Try as Hard as You Can*

I do most of my artwork at night. Occasionally I can work on a weekend afternoon, and during my breaks from school, it’s more common to find me working during the day, ironing or cutting or tracing. But in reality, I’m a night owl. Mornings are not productive for me. It takes me about 2 hours of being awake before I’m ready to talk to people (I talk to animals at all hours). Being a teacher means I usually have to talk before I’m really ready, but that also means I really understand those kids who are at half mast in 1st period. I also flail in the afternoon…basically from 2-6 PM, I’m mostly useless. Except I can still teach. Because you have to, I guess. I can iron then. Sew sometimes. Mostly I start artmaking after dinner and then go until I should really be asleep…until all of you are asleep. The thing is, I suck at falling and staying asleep too. Although I think the latter is sometimes only noise-related. I’m a light sleeper. And my brain doesn’t like to turn off for sleep. Melatonin doesn’t work. It’s art brain. It’s not happy that it gets tuned out during the whole workday. It wants more of my time.

I try to give it big giant chunks. Like last night, I had a plan, but it got side-tracked. And then it was 10 PM. So I did almost two hours, but then I have to head to bed or significantly suffer the next day. Art brain whines. Ugh. I tell it I will give it more tonight. It’s sulking. I give it more tea. It wants to go back to bed. I’m with it. I also want to go back to bed. But that’s not an option, because work. The other work. The pay-the-bills work…that I totally blew off last night. I need to do a vocab page plus grade shit, and eh. Last night? No way. But I am so tired this morning…and I know I slept better than the night before, when Simba barked with his brothers, the coyotes, for a good 45 minutes. Asshole. Seriously. That’s one of his nicknames…Mr. Barkypants and Asshole. Too bad for us that he is also sweet and adorable on occasion. Last night he tried to eat soap. Apparently it did not taste good.

So starting at 10…I gave the second male figure a head, hands, and the other arm (but not a penis). Those hands were easy.

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Then I started ironing the arms of the last figure, number 4, who is behind all the others…mostly hidden.

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It was easier to do that with the rest of the ironed bits out of the way. I have two of these big teflon sheets for ironing. They’re not cheap, and I have to keep them away from the cats who like to chew plastic, but I have definitely used them enough to make it worth it. Some tools are just non-negotiable.

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The hands were a pain because the fingers overlap. It will be easier to see that when it’s stitched. But you can see where the other part I just ironed will fit right on top of that. And then the lower torsos will go underneath, with the land on either side and the water below. So I currently have 5 large pieces of the image ironed together. Really, all I have left to do is the top right part of the arm, then the head of the 4th figure, and the clouds above her head (which have about 200 small pieces of stuff in them). And then iron it all to a background.

I’m not finishing tonight. There’s at least 300 pieces…that’s at least three hours. And I need to go to the gym tonight. But I can get a lot of it done tonight and then hopefully finish tomorrow? Maybe? I got nothing else going on (please don’t look at the pile of stuff to be graded…which will be significantly worse next week when Unit 1 gets turned in). Aack. Yeah. Be efficient at work today.

The dogs were rampantly annoying last night. I love them, but sometimes they are very needy beasts. Calli was adamant that this bone was hers…and hers alone.

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I played fetch for a while with Simba, but then Calli wanted to play. That worked for a while, until Simba wouldn’t bring back the other ball…he would just race after Calli. And then Midnight wanted attention (she doesn’t fetch). So I’m sitting on the floor with three out of the four house animals.

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I know I’m the only person here, guys…but maybe you could get attention one at a time.

Anyway, you’ve heard my plan for getting this thing ironed down. Seriously, though, people always ask how I get so much done. Well, first of all, besides the furry beasts, I live alone most of the time. And I don’t socialize much. Hermit! But even when the kids were home all the time, I always set goals…quarterly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, daily goals. Part of my sitting here and typing every morning is a way to tell myself what I want to…what I EXPECT to get done today. And then I don’t mope around when I don’t get it all done…I just set a new goal. Adjust it. I have high expectations…and failure is normal. It’s a minor blip. OK, so I didn’t iron for three hours last night…but I did two. That’s more than most people.

With that, I need to get off to the other job. And finish this cup of tea, because I still don’t feel awake. Remotely.

