Category: Drawing

A Lot of Hope

Hey. Yo. It’s Friday. I’m tired. I have survived the first day of actual school with kids. It was fine. Too much talking. I have a new prep period; kind of adjusting to that. It’s earlier but not by much. Definitely had a pulled muscle yesterday, but I think it was from pilates on Wednesday. After school, I did a 1-hour round trip (rush-hour traffic with accidents as a side) to drop another quilt with my photographer. That’s three. It’s cool. I feel like I finished some stuff this year finally.

I traced the last two nights…

Either Bowie is slightly better at listening, or I’m better at picking kitten sleepy times to trace. I had to move him off the light table to be in zoom with stitching friends and trace, but he was so tired, he just curled up again and went back to sleep.

And I managed to finish tracing…

Small quilt, small pieces, not very many of them. Compared to the bigger ones. And then I started cutting them out. This is where small is not so fun.

I started. I will continue. Probably tonight, but who knows? I’m missing the Man’s show tonight…

The girlchild is here, I’m exhausted, the boychild is home from fires. I just wanna hang out. Watch, they’ll both just disappear and I’ll be home on the couch with all the furry beasts. That also might be OK. The Man has a ton of weddings coming up in the next 6 weeks…wants to sneak me in. I don’t mind crashing like birthday parties and stuff, but weddings are dress-up things. Not doing it. So lots of Saturday nights coming up where I will just have to sit around and make art? Hmmm. Pros and cons.

Ceramics-wise, I know two of my things came out of the bisque fire fine…the base of the world figure is there on the right.

The top part is still drying. And the sgraffito thing I made for the garden stake thing they’re doing…it’s there in the middle bottom.

The clay is really light for the background. Wondering about getting some black clay for a sgraffito thing. I just don’t need 25 pounds of it. Hmmm. Anyway, I haven’t been able to get to the studio yet…maybe tomorrow. I also need to fill a tire with air, possibly get new tires, put oil in my car, and also washer fluid. All that popped up in the last week or so. Sigh. Couldn’t do that over the summer when I had plenty of time? Nah.

School! Here’s the 8th-grade team (minus the combo team). We’re back together after…um…2 years?

Yes, we have matching shirts, but science went for a darker gray. I would have gone even darker if there’d been an option. They like their super light colors. I do not.

Here’s my specific team, again.

IDK how many years we’ve been a team, but it’s been a long while. The principal thought about breaking us up because there were so many new teachers, to spread us out. I’m glad he didn’t.

Sometimes they drive me nuts, but that’s true of all teams. And no, I don’t get to be on the same floor as them. So they talk about stuff up there and think I know what they’re talking about. I don’t.

My district passed that stupid parent info thing that violates state law. And some states do this stupid shit.

There’s a local election in November. If it goes a certain way and the dumbasses are in charge, the next 5 years are gonna be shit for teachers in our district. Please vote intelligently. Research the stories you post and make sure they are the truth and not made-up-shit, because I see so much of that. And it’s exhausting. And if you’re trying to friend me on Facebook and we don’t have a personal connection, and you have a picture of Trump and his fist in the air with his tiny ear scratch as your main photo? Don’t friend me. I’ve been unfriending a lot. I keep some because of that personal connection, but I do sometimes question their sanity. Kids first. Your adult agendas need to consider that if your child tells their teacher their pronoun/name preference and NOT YOU, it is because YOU ARE NOT THE SAFE SPACE. You do WANT teachers to be a safe space, right? Well then don’t fuck with our ability to be that. And figure your own parenting shit out on your own time.

Welcome to my TedTalk. Oh, yeah, today is a chill day in science…some vocab, some cover pages, some coloring. I’m in for it. Plus trying to learn kids’ names (hard!) and get ahead of next week for once. Sundays free! Hopefully. I have a lot of hope for life-work balance this year.

More Than One Coffee Shop

A blackberry/pistachio croissant…but no chai. Ah well…only so much sugar at once, right? Not sure how long it will take to write this. Maybe in more than one coffee shop today. Pro of traveling: I can sleep in because no dog/kitten in the AM. Also I’m trying not to fill every moment, which tends to be how I roll…mostly out of necessity, although maybe choice.

Yes, I’m still in San Francisco…and if you’re a friend of mine and I haven’t contacted you, know that I am trying to be present with my kid…she’s been here for over a year and it’s my first visit. That said, I did go to PIQF on Friday for a few hours…and promptly ran into 3 San Diego folks. There were a few quilts that caught my eye…

Jan Soules’ Finding Neverland #7: Fanfare…I had just read an article about her Neverland quilts, so it was cool to see one in person.

All the Social Justice Sewing Academy quilts…two of the blocks I embroidered were there, which is always cool to see (2nd row from left, 3rd down).

I actually didn’t see the other block until someone else posted it. Not sure I photographed it. This blogpost is just gonna get written in pieces all day. I’ve finished my croissant and tea and am moving on to an exhibit of quilts in a random building. So I need to figure out how to get there. My kid and her SO were good about bus training me (so much easier than San Diego’s public transport)…so I’ll head there and write more later. Or I’ll write on the bus!

I found a few good vendors for fabrics I find difficult to locate at home, so that might have been the best part. I did see a few more quilts I liked, but my iPad is ancient and doesn’t like to load photos, so this is all you get.

