Just the Wings…

Some days it feels like I am just getting by until I can go back to whatever art project I am working on. I get through school and errands and exercise, except I really enjoy exercise, and then I get through cooking and eating and paperwork (is