*Depeche Mode, Shake the Disease

Sweet Freedom Whispered in My Ear*

So I didn’t get as far Saturday as I wanted to. Shit happens. Basically whatever I SAY I’m going to get done on a Saturday is never going to happen. I suck at Saturdays. But I did get all the pieces sorted into bins…by 100s. It makes it easier to deal with a 1200-piece quilt.

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There’s about 140 pieces of rock in the bottom section.

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So I did that yesterday afternoon. Ironed them all together…

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It’s very calming and relaxing to do this part, the ironing. Enough of my brain is engaged in the process that everything else just sort of wanders away. Plus the quilt finally shows up, the image finally comes together.

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I finished the rocks before I went to my parents’ for dinner, and then came back and kept going. Were there other things I needed to be doing? Well yeah, there were. Thanks for reminding me. I’m a little panicked about all that right now.

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Then I went up one side…

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And the other. These sections are pretty easy to iron: big pieces, not a lot of detail. They go together quickly.

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The rest of the quilt will not be so easy, unfortunately. From here on out there are a lot of overlapping body parts.

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But the cat and the boy…they’re not so bad.

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See, here’s where it gets wiggy. The boat is in there too. There are four figures all behind each other. So I’m starting with the ones in front…because that’s how I numbered it. Now I’m wondering if that was the most logical way to do it…but it’s what I did, so I’ll just keep going.

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So the original drawing is behind the teflon sheet, and I iron right on there, using it as a pattern. All the pieces have Wonder Under on them, so they stick pretty good. They seem to stick better when I accidentally iron something in the wrong place. I don’t know why that is. Anyway, I got about halfway through the 400s. I’m hoping to do more today, but I do have to do some other stuff too. Cleaning and schoolwork and some stuff for an art group I’m in. So I can’t do what I want, which is start ironing now, briefly stop for some meals, and iron until it’s done. Oh well. That’s what being an artist is like, really. Fit it in around the job that pays the bills. Put off cleaning the floors. Don’t just sit on the couch watching TV. It takes willpower to do that. And I guess I have plenty of that.

So Abby Glassenberg (who interviewed me for her article on AQS’s bad social media decisions) did a podcast with Maddie Kertay (who is currently showing my two banned quilts in her store Spool in Chattanooga, Tennessee). The podcast is here.

My two quilts are hanging at Spool right now…

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This is kind of exciting…I mean, I’m glad to see them again. It’s been a while. And um. Well. Fuck you AQS. Really. And thank you Maddie and all the other people who are supporting this craziness. The GOOD crazy. The support for the quilts. The work. The art. The artist.

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I appreciate it. So stop by and see them, buy some fabric, and maybe pick up some of these…

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Because they’re awesome. Maybe take a photo with the pin or the quilts (Melly Testa’s quilt will be there too! And it has a penis in it!) and hashtag it…I don’t know what? #wheresthepenis? The AQS show is in a week and a half. We have time to figure that shit out.

Saw this while going to art exhibits Saturday night. The lefthand side is the shadow…

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OK. I need to eat something and then get to work, so I can iron later. Make more work.

*Elton John, Someone Saved My Life Tonight

It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night*

So there’s this three-day weekend, and all us teachers sit around and joke about how we always lose this weekend to work. We don’t do anything exciting. We don’t even WANT to do anything exciting, because we’re two weeks into the school year, and we need a recovery day. Honestly, I need a full day just to catch up on schoolwork. Because you forget how sometimes you have to force yourself to grade some assignments. You forget how much TIME…your personal time…goes to this job.

And then I am still trying to adjust to cooking just for myself again. I get tired of it. If it’s a day I know I’m hiking with the dogs or going to the gym, I have to assume there will be very little cooking when I get home, or if I know I have a meeting, same deal…so I have to cook in advance. Sometimes I get lazy and think, “Oh, it’ll be OK if I eat the same thing every meal for the whole week.” Well. It’s not. Funnily, this week, one of the three meals I cooked (one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner) was causing some digestive issues by the end of the week. But I couldn’t tell which meal it was…so I really should have just tossed all of them. I mean, I am a science teacher, so I could conduct an experiment where I remove one meal from each daily rotation until I figure out which one it was, but I probably would have run out of food by then. So you know…I just bullied through…and reminded myself to cook more meals during the week next time. I really don’t like eating the same thing every day. And where some people might give up on a Friday and go out, I was too tired. So I ate leftovers. I think I officially have no edible leftovers as of today. That’s probably a good thing.