Friday night I met up with my daughter and her boyfriend, and we had dinner and drinks out, with a giant hike up Divisadero in between (Uber and Waymo were too expensive…totally got a workout there). None of us woke up early on Saturday, but eventually we made it to a farmers’ market and then MOMA, which was really great. More pictures on Instagram, but here’s me with the girlchild and some of Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkins…

We only had about 2 1/2 hours…I’m considering going back today to listen to the whole Ragnar musical thing, but probably won’t. It was beautiful though. The girlchild cooked Saturday night, fresh from the market, so good. I’m staying at an Airbnb that’s about a 10-minute walk from her, and they are nice enough to walk me home at night (something about not sending me off alone into the dark).

Sunday we hiked up in the Tennessee Valley, drove across the iconic bridge and hiked out to the ocean.

Hopefully I’ll get a better picture of the bridge today…although it’s cloudy and delightfully cool again. Can’t complain about cool weather in July.

I needed a nap after that (and really good pizza…pizza, then hike, then nap). We had great Indian food for dinner and then I drew and read and watched some show.

Can’t explain the drawing, sorry. There’s a headless cat in there. Hoping to do some drawing today as well. I did a little embroidery Saturday, lots of reading. I’ll see them tonight for soccer and dinner, then hanging out with an old friend tomorrow and home tomorrow night. I love hanging out with my kid and getting to know her SO better. I also love not having a work/home to-do list at the moment. Getting off at the next stop…saving the draft!

I managed to see this exhibit in the Mills Building in the Financial district….first…no second stop of the day

I love Margaret’s work, especially how she incorporates existing items into the pieces, such as the umbrella in this one.

Joe Cunningham’s work has really interesting lines throughout, whether quilted, painted, part of the actual fabric, or as a thin strip of meandering fabric…

And I was introduced to the work of Adia Millett here too…

I love that a local business building is celebrating quilt art. OK, I’m going to post this now from the Financial District. Got more tea, planning on Britex Fabrics (0.2 miles), maybe some bison, maybe a boat ride. Not sure what else. I would like to finish my book….with lunch? And maybe draw somewhere. We’ll see.

Chaos and All.

Ah chaos. There’s nothing like it. When things seem like they are finally chilling out a bit, add some chaos to it. I can never remember whether chaos always moves to order or not, because my experience is that order always returns to chaos.

So pro: the carpet is in and I’ve managed to move a chunk of boxes and furniture back to where they belong. Con: boychild is still at the fire and probably will be until next week, and he wants to go through his stuff, so he doesn’t want it all moved back in. Hmmm. So I meant to go to ceramics the last two days and it didn’t happen, because when I’m at home, I feel like I either need to paint (I primed the drywall patches yesterday) or move shit (I did a lot of that yesterday). I now have about 7 boxes of books that need to go back in bookshelves, a box and three bags of clothes that need to go back in their shelves, and about 3000 other things that need to go back where they were. I did finally clear enough of the living room to be able to swing the other couch back out, so I can get in to the couch without climbing over the Man. Plus the oppressive height of bookshelves in the middle of the room is gone. What’s not gone is my inability to focus on any one task for a given period of time. It’s summer, it’s chaos, I’m tired, I’m overwhelmed in a very different way than during school. It’s OK, because I get to read every day and I’m not at school (oh wait, I was yesterday) and I’m getting this house back into shape (that is the overwhelming part). There’s so much painting, and I hate that, and it takes forever, and I’ll never finish. So there’s that.

Artmaking has been slim for the last few days. I need to change that. Monday night, I cut binding and sleeves for the two quilts from my stash (score!). I don’t need to buy more fabric right now. I’m going to PIQF in two weeks…I can buy it there (ha ha). I did not sew them on yet…that’s a goal for today. There are many goals for today.

This one has matching binding and sleeves…I had a lot of this fabric. It was a background for another quilt.

This one, the sleeves match the backing, which I’ve had for about a million years. Seriously. So I’m glad to start using it. And the binding is from my stash.

I don’t usually buy more than a half a yard of fabric unless I’m using it for a background. And then I use the leftovers on the back when I can. Or the rejects sometimes. I get a background home and it’s way too busy to BE a background. And one of my friends who gifted me a bunch of fabric when she moved, she had larger pieces (yardage) of fabric, so I’ve been using those on the backs, and I just found some remnants from my niece’s old curtains and bedding (I think?) that will be great for backings too…when I was cleaning out under the bed. You forget what you put away…it’s hidden from sight and mind.

Then I started tracing the bugs for the OMA Street Level event next Friday. Why did I agree to this? Because now I’m doing a TV news thing too. That sounds terrifying. ANYWAY. At some point, I’m going to retire from teaching and I need alternate sources of income. That’s how I see it. I have weak moments…if you ask me to do things at certain times, Imma think I have to. Lame but true.

So I traced two of each. I am demoing at the event, so I need to have some in process pieces. I haven’t figured out what/how I’m doing it entirely, but I’m going to turn at least 5 of these into stepouts of some sort. I can’t decide how many I’ll need to demo at each stage…hopefully I’ll have that figured out next week. Ha! Today, I’ll cut some of these out and iron them to fabric, I think. I also need to start ironing the big quilt together. Like today. AND go to ceramics, but that might need to be tomorrow. Today is a little chaotic. A lot chaotic.

Oh, here’s the carpet…no more 1980s dirty beige. And it’s delightfully squishy.

How long until that cat has an accident on it? Probably not long.

That is the boychild’s half-destroyed chair blocking my office during the carpet install.

He needs a new chair. Not my problem though.

And here’s a sunset view of the Lake Fire area.

