Stretching Past What We’ve Always Done

Hallelujah for the nice kid in Petco who helped me pick out and install a harness on the little beast yesterday. I wanted to try walking both of them in a nice wide-open area, but the leash was too short and the collar didn’t seem safe enough. Simba pinwheels around a bit on it. So a harness it was (never owned a dog small enough for a harness…so he had to show me how it worked). We only made it 1.56 miles…the big dog tricked me into a shorter path she knows (she walks with my ex and the kids too), plus Simba is a tiny baby really and if I’d gone further, I probably would have had to carry him for a while. So we’ll have to figure that out, because normally I do 3-mile hikes during the week. My SIL has a little dog and says 35 minutes…and that’s what we did I guess. Lots of leash tangling and bizarre walking behavior. The dog has sorta been trained, but not well or consistently.

But this cat…

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She’s still incredibly unsure and runs when she sees him, and so he thinks that’s a game and chases her. She’s whacked at him once, but missed his nose. Not sure if that will mellow out, but I hope so. The other cat has taken another furry addition to the house in stride and doesn’t care.

That’s where I was grading by the way. Pens are there to fill out the gradebook I keep on paper, but everything else is online. I did go through the worksheet and the website I assigned them and filled it out myself, just to see what answers I SHOULD get. Holy moley, sometimes I wonder how some of these kids will make it through life. They just make up random shit…this assignment was so easy, I filled out my worksheet in less than 7 minutes. Granted, I didn’t have to go find pictures or write full sentences, but they should have been able to handle it easily in the time I gave them. And many did.

Simba is still trying to figure it all out.

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I’m looking forward to the kids coming home next week to help out with this puppy thing…because it’s a bit tiring. The timing could have been better. He does go to bed and sleep all night, except at 3 AM when he hears an animal in the bushes and thinks he needs to protect all of us. Puppy growling.

I have blood testing this morning, so I’m fasting (no caffeine, no food) and that’s never a good start to the day…especially since we have testing, so I have no prep, no bathroom until 12:15…unless I call admin. Which I may have to do today, after 40 ounces of water, or whatever it is. And they’ll still complain about my veins. Whatever.

I wanted to finish quilting last night, but knew I’d have to be up extra early for the lab tests, so I stopped before midnight and went to bed (see, I CAN do that).

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I’m almost done, though…dammit! Oh well. I’ll finish tonight, except I really should grade something tonight. I’m trying to get caught up, which means an assignment a day. And I can’t get through much while we’re testing. We’ll see. I’d really much rather finish quilting and get a binding on this thing than grade papers. Shockingly.

I’m also starting to process (in my head) a collaborative project I’ll be working on over the summer for the women’s group I’m in. Honestly, these types of projects kind of terrify me, because I’m not used to working with other people…in art. I work with other people all the time at school, and sometimes I know I don’t know enough to do stuff well, but I just research the heck out of it. This thing, it’s a little weird and I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out, and I guess I’m really an introvert/loner, because the socializing that needs to happen to create the project is really freaking me out. Whoops. I’ll be fine. My art brain is just having a moment. It will get over it, as my co-art person says, when I have enough wine and brainstorming to get past it. More on that later, but it starts with a $5 nightstand. Stretching past what we’ve always done is usually a good thing.

But now, now I need to drive to the lab and let the bloodsuckers have at my poor tiny veins. Then I can eat. And more importantly, get caffeine.

Clearing the Mind

I have about 15 minutes before I have to get ready to leave…busy crazy day. When you’re a teacher, you can’t do a lot of the things normal people do on a work day. I don’t have a lunch hour where I can run errands. I don’t have a flexible start time. I can’t get an hour off in the morning to go get my blood tested or take my car in. I either take a half day or a whole day (which we never do, because it’s a rancid pain to deal with subs), so mostly you try to do stuff before or after school in some sort of crazy way before school starts or things close (yes, you, post office with your stupid hours).

Today is one of those days…I have a car issue, but the car guy is around the corner from a co-teacher, so I can catch a ride, but it makes the morning a little bit more chaotic. And the afternoon as well, honestly…

I love Mondays though, because 3 out of 4 weeks of the month, I get home relatively early and I walk the dog. We have a couple of local walks we do that are more nature than suburbia…this is going up a pretty steep slope, and Calli is being very good about the baby bunny at the top…

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OK. Really she’s trying to pull me up the slope, which is kinda useful, because it’s really steep. Anyway, it’s about 3 miles and at the end of it, I’m feeling much better, head is clear from work, and the dog is tired.