So a three-day weekend with nothing but stale bread and cheese. And whatever is in the freezer. Sounds good. (It’s really not that bad. I have an artichoke and two kiwis. And an old peach.)

The really really amazingly good and miraculous news is that I finally finished cutting out all those damn pieces! Whoo! Yes, I stayed up past midnight. It was 16 1/2 hours in the end…

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And it looks like nothing. Seriously. All 1200 pieces fit in a shoebox-sized plastic box. I’m hoping to get a significant chunk of it ironed this weekend, finish during the week, stitch down started by next weekend.

OK. That’s a little crazy, but I’m running out of time. I keep saying that like it’s gonna change something. I guess the good thing is that all my calendars just went to September, so I can see the span of time clearly. If I look back through past quilts, I don’t see any that are equivalent in time at the moment. But I would guess at least 13 hours to iron. Really? I can do that this weekend, right? I still need to sort the pieces though. So I should aim for about 3 hours today. Because I have this shit to deal with too…

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That’s three assignments. I have fewer students (knock on wood) this year, although I can tell the behaviors are a bit more challenging. And they got their Chromebooks this week, so then a bunch of this goes online, which just means I can’t see how big the pile is. I’m not sure that helps. Certain things take more fortitude to grade, though, like essays. So I made it through two classes yesterday (well, I had taken all week in class and prep trying to get through one. I really just needed to force myself to sit and read them. I would have been a lousy English teacher.). I plan to do one class a day, so as not to strain my brain. The good ones are easy…the ones that some of my language learners write? Oh. My. OK. Now I know why writing has been so hard to get them to do this week. But how do we get better? We practice. Which then I have to read. I love that the training we sat through talked about giving them complex texts…because I don’t think they can access those. But whatever.

Puppy. Sigh. I took him for a 2 1/2 mile hike, then played Pull on the Toy and Throw It When I Can Get It Away from Him for about 45 minutes. But he still wanted to bring his toy and put it in my face.

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My new thing is to put the pillow between me and him…so I can get a break. Eventually he calms down, but still wants to be in my lap. So I cut pieces out with him perched on my leg. Poor puppy is missing the kids. I know he doesn’t understand I’m tired on Friday nights. We’ll figure it out.

Anyway, I’m working on the weekend post-it note, and it’s not too bad looking, if you forget that most of the things on there are multiple hours of work. Yeah. A day off. My ass. I’m glad to have the time to iron and just wish the schoolwork was less of the work time.

*The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night

My Brain and Tongue Just Met

Definitely a Friday tired feeling. I even went to bed early last night. I know! Before midnight even. It’s like the world is ending. But really it was just to make up for the huge lack of sleep the night before. If any raccoons were on my roof last night or if my neighbors were moving all their vehicles into my bedroom, I did not hear it last night. I was asleep quickly and mostly stayed that way. Well, until 5 AM? Don’t you hate that…you’ve got another hour or so, but then your brain starts to rehash all the shit you need to get done, and you’re like, NOOOO, you must sleep that hour, but the brain is seeing the hints of daylight and hearing the dogs fuss. Yeah. My brain is not helpful.

I did take my scissors and accoutrements to the stitching meeting, which is good, because when I came home, between being tired and Simba launching himself at me with toys (I did play with him for a good long time before I started), I only got an hour in. So much for my thinking I’d be done last night. Ha! Three hours in last night, and I still have a lot to do. It’s deceptive. You don’t think about how hard cutting around a bunch of rocks might be. But it’s time-consuming. Waves are much easier to cut. I have all the waves and hills and mountains to do…plus a bunch of little rocks. Probably there’s only a couple hundred pieces left to cut…but they are not the easiest pieces…you can see how empty the box is though.

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SO CLOSE. So tonight I’m going to sit here and watch TV and finish. Here’s what’s done so far.

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At least I have a 3-day weekend. It’s a post-it weekend though. A weekend when I have so many things to do that I need a paper reminder. My desk in front of my keyboard often has 4 or 5 post-its sitting there, trying to force me to do stuff, until I get annoyed with them being under my arms. One of my important post-its, the one with all the art deadlines on it, got partially eaten by the puppy. It’s OK. I wrote it on the door (on a whiteboard thing), but honestly, I barely look at the door, so I should stick to the stickies (ha ha). I have 3 attached to my monitor, but they all remind me of how to do or access things on the computer that I can’t remember how to do without help. As I get older, this will get worse, I’m sure. It has to be in front of my face for me to see it. Reminders on the phone have to be timed just right, or I’ll ignore them…or not even see them.