Pretty if you don’t think about where the particulates that made it came from. It’s at almost 30,000 acres and 16% containment. He’s been there since Sunday night late aka Monday morning hella early. They usually do 24 hours on and 24 hours off…but since they left San Diego at midnight on Sunday, IDK how they’re counting hours. I do know we heard from him this morning and he was headed back in. This is Day 12 of his being gone. I should go water his plants again. The last bout was 12 days. I think this will be closer to 17 or more. Tough on them. This fire season has started out worse than last year’s, for sure.

I did a drawing a week ago at dinner. It was weird. Post hike.

There were lemons at the bar. What can I say? Sometimes I just roll weird.

I have two tomatoes growing and a few bell peppers…this one is growing quite fast.

But I can’t seem to get the zucchini to do anything but make flowers. I collected some pollen and read about male/female flowers, but I’m not seeing any female flowers. Plus something keeps trying to eat them. I don’t know. I got zucchini because I hear all these stories of 100s of zukes being produced by one plant. I don’t NEED 100s…just a few would be nice.

These little spiders (and their webs) are EVERYWHERE in my yard right now.

At least they are tiny. The big orbweavers freak me out. That’s fall.

Simba misses his boy too.

OK, so more chaos yesterday…

Um. Yeah. We have a new kitten.

He has no name yet. Don’t even ask how or why. Unless you’re buying me a drink. Then I might explain the convolution. He’s very sweet, hyper, and friendly.

Although I think lots of hissing has gone on. And we are puppysitting today (set up before the kitten showed up). So there are four cats and two dogs in a space that still has all the furniture willy nilly. Yeah. Chaos. So I’m going to stick around here today, I think, a bit more than I was originally planning to, just because I think the Man’s patience might be worn a bit thin. Although the cat is his. Or Simba’s. Hard to say.

I have plenty of stuff to do around here. I can go to ceramics tomorrow if I don’t get there today. I do need to be more focused today than I was yesterday. I guess I was focused on moving shit yesterday. The Man’s back injury doesn’t allow him to lift much, but he is a Logistics guy, so he was useful for how to do things, but sometimes a little too tell-me-how-to-do-it. Sigh. There’s a fine line, I know. I also have some school stuff to work on, after meeting with my co-teacher yesterday to evaluate the mess in each others’ rooms and for me to find my packets…why I didn’t take them with me in June? Oh I know. Because I needed to lock it all up and walk the fuck away. I’m not necessarily WORKING on stuff now. But at least I have it. It’s a beautiful day. I have art to make. I need a shower and more tea (Simba barking at 5:22 AM y’all). I need some food. It’s all good. Chaos and all. Maybe that’s the kitten’s name.

Legit Bugs

Hey oh. I suspect everyone thought yesterday was some day besides Friday…I heard ‘Saturday’ and ‘Monday’. I knew it was Friday but somehow forgot to actually WRITE on Friday. I was busy. I got up and showered and went to the ceramics studio, came back for a stitching Zoom, then a trip to the local farmers market, and then a ton of sanding…more of that in my future. All good. I just forgot to write anything. Ah well.

I’ve been trying to finish the two smaller quilts, or at least get them to handsewing stage, before I start ironing the big one together. I got the first one quilted a few days ago…

And then started the other one yesterday…

This is what happens if you walk away from the machine and don’t fold everything up so Kitten can’t get to it…

I sorted the big quilt’s pieces…

That took a couple of hours. In clay, I did some final glazing on the winged woman…

I suspect she went in a glaze fire yesterday, but we’ll see. She has fabric in her future.

And then I started underglazing on the current piece. The base is ready for it…

I didn’t finish.

More clay tomorrow…I’m trying to go in every other day during the summer. Between the quilt stuff and the clay stuff, this summer is delightful. This is my solution to burnout.

I did…well, I didn’t volunteer, but when I was asked, I said yes…agree to do some demos at the Oceanside Museum of Art’s Street Level Volume 2 event in a couple of weeks. I never understand my brain when it says yes to this stuff. Although it gets my work and name out there, I guess. I don’t know. Anyway, I’ll be demoing bugs.

I ended up enlarging that little one on the bottom. Some are legit bugs. Not sure about the bottom one. I’ll have them in different stages and then demo some of the stages. We’ll see how that goes.

I bought this for the prep room at school for the next school year.

It’ll make 50 cups of tea…between me and my co-teacher, hopefully we won’t need all of those cups in one year, but who knows.

Butterflies everywhere…

I’m still watching that cocoon.

No hatching…hatching? Is that the right word? I don’t know.

It’s been warm. Not the heat wave you keep seeing on the news.

I mean, they keep giving us warnings, but I think we’re still pretty bearable. Cats may disagree.

My phone thinks my volume is too high.

Intriguing. I’ve been listening to a book while quilting and doing yardwork and housework. I have one earpod in. Apparently now it will decrease my volume whether I like it or not (I need to be able to hear over the sewing machine. Fascist phone. What if people are hard of hearing? Anyway, I’m sure if I Google it I can figure out how to turn it off. Technology. Took me 30 minutes yesterday on chat with a Zoom person to figure out how to send feedback about their new cost increases. Y’all, I am not a professional Zoom user. I do not use it for my business (well, sometimes I do, but my business is one person. Me.). Why don’t they have a level between the free Basic and Pro that does not cost so much? For what I use it for, I don’t need all the AI and phone stuff…I just wanna hang out with my faraway friends on Zoom a couple times a month. Sheesh. Stupid.