Unfortunately, it gets muddied again directly after, because I have a ton of grading to do, so I settled down to that for a while, then finally ate, and THEN I could start quilting again…I’d finished the torso the night before, so all that was left was the head for outlining.

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I had my trusty cat companion, who was going a bit bonkers at one point…

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Maybe she objected to what was on Netflix.

Amusingly, I thought I could finish the quilting last night, until I looked at the clock. Whoops.

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Well. Two and a half hours in. She’s outlined and I’ve started the background quilting, but no way was I gonna finish last night. I’m not that crazy. I do have to go to work today and deal with the car and maybe another dog and that’s a whole ‘nother long crazyass story.

And I still haven’t dealt with resizing photos at all. Too much work; not enough time. Especially right now…

Plenty on the Plate…

There was a lot of art this weekend. I haven’t even been able to process it really, there was so much of it. Four openings, and there was a fifth I meant to go to, but I was exhausted by then. Honestly, I think I need a whole day to sleep. Today would be nice, but apparently it’s a work day.

Here’s me with my two pieces at Feminism Now. I had to hold still for an interminable amount of time (apparently I can’t hold a smile that long)…

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But it gives you a good idea of the size differential between the two pieces. The smaller one will travel to Sweden next year and be in another show. It was a great opening, lots of amazing work. I’ll get through it when I have a chance and post a link to the official blogpost as soon as I can.

I did finally give the young woman some pupils, some holes in her eyes…

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And I also ironed and pinbasted her into a happy quilt sandwich…

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Ready for quilting. Then I thought about what I had coming up this week, and I do have quilt class, and I want to be efficient about what I get done at all times. Though my smart-ass answer whenever anyone asks me “How do you get so much work done” is that I don’t sleep (and this is somewhat true), the reality is that I am very practical and efficient as well. If I’m waiting for someone to show up and I have 20 minutes, I use it to iron something or cut something out. If I know I have somewhere I’ll be for two hours, and there’s a binding that could be sewn in that time, I wrangle it so that can happen. I don’t just sit at meetings…I’m almost always working. I even find it hard to sit in restaurants and wait for them to bring the food…it’s lost time.

Anyway. So I found binding fabric for that crazy orange quilt that I can’t explain…

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And I cut it and attached it so that Thursday I can sew it down.

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Then I started quilting the newest one. This is where the line comes in…the line that pops the drawing out…

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I love seeing the image become more clear as I sew the dark outline.

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I spent about an hour and did about half of the outlining. This part is so meditative, I find it hard to remember to look at the clock…let alone stand up once in a while and stretch…or go to bed. So she’s in progress. Maybe I’ll have her bound by Thursday too, although that might not be possible…I do have a ton of schoolwork to deal with as well. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, another hour into the disaster that was in my studio and is now in the boychild’s room. Two full trashbags have left and I’m now sorting through that red box. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with all the stuff…

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An ancient plastic needle safe (probably 1960s), full of needles. Can’t throw needles out. That’s crazy. Folding scissors. Ancient as well. Way too cool. A ton of crazy quilt fabric that I piled up by color, so I can easily pop it into the bins. Not even sure how long that’s been in the box, but the plastic bag it was in mostly fell apart when I picked it up. Obviously, there was an organizational gap in there somewhere. I have about 10 days to get it all figured out.

Meanwhile, tons of grading and teaching and all that good stuff. Plus I need to get the rest of that big drawing done. Plenty on the plate…there always is.

Self Portrait with Wall

I dragged myself to two art openings last night, both shows I wanted to see, but after a long day, significantly exhausting. I do have photos, but no time to resize them, except for these…

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My new camera has a touch screen, which is kinda cool unless you walk around with your camera poised to take pictures all the time and keep accidentally touching the damn touch screen. Then you get all these weird-ass pictures in between your carefully posed photos and you wonder how old you are and should you really be trusted with technology.