I’ve been getting a lot of peer pressure (which you might notice I’m ignoring) to do a penis quilt…at some point, I had this post-it started…

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The numbers are for something else. I think. Really, I don’t work like this. I sit down with my sketchbook and I draw. But now you kinda know how my brain works. I have 5 bathtub drawings, with two having been made into quilts already. I’m not sure I want to (or need to) go there. But I wrote it down. I also have a list on my phone, which is where these will get transferred eventually. But probably will never come to anything.

So things for this weekend include some cleaning, some errands, the basic laundry and groceries that happen every weekend, plus grading at least two assignments, lesson planning, updating the website, and maybe sleep. Possibly an art opening or two. But what I really want to do…starting to iron this quilt together. Maybe doing all of it in one day (I suspect it will take more than a day)…I just want to be in here with all those pieces and an iron and my brain…yeah.

Midnight agrees.

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I need to be able to walk away from the school stuff a little. We’re two weeks in and this first month is always too much, so I need to find the balance and stick with it.

I forgot. Yesterday a woman from this official state group who comes every year to make sure we have enough textbooks for our kids was in our room. I’m a little irritated (or as my daughter says, salty) about this, because I know they don’t go to the “richer” schools. And they’re only supposed to check 20% of the classrooms, and they always come to mine. Last year, I got busted for having hand sanitizer not locked up. It was the stuff the district gave me. It was in a cupboard, but it says it’s not safe for kids (because they might drink it), and I was like…um…sure, these are 12-year-olds and sometimes they make really dumb decisions, but drinking hand sanitizer IN CLASS WHILE I’M HERE has not been one of them. So this year, every god damned fucking thing they might fuss about was locked up, including the pinto beans, because they might put them in an orifice. And you know what she did? Besides checking every faucet (safety issue?)? Came up and asked me if all my lights were on, or was it always dim in here.

I took some significantly deep breaths. Because she just came in from outside and it does seem dim in here when you come in from outside. But uber brightness isn’t a great thing in a classroom either. I also did not say to her (although I thought it), “You’re dim.” Because this law…I understand why it exists. I know there are assholes in education who don’t give us books…in fact, at the moment, the entire fucking state of California does not have a relevant science curriculum, because the damn state hasn’t adopted one, even though we have to teach to the new standards. So I almost told her all that, but instead, I used my superpowers of momhood to (probably quite scarily) smile at her and say, “No, they’re all on.” Rolled my eyes though. I love bureaucracy. I wish we could trust people to just provide the stuff they’re supposed to in schools so this shit wasn’t necessary.

But yeah. You can see why I need to come home and just make art and not think about work.

*Regina Spektor, The Consequence of Sounds

Each Morning I Get Up, I Die a Little*

I’m sort of braindead. It’s true I went to bed a tad late, mostly because I was cutting out tiny pieces of fabric and I wanted to finish all the flesh pieces, so I would know I only had about 300 pieces left, so I kept cutting. Plus I wasn’t tired. At all. Unlike this morning. So it was a late start in sleeping, and falling asleep was an issue as well. But then Simba was Mr. Barkypants last night. Someone was outside moving cars or something at 2:30 AM and then a raccoon was dancing on my roof at 4 or so. So I’m sure I slept, because I had 700 dreams of large cats (like lionesses) all around the house, stalking me, stalking the dogs and cats, and I kept trying to get good photos of them to prove it to all of y’all, but the damn things were sneaky fuckers and kept fading back into the shadows just as the phone clicked the photo. Plus I kept having to grab Simba, because he wanted to attack the big cats and they would have eaten him. I have a lot of those rescue-type dreams where I’m essentially failing at it. That’s part of what that big penis-free quilt is about. But AQS doesn’t want to hear that part.