OK, quilt guild meeting today. Need to sand doors (ugh). Lots of doors. Need to finish quilting this small one and pack up one to ship to my SIL for her wall. Her job is to sell it off her wall. Or just enjoy it. Also fine. The yardwork needs to start, as we go into a warm week. Carpet starts Monday…so I moved a bunch of drawers, but still have some stuff to move at the last minute…that’ll be tomorrow. Hoping to hike today? But will need to wait until 6 PM I think for it to cool down enough. That interferes with the Man’s dinner plans, although he’s going out to lunch, so he’ll probably need a nap. Might be hiking alone. Plan.

The Wind Through the Leaves…

Hmmm. Yesterday was the perfect summer day for me. Some reading, some clay, some fabric stuff. It was warm but not too bad. The day before was pretty good too…more reading, more fabric stuff, a long hike, some drawing with dinner, more fabric stuff. I’m hoping to project this level of enjoyment/relaxation into the new school year (yes, I know some people don’t consider it relaxing to work on stuff like I do). Sunday afternoons at the ceramics studio? Why not? Because school. I need to shorten up the Sunday crazy and figure out how to get more of it done during the school day. I will have help this year; that will be nice. Also more literacy stuff and more sex-ed curriculum stuff. I never filled out the feedback form, dammit. Ah well. Put that on the list.

I guess Saturday and Sunday made up for Friday, when the boychild and I moved almost everything out of three bedrooms into the living room. We left beds, desks, and big dressers. At some point before the carpeting starts (next week; we now have a date), we will have to empty dressers and strip beds (not sure why I say ‘we’…it’s ‘me’), but for now, the living room is a hoarder warren of crazy shit that makes everyone claustrophobic…

Except Luna…who sits on that highest shelf, surveying her domain.

We moved everything early because the boychild might end up on a fire, and then I wouldn’t have been able to get all this moved. The Man can’t lift more than 10 lbs (injury) and I can’t lift most of this by myself. We have a cart, but again, by myself would have been a challenge. And at some point, we might have been doing carpet today instead of next week. So this was the solution. Sunday night/Monday morning will be a lifting event for me (all the drawers), but that’s a lot easier than all this. The real problem is where will we PUT all the drawers…and where will we sleep the first night (it’s gonna take two days). We’ll figure it out…couches and air mattresses.

The stained glass window got replaced on Saturday finally…it looks great!

The window was made by the previous owner. The wood around it was decaying and some of the cross supports had come loose, so the window was in danger of bowing out and/or breaking. I finally found someone who specializes in fixing these (took me like 6 months). They stabilized the window between two tempered glass pieces, my contractor guy replaced all the wood, and then we’re just waiting on the final bits of sealing the wood and window for it all to be done. Although then I need to paint that whole wall…and the other walls, if I want to be consistent. We’ll see how far I get. The wall opposite has a textured wallpaper the cats thought was a scratching post back in the day, so it needs to be removed. That’s a bigger challenge. Maybe not a 2024 challenge. I still need to paint the hallway…which includes 5 doors. Ugh. I have a bunch of sanding on my list for this week as prep for that, priming too if I can get to it.

I stitched down another quilt I had ironed together while waiting for my sewing machine to come back, and for my Art Brain to have enough power to draw a new big one.

It took a couple of days because it was in between all that moving shit and hiking around.

This is from some smaller drawing I did either on a plane or while camping or something. Oh wait, I found the drawing…from 12/20/18…so probably one of those Drawing a Day over Winter Break things I did. Hence the Christmas lights. So a 6-year-old drawing. Last December, I picked about 12 smaller drawings and enlarged them to work on in between things. I had just finished the Supreme Court quilt and another couple of smaller quilts, and my brain (due to school) was foggy as shit. So I started some of these.

I cleaned the entryway floor earlier today, so my next step is to sandwich and pinbaste the two smaller quilts for finishing.

I’ve been cutting things out on the big quilt for a little over 17 hours now…Friday night…

Saturday night…

And Sunday night…

The box on the bottom left is all that’s left…somewhere between 300 and 400 pieces left. I feel like I might get close to finishing that today. Maybe. Then a few hours of sorting, made almost impossible by the piling of shit in the living room. I mean, I could do it, but I would have to unpile and then repile some of that shit. I don’t want to wait a week for the next step though, so I’ll do it. Sometime in the next couple of days.

In clay news, I’m slowly working on the world figure’s upper torso. I have a base it sits into as I build, but I did check it again to make sure it’s going to shrink appropriately. It’s like a 12% shrink.

I’m OK with an imperfect fit, as long as it actually fits. I got one hand put on…holding that up, because the forearm and elbow haven’t hardened enough to fully hold it. The right arm, I got the elbow and forearm put on. At the moment, the whole upper torso is sitting on a separate base I built just to support this.

The support is under the plastic. There’s a sponge holding that hand up as it dries. The right arm is on the base until the hand goes on. I attached a partial version of hair (fire) to the head and then persuaded the head to attach to the torso. That back sponge is holding it up until it hardens. This clay is not great for sculpture, but it’s what I picked (what I used in class). I’ll pick one with more grog next. Maybe a little more? I don’t know. I like the smoother texture of this, which is half porcelain and half stoneware.

I made a heart.

I think I know how/where to attach it, but I need things to stiffen up first. There will be carving on the fire hair and the heart, and the plan is to add more ‘hair’ in the form of smoke from the fire. Yeah. Crazy.

The other piece made it out of the kiln!

Just a few cracks…iron oxide with a little bit of clear next, I think. Only clear on the underglazed bits. Then fabric wings hanging from the arms. And fabric coming out of the things on her head.

