist, and what’s the word for being anti-religions that aren’t your own? All that. So I tell her to be safe, stay with a big group, stay away from cars. Stop drop and roll. Whatever. Because it’s not a safe world we live in and we want it to be better for everyone. Even the dumbasses who think fascism and terrorism are acceptable. Maybe if enough faces are staring back at them that mirror their own, without the anger against others, maybe then some part of their brains will start to turn against what’s in there right now, stop blaming others for their lives not being golden and amazing. I know that’s unlikely. There’s no magic answer.
So octopus tentacles. Nature fights back. Symbols. I won’t shoot. I won’t pick up a gun. I won’t lynch someone or kick them out of the country or tie them up or drag them behind a car or mow them down with one. I won’t fight a war. I won’t launch a nuclear missile. I won’t hit or kick or punch. I say that, but if someone were coming after my students…I would. I’d throw things at them. I’d trip them up. I’d bodyslam them. So there’s that.
Anyway. More of the drawing today, I hope. I really am hoping that when it’s all done, it’s what I want. It will work. If not, maybe I will start again. It’s rare that I do that at this stage, the full-size drawing stage…but I do redraw at the smaller stage pretty often. We’ll see.
The first day of school is always exhausting, even when you don’t talk as much as you used to. Really. I try to talk way less than I used to. They don’t need to hear me all the time. They need space to hear what’s in their own heads and process it. I also got the opportunity to hear what they thought a good science teacher was…interesting. It gave me the opportunity to tell them that HELP doesn’t mean giving them the answers. It’s good that they’re hearing that on the first day.
I’m having to adjust my eating schedule to my new prep period, which is proving difficult. I think I’ll get used to it eventually, but I’m not there yet. And honestly, the real test is today, when I’m too tired and nauseous in the morning to want to eat a decent breakfast. I won’t make it to lunchtime if I don’t eat, but I don’t want anything right now. I will figure it out. Just not this morning (why I buy a few Evol breakfast things for the freezer…I’ll take it with me and hopefully be able to stomach it before the bell rings).
I managed to remember to bring my sketchbook with me to school, though…not so I could draw naked things during my prep (although I had a year when I did that, because everything else was so painful and I needed a place to park the depressive thoughts midday)…but so I could go enlarge the drawing of the head. Normally I do 250-300%, but this is already big, so I went for 200% instead. I copied the meditation angel that I finished as well, but I don’t know when I’ll have time to work on it.
When I got home, I succumbed to exhaustion. Even napped for the requisite 20 minutes (I was reading and fell asleep…I never used to fall asleep while reading. Proof of aging.). Literally couldn’t barely move off the couch for about 2 1/2 hours. It’s OK. It gets better. I just tell you that because of all the people who think I work relentless hours. Well maybe, but I have my exhausted moments too. It takes will power to get off the couch and work at 9 PM.
I finally ate dinner (hallelujah for leftovers) and was able to stand up and cut shit out. Actually, I did this first…
Orange feather stitch on the bottom left.
Then I took Tuesday night’s drawing and attached it to the drawing from early summer.
I got rid of the other incorrect bullet. I also started adding paper around the two pieces for what I’m seeing in my head. I don’t want her to be too huge or I won’t be able to finish her. I don’t want to talk about what I’m thinking yet either. This is a difficult concept for me to make obvious in a drawing. In fact, it may not end up being obvious at all. But I know what’s in my head and ideas are now trickling in about how to make it. It even has a title already. But not sharing yet. Still drawing. Probably will be for a few more days. Being tired doesn’t help. More standing after standing all day. Anyway. The hardest part is that the drawing is emotionally difficult, and then I’ve been watching all these British dramas that are kind of dark and difficult as well.
I guess it’s difficult times in which we live. Not as difficult as say the Dark Ages, but still. Not sure Netflix helps…binge watching is not always a good thing.
Calli sleeps through it all. She occasionally comes over and noses me for attention. Simba sleeps right next to me when I take breaks on the couch (feet hurt). Midnight too. Kitten was antisocial last night. Not sure why.
I’m feeling kinda lost by the kids being gone. I know they’ll be back in 124 days or so though (ah, apps…there is no mystery any more, is there?). But I miss them. And at some point, they won’t come back. That’s hard to think about.