It’s unfortunate that I didn’t have enough sleep, because I think I have to teach metric conversions today (I almost wrote conversations…that would be hard. A metric conversation?) and that takes voice and brain power. I’m a fan of metrics for measuring things, mostly, but some part of me really likes that we Americans stuck with a bizarre measuring system that includes the length of some king’s arm or foot or thumb, or whatever the fuck it was. I mean, I can’t be the only ~~fabric hoarder~~ um quilter who uses the fingertip-to-nose measurement for yards? I mean, I guess I could measure how many centimeters or meters it is from fingers to nose, but then I’d have to remember that, and being raised in the US means we don’t even realize metric is a thing. Until we have to convert its ass. And then…confusion. Because what the hell is 2/5 of a cup. Impossible to fucking measure, let me tell you. Why do I know this? Girlchild cooks. Her dad is a Brit. Hence we have British recipes. I convert better than she does…and honestly, I write the conversions in Sharpie marker on those British recipes. Because I can’t think that hard every day.

Unsleep mental wanderings.

Yup. Still cutting shit out. Over 11 hours of cutting shit out right now. And I don’t think I’m going to finish tonight. Dammit. Sigh. Puppy. Speaking of dammit. He was relatively well-behaved last night. The night before, he stuck his head in the pile of cut-out pieces and tried to run off with them. He also grabs fabric. I’ve never had a dog go after my fabric before. Cats sit on it, occasionally vomit on it, but no dog action. I think he’s jealous of the fabric. It gets more attention than he does.

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I did manage to do all the flesh pieces. The cut-out box on the right is almost full.

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This is all that’s left…the ocean and that one kid with the fish (OK, a little more flesh) and the sand, hills, and mountains. A sun and a cloud and a lightning bolt.

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I have my sewing meeting tonight. It’s in a Barnes & Noble coffee space (it’s not a shop). It would be hard to bring this with me, but I think I’m going to anyway. Because I fucking need to be done with the cutting out of pieces. So I can sort and start ironing. Plus I need to iron that baby owl down. I have the background for that. Three-day weekend coming. Coloring book needs to get done too. UGH.

See…OK, actually, it looks like a lot in this view. I shouldn’t have looked at that. Dammit. It’s OK. I can do this. The hand is sore today, but only a little, and I did lift weights at the gym yesterday, so that might be part of it.

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See I was playing with him…he was resting.

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Little psycho.

I have to play music in the morning (a) to wake myself up, (b) to distract the parts of my brain that miss my children in the morning, and (c) to drown out my neighbor on the phone on the slope above me. SHHHH. It’s morning. No talking. I really am not a morning person.

*Queen, Somebody to Love (this is actually a good waking-up song…just inspirational and sing-along enough to perk my brain up. Not as much as highly caffeinated tea will, but it’s a help.)

I Look at the Floor and I See It Needs Sweeping*

Oh bless the world, after a long summer of no official teacher paycheck, of scrambling to make sure the mortgage payment was in the right place, of wondering if I should buy this or that because no pay…today, today is the glorious day when not only do I finally get paid, the first time since June, but also when I turn around and give a significantly larger chunk to the two colleges where I sent my kids off to be official and get jobs. Oh wait. College doesn’t do that any more (well hell, it didn’t do it for me either. Art degree. Comparative Literature degree. Not so marketable.). I’m always told to have high expectations, though, so I do expect them to get jobs and not move home to live for the next 10 years of unemployment. High expectations follow in my school, so even if a kid doesn’t read in any language at all, I should be giving them complex text so they can make meaning out of it (someone needs to explain that gigantic gap to me. I’m sure it’s magical. That was this week’s training.). My teacher cynicism is showing. Sorry. I spent too much time being a teacher brain yesterday. A year with no state curriculum but new standards makes teachers a little cranky. Like, I can DO this, but when can I do anything else? Like clean my floors (need to do that) or have some sort of life outside school (it’s questionable that I do that). But I got paid! Well, it’s still pending. So hold your breath that it posts.

Enough. I will have to spend all day persuading kids that writing is part of science. And they can DO IT. It’s OK. I do the impossible a lot.

And in free moments, I dream of working on quilts. I come home and do chores and deal with dogs and cats and sometimes have a meeting or go on a hike or go to the gym, and then I find time to make. Every day. Well. Almost every day. Last night was one of those nights when my brain wandered into depressoland. Whatever, brain. We’ve been there before. Ignore. Distract. Cut shit out. That’s what I need to do right now. Get this quilt done.

That’s hard to do when you only have 2 or 3 hours a night. But it’s happening…last night, my biggest issue was with the two animals that wanted to be close, on me, licking me, biting me, playing with me. I had already sat on the floor for a good long throwing-ball session, but it was not enough. Midnight eventually settled down next to me, but kept trying to lick the cutting hand. Not a good plan.