I numbered this sweet little thing. It only has 390 pieces.

Can’t trace it until the carpet is done. That’s OK. I have plenty to work on and this has a later deadline.

I also pieced this thing together.

I finished the embroidery on the center panel, and then thought I’d be sewing all the little houses together, whee!, but no. There’s a border around the central panel with 5 flowers on it. It’s fine. I won’t be sewing houses together until 2025.

We hiked in the Lagunas on Saturday…we were hoping for cooler weather, but no.

We started hiking around 4:30 PM and it was still 85 degrees.

It cooled down around 6 PM, which is when I would have preferred to start, but we were going to eat dinner up there and the restaurants all close by 8 PM.

It was beautiful, though, even though it was warm. There weren’t a ton of people, which was nice.

I love hiking around the little lakes and meadows up there. Well…unless there’s cows.

We had to walk right through a group of them, lots of calves, so potentially nervous moms. They were standing on the trail for a goodly portion of it, so we did some nervous (but calm) movements of our own to get across the field without pissing anyone off.

A tiny adrenaline rush. This hawk had a snake and was being chased by a smaller bird.

And here’s one of our three friendly crows here at home. I took the dog out in the morning and it was up there squawking at me because the Man hadn’t put out the trays of nuts for the birds yet.

And I am still reading about the period. Good book. I’m reading two books, actually, one fiction and one nonfiction…

This is too real for all the crazy shit going on these days. Like how do you show your Supreme Court is corrupt without saying they’re corrupt? Just look at what they allow and disallow. Sigh. I don’t know that I have another Supreme Court quilt in me. Certainly the bullshit is all still there.

OK, it’s a Monday, but it feels like a Saturday. I have some stuff I have to do today, but first, I am going to pinbaste these two quilts, because that’s sweaty business and I want a shower. Work for it! Also hopefully going to get close to finishing the cutting-it-out phase of the big quilt. I’m sure there’s more on my to-do list that I haven’t remembered, like watering, for sure (it’s been hot and dry) and filling up greenery trash cans (never stops)…but also some reading…and appreciating how quiet it is today with all the kids inside or at camp or I don’t even care WHERE they are, it’s blissfully quiet except for the birds and the bugs. No tree trimming, no sawing, no yardwork, no screaming, no yelling. Just the wind through the leaves. And the Man watching some loud thing (it just got loud…).

Knock on Primed Wood…

OK! Progress on all the things. Summer is feeling pretty good today. The carpet installation is a go, waiting on me and mom picking carpet later today, the stained glass is supposed to be installed today, the wood finished on Friday. I got the spackling done, NOT with Luna’s help…

It’s now sanded, needs another wash, then primer and paint…not first on my list at the moment. I got the paint done on the window opening for the glass that’s being installed (finally!) today…knock on wood. Primed wood. Carpet guy measured everything today; we don’t have to move ALL the furniture, which is nice. Who knows where we will sleep the first night, but hey, whatever. I think the Man has claimed the couch and we do have a blowup mattress or two. We’ll be fine. Furniture moving is first on my list for the rest of the week, then paint, if I have time before they come. Might be better to do paint after they do a bunch of work though. I don’t know. The yardwork is slow and painfully hot, as always. I found another cocoon, but this was either dead or busted out…

Hopefully the latter. Yes, this is on a trashcan. Not the best choice. Sorry guy.

Quiltwise, I’ve cut some stuff out on the big quilt…

Slow progress. Because I also finished the stitchdown (started in March) on this…

I’m going to do the stitchdown on the other one and then pinbaste both of them. Maybe later today? Today got nuts.

I got an email a couple weeks ago from another artist I follow about an exhibit she thought my work would be good for…so I printed the prospectus, which was based on a play/movie concept. I watched the movie (Chiraq) and started reading the play (Lysistrata). And then my brain fuzzed for a while, couldn’t see it, but she messaged me again with updated info, and the picture popped into my head. I love my brain for that! So last night, I spent a couple of hours listening to a ceramics course and drawing this piece…

Which has to be a specific size (of course) and related to the play/movie. I tried to keep it simple (ha!), then took a picture of the inked drawing.

Some hand embroidery going on there too. And emailed it off with a statement and samples of my other work to the organizers. Got the email this morning that I’m in! So now I get to make this sweet thing for a group called Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse…I love the idea of making work in response to other types of art, in this case a play/movie. But also in response to current events. Awesome. I’m excited by this. And many thanks to the artist who thought of me.

Yes, I still have three other quilts to finish. Shush. I got this.

I did actually draw a rough sketch first, just because it was a compressed space.

I don’t always do that. But this one called for it.

Still reading the Period book…

I love this though. I draw the ovaries a lot. Ovaries and uteri. But it’s penises and vaginas I get busted for. Whatever.

I did do clay yesterday, but again, forgot to take pictures. I’m going in tomorrow to load the kiln with the winged woman…hoping she survives the kiln.

OK, so I’m waiting on glass guy (he’s on Mexican time y’all…he said ‘around noon’, which means 1 PM…cuz he’s still not here). Then carpet with mom. Then pilates. And some form of art tonight (maybe all of them!). Stitchdown, cutting out, numbering…it’s all here. I can do it all. Love that it’s summer. I needed a break from school. Really did. Whoopee!