I need to be finishing up the house tasks that didn’t get done over the summer (there are always many of them), but there’s no energy for that this week. Maybe Saturday. You know it’s bad when you can’t even pick up a needle or a pen. Well, for me, that’s really bad. I don’t just sit and watch TV unless I’m sick or exhausted.
Today is the official start of the school year…you know, the part where you realize on the first day that (a) you are woefully unprepared, even after 14+ years of teaching and (b) that kid who is already annoying will never ever ever be absent. I met and freaked out my first student yesterday. He shook my hand. That’s nice. No really, it is. In general, I really like my students, even the truly annoying ones. When they ask if I missed them, I say “Every day.” Well. Not for all of them. I am brutally honest with some of them, but once they’ve been with me all year, they would expect nothing less. But today…today I just mispronounce about 140 names and try to start memorizing faces. Honestly, though, if I remember a kid’s name on the first day, they were highly notable in one of a few ways, none of them probably good. I do forget them over time, though. I always tell the kids there will be someone else like them in the next year, so one of my old students that showed up yesterday wants me to introduce her to The New Her. Because she thinks they can be friends. I love that. Not upset that she’s not supremely unique…just wants to make friends with herself.
Anyway, we try to start every year with the right positive mindset, to make sure the stuff that always drives us bonkers won’t do that this year (ever hopeful)…meditation and mindfulness has been incredibly helpful with this, although I still honestly suck at it, I think.
I did good yesterday. My room is mostly done…
I’ve got more fussy bits to do, adding pictures and putting labels on folders. Fun stuff.
And then I went to pick up my quilt from the photographer…I’m still debating the name.
As always, they’re better in person.
What’s also better is finishing it three weeks before the deadline…
Mostly because there’s a deadline right after it…
It’s the smallest and least complicated quilt I’ve made in many a summer. Evidence that the summer was large and complicated.
Made dinner and did two nights’ worth on this…the green feather stitch and red double lazy daisies on the top.
With both kids gone, I have a lot of animal interaction…
She knocks everything else off, but generally leaves my teacup alone.
So I have the next deadline. The drawing has one part done. It’s been enlarged and has been sitting around since the beginning of summer, I think. Not that it’s done any good, because honestly, I just throw a bunch of images and shapes and ideas around in my head until it all makes sense. Sometimes I do a bunch of preliminary drawings, just to figure out where my head is going. But last night, I finally sat down with one of the many images in my head and started drawing.
I got schooled in bullet shape post-shooting, which is fine. I’m actually OK with not knowing what they look like afterwards, but I did change them for the drawing.
This cat has partied too hard.
And I got to here. I need to enlarge it and combine it with the other piece to figure out what else is going on.
But by the time I got to that point, the copy place was about to close. I knew I couldn’t get there in time, so I’ll do that after school. The post-it has ideas for what else needs to be on there. Now that I have this, I can try some other stuff out in my head.
So it wasn’t bedtime yet…and this drawing wasn’t done. I think it is now…
I like how it turned out. She’s way mellower than I feel. Then again, she’s not starting the first day of school in an hour. So hopefully I’ll be drawing again tonight. That’s not a bad place to be.
So I’m running on about 3 hours of sleep. Woo! I think the boychild is on a plane that took off 5 minutes ago. Unless he fell asleep in the terminal. In which case, um, well, he’ll call eventually, right? Certainly after this morning’s “I’m awake” proclamation that was an obvious lie, I will probably never trust him to be up when he says he is again. Ah well. He obviously does not have the crazy morning adrenaline that his mother, a teacher, has. The alarm goes off? We hit the ceiling running. Or at least stumbling.
Luckily I will be dealing with ZERO kids today. OK, that’s sad in terms of my own children, but it’s a damn good thing there will be no students today, because I’m gonna crash at some point. But before that, I need to get my room set up. I’m mostly ready to go do that, except I need about 5 more cups of tea. British tea. Twice the caffeine.
