Art Is My Superpower

I have this pool vacuum that sometimes tries to climb out of the pool. I’m listening to it now, realizing it sounds like a wild animal devouring burgers in the backyard (sorry, neighbors…I don’t know how to make it stop doing that). It doesn’t seem to bother the ducks…they avoid it, but they don’t stay away because of that. Nor do they stay away because of the Golden Retriever who swims in the pool and barks at them. Halfheartedly. Like, “get outta my pool bitches…eh…stay awhile. I don’t really care.”

I’m barely awake, despite the shower and a reasonable (for me) amount of sleep. My sleep app tells me 4 AM was troubled sleep. I don’t doubt it. I already know I have to be up early on Saturday, my normal morning of rest. Oh well. Sleep is wasted artmaking time. Might as well rejoice in what little I get.

The plus is that the tracing is going well…

I traced over 150 pieces last night in less than an hour…because they’re small pieces, so they don’t take as long to draw. Duh. That’s a plus. So there’s only 600 pieces to go. Too bad grading is competing for my time. I did grade papers last night. I might sort of get caught up (maybe). Don’t hold your breath. I don’t think teachers are ever really caught up. Even in the summer, we are prepping for the next year, how are we gonna change things or fix things, or in the summers that follow for the next THREE years, how do we transition to new science standards with no curriculum. No problem! say the districts. There’s the INTERNET. It’s like magic. Curriculum just appears. Well, it appears after hours of searching and tweaking and messing and collaborating. It’s a giant time suck. I know because we started doing that kind of stuff this year.

So why do I do this job? Well, it is creative and requires most of my brain. I don’t like to be bored at work. It’s also cool when kids get stuff, like holy moley, so that’s what a heart looks like. And they can see the muscle. And middle-school kids can be funny and loving and all that. But it is an incredibly stressful and demanding job, like no other job I’ve had, and sometimes I just need to talk about it. That’s always been an issue with non-teachers. There’s a difference between complaining and venting. I vent and it’s out. I don’t have to think about it any more. Frustration released. Moving on to the next daily challenge.

Maybe that’s why I’m still in counseling. Because I just need someone who listens and lets me get it out without taking it on themselves. You can’t fix my students. You can’t fix my school (and next year, based on the plan we’ve heard about, is gonna be hell on wheels with no teams). You can’t fix what’s wrong with public schools. Seriously. It’s unfixable as long as parents don’t care and politicians are involved. Or parents care too much and are ignorant of how a school or classroom actually run, and politicians are involved. I can handle my job…most days…I just need someone to say uh huh, that sucks, have a hug. Or a glass of wine. Or both.

My joy in life doesn’t come from my job. It comes from my art. And I wish I could make more of it.

Today I’m running a lab that requires 17 towels. That should be interesting. Labs are exhausting, especially with water or chemicals or dissectable things, but the kids get a lot out of this one, so I do it. I’m still trying to prep for next week’s project, so I’m a little behind. Hoping to get caught up by the end of the weekend. Might not be socializing much between grading and that. Ugh.

All this is why I make so much art, people. The job sucks my brain out and spits it on the ground. The rest of life is somewhat stressful and often lonely. Art makes it all OK. It’s my superpower. Certainly doing taxes and financial aid apps and going to the store and cleaning out the litter tray and trying to analyze the tire pressure light in my car all just make me crazy. I need something to tip the balance in the other direction.

I was interviewed for San Diego CityBeat. You can see the article here. I think he did a good job of capturing me and my art. And he didn’t mention my grandmother’s quilts, so that’s a win.

The Goddess of Something…

So I have two quilts in Daytona Beach right now…with the AQS circuit. So enjoy Fully Medicated…

And I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket…

I keep forgetting about the pieces traveling with all the quilt shows. I have a real shortage of work in house at the moment. I know, it’s an elegant problem to have, unless you have shows to enter and nothing with which to enter. I have two coming up where I think I just can’t enter. That kind of sucks. Oh well. I made decisions about what to enter where, and this is what happens. It’s kind of a bloody miracle I’ve gotten the last two pieces done in time for the shows I figured they were made for. So there. Keep making work. I love the chaos of the Lifejacket piece. Should remember that for the next big one. Maybe blow off the themes that are coming up and just MAKE something.

You’ve got a few more days to see the exhibit at Grossmont…we’re pulling it down next Saturday. Hoping to get a little more press out of it.