Sweat…

OK, it’s officially the first week after the first week after school gets out. That first week goes through like a blur on a good year; add surgery into the mix and I’m surprised (or not) that I made it through 5 books and 11 interviews and not much else. Ugh. Not recommended. This week starts to feel a bit more like reality, a bit more like the summer I knew I was in for…the one where I want to punch people when they ask me what I’m doing this summer. I’m repairing my house post January flood. I had guys come in and fix the outside wood and the inside drywall, plus install gutters, which should make it never happen again, but I still need the carpet installed and paint in the hallway and potentially other places, and please let’s get the stained glass reinstalled…it’s been out since April, I think. Last night, I sanded old trim (oil paint previously…I never painted in the entryway, so it’s at least 26 years old), washed it, and put on a primer coat. The contract guys strangely painted the inside trim brown (outside color) without really consulting me, so I’m covering that with white. I had to pick a white for that whole room, since it had never been painted. I don’t mind painting, except when it’s hot and a lot of prep work needs doing, like here. I hate sanding. I can’t even reach the top part of the wall with the stool. I’m gonna have to get the ladder. So it’s a lot of that kind of work all summer. I need to get another coat of primer on today and then hopefully one coat of actual paint, so when the glass guy comes back on Wednesday, it’s ready to go. I also need to wash the hallway (on my hands and knees, love you Callie dog, but jesus, what did you do to the walls in there) and see if I can find the spackle. I know it’s here. I bought it last summer to do this and then just flailed. I can’t flail this time. It needs to get done. I need to move stuff out of the bedrooms too. And it’s hot, y’all. So that doesn’t help. It is going to happen though.

I haven’t posted since Thursday because of all those interviews plus just plain tiredness. I took a lot of naps last week. That’s normal for the week after school gets out. I’m feeling a little more with it now.

So what have I been doing quiltwise? I managed to iron at night (and maybe during the afternoon).

Thursday night…

Friday night…

Kitten guards the chair quite well. This was the last picture, must have been Saturday night I finished. ALL the fabrics…

24 hours and 5 minutes of choosing and ironing. 202 fabrics. An awful lot of browns and grays.

I started cutting out last night…

This is also going to take forever. That’s OK. It’s relaxing. I enjoy it.

I did get my sewing machine back on Friday, finally. Three months! It was a distribution issue mostly…but frustrating. And free. So there’s that. I haven’t had time to use it yet…hopefully today. I’d like to get these two smaller pieces done. They won’t take long.

I also finally made it back to ceramics. I did one day last week, but the rest of the week was hellacious. I started this piece back in April…

Last week, I added the spiny bits to the serpent and the ribs inside the torso…

This section is pretty leather hard…so I had decided to make the top of the torso a separate piece…

It won’t fit on my shelf otherwise. So there’s that.

Lumpy bumpy body. So yesterday, I started building the top part of the torso. Hard to do with this clay…it’s not very supportive. But I’m using it up!

The top of the torso slots into the bottom, which means adjusting for shrinkage (12%) plus trying to support things until they are able to support themselves. So it’s wrapped up and I’ll either go by this afternoon for an hour for the next bit, or tomorrow. We’ll see.

I’d like to build something like this next…

This is my piece, The Way Out, with its owner, Sara Vance Waddell, in the Dayton Art Institute exhibit Riveting, which runs through September 8 and includes some great feminist art. The exhibit is all work collected by Sara and Michelle Vance Waddell. It’s intriguing. Wish I were closer.

But I’d also like to make a ceramic version of this. Again, it’s probably not gonna fit on my ceramics shelf. Ah well.

Friday night, the Man’s band had a show at the Belly Up.

It was short, but high energy.

Unlike me. I napped before it (after 7 AP interviews) and went home without watching the second band. I was exhausted. I had a seat, though, thanks to the lead singer and his wife. Appreciated that. I don’t think I could have stood for 2 hours.

We dogsat Annie this weekend. She and Simba sometimes need to be way too close.

It’s hot and y’all are furry. Annie’s gone now…

Saturday night we went out to a place that has pretty good food, but some time ago (years y’all), the Man was pissed off about a rude bartender/staff person, so we just didn’t go back. Until now.

Not much room to draw, but it worked with this sketchbook.

Gutters got installed at some point and they had to cut some branches. I said I’d do cleanup on that (don’t trust them), and I’m glad I did because I saw a caterpillar clinging in that distinctive J shape that looks like it’ll cocoon, and sure enough, it did.

This branch will sit here for a while as whatever it is remakes itself. Not a swallowtail…it was a fuzzy black caterpillar. Should have taken a picture before, but I was hot and cutting things up. I have two trashcans full, and the next one requires gloves and a lot of up and down stairs.

Another picture of our ballsy rat friend and its stash of nuts down there.

Fat. I’m not feeding it. It’s the Man, and it’s only because he’s feeding the crows.

SpaceX again last night…we missed it but the owl cam got it.

Funny.

Still reading the Period book…you know, I didn’t know this about preeclampsia. Fascinating.

Science!

I’m not sad. It’s OK. I am slightly unfocused this morning. Hopefully I’ll find some focus after breakfast and another cup of tea. Plus reading. Maybe a shower. Painting first, because that’s sweaty. Enclosed room with no window. Oh wait, I said washing walls too. All that before shower. I mean, what’s the point in showering if I’m just working all day? And it’s hot? I’ll do it at some point…but not right now. Artwise, definitely cutting more things out, maybe ceramics studio for an hour, and I’d really like to do another big drawing for fun. Plus stitch down those poor quilt tops. That’s a lot right there. Moving furniture. Pre-shower. Definitely. Ugh. Eat, do sweaty things, shower, do less sweaty things. That’s really it.