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And I kept flipping through new Netflix shows, trying to find something I cared about. Eh is all I’m getting at the moment. Oh well. I’ll keep trying.

I did finally get well into the flesh fabrics. So the left side is cut, the right is trash. I don’t throw any of the trash away until the quilt is ironed together. You never know what you’ll accidentally have tossed into the trash…plus if I lose some tiny piece, there’s a good chance I have a small piece of it in that box. I also don’t put the fabrics I used away until the quilt is ironed together, in case I need to recut a bigger piece. You never know.

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This is the side of the box of stuff that still needs cutting. Yeah. It’s still a lot, but once I get through all the flesh, there’s only about 300 pieces left (ONLY…laughing at that).

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I wish I could finish tonight, but I doubt it. So I’m hoping to finish cutting Thursday AND sort them all. So I can iron Friday night. Might be tough, but it’s a goal, and as long as I keep setting goals, I’m moving in the right direction. There’s a three-day weekend coming, and it’s full of shit I gotta do. Those damn floors, plus a feminist coloring book, and this quilt. Plus have a life. Just a little one. OK, straight up, these quilts, my art, are a huge part of my life. I remember the amount of art I used to make when I was first married, before I had kids, and when I had a job I didn’t have to take home with me every night…I think I make more art now. I even had a studio then, and I would go there after work…but now my house is the studio and so it’s everywhere. It makes it easy to just make…especially if my other choice is cleaning a floor or crappy TV.

When the kids were little, it was harder to make art, but I hit some barrier, slammed right through it a few years back. I used to wait for school breaks to work on quilts, but now I just do it all the time. It probably helps that the kids are away at college, but I was powering through before they left.

This is some kind of obsession, sure. I can’t even truly say it’s healthy, but I can say that I don’t mind it. I wonder what it’s like to come home from work and just watch television, to do nothing else. I love making art. I love how it makes me feel. I love sending work off to be shown (well, most of the time…I don’t love the crazy shit that sometimes happens when I send it off and people get upset that I drew parts. That part I could do without. Which reminds me, another interesting article on how AQS handled me…or the issue…badly. Apparently social media is not their super power.).

So it’s good. There should be more of it.

Simba in a rare quiet moment, after boisterously cleaning Midnight’s ears. I think she’s licking his chest here. It didn’t last long.

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Work. Then the real work.

*The Beatles, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (No really. This song came on while I was typing. The universe is in tune with me.)

Now This Is Apparently My First Life as a Woman…*

So I realize that showing you piles of cut-up pieces and the trash resulting from the cutting is very exciting, and you, like I, can see the subtle difference in the size of the pile from yesterday to today and that interests you as much as it does me. Uh huh.

But that’s what I’m doing. Coming home. Walking two dogs that were very enthusiastic about walking until we actually started doing it, and then were very eager when we finally turned around to head back to the car. So eager at that point that they forced me to run. The car! The car! Where is it!

Yeah. The excitement was palpable. (A thesaurus was used in this post. I originally had the word excited or some variation of it at least 10 times. It’s early. My brain not so worky.)

After dinner, I got to sit and be repeatedly attacked by a puppy who apparently didn’t get tired from the hike. After significant interaction with said puppy, I was allowed to cut things out for a significant number of minutes. Seriously, I’m at about 5 1/2 hours. Honestly, I don’t know how close I am to done. Not much in closeness, I think. The to-do pile is still hugeish…

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But I’m down into the hair, which is right before the fleshy bits…so I’m getting there. Wherever there is. I suspect I’ve got at least another two nights of doing this. The hand is sore today, but not too bad. I’m going to run out of things I know I want to watch though. Or maybe I should look more closely.

Pile of stuff that’s cut is on the left. The box with the trimmed bits, which the puppy at some point head-butted into the air and all over the couch, is on the right. That too was ~~exciting~~ stimulating.

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It was an ~~exciting~~ tumultuous night. Really. It was. I’d like to be ironing this together before the weekend. I don’t know if I can actually pull that off, but if I keep staring at the calendar and panicking, maybe I can make the days longer just by the force of my own will.

I’m trying anyway.

I used to make clothes and other household items, but they’re pretty boring. I’d rather do what I do.