I will post the others later this week, but not right now, because I have to leave for a science thing in approximately 42 Cheerios. Or 32 minutes. Hard to tell which, because I’m still not awake. Seriously. And yes, I went to bed before midnight and no, I didn’t make any art last night, but here’s the thing about going to art exhibits: DAMN. I want to just sit on the deck today in the (hey, there’s no sun here) sun and drink tea and maybe even wine and eat fresh fruit (of which there is none in the house…I think there’s a frozen bag of berries in there somewhere), listening to music (annoying the crap outta my neighbors), and DRAWING.

Yeah. Well. Not today. And I still have to deal with my other neighbors and their desire to trim my trees right before the hottest months of the year. Dumbasses. Whatever.

This is particularly nice, isn’t it? Name that gallery space.

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The thing about galleries is that they’re always in places where parking fucking sucks, whether it’s $12/hour or miles away in the dark, which when you’re a single female close to 50 is totally safe, because no one even notices your existence, let alone that you’re walking around in the dark by yourself. It’s good.

So this idea of inspiration, of how we keep the artist’s brain primed, ready to create at the drop of a hat…as I get more and more stressed about school and money and the kids coming home (only because I really should put away some of the stuff that was out at Christmas and you can’t even get down the hallway because of that damn chair, and the boychild is gonna be so pissed if I don’t clear out his room. I can see his eyebrow raising at me from here), I NEED to make art more and more. I see lines in other peoples’ work, I get random ideas bouncing into my brain, I just want to sit down with a sketchbook and draw.

But not this.

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“Self Portrait with Wall”

No seriously, I think that’s what that is. I’m so artistic, I don’t even realize when I’m doing it. And I’m sitting here in my office, looking out a very dirty window (project for incoming college students!) at the tree branches hanging down that I’m sure are the ones the neighbor wants to trim, and thinking, fuck no, dude. I don’t wanna see your house. I want to see the trees…see the sky through the leaves and ignore the stupid white fence up there on the slope. I don’t want to know there’s a house up there. I want to be in the middle of nowhere…mentally, at least.

Should be an interesting conversation. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find an hour on the deck with my sketchbook this weekend, although I am having a hard time seeing that. Worst case, there are two more inspirational openings tonight, one the Feminism Now show where two of my pieces are…

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I’m looking forward to seeing that.

That’s What Tired Does…

When you’re already tired, the best thing in the world to do is have to get up even earlier to go to a meeting. Seriously. You should try it. The alarm goes off and you think, WTF. I know I don’t get up now. And then you remember. Oh yeah you do. Because you have to go to that meeting. Damn responsibilities. I did go to bed a little earlier last night because I knew this was happening, but I didn’t want to.

Because I finished ironing this down…

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And here’s what’s so funny about that background. I just realized it was the wrong one…but I like it. I had pulled one of the many dark blues I have lying around, just for this purpose, way back when I started picking fabrics (OK, not really WAY back, but a few weeks ago). This one was in the reject pile. But I didn’t remember that last night after a 2-hour union meeting and another 2-hour art meeting (both necessary and useful, but exhausting after a long day of persuading kids to write about bird beak adaptations). I just reached for the one that was at my eye level. The other one is on the floor. With the fabrics I used in this quilt. A perfectly logical place really, but not in my line of sight. I just saw it this morning.

That said, I think this looks good…it’s hard to see the swirly batik in the photo, but it works well.

But that’s what tired does…picks a different background.

So I wanted to start sewing as well last night, but it was a quarter to midnight and you already saw my note about sleep, wonderful sleep. So I went to bed. Ironing took a whopping 5 hours and 42 minutes. I really should do more of these small pieces, just to remember what easy looks like. Says the woman whose next quilt is crazy complicated. As usual.

Oh well. This is my life. I was reminded last night that I have to do a weird project this summer involving a nightstand. I say weird because I can’t quite get my head around it. I’ll have to figure it out sometime in the summer. They haven’t set a deadline yet, and I’m hoping it’s not until September or October, but who knows? We did a catalog with our most recent show. It changes the deadlines. In fact, the show I was helping to plan for 2017 will have a feminist coloring book, so if you’re one of the people who’s been trying to tell me I should make a coloring book, well there will be one of my pieces in it…I’ll let you know when that’s available…hopefully by November.