Anyway. The events in Virginia over the weekend are still on my mind, especially after I saw a few posts that the Alt-Right is planning on taking its idiocy across the country to a wide variety of colleges. I don’t advocate violence. Ever. Well. That’s not true, but we can have that conversation later. I do advocate for about a thousand peaceful protesters who are pro-human to show up and surround Alt-Righters anywhere they think to gather. To stand with signs and stare them down. Photograph them. Tweet their angry faces and Hitler T-shirts. Call Them on Their Shit. I’d advocate for getting them fired, but honestly, that’s just going to add to their feelings of injustice. And trying to brainwash them into consciousness is reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. “Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.” Plus this…
Although it’s tempting. I just don’t think it would be effective. And I can’t argue that harassment would be either. We don’t like it when the trolls come after female gamers for not having penises…it’s not OK to advocate harassment for the trolls either. I’d like to hear what they have to say, although with Peter Cvjetanovic, it’s not like he makes more sense when he tries to explain himself. Frustrating.
So yeah. I didn’t get much done yesterday. The boy and I tried to get the bedroom straightened up…vacuumed. He packed. Managed to fit it all in his bags (I don’t know how). We ate dinner at the parentals. Facetimed the girlchild. Normal Sunday, I guess. I tried to get some school stuff organized for today and next week. And at the last minute, we tried to migrate everything over to gmail for me. We’ll see if that works. Probably should have done it earlier in the summer so he could troubleshoot it for me. Oh well. I’m not internet stupid most of the time.
I did the feather on the right…the orange was for Saturday (although I did it Sunday) and then I filled in with purple for Sunday…
Then as I was sitting at the parentals, I worked on the right side of this one…finished the tortoise and the blue flower.
Then I came home and eventually started drawing her.
I’ve had ideas about meditation poses for a while this summer. I meant for her to be more upset, but in the end, she wasn’t. I guess that’s a good thing. She’s not done. But I like the shapes. A good start. More drawing. Nope, this isn’t the one I’m supposed to be drawing, but it was all I could handle last night.
It’s always hard when the kids leave. Girlchild was only here for 2 weeks, but boychild’s been home for almost 3 months. Empty nest again. May they stay safe. That might be need to be true for all of us.
To continue the Nida Powers exposé…so the bathtub quilts came from a place of calm, of rest and relaxation…I had seen some bathtub paintings that just showed water and feet (George Bush and then Frida Kahlo…strange order, yes, but that’s the way the brain works sometimes), and I remember the bath (pre-children) as being a quiet, warm, relaxing place where I could read a book or half-sleep-doze-off, with a cup of tea or a glass of wine, a cat often precariously perched on the edge, sometimes a dog asleep on the rug. It was a good place to process some of the brain stuff I’m often plagued with. So I’ve done 5 bathtub drawings in the last few years, all from kind of above and south, if that makes sense. Not all 5 are quilts. Number 3 never will be, because Number 4 is the better iteration of it. Number 1 might be, but someone is missing a head.
In Nida Powers, you can see Numbers 2, 4, and 5 (they all have real names)…and in true Nida fashion, they get more complicated as the numbers get higher…
They are all about the same size, being fully drawn on one page in the sketchbook and enlarged the same (must be 300% I think).
This is Bathtub 2, aka In Deep. It’s about those things that float to the top while you’re half-sleeping in the bath, relaxed. More about the animals…that’s Kitten in the back, I think. And then Ivy, who died a few years back of cancer. Gingko tree, pile of clothes, cup of tea, tennis shoes. Pretty simple.
Then I did Bathtub 5, Finding Peace. There’s some menopausal stuff in there with the uterus (I still have mine…we just don’t get along). More clothes, a journal, Kitten again, this time it’s wine and meds and an iPhone, a pile of books and embroidery. The owl carries DNA, genetics. The other bird sings of love lost or found…when there’s wings, you just don’t know.
Then this year, I finished Bathtub 4, Some Like It Hot…definitely another menopause quilt. Flipflops, a book, letters, cheesecake! Calli, clothes, phone, and meds. Kitten again. A glass of wine, floating uterus, graying hair this time, that lost heart, no wings this time.
I don’t know if I’m done with these. It’s a series of sorts…I enjoy the bathtub as a construct, a space in which to draw.
Last night, I was at this electronic music thing, and I was warned that the bathroom had no lock on it, but there was a bathtub in there, in case I wanted to take a bath during a music performance. With no lock. So I drew this…
And this before that.
But before I ever got there, I was ironing. I made it into the 600s…still not even fucking halfway. For sheesh.
Still not a lot of color, but a lot of fabrics on this one. There’s never just the right shade of gray apparently. Or green.