*Laurie Anderson, Oujia Board

I Slipped Away*

Every Sunday, I make a list of all the stuff that needs to be done to get me through the week: lunches, dinners, sometimes even breakfasts when I feel like I need control of that (this week? Yup.). Then there’s the stuff I have to prep for school: update the website, send out a parent email (those haven’t started yet), prep for the week, write warmups etc. I grade papers. Yesterday I even set up the gradebook, because that’s a thing. I grocery shop and run errands if I need to. Laundry. And then, sometime usually after dinner, I get to do what I want. It depends on how efficient I was during the rest of the day. Certainly I woke up yesterday with all of it weighing on me, and then I tried to book through as much of it as possible. I’m sure I forgot something, though.

But I did get to the cutting stage last night. I had to tire the puppy out first, so he wouldn’t try to help…

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I threw all the balls for him for a long time.

All the stuff I’d ironed last, all the tiny stuff in the brain cloud above her head, had to be cut out first. I don’t even cut out the tiniest of them, not until I’m ready to iron. But they were all small anyway.

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Doesn’t look like much, but it was about 150 pieces.

It got easier after that, bigger pieces that didn’t require tiny scissors…then medium-sized pieces that are the meat of the thing.

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I got through a good chunk of them, almost 3 hours of cutting, and surprisingly, my hand doesn’t hurt today. But there’s still a ton left. I didn’t even get to the flesh pieces. They’re all piled in the box in backwards order of when I ironed them. So all those inner body pieces, the hearts and lungs, that’s what I’m cutting out now. I’m always amazed that I can look at a little piece as I’m cutting it and know what it is…because they don’t really usually look like anything. But I drew that piece. And then I traced that piece. And then I cut it out of Wonder Under and ironed it to fabric, and now I’m cutting it out again. Somewhere my brain has an inventory of all those pieces, and it knows what each one is. Which explains why I can’t remember anything else some days.

I keep staring at the calendar and then the due dates, and getting a little hyperventilaty. No, that’s not a word. But it should be.

I think I can finish it, but I’m not sure. And there are two standing right on top of it when I finish.

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I didn’t mean to have so many due dates on top of each other. I’ve already ditched another one and revised one of the ones I can’t ditch. But that one got doubled up when I wasn’t looking. Long story. A collaboration I need to get started on…and then one I’m going to simplify…which is what this pre-drawing is for.

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I’m going to draw it bigger, but then I think I’m going to be taking some short cuts. Using a real sheet. Not quilting it maybe. I can quilt it later, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be quilted for this show. I need an old sheet first though. Thrift shop. No pattern, solid color, gray, blue, green, but muted. I think.

Anyway. The brain is working on it. The rest of the brain needs to get to school and figure out the teaching part. Which includes a 2-hour staff meeting after school. I wish they’d figure out that the second hour is a waste of time, because we are all completely checked out. I guess I can grade stuff. Then maybe I won’t have to do that tonight at home. Plan.

*Boston, More Than a Feeling (I never knew the words to this one…always thought it was “I see my derriere walking away.” Which makes no fucking sense, I know. But whatever.)

Pouring Down All Over Me

Finally was able to name this one…

Art Quilts and Fiber Arts

I’ve been calling her Earth Mother 2016 since I started her in April. I knew I wanted to do another Earth Mother. I’ve done a few over the years. Well, more than a few. So I named it Holding It All In…because that’s what it felt like. Usually titles are much easier than this. It took me over two weeks after finishing it. Most quilts name themselves during the drawing stage or as I’m working on it. I listened to a bunch of music, looked up quotes about earth mothers and nature and the planet. I wrote down some stuff to try to stimulate my brain. Finally I just put the picture up on the screen and stared at it, let my brain wander around with the image. Took about 10 minutes. Kinda funny. Because otherwise she was gonna be Yet Another Earth Mother and that’s a shitty title.

The one I’m working on right now already has so many titles. I will have to choose.

I didn’t get anything done last night. Sometimes that happens. It’s OK. I make art almost every day. Sometimes my brain is on another quest. I’m going to finish the fabric choosing today. As soon as I get back from picking a background for the owl. I need to get ready to leave honestly.

I came back last night to Kitten in the damn fabric box again. My fault for not covering it. She was not happy when I did that. Sigh. Because there aren’t other boxes filled with fabric that cats have sat on in here? I can point her to another one that three other cats have sat in besides her. But she doesn’t want THAT one.

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I sent one dog to her dad’s to play. Two is easier, but only slightly.