Always Good…

Apparently no one has explained to Simba that people like to sleep in on days they don’t have to go to work. He’s UP! Wants to know why no one else is UP! The world is a noisy place. He wants to bark at it.

OK, three days post surgery, it still hurts to swallow, there’s a little pain on and off (ice packs! Motrin!), but all is good. It’s not going to be a pretty scar…ah well. I don’t really care about that. I do care that the doc just messaged me that everything is benign and clear and I don’t need to do anything else for now, although the tissues they removed are more likely to develop into cancer (we knew that going in). So one worry checked off. Always good. I feel fine, although I’m still not lifting things or working out. First of those is Sunday, fully approved by the doc. I’ll hopefully hike before then.

I made it to the ceramics studio yesterday…finished all four of the pots for the Man. Couldn’t leave the one blank, so I made little Venus flytraps all over it, rainbow-colored.

Simple. I now have 5 pots on the drying rack. I did work on the world figure I started back in April, but I forgot to photograph it. I’m glad I’m finally got some space on my shelf to put the top part…so that’s the next plan.

I have to go in to school today and tomorrow for interviews: new science teacher today, assistant principals tomorrow. Fun times. Yes, I get paid. I also get to make sure they don’t pick someone lame.

I’ve been doing lots of ironing, because it’s easy enough. Well, is it? Lots of complicated stuff being ironed. Tuesday…I did two sessions and got one entire figure ironed.

Lots of browns and flesh tones. Last night, I got the flesh ironed on the third figure, but not all the other stuff…I did the hair and the eyeball, but then I got tired.

That’s her fleshy colors on the right. Plus a dark eye. I’m in the 1000s, but also I’ve ironed some of the 1100s. And some of the 900s aren’t ironed. So that’s clear. There’s still one entire figure to go and a shit ton of stuff in the sky. But the box is full of pieces to cut out. That’s fun.

I drew last night.

I haven’t been drawing. It’s been harder and harder with school the last four years to get time to draw. I work so many hours at the day job. I reserve an hour a night for art, but it’s mostly working on whatever project I’m currently obsessed with. There’s no time for just random drawing, except at the occasional dinner out. I used to do these big random drawings for no reason at all, just because I wanted to draw. So there’s that. Boob and brain in that one. Still waiting on brain results.

Reading a book about the period…called Period.

Fascinating stuff…science and politics and history. I can read nonfiction as long as I’m reading a fiction book concurrently. Which I am.

I replanted a few things. Not this. Just saw this.

It makes the prettiest flowers.

Found this little sweetheart bouncing around the leaves last night…

Hoping it’s OK. I always figure parents are nearby and I should leave it alone. We do occasionally find dead hummingbirds. Sad.

And the owls are still here, seemingly acting like there’s eggs or babies in the box?

I have not given up on them. Hoping to hear future squawking of tiny owlets.

OK, off to school for a little while. Then back here, ironing, plus setting stuff up for an Insta takeover. Tomorrow is interviews all day. I just wanna know if I should bring my lunch? I’ll ask today. Otherwise, I’m gonna sit in the good news for a while.

Hard to Sit Still…

OK, I’m off on my writing days. It’s OK. I probably don’t actually know what day it is most of summer. It’s better that way. We’re so hyperfocused on days and dates when we’re teaching that it’s nice to take some time off from that. As long as I don’t miss any appointments.

Yesterday was surgery. It went well. I’m not in a lot of pain. Got rid of the heavy duty pain meds already. I feel better without them anyway, and now that I can take ibuprofen again, it’s effective enough. I get results next week. Meanwhile I’m mentally designing tattoos for the scar. It’ll be a while before I can do that, but I can still dream it. Everyone wants me to rest, but my body likes to move more than rest. I did OK yesterday…did a lot of stitching and watching videos. One was this Textile Talk by Dr. Teri Walker, who interviewed me at some point for an article she’s writing. Three of my quilts are in the talk, which was cool…

Shout out to all my political activist quilt friends also in this talk.

My surgeon had to sign the side he was operating on.

That sharpie is not coming off anytime soon. I have dissolvable stitches with a waterproof coating that will slowly deteriorate (I’m supposed to gently wash it with soap)…the plus is that I could shower today! There’s some adhesive that caused a mark and some other adhesive that will apparently take a few days to get the fuck off (not on the wound), so that’s fun. But I am no longer orange. I am signed though. WEIRD.

Stitching I did yesterday…

That freaking drizzle stitch tail took forever…

Finished the wings, put the eyes on, and started around the leaves…

I also finished one book and started two more. Wait, I think I finished two books. Hmm. I’m reading one on the Kindle app (nonfiction) and one in actual book shape (fantasy) so I don’t lose my saved up days/weeks on the Kindle. Yes, I guess that’s a thing.

I did ceramics on Saturday afternoon. This is one of the pots for the Man’s carnivorous plants.

It was fun to do, much faster than the last one.

I did a couple of coil pots too…

Just to use up the clay. I’d like to go in today, but everyone keeps yelling “REST” at me. You know, part of my resting is sitting on a stool at the ceramics studio and playing with clay. I could do that for 2-3 hours with no complaint.

From one of the books I’m reading…the last phrase especially.

Yes it’s a book about a bookstore. Once Upon a Tome. It’s amusing, but I’m not sure what the plot is. Or if there is one.

We hiked Saturday.

I’m allowed to take short walks today.

Hiking by Saturday? Maybe sooner. Except I’m doing all these school-related interviews Thursday and Friday. My fault for saying yes. My fault for giving a shit about who is foisted on me next year.