More in the pile to be cut…these are traveling with me today to the California Fibers meeting. I might as well get ahead on that section of the quiltmaking.
So another almost 3 hours in yesterday. Hoping for the same today. But it will be late I think.
This is why I really went to the electronic music thing…
To support my guy. He comes to most of my shows. I go to most of his. It works.
Ahhh, fairy lights.
Sitting on an old wooden bench in the middle of dirt and weeds, listening to music and drawing. Not bad. My life is full of weird moments like these, but I enjoy that. People, experiences, observing the birds overhead, the strange corn paintings on that wall, the bang bang of the party next door. I try to make time for plenty of these moments. It’s hard when work and house stuff poke their heads in and mess shit up, but that’s always the case.
Oh shit. I think there was a Bathtub 6 as well. It was creepy. I don’t know that I ever want to make it into a quilt.
I am not in San Diego right now. I’m at Lake Arrowhead. The girlchild is only here for 2 weeks total, so when she wanted to do a quick trip to the mountains, which is a tradition for her dad and the two kids and grandpa, I tagged along for part of it. Hence the crazy posting (or not) the last few days.
I had to finish all my Nida Powers jobs before I left, which included an amazing opening (thanks to all those who came by) and an artist talk. You can see my portion of the talk here:
The show is open until October 8, so check it out. I know I will go over there again, just to see it without all the people.
This is I Can’t Be Your Superwoman, which I finished in January and was made specifically for this show. She’s bigger than I am.
She was based on that 80s mentality of the SuperMom: the job, the family, cooks up the bacon in the pan, wears the suit to work, etc. I’ve spent a lot of years railing against and yet trying to be (or maybe having to be) that SuperMom, and the reality is that we can’t just crack open the button-down shirt and burst out all superpowery like that. I also drew this post-election, so there’s a bit of woman angst in there about trying to shove us back in the kitchen, take our rights away, all that crap.
The short version of the official statement for this quilt is:
Being a woman now…I swear, I thought it was supposed to be getting better, but no, we are still trying to break out of the story, out of the kitchen, to be everything we should be without having to be the superwoman of the 80s. We want to write our own stories, not have them written for us.
I’ll post more of the quilts in here over the next few weeks, but this one is currently one of my favorites.
These drawings are out of order, but I did do two of them the night of my opening. After dinner, I headed over to watch that band I’m always stalking, and I started this drawing. It’s not done.
Before the show, I was a little stressed out and nervous, so I drew this near the museum. While having a quick drink in a space with a lot of people I didn’t know. It was good. Focus for the introverted brain.
So when we were trying to come up with a name, at some point the peeps at Visions suggested The Kathy Nida Story or something like that. I wasn’t real comfortable with a title that had my name in it, but I was thinking about those superpowers again and decided I could deal with Nida Powers. Of course, Nida Powers include the ability to spill a glass of water in someone’s lap from across the table, so they’re not all powers for GOOD. After I turned 50 in March, though, this whole concept of the powers that I DO have and can use to get myself off the couch and to the light table or to draw in bars or whatever weird-ass thing I do…I kind of feel that Nida cape on my shoulders.
I should hold onto that feeling for a while, because my dad says turning 70 makes it harder. But for now, I’ve got some stuff in my life to work on (the garage as metaphor for everything else?) and I’m perfectly capable of either handling it or asking for help in handling it or just damn well saying no, I’m not going to handle that. Whatever it takes.
Back to reality here…I did some combo cross stitches and lazy daisies in green on the right, and then lazy daisies in two colors on the buttonhole stitches down in the bottom right. So that was Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
The cabin has included a game of Clue while I cut out Wonder Under…
I suck at Clue by the way. Can’t keep track of all the permutations in my head.
I finished the Long Skinny cutting out in about 7 1/2 hours. I did spend some time cleaning the studio out on Saturday and Sunday, so all the fabric from the last few quilts is put away. I also started cleaning the desk area just for fun. But as soon as I get home, I can sort the Wonder Under and start ironing this one down to fabric. That’ll probably take about 15 hours, so hopefully I’ll be able to get that done by Friday and start trimming pieces. My goal is to be done with the whole quilt by the time I have to go back to school, but I’m not sure I can pull that off.
Last night: I’m sharing a bed with the girlchild AND a large Pomeranian. Luckily the Golden Retriever preferred the floor.