And I got photos back from the photographer of the new piece…

Her name is still in my brain, working its way out, so just know it’s the Goddess of something, I’m not sure exactly what yet. Possibly everything. Just like me…I’m the Goddess of something…of cleaning up cat puke. Of coupons. Of paperwork. Of Google Classroom. Of the bougainvillea. Of multi-tasking. Of blueberry oat bars. That seems like enough.

And I worked a bit on the drawing…

Hard to see anything, because I’m still in pencil, because I don’t wanna fuck it up. I think the male figure is almost ready for ink. Then I’ll need to turn it upside down to do the other female…and figure out what’s going on with the hair. And the empty spots. Probably should figure out the main figure’s hair before I draw his wings. You know, like you do.

I’m really annoyed by empty spots. I like to fill everything in. I blame Richard Scarry. And Dr. Suess. OK, maybe that’s just how my brain works.

I saw this last night. There were two, but there was a guy in the way of the second one. Please sir, move so I can photograph the scary faces.

And Midnight is in her standard place.

I’m buried in grading. I have a ton of yardwork and housework. I still need to finish taxes and start financial aid. I can’t deal with any of it right this second. I’m too tired. Sad! That said, I got up at a reasonable hour, finished grading tests and another assignment, then did yardwork, drew, ate, and I think I showered in there. I think I’m going to spend an hour trying to draw some more and then give up for the day. Because. Because I have to hang out with humans for some period of time or I go a bit bonkers. More than I already am. There’s a fine line between the bonkers that keeps me going and making stuff and the bonkers that throws me down the hole. I’m staying above ground right now. Need to keep doing that.

Slow Percolation

First of all, I’m not getting much sleep lately. I’ve had something (probably animal) waking me up every night around 2 AM and sometimes I’m so hyped afterwards that falling back to sleep is just troubled. Last night it was the mockingbird…the one that visits every year. Last year I was lucky and he (she?) hung out at the neighbors’, just far enough away that I could hear him while I was falling asleep, but not like when they live in your yard. Last night, he was in my yard. Move on, you bastard!

Then I woke up with a start at about 4 AM…someone kept saying “low battery.” What the fuck? Oh yeah, the smoke alarm. Pillow over head again until it started that loud horrendous screeching that I will appreciate only if there ever is a fire or…well, my house is so leaky airwise that there will never be a carbon monoxide leak big enough for me to have an issue. So at 4 AM, I was switching out batteries. The dog was mightily confused by the timing of all of it. And falling back to sleep was not easy.

I actually took a nap yesterday evening. Just 20 minutes. Power mom nap. Yeah baby.

My counselor is trying to graduate me…I get it. I’m not clinically depressed any more. That’s a good thing. But I still want balance in my life and we went through and listed everything and work has to give. It’s the only healthy thing. Can’t sleep less or exercise less or art less. Work is the time suck. Like I didn’t know that.

Moving on to the art stuff. I did grade last night, so I didn’t start artmaking stuff until almost 11. I started with the easy stuff, the cutting and taping. It’s rhythmic, meditative. Cut. Measure. Tape. Cut again. Measure. Draw a line. Cut.

So the finished size on this needs to be 16×24″…I measured the paper at 15×23″ to give me some space for a binding, and then I’m going to try to stay about a 1/2 inch inside. Maybe. Maybe not.

Damn thing is tiny. Anyway. I then stared at it for a while, trying to have a vision. It is kinda like that. I stare at the paper until what needs to fill in the space appears in my head. There’s some little elf in there, or a gnome or something, that’s drawing on a white board while someone else erases, trying to find something I like, because sometimes I’ll get picture after picture and almost shake my head like an Etch a Sketch (you would laugh to see all the words I just typed into Google because I couldn’t remember the name of those things). And then one will stick and I’ll draw it. It’s a slow percolation process. Nothing fast and furious.

I gave up on the staring and started to tape the two larger drawings together. This is Bathtub 6, I think.

It’s the creepy one. Some part of me wants to draw more around it, but the minimalist in me (which rarely surfaces) says it should stay the way it is.

Then I taped this one…tentatively named Heart-Shaped Box. It needs a lot more drawing…more room on the bottom. I think. Anyway, it’s there for when I want to work on it. You can see how much bigger it is because the first drawing is up in the top right.