Which means having to draw something to size. Ah well. Opportunity knocks and then you are buried in work. Seriously, my summer is chock full of have-to’s already and it hasn’t even started yet.

So I’m hoping to have enough energy to stitch this down tonight. I don’t think it will take more than a couple of hours at the absolute most. And then I can sandwich and pinbaste…quilting next week? I still need to finish the other drawing as well. I have another meeting tonight and two openings tomorrow night, so hopefully I’ll find some free time and energy in all that. Maybe.

I Should Be Able to Pull That Off

Again with the sleep! Oh well…it’s often my own fault. I did choose to go to bed late. Well, the art brain decided it for me, didn’t it? Don’t have much control over her some days. At least I slept well for the few hours I slept. Today is going to be a long day, though, and not having enough sleep is not usually a good thing in those cases. Lots of tea…should help.

I’m still grading every night…trying to get caught up. Actually finished one of the major projects last night, so I’m feeling pretty good about that. But there are still 7 things on my to-grade list. That’s not so good. Oh well. I do what I can.

I wanted to be done with the ironing last night. I’ve spent a little over 5 hours so far.

I was talking about this yesterday…ironing the stuff on top separately so I could see where the pieces went…

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Then transferring that as a whole to the main section. It works pretty well, although the flesh color here is light enough that I can see OK through it…not great, just OK.

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This is where I should’ve stopped if I’d really wanted a decent night’s sleep…I think that was just before midnight.

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But so close! I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go to bed with just that arm undone. So I kept going…

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Even though the last section was cactus with a million spikes…

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Yeah. I like it. And it’s not even on the dark background yet. Or stitched or quilted or anything. The outlining quilting will totally change her.

See now I’m at a point where it’s hard NOT to work on her every day. That’s a good thing. Although I already know I’m busy every night this week and Saturday I have a 4-hour training, so the odds of my getting anything significant done on her before Sunday is pretty low. Which sucks.

If I were smart (which sometimes I am), I’d get a binding on the other quilt I recently finished so I could hand sew it at one of the meetings I’m at. I took a quilt that needed finishing to a staff meeting once. Just to sew the binding on. I had a male principal (7 out of the 8 have been male) and he was livid, sure I wasn’t paying attention. I wonder how people in the education business don’t understand how people’s brains work. I pay better attention in afternoon meetings when I have handwork, because (1) it keeps me awake and (2) it entertains the part of my brain that is completely bored and wanting to act out. I had the same issue in my summer high-school government class, and he flipped out too because I was knitting. So I don’t sew things in school any more, even though I want to. I have a union meeting today and I often draw or grade while the meeting goes on. I still take notes and pay attention, but honestly, I’d be paying more attention if I were sewing.

No, I’m not teaching my students to sew. I think in their case, at least at their level, it wouldn’t help the attention span at all. Plus needles and scissors. I can’t even let them have rulers on a regular basis. Being more online has helped a bit with ruler dumbassery in the classroom…we just don’t use them as much. But I don’t stop the doodlers. I was a doodler. I still am.

Hopefully tonight I’ll get her ironed onto a background at least. That will be progress, and it’s not a huge step, so even though I’m probably not getting dinner until 9, and I’m about to fall back asleep now, I should be able to pull that off.

Should.

Learned That the Hard Way…

I didn’t make a conscious choice to stay up late last night. I walked both dogs when I got home from school. I fed myself. I did some work, which hopefully will turn into a job. I graded a big pile of science journals, the ones I meant to get done on Sunday but that got co-opted by a door issue. It was after 11 PM. But I know how my brain works. I knew I was already in a mood, that stress and work and life in general were dragging me down. Those are the days I really need to make some art, to spend some time drawing or ironing or whatever it is. Am I tired this morning? Well yeah, I am, and I can’t find the stuff I need for work (I think it’s AT work is why), and I know today is a lab day, so I will be exhausted by the end of it, but I also know how much worse I would have felt today if I didn’t make art. And honestly, even though it was late when I finally DID go to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep. Too much whirling around in my head. Or I don’t even know. I was wide awake. Truly annoying. Flip flop. Sheeit. I need to sleep. I hate that feeling. We all do. It’s even worse when you keep thinking about how late it is and how little sleep you’ll get even if you fall asleep Right NOW. And then you don’t.