No. I did not get much sleep. Oh well.
Then today we were taken out on a speedboat by a good family friend and got to try paddle boards…easier for some than others…
I did manage to stand up and paddle for about 5 minutes before I fell in. Yup. Balance. Always an issue.
After lunch, we spent time at the other dock, trying to keep Calli from diving in.
Simba is not a fan of water. Calli is a water dog.
I’m pretty sure I’m fried a significant shade of red right now, despite multiple applications of sunscreen. Girlchild looks much better…
But it’s been mostly quiet and semi-relaxing up here. I’m not staying long. Art is screaming at me to get done, as is the house reorganization, so I can’t be particularly relaxed here. But I’m trying. Twenty-five days until I have to go back to school. I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s not. This summer is flying by crazy fast and I’m not getting enough done. As always. Nothing new there.
(I use that phrase in my classroom all the time…most of my kids know the reference.) Today’s photos look the same as yesterday’s. But today the girlchild is home for a few weeks, so that’s cool. Although getting her here was a little chaotic. Her car died in a Boston tunnel (and then reanimated) and the ex’s car blew a tire on the way to pick her up. I was impressed by the speed and competence of her dad and brother in re-tiring the car in the dark by the side of the freeway. I provided flashlight support. I’m good at that. OK. I could change a tire if I had to…seriously.
But the artmaking is the same as yesterday and the day before and the whenever I started this. Someone called this process labor-intensive, and that’s true. If I had nothing else going on, I could do it faster, but that’s never the case. One of the reasons I keep a blog is to remind myself of how and what I was thinking in past years. Nope. Summer’s are always like this, where I’m trying to get major house projects done while I have time and help, because I can’t handle it during the school year, and then I feel like I’m not getting enough art done and I never really do the relaxation thing well or right. Whatever right means.
Accept what I can do. Yesterday sucked for that. Except the girlchild’s room got clean. I ended up making 4 rolls of quilts from what was once 3 rolls. Scarily, about 20 quilts are out traveling right now and will need homes at some point in those rolls. I tried to make the rolls small enough for me to manhandle them where they belong too. And put all the old quilts together in the same roll and on the top shelf, because odds are, they aren’t coming out for shows as often.
I had all of them on the girlchild’s bed most of the last 5 months, because I couldn’t deal with the rolls any more. Anyway. They’re all managed now. For now.
This one. She eats books. Gotta be careful.
A photo from the Don’t Shut Up exhibit with one of my pieces, We Won’t Go Back.
That’s my look of utter relief that I had finished the community quilts on time. I got a lot of interest in this piece…which is cool. One guy even recognized it as the same artist as the stuff in the Allied Craftsman show, which came down this week. I had three shows close within a week, so 7 quilts home (or at someone else’s home, because they were nice enough to pick up mine as well as theirs).
So after getting the girlchild to her dad’s house and leaving her there, I did more chain stitch on this…
And then went back to fighting cats for space on the glass…
With 1300+ pieces, this is just not a fast process. I figure it’s about an hour per 100 pieces to trace. Cutting stuff out is faster usually. But ironing takes longer…so I figure with 1300 pieces, that’s about 15-16 hours of ironing to fabric. Then cutting again.
But when someone asked about prices on the piece at Don’t Shut Up, she was so good…admitted it was probably out of her price range because of the detail. Which was true. It’s not the size of the piece that makes it more or less expensive…it’s more about the number of pieces. So small with a lot of pieces is still not cheap. I won’t work for $1 an hour. I do actually keep track of my time on these, so I know exactly how much they’re worth.
So I only got a couple hours in last night (still stayed up too late)…
I’m still in the main torso area, but both arms are done.
I quit just before all those buildings with windows. I’ve done just over 1000 pieces, with about 300 to go. That’s it! And I’m just under 10 hours…so a good guess. But I do need to work on the garage and go to the chiropractor today, and it’s our annual trip to Shakespeare. You don’t get choices when the girlchild is only home for two weeks. So Richard II it is. I think.