I have another huge one that will probably be a triptych just so it’s not overwhelming to quilt…maybe that’s something to draw during Spring Break, since I will have hours and hours of alone time. Huh. Not looking forward to that…except I am. Difficult. This will be the first school vacation where I’m not visiting someone else or having the kids come home. I need to do yardwork like every day. Ugh.

So I finally picked up a pencil! (Sion is happy now…) Because I didn’t want to fuck it up.

Good thing really because I had to redraw the lower figure about 5 times. Still not sure what to do with the heads. Gotta let the gnomes do their white board thang. Will have to get back to you on the heads. Even hers needs something. Hair? Who knows. Why keep it so simple? Oh yeah, because the pieces are gonna be freakin’ tiny. I’m not enlarging this one. Need to remember that so I don’t go crazy later.

Pen on Paper…

I’ve had this idea in my head for days and finally last night after school and the gym and dinner and then grading stuff, where my mood slid from acceptable into dark and grim (actually, that might have been after completing the FAFSA), I drew. Finally. But I don’t like it. And that’s OK. I mean, it has its moments and it was something to do with the pen last night so hopefully I can get my head where it needs to be for the drawing of the next quilt.

I have this book I’ve owned since before I was divorced (so officially a million years ago) of mastectomy nudes. I can’t even remember where I got it or why, but the scar has been in my head. It’s visible maybe. So many scars aren’t. The drawing isn’t done, but I’m not sure I will finish it, because the next one is niggling at me and that’s the one I need right now. Plus another one is tickling at my amygdala. Man, that’s a hard word to spell. Maybe I should just draw every night this week. Don’t worry about fabric right now, although damn, there was a quilt top that was squealing at me last night, like a teenaged girl who just got asked out for the first time.

I think my moods are full-on hormone-related, because my body is confused as heck about what it should be doing and they hit like a random summer storm…no warning, just BAAM. And you’re out. And down. And wow. Seriously? I did not deserve that.

In response, I made a Starbucks fake of their blueberry oat bars and they are so damn good that I had to freeze 3/4’s of them so I wouldn’t eat them all in a week. Seriously. These things are good. Now I just need to rework them so the calories aren’t so heinous. It’s fine if you just eat one. I want it to be fine if I eat two.

More pinups below…then I have a parent meeting. Ugh. I didn’t sleep well. I couldn’t fall asleep. Stupid brain.

By Marea Korea…

Jacki Geary…

Lauren Grant…

Chelsea Wilde…

I can’t explain why I pick the ones I do. But there they are. There’s more…but I have to go do my job.

What Next?

With very little stitching left on the new quilt, which is being photographed Monday (that’s one in January, one in February people…don’t expect that level of crazy to continue), I’m already looking forward to the next quilt. Except it’s supposed to relate to a larger piece of mine. And I’m sure some of the artists, maybe the painters, can do two pieces in a month, but I can’t, certainly not while teaching at the same time. Then the show is about feminism, or at least the things listed on the prospectus, which leaves it pretty wide open: sexism, body image, class, race, family, gender politics, biology, history, etc. But I have a ton of my newer quilts out traveling or already promised to shows. Or they’ve been entered in shows and I won’t hear until too late if they got in or not. So I can’t base a new small quilt on a piece that might not be here for the exhibit.

So I started making a list of what was available. Like Tsunami…

I do love this quilt, but it’s more of an Earth Mother quilt. I have lots of those. And I don’t know if that’s got anything to do with feminism, except that we have a history of earth as mother, which probably leads into the female as caretaker…not just of the world, but of children and husbands and houses and food. But I think I’m pushing it with that. And I’m not getting a hit for a smaller quilt that goes with that idea.

Then there’s Spread Out on the Pavement…

Made it into Quilt National. Funny I really don’t like this quilt. Seriously. I originally drew the body, head and part of the car back in 2002, as my marriage was dissolving. Then I pulled it out 10 years later, finally able to process it, and added the rest of the truck (now it was a truck) and the eyeball tree. It has all the things that are supposed to make you feel better: meds, chicken soup. It’s not a happy quilt. Which isn’t the problem. It’s about a failed relationship. I have lots of quilts about that shit and I don’t really want to dwell on it right now. And I guess it’s gender politics, but it’s not speaking to me.