Eventually I did, but then something woke me early in the morning too. It’s a 5-hour-sleep day. If that. I guess that’s better than some.

I ironed for a little over an hour…starting with the face…

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Faces are always fussy because there’s stuff that overlaps in a weird way around the nose and the hair, and you have to fuss with placement. Especially the eyes. I always iron the eyes separate and then place them on the face so I can move them around, make sure they’re level and not too close together or far apart.

Learned that the hard way.

That’s when I should have gone to bed. Naah. I sorted through the 200s and laid them out on the table. Then I found all the flesh pieces, which meant rummaging through the 300s as well. Ironed all of them down, separate from the head. It’s easier to do it separately and then iron the two larger pieces together at the end.

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Then I started on all the stuff that will cover the flesh…only got through the trees on her torso, but they look pretty good. It’s hard to iron this layer because I can only barely see it through the fabric and the teflon sheet. I will probably iron the vines, flowers, and cactus separately and then put them on top. Same with the lungs and the heart.

So there’s about 175 pieces left to do, probably another couple of hours, because they’re a bit fussy. And then I need to iron it down to the background. I might get to that this week…it depends on the job I bid on, whether I get it or not. Honestly, I need the work, need the money to get through the summer and its numerous college payments, but I’d also welcome NOT getting the job, so I can work on this. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but I try to do the Have-To’s first before I take time to make art. And if I tell her the work will be done by whenever, then I actually need to finish, right? I still need to finish the big drawing too…especially realizing how close to the end of the school year I am.

I’d tell you to wish me luck, but I’m not sure what I need most…the work? Or the art?

The artist for the day is Jason Humphrey, who works in ink and watercolor. Check out the original artwork tab and I bet you can find the stuff I like, especially the pieces with multiple layers of paper and complicated drawings…truly wonderful for long-term staring.

OK, off to Work 1, waiting to hear from Work 2, wanting to do Work 4 (art), but also realizing I need to do Work 3 (oh holey moley, I forgot about that).

I Swear It…

Well. Happy late Mother’s Day to all of you. I was quite glad to survive mine with only one trip to Home Depot and some strewing of tools all over the entryway floor. But at least I can open and close the front door now. I got almost nothing done yesterday besides the door, but whatever. I’ve been incredibly efficient this morning in the last 7 minutes, so that bodes well for the rest of the day. Maybe. I just realized what time it is. Fuck.

It’s OK. I will survive. I felt incredibly overwhelmed yesterday, even Saturday (hit 5 stops in 2 hours…no biggie) and last night could’ve used an assist or five.

So yeah, there was this…

That is a hole to the outdoors…it didn’t start out that way. I’d brought half the groceries up and then went to grab the handle to go back outside, and it pulled apart. It had been loose before, but not heinously so. In fact, I’ve tightened it before. My dad will tell you it’s because I’m hard on doors, but honestly, WTF, you should be able to pull on a door handle and not have it fall to pieces. I suspect it’s because it needs to be attached at the bottom too, but dad said no, it was a pain and unnecessary (I’m gonna do that bit sometime soon…OK, maybe summer). My dad will tell you all breakage and damage is because I’m hard on stuff, and maybe that’s true. But I’ve never had a handle pull apart like that and I’ve opened a lot of doors over and over and over again. So I think that’s bullshit.

After analyzing the pieces (because when the other side dropped, pieces flew…pieces that had previously been attached and now were not) and calling the ex, who gave his analysis of “I don’t know how the fuck this goes back together” and “You seem to be missing at least one piece” (goes digging around the pots and plants that are around the front door, like I haven’t already done that shit), and having the debate of Go Buy Another One (they ain’t cheap) or Call a Locksmith (they ain’t cheap either), I drove off to Home Depot and found the same damn thing and installed it in about 14 seconds flat.

And yes, the door needs painting and I should probably pick up all that crap on the floor, but I was sort of emotionally a disaster at that point. So there. I left it. Walked the fuck away.

Mother’s Day. Sigh. My ass. Girlchild posted a photo on Instagram which is kinda how we roll…

My students will tell you that’s how I take all photos with them. Like I know it’s gonna be a bad photo, so let’s OWN that bitch.