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OK. More accomplishment of art stuff will happen while you’re not watching.

*Peter Gabriel, Red Rain

More Than This*

So AQS finally felt enough pressure (thank you all) to make a statement about pulling my quilts (although they only talked about pulling the one). I’m confused because it doesn’t match anything I was told. Well, except that they removed it. The statement is below…I’m not exactly sure where it’s posted in real life, because it wasn’t sent to me by AQS. Nothing has been sent to me or communicated to me from AQS directly.

“After receiving numerous complaints from attendees about a quilt in the SAQA exhibit, AQS removed the quilt from the People & Portraits exhibit at the Grand Rapids QuiltWeek event.

Prior to removing the quilt, the feedback AQS received was not limited to one isolated comment. Attendees reached out to AQS staff at the show and via emails and phone calls to our office.

Despite the removal of this quilt, AQS was able to display more than 700 other quilts at the show for viewing by the general public in Grand Rapids.”

This kind of thing makes me sick to my stomach. I’m amazed by their disrespect toward me and SAQA. And I’m worried that this will hurt me and other art quilters in the long run. I wonder if there were no comments during the other four QuiltWeek events or if I was just kept out of the picture. I remember the feeling in my gut when SAQA told me this exhibit was traveling with AQS. I think I have quilt show PTSD at the moment. So I guess any traveling show I’m in, my work will now get pulled if it goes into one of the quilt show circuits. Thanks to the Mancusos for not reacting that way back in 2011. Appreciate the respect.

Here’s a post by Virginia Spiegel that explains why I haven’t been sleeping for the last week. As I’m sitting here working on the next “controversial” quilt, I’m wondering how this is going to affect me. I have a piece in SAQA’s Turmoil exhibit that will hopefully travel after it shows in IQF Houston this year. Or maybe it won’t. I’ve already been warned that my Earth Stories piece might be too controversial and pulled from some venues (it deals with free birth control and Planned Parenthood, giving women who WANT it the power to control how many children they have and how often).

Will the work I’m making now ever be in an exhibit? I hope so. But if it’s not, I blame AQS. I blame the woman (what I was told in the beginning) who saw an imaginary penis. Shit. I blame the country’s attitude toward women at the moment and controversy and anything that isn’t pretty. Don’t get me wrong…I love me some pretty art and beautiful quilts. But that’s not all there is.

I really really tried last night to get my head into art so I could sleep. The last part was a failure, but I got a lot of ironing done (and know that there’s some shit at school as well right now that is incredibly overwhelming and stressful, so that’s not helping with the sleep part.).

I lay pieces out by the 100s…I think these are the 600s? Or maybe the 500s.

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When I’m dealing with figures, I try to do all the flesh pieces at the same time, so I know what is what color. This is the 2nd figure, the one in front. Some people are going to look at her and be disturbed. AND THEY SHOULD BE. That is my intent.

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Then I laid out the 3rd figure, who is just behind the 2nd one, so mostly hidden, except for head and shoulders.

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I haven’t ironed all the inner non-fleshy bits though…I still have to do hearts and lungs and hair and anything else that wasn’t basic flesh color. I’ll do some of that tonight, I think.

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I’m in the 700s, but there are probably close to a hundred pieces that aren’t done prior to that (hearts etc.). So maybe halfway done. Shit. It’s taken 11 hours. Not a fast process, by far.

Here’s what I’ve used so far…lots of flesh colors. The pile that’s not in the boxes is for the last figure, who does still have arms and shoulders and head showing.

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Here’s what I have ironed down so far.

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I’d like to be done with ironing them down before the weekend, if not before, but I’m not sure I can do that in two nights. Not if it’s another 11 hours. I did iron for 3-plus hours last night. I kept waiting to be tired. Honestly, I was also watching the last episode of Happy Valley and couldn’t stop. Great show.

On top of this, I’m currently dealing with an extra dog. It was more than I needed yesterday. It took two of us humanoids to manage dinner, and I won’t have that help for the next 4 days. Too much stress. Maybe they’ll be more mellow tonight.

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Kitten is fine though. Irritated about the extra dog, because she’s a cat chaser, but…

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She loves me even though I brought the interloper in.

Shit. This week. This month. I’m going into full hermit mode soon. OK. Maybe I’m already there. I hear all of your messages though. I’m trying to NOT hear all the other messages out there in the world.

*Roxy Music, More Than This