Then there’s this one…One of My Kind…

I love this quilt. This is four generations of women in my family (plus the boychild, who loves that his naked ass is up there). This is all the connections and history of being a single mom, my mom holding all the things she taught me, my grandmother, long dead, her bones still in me, still part of me. Not all good, of course…she had some crazy ideas about race and my daughter’s name that kind of drove me nuts, but isn’t that how you decide who and how to be? Based on not only the good stuff you saw growing up in your family, but also the bad stuff. Stuff to avoid. My daughter mentioned something about how I had reacted to something my parents had pushed when I was younger, how they dealt with my college choices versus how I dealt with my own children’s choices. We learn from the shit we don’t like as much as from the shit we do like.

It’s a powerful quilt…that’s never gotten into any show but the one it’s in now, the one I put it in. Totally feminist. No problem. Easily could do a smaller quilt related to this. But it’s HUGE. And if there are going to be lots of other people in this show, I don’t know if I can get away with such a large piece. I’m debating emailing the curators about it. Because there are other choices. The other issue is that a lot of the people in this group have already seen the piece in the Grossmont show. In fact, about three of the pieces I thought about for this exhibit are hanging in Grossmont right now, so maybe they should just be out of play.

This is Here…it’s actually the first one I thought of…

But I have shitty pictures of it. Wonder if I should rephotograph. This one is old. It’s about being female, but mostly about breast cancer. A friend was dealing with treatments and this came out of me. I already have an idea for a smaller version of this, and it does apply to body image and biology, so it’s an easy fit. It’s also a smaller quilt. So…we’ll see.

I also considered this one, So Deep, So Wide…

But the feminist link is sketchy. And there are other reasons I don’t want to use it.

And this one, Held Hostage…which needs new photography.

And is all about the biology but doesn’t even have a uterus.

And High Tide…about being a single mom…

But not really what I want.

So I’m down to two possibilities. Emailing the curators now. That might just make the decision for me.

Then I can draw. But I need to do a bunch of schoolwork first. Heinously behind in grading. It’s a gorgeous day. Gonna sit inside and stare at a computer screen. Not by choice. It just has to be done. But at least I’ve worked my brain around this new quilt a little bit.

Lemonade Afternoon

You know that quote, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” Well yesterday I had CPR/First Aid training. And it was boring. It could have been worse, but I’m easily amused by bad video. Like when the worker goes “Hi, little buddy” to the small furry animal you can’t see and gets bit. I laugh. Because my lord. Seriously. The trainer promises there will be a better set of videos in two years when we have to take this again.

The plus was that we were so quiet and asked so few questions that we got out way early. And I came home and quilted. When life gives you a free afternoon because you did CPR training so you could take your students on a field trip next month, use it to make art. I should have graded all afternoon, and to my credit, I did try to grade at the gym, but first the wifi wasn’t working and then the damn app wasn’t functioning correctly. So I gave up. And then came home and kept quilting. Because I have a deadline and my photographer is flexible, but hell, I have to get started on the next quilt too.

And grading. Sucks. Yeah. I did monitor my students on their computers all day. That was fun. We can see what tabs they have open and send them messages, like “Get off Facebook and get to work.” A couple kids just didn’t get it. I kept shutting them down and finally shut down every tab they had open as soon as they opened it. It didn’t take more than about 5 minutes of monitoring per class before they were all in the folder they were supposed to be in. Ha! Bastards. Big Teacher is watching you. My co-teacher in crime (also in CPR) was doing the same thing, so I think by the end of the day, the kids all knew they had two teachers watching everything they were doing. Sometimes being a teacher means being an evil villain character.

So I quilted for 5 hours yesterday. I know. Wow. Cool.

There’s lots of eyeballs in this quilt. Twelve to be exact. Well. There’s two on the cat, but they’re closed. And the little figures, there’s four there too. So 18 eyes. No snake on this quilt though. My imagery is shifting maybe? No Christmas lights, no bird…no bird is weird. Most of my quilts have a bird.

Anyway, I think it’s turning out well…

And at some point in the afternoon yesterday, I went and got two possible binding fabrics for it. Not sure which one is best. I was in a hurry. They’re in the dryer and when I get home from school tonight, I’m going to try to get the binding on, because I have quilt class tonight and I can do the hand-sewing there. I don’t want to lug the machine along and do the whole thing there though, so I have to quick! Come home, iron it, trim it, and bind it! No problem.

The animals were confused by my presence all afternoon…

I have five blurry-faced photos of the cat. She wouldn’t stay put. Same with the dog. Ten hours almost total quilting. Half of what I had estimated…although I knew my estimate was too high.