After making lunches for the whole week (stupid recipes that lie and say it will take 30 minutes to make this…in whose world? The one where someone’s helping you by chopping it all up? And why does yours look so colorful? Mine is decidedly brown. With brown overtones.) and dinner and reading while eating, I said Fuck You to my job and wandered into the studio for some me time.

Might as well iron this thing.

So I did…

It’s very meditative, this ironing stuff.

And it’s kinda cool that I’m doing this now, because I drew this on the flight home from dropping off the girlchild at college, and she’s done on Thursday, though I won’t see her for another 10 days because she’s gonna visit her cousins first. So I guess this ushers her home.

I stopped thinking about parents and students and the girlchild stressing out over finals and other shit and crap and doors and a house that needs more maintenance than I can handle.

I ironed the stuff in her hair separately…

Then plopped it on. It was almost midnight at that point (there’s math in the clouds by the way…I totally love that).

So I made the intelligent decision to go to bed instead of continuing to iron…even though I wanted to. Hopefully that will make me a less irritable person today, although it’s hard to say. There are 28 days of school left, and I’m feeling every single one. I have a ton of money-making work to do tonight (art CAN be money-making, but usually not), so I don’t know how much time I’ll get for ironing. But there will be some. I swear it. On the crap that is still strewn all over my entryway floor, I swear it.

It’s Not an Empty Room…

Sleep, glorious sleep. Occasionally you get a night where your head hits the pillow and stays there, no flopping about, no weird noises in the middle of the night, blessedly snoozing through until a normal waking time, no alarm waking you out of a weird-ass dream that drops you into a waking world, unsure of reality. I got that last night. And part of it was the rain that came Thursday night and washed away that damn mockingbird. It wasn’t out last night either, so maybe it’s moved to warmer, dryer climes. I’m cool wit dat.

I’m posting late because I had two quilts to deliver this morning for a show that opens next weekend, Feminism Now, at Gallery D in Barrio Logan. I also picked up my copy of the catalog…they are only $20, cat-approved, and full of feminist art from the US and Sweden, which is where this show will travel in 2017.

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Midnight thinks it smells nice. You’ll have to show up to the opening to see the two pieces. I made the second one as a response to the first one, only 4 1/2 years later. And my life 4 1/2 years later is much different. New relationships, kids gone to college, making even more art than back then. I honestly think the art is my healing web, what connects all the broken pieces of me back together. I get lots of questions about how it feels to have both kids gone and then how does it feel to have both of them coming back…good, but temporary. I know it’s only 3 months, not even that for the girlchild, and this might be the last summer I see both of them. OR…like many of my friends, they’ll move back and never leave. But I doubt that. I actually had a conversation with my counselor about renting a room out to someone…what that might look like, and is it something I could even handle (as I’m sitting here in my office, getting ready to finally clean some floors a good month after they started needing it, and blasting music. Plus the house smells like bacon. And my parents’ dog peed in the hallway. That carpet just needs to go. That’s the second dog of theirs that’s peed there, and then there was Babygirl, who considered the space outside my door her pissed-off litter tray, because I wouldn’t let her in there at night.). But OTHERWISE, it sounds like an idea. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but at some point, it might be necessary.

I didn’t make art yesterday. I came home from gaming and finished this…

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Great book. Hysterically funny and yet right there on top of mental illness and other crap that fucks with you. Sending it to the girlchild. She’ll giggle on the plane to her cousins.

“You don’t have to go to some special private school to be an artist. Just look at the intricate beauty of cobwebs. Spiders make them with their butts.” Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy (she says her dad said it though…)

Honestly, all I want to do today is sit on the couch and read. But I have to work my butt off…not to make cobwebs unfortunately. I’m behind in grading again. I’m not sure how, but it has hit a level that makes me start to panic. I keep a list of assignments in a task manager, because it helps me organize and remember to grade the online crap, but also because I really enjoy checking it off and watching it disappear when I finish it. Weird, I know. But whatever. I have another book I started reading this morning. I just want to curl up with it dammit.