The panel discussion for Don’t Shut Up is tomorrow evening, from 6-8. You can stop by the gallery and see the show before at 5 pm. I should be there for the discussion…can’t make it earlier. And then next week is the artist walk and talk. I will be there. And this Saturday is my own show opening and Sunday is the artist talk. No stress! I’m trying to come up with a 5-minute discussion of all my work in that show. Yeah! Yikes. Like trying to explain my whole life in 5 minutes. Born, schooled, art the whole time, married, babies, divorced, art art art, teaching, art. Did I say art? Yeah. Lots of soccer. Not enough air conditioning or vacationing. Hiking. Mosquito bites. I guess summer is affecting my summary.
Hopefully tomorrow will have me cutting out Wonder Under instead of tracing it.
Hey. You. Are you the one who gave my neighbor’s kid that whistle? The one they blow all the time? Come Here. Closer. No. RIGHT HERE.
It’s weird how I don’t notice the whistle most of the time, but when I do, I can’t make it stop reverberating in my head.
Girlchild comes home tonight. The flight is already delayed. Her room is kind of a mess. My fault. All my quilts. So that’s my job today. And the 27 things I just put on my Momentum to-do list. I haven’t been checking many off, because a lot of them are something like “Trace WU for Long Skinny”…well I’ve been WORKING on that, but only hit the halfway mark last night. I am only tracing after we’ve put in 4 or 5 hours on the garage and whatever else needs doing…so mostly at like 9 PM and later. And then I stay up way too late because art brain is like a little kid on summer vacation who begs to stay up late, and then at 6:30 AM when the dog wants to pee, my real brain swears profusely at art brain.
But art brain deserves some time. She’s waited for it. So yeah. I’m a little ugh sleepy this morning. And full of that high-pitched kid whistle. With a to-do list that is 10 miles long. It’s all good. She’s trying to be patient. To know that hanging out with the kids and banging out some major work on the house while I have help (oh my lord, having help is a joy) is a priority for the next few weeks. Boychild goes back in about a month. Girlchild is only here for 2 weeks. Sigh. Time. Is a bitch. I go back to school about the same time boychild leaves. Fucking sucks.
I can do this. I’ve traced for over 3 hours the last two nights. I hit the halfway point…and more.
This…more chain stitch and filling in spots. On the right. I’m also using up all these weird tiny pieces of Wildflowers thread from the crazy quilt package shares I used to do a million years ago. I get like a yard of thread…and I use it. Oh. I just looked…I didn’t do chain stitch…I did the spiky buttonhole around the one wave. Duh. I was tired. I still am tired.
Then back to the tracing. I’m not sure why the cats are obsessed with the light table. It’s glass, so that’s probably cooler. Plus maybe they just like being lit from below.
There were a lot of small pieces in this tracing session. Sometimes the boy comes in with the dogs. When he goes to bed, he brings them all to me. Yes, a 21-year-old goes to bed before me.
If I sit on the couch, Simba wants to sit with me, but he’s not happy when I’m tracing. Then I got the second cat. Because it’s not annoying enough trying to maneuver around one cat.
Yeah. And the white one kept trying to knock the wine glass off. This is restrictive guys. Y’all need to stop.
I’m in the high 700s…with 1300 total…so about 500 to go. Ugh. That’s a lot. What you can’t tell in that photo is that the fan is in the bottom center and it’s pointed right at me. I wonder if they can feel it and that’s why they’re there. It’s possible.
I’m in the middle of tracing that handful of flowers. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea. Trying to figure out the overlaps and what is numbered what…what a pain. Upside down. Ugh.
What was my original goal on this piece? I think I can finish tracing in the next couple of days. I hope. Then start cutting Wonder Under…this weekend is kinda booked. And I’m going to Lake Arrowhead next week. So that’s complicated. I can finish cutting these out, but I can’t start ironing until I get home. Iron to fabric all next week. Then trim the following week and start ironing down. Yikes. This isn’t going to be done before I go back to school (it might be done. It could be. If you weren’t cleaning stuff out. Which you need to do.). It’s so early this year. I need to check my calendar stuff again. Overwhelmed.
But today, today is easy. Clean girlchild’s room and the kitchen table. Check off some of the stuff on the to-do list. Maybe do a little on the garage without the boychild’s help. I have an idea. I don’t know if it’s doable. Huh. Art brain is on it. Will let you know. Certainly the messing around with art stuff that I wanted to do this summer is apparently off the table at the moment. Oh well. Shit’s gotta get done.
Kathy Nida 