I feel much better about things today. I got taxes and FAFSA started, I got the quilting done, I got a quilt packed up and ready to ship. I still have a ton of stuff to get done, but it’s less looming and more manageable-looking. I will be so glad when the kids are done with college and I don’t have to deal with all the financial aid hoops any more. They are really stressful. Especially in a divorce situation. I’m really worried about how I’m going to pay for any of it next year. I don’t have any more cushions, no more college accounts to cover my portion of the fees. It’s scary.

But I’m going to try not to think about that right now. Because I’m finishing a quilt, and that’s a cool thing (although now she needs a name…aack!). And I can start thinking about the next one, which will be smallish. In fact, a difficult size for me…not super small, like 8-12″ squares really challenge me, but at least they don’t take long, but this is a size I never do…16×24 I think. Totally off for me. Remember not to do a lot of tiny pieces! Yeah. Like I listen to myself. Oh well…at least it will be a challenge.

Responsible Adult…

Adjustments made. Taxes started instead of quilting all night like I wanted. Have to be a responsible adult, dontcha know? Up early today to retrain on CPR and that heart device that I will hopefully never have to use. I had two students one year where we had to drag that thing with us on every field trip. I don’t envy my sub today…my kids are getting increasingly antsy and boisterous. We have one teacher out and the guest teacher is…eh. She’s eh. Four and a 1/2 more weeks until Spring Break. Then the math teacher will come back. I hopefully won’t kill them all in 4 1/2 weeks. Definitely in burnout. But it’s not just school. Life itself is wearing on me. Too many tasks. Want to run free in a meadow or something. But that would probably cost money I don’t have.

Really I’d be happy if I could remember to find the time to fold the towels and put them away. Plus whatever else has been living in that laundry basket for the last two months.

Quilting is so peaceful, so meditative, while I’m actually in front of the machine.

I don’t think about school or stress about people or money or college or taxes. I just quilt. Move the sandwich around and around. Listen to the music or the thing on Netflix. Don’t think too hard about it. Just draw the line, careful around the teeth and the eyes, draw around the tiny little words, thread breaks, tie it off, start up again. Bobbin runs out, fill it up. So simple. So linear. So peaceful. Don’t watch the clock. Don’t stop until you’re ready. Just go.

Sometimes I think I should just do this stuff every night and not be a grownup. But then reality kicks in. I graded. I did taxes. All very grownup. No one told me how much shit would end up on my plate though. I teach 12-year-olds. I spend all school year with kids who mostly have no idea how much work it is to be a grownup. They’re testing the boundaries of being a kid, growing up into teenagers, but not quite ready to take on the world. Last year’s failures just got lectured about not graduating. Some of them come to me and talk about their grades improving, but there they are, on the failing list. Some are just still failing, almost proud about it, beating their chests like it’s a plus.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the parent yesterday who said there were no consequences at home if he fails. None. No one taught her how to raise her child. He doesn’t have to be awesome. He just needs parents who give a shit about his future. Then he can too.

I think I need more walks on the beach and in the mountains. I need more hours on the elliptical. I need more time with my sketchbook. I need more time with needle and thread, fabric too. Having the kids gone gives me very little room for moods and stress. There’s nothing for them to bounce off of…they just reverberate in my own head.

Sigh. Off to learn how to save the world. Again. Damn hormones. They really fuck with you.

Burnout and Screaming Feminism

Yeah. I had a 3-day weekend. But the list of things to do was too long and frustrating. I kept staring at it and picking up this or that, staring at things, trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic really. And finally, instead of being responsible and checking off one of the more onerous tasks on my list, I quilted last night. Seriously. I know I have some stuff I need to get under control here, lots of stuff on the list, but I couldn’t get my head around any of it last night, so…well…I didn’t. I played hooky. Except I still did stuff. Quilting is on my list.

I’m about 4 hours into the quilting and I’ve finished most of the torso and all but one hand/arm. Then all that’s left are the heads and the background. It’s quilting pretty fast.