Sigh. And then while I was driving to deliver those quilts…

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(here’s my packing up…dehairing and cutting dowels etc.) I realized what needed to go in the space of the torso in the large drawing I’m doing…and it’s not a cute animal or a nice plant. San Diego has an increasing homeless issue here, and the problem is not just the growing number of people who are living on the streets in tents (if they’re slightly luckier) or boxes or not even that, but also our responses to them, as a local agency fills a space under a bridge where homeless folks used to shelter with sharp pointy rocks so they can’t, or a government agency does sweeps to clear areas of homeless encampments, so they have to go somewhere, people. We can’t ignore it and push it out and try to make it invisible. We need to feed them and house them and employ them and clothe them and medicate them (when possible). We need to CARE for them.

And I don’t know how best to do that, because I don’t have thousands of dollars or resources or anything but a sense that we suck. Because we often do. Anyway, that’s what’s getting drawn in there, somehow. Haven’t quite figured out the how and specifically what. I just know what it should be. A homeless woman framed in an Earth Mother who does provide shelter…safe and clean and dry and warm. And then I go back to having extra space here, but knowing I can’t afford to feed and clothe, let alone care for any more people than I already am. But maybe that will change. Who knows. I’m just thinking, not doing yet. Realistically, what would that look like? I don’t come home from work with extra energy for taking care of more people. Yeah.

So I’m gonna go work for a while, and then maybe I’ll read. Because I should be allowed to do that for a bit…and not just work for hours each day, right? Or maybe I should just fill one of those rooms with foster puppies and kittens. Then go lie in there for an hour a day, letting them romp all over me. That would be good. Anyway, it’s not an empty room yet. So thinking…and drawing…

Sorted

First of all, some crazy fairy has left all the black pens in the world in my office. In front of my keyboard. Right where my arms should go. I know that’s not really what’s happened, that every time I walked in here to do something worklike, I brought a black pen with me and left it here, and soon all of them will be here and then I will come in here to find them, and they will migrate back out into the rest of the house…but for now, they gather here, some sort of black pen reunion. There’s another batch of them in my purse…maybe I should reunite them. Got a pen? Yeah, I’ve got 12. All different.

There are 29 days of school left. This is somewhat relieving and yet also panicky, because of how much has to be done. That’s why I came home yesterday and graded another assignment…after a science meeting where we discussed my minor freakout about what I’ll be teaching next year. It’ll be FINE. I just need to figure out what an atom is. (shh) I was standing in Staples, trying desperately to remember why I was even in there (lab materials, but oooh! Pens!), and the principal called me (why did I give him my number?) and I tried to answer his questions best I could, wondering how on EARTH all these teachers are gonna learn all the stuff they need to well enough to teach it. My co-teacher handed me a pile of books, but my brain is completely shut down right now in terms of trying to learn anything. Talk to me in July. In July, I’ll be able to handle reading about materials and chemical reactions and protons and electrons and Strontium. Maybe. Not now. Now is a day at a time. Darwin today. Beaks next week. Survival next week (really, not just mine, but teaching about it). The fastest Natural Selection unit ever. In fact, only the strong will survive (topic for today), after inputting the last assignment in the gradebook. Progress reports go home today. Please please, argue with me that a D is a good grade and I shouldn’t add any comments to your report about how your work is always half done and late.

I didn’t start until late, as always. And honestly, I didn’t get much done.

I sorted the pieces for the new quilt.

It was nice to only have to deal with 4 boxes instead of 12 or so.

It took me a whopping 20 minutes…and that was it. I was done. I wanted to try drawing, but it was not to be. Too tired to think about how things fit in spaces and how I might draw them. Too tired to go quilt. Too tired to pick a binding for the orange quilt. Just too damn tired.

Your artist for the day is Paula Collins, a ceramics artist from Fallbrook. You can see her work here. The ceramic pieces range from pretty small to quite large, but they all have a quirky finish to them. I quite like the birdhouses and the larger busts. The facial expressions are great. This is where I wish I had never-ending cash so I could buy art I like, but alas, I will just have to stare from afar.

As far as tonight goes, I’m not anticipating getting much, if anything done. I do need to cut some dowels and slats and dehair a larger quilt for delivery tomorrow, so that will have to happen, unless I want to get up early tomorrow. And I don’t! Who knows…maybe I’ll come back from gaming tonight and have wide-awake energy and get a bunch of drawing done (probability calculations not good). You never know though. How I feel now is not how I’ll feel later. Hopefully!