Saturday night’s drawing. New place for dinner. We liked it.

Nice space.

Saturday night’s ironing…I finished the tree in the 1400s.

It was easier than saving those fabrics aside until I got there.

Then Sunday night, I ironed all the fleshy bits on the first woman.

And last night (yes, last night I felt well enough to stand for an hour to iron), I did all the non-fleshy bits on the same woman.

Tried to add a lot of color. This quilt is heavy on the browns and grays at the moment.

Tonight (or this afternoon), I’ll start on the second figure. New flesh tones.

Legit.

OK, one of the things that sucks the most post surgery is that I have to wear a bra for 48 hours straight. I’m already done with it. I was done with it last night. I took it off to shower and it was hell to put it back on.

Not because it hurts…I just hate bras. It’s summer. It’s anathema to wear a bra.

This is the hood of my car…it is covered with bunny fur bits that were pulled out, probably by the hawk that was eating it…

In the tree above my car. It was sad. Although I’m glad only fur landed on my car. Ugh.

More random shit from the internet.

Also legit. And the last one…I swear…before I go REST again (I am tired of resting…yes, it has been 24 hours. Might be my max.).

Oh yes. Well, I will go read for a while and maybe stitch, or maybe come back in here and STAND. I was not put in this world to rest. Some people are very good at it. I fail. I get an F. Don’t lecture me about my body needing the time to recover. I think my body needs what makes me feel better right now. I know better than to lift furniture or dig holes (both are on my to-do list), but if I have to sit on the couch for another 8 hours, Imma kill something. Not a baby bunny though. I’m definitely watering things today. I’ll hold off on planting the other things, because I would have to use a big shovel, and I’d get shit for doing that. It’s a beautiful day out there though. Hard to sit still when there’s so much to do. Please don’t email me and tell me why I need to rest. I KNOW. I still don’t like it.

Very Fine…

Hey. It’s the last Monday of this school year. We’ve got four days. Four days of utter chaos and mayhem, but four days nonetheless. I can do four days. I think. Actually, I do have to be there on Friday, but usually not for long. Weirdness is happening this year on Friday. Complicated.

ANYWAY. Today I teach STI prevention, although 1st period might be trickling in one kid at a time due to bad scheduling. Not mine. Tomorrow I teach goal setting, although again, 1st period might get screwed. Whatever. I wonder sometimes what non-teachers think we do after state testing. Because we have to do something or we have anarchy, and not in a good way. Wednesday is all promotion practice and carnival (hat and sunscreen), and Thursday is promotion (also hat and sunscreen). My grades are mostly done; I have 23 kids who are supposed to turn in two papers each today. We’ll see if they do. So I might just have to tweak their grades…but probably not. And I need to clean my classroom. Not entirely sure when that is happening. Normally it would be during my prep or while the kids were watching a movie, but with 8th grade, there’s less of both. I’ll probably get prep today, but maybe not Wednesday. Who knows.

So artwise, it might feel like I’m gearing up for summer enjoyment, and I am hoping to (a) get my sewing machine back this week and (b) to actually have more time to make art, but I also have a ton of house stuff to do…painting mostly. Moving stuff so we can install carpet. That’s overwhelming in itself. Claywise, I finally figured out which clear glaze I was gonna try on the tiles…

They’re going in the next glaze kiln…the second one, a kid had me sign their yearbook with a fingerprint drawing, and I had washed it off but only sort of, so when I went to rinse the tile, some of it came off in the background, so I ended up putting a wash over it. It needed the contrast anyway.

So we’ll see how they turn out. Then I did more underglazing on the winged woman…

Broke the damn snake head off again. I have a plan for fixing it…I think I just need to fire this thing and then move on.

Nice kitty.

The quilt in process (well, the third in process) is still being ironed to fabric…slowly. Friday night…

Still down in the grassy knoll. Then Saturday…

Got most of that done, and Sunday, I moved up the left side…

Didn’t quite finish ironing men’s white shirts (see Kitten asleep in the top left?). But I’ve made it into the 300s. I don’t think I’ll be done this week, but I might. We’ll see. It would be nice to be done before surgery so I could just sit on the couch, bingewatching something and cutting things out.

We hiked…

It’s still all about the flowers…

Ah cudweed…you make everything smell like maple syrup.

This is what grading looks like…

Thanks Nova. So much help.

This is what I think when all the rumors at the end of the school year are whirling around.

It’s not all about classroom management. There are some definite social and parental issues here. Sigh.

Probably not cannibalism. I’ll leave that to the rest of you.

I’m still working on Sue Spargo’s Homegrown…finally to the center square.

It’s coming along. There’s a lot of stitching on it. Well, supposed to be. Not so much at the moment. It felt weird yesterday actually having time to stitch and mop the kitchen floor (which was disgusting). I didn’t have to lesson plan or post a bunch of assignments. Kids don’t have computers after today unless they buy them (so again, wtf are we supposed to be doing with them?), so I can’t put any assignments on there. A relief really. No more of that for two months. Woohoo! Anyway. Close. Not there yet.

Had my brain scan on Saturday. Results sometime this week. That’s a bit stressful. What’s worse…they find something that explains the visual disturbances? Or they don’t find anything? Sigh. Probably the finding something is worse…so that’s a waiting game. Also I’m full of gadolinium now. I’m waiting for my super power to surface. I forgot drawing with dinner…

OK. School. Teach the things. Leave school and go play with clay. Come back, finish grades. Or finish grades, then clay? IDK. We’ll see. Then iron. No more grades after today. That’s fine. Very fine.