While I was doing the actual quilting, it didn’t seem fast though. Lots of tiny little details that took forever. Except not forever, because 4 hours isn’t very long for quilting. Not that I’m done yet. But the outline quilting will take the most time on this quilt I think. I quilted for almost 3 hours last night. I kept trying to find a good place to quit, and finally the clock made me quit. I look at it and think about having to work the next day, and I already knew today would be frustrating because kids didn’t turn in their assignments and I needed those assignments last night so I could make folders last night, and now I can’t. In fact, in one class, I have no idea what they’re doing today because the kids all blew off the assignment. Well, two out of ten groups didn’t. Sigh. Giant sigh. Sigh so big a blue whale could fall into it.

I am bordering on work burnout. I know that. I’m trying to manage it best I can.

I guess we’ll know in a few days how much quilting is left. Meanwhile, I have a quilt to ship to a show this week, plus I need to draw the next small one, which has to relate to a big one that already exists and is available to show in May. No small feat there. Plus Spring Break is coming and I like to have a big quilt to do over break, but I’m thinking I will just have this smallish one and one other not-so-big one I want to do, and THEN I will think about something crazy big. Maybe. I can’t even think that far out at the moment.

Speaking of trying to manage my burnout, I finally saw the new Star Wars movie yesterday. It had some plot issues, but I liked it. After hearing all the hype for months, I really liked that Leia had aged appropriately and wasn’t still a hot chick. It made sense. I thought Carrie Fisher looked great…as great as her male counterparts. And leaving Rey out of the merchandise? Y’all are assholes. She’s by far the main character in the episode, a great strong female who overcomes shit left and right, is smart and creative and a wonderful role model for girls, unlike what all we 40-year-olds had growing up in the sci fi movies. Early Star Trek and Star Wars didn’t give us women a lot of good characters to hold on to, and Rey is awesome. Although whoever designed her first desert costume…it certainly wasn’t made for running at top speed to get away from the bad guys. Normal people woulda tripped over all that long stuff. I noticed at the end she had dumped the scarf-like thing and went for a much more simple, non-run-impeding vest. Anyway. Kudos to the Star Wars writers for making Rey awesome…major face slaps to the merchandisers for leaving her out without fans having to yell. My nephews need to see strong women who matter in the stuff they watch…so does my niece. When are the dumbasses gonna realize that?

No idea. Why do women need to be screaming feminists these days? Because no one is listening and if we stop yelling, the dumbasses will put everything back the way it was in the Dark Ages. See Trump and Cruz for more information.

All right. Back to our regularly scheduled work day.

The Doing Is Where the Joy Is…

Busy weekend. Lots to do and see. Managed to finish stitching down the quilt on Saturday…not early, because apparently I needed sleep and lots of it. But it only took about 5 hours to stitch her down total.

Midnight was not at all helpful. She never really is. Mostly just tries to sleep on things and vomit up hairballs. This is why when I leave my machine for more than 5 minutes, I wrap the quilt around the machine. She can’t sit on it, she can’t eat the thread, and she’d be hard-pressed to vomit on it.

I only had about an hour left to do on Saturday. Yes, I spent all weekend trying to recharge, so I have not gotten as much done as I’d like.

It was necessary. Here’s what the back looks like. I look at the back to see if I missed anything major.

The batting was washed and dried, there was enough of the fabric I’d picked for the front to do the back as well AND have a little leftover for other quilts, so that was good.

This isn’t actually a huge quilt. There was a size restriction for this show.

Pinbasted in under 30 minutes.

No cats were involved in the pinbasting, unlike normally, when Kitten goes barreling through and skids through the backing.

Then I interrupted artmaking with art, food, more food, work, errands, more food, and work. In that order. Wait. I think sleep was in there. Not sure.

Then last night, I started quilting.

Late. I started late. Shocking really. But I got the legs and the lower torso done in about an hour and a half. Just have 10 arms, 3 heads, and the background left. No biggie…

That’s for later today I think. And tomorrow. And I don’t know how many days. I don’t think it will take me 20 hours, but what do I know? This is smaller than the quilt I’m comparing it to, which has a similar number of pieces. This one also has less background, but it’s the fussy outlining that takes a long time. So it’s really hard for me to say how long. I do know my plan is to get the binding on next weekend. Because I’m emailing the photographer. Yup. There’s a deadline for you. Anyway. It’s a plan.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to the art. There were a few openings I wanted to go to on Saturday…all in Barrio Logan, the new arts center of San Diego. One was at the Glashaus, but really I liked these pieces marked MANU…

I don’t think this gallery/office space had been open before when I’ve been here…

But it had a few of his pieces…

I love the blue line through the face…looked everywhere for his card. Not to be found.

Also revisited my favorite wire artist…Spenser Little…

His work is fascinating.

I have video of one of his lamps too, but haven’t pulled it off the phone yet.

No artist info on this cool metal sculpture…

Then we walked over to Gallery D, which is where my art group will have a show later this year. And guess who we found…

Yup. That’s Manu again…

But this time, we have artists’ names. I was there for Anna, who’s a member of the art group I’m in. But here’s the website for Manu…still unclear on whether it’s one person or a few…

Here’s Anna Zappoli, who I came to see…

And her original small drawing for her mural…

A view down one wall…

And another…

I liked this piece by Esther Gamez Rubio…

And the other wall from the other side…

Then we wandered around the back and finally found the Low Gallery (we’ve looked for it before…it’s in a dark alley). They were showing prints done by K-2nd graders at St. Therese’s School in Wilcannia, NSW, 98% aboriginal students. I’m a fan of kid art…how they view the world intrigues me…

These are from about 10 years ago, which I didn’t know when I was at the show…

So these kids are all now teens. Figure the one below out…they’re cutting trees down, it’s raining, and then there’s a rocket in the sky? I think?

Anyway, it was a good night for art and food and the like. Sometimes you just have to walk away from real life so you can go back to it later and not flip out. Try to remember why it is that you work…it’s not just to pay the bills. It’s to do the stuff you like to do. Make art, see art, occasionally buy art. Hang out and eat good food and talk. All good stuff. Certainly, when you’re having a conversation with a muralist who spent hours making a painting that will be covered up by the next show, never to be seen again…the making is very important. But you’re not going to be able to sell that painting. Hard to understand sometimes…but the doing is where the joy is…

A Wash…

So Friday was a wash for artwork. See! I do take days off. But it was sort of a mental day off. I spent all day with kids working on group assignments and me laughing at their arguments. The table that voted for the background color…democracy in action! The table with the bossy Arabic boy who when the other two wouldn’t listen to him, he just deleted everything they typed while they yelled at him. The two high-level girls who stated loudly that they couldn’t work with these people. I just about lost it. The two tables who sat there and stared at each other, waiting for someone else to do all the work. It was like a tiny little microcosm of all the work situations I’ve ever been in during my entire life. The table where one girl took over, designed the whole thing, and pointed at the other kids: You do this, you do that. She had already made the boxes with the titles in them. And then she critiqued their font choices because they didn’t “go” with the rest of the doc. The table where one kid was reading the text aloud while another kid typed. And the one kid who has been begging for groupwork? He’s absent. Of course. The 6 kids who were absent on a Friday before a three-day weekend? We emailed them their assignment. The one who was on his Chromebook but not in my classroom because a parent signed him out early? Sent him a message on our system. Why aren’t you here? Here’s your assignment. Yeah, I can see what he’s working on even though he’s not here. Creepy stalker, eh?

But I walked away from it in a fairly good mood, because I dumped everything on them. You deal. This is your team. You have to work with them. Think about how you’re behaving. Why are they mad at you? Why do you think you get to choose who’s on your team? Fun stuff. Plus everyone in the class is dependent on your information to do well on the test. So get on with it. That’s real world right there. Ask me about it next year when we’re trying to design science curriculum from scratch because California doesn’t have any. Why pay for that shit when you can make your teachers do it for free?

Wish I could walk out every day with that much lightness in my head. So it was OK to go out and have fun instead of coming home to work. Even artmaking needs to take a break, although I did go shopping after work. I needed batting and thread.

In fact, right now, the batting is soaking in hot water so I can sandwich later today. Same bathtub my Christmas card photo came from. Still dirty. Might be permanently dirty.

Couldn’t turn down a twofer on scissors for $7. Plus 20% off the whole ticket.

And there she sits…waiting for me. In a minute sweetie. Getting there…

Forgot to put in the link for the article about my show…in case you aren’t on Facebook with me…

Quilt Artist Depicts Stories of Women’s Bodies and Lives

It’s our local paper, which I don’t actually get in real life. No mention of my grandmother, so that’s a good thing. The writer did interview me and read most of my blog, I think, so she did a good job.

OK, so I need to get on with it and do quilt stuff and other stuff and making art stuff (holy crap, I need another new piece by the end of March. Yikes!). Plus art openings tonight. So that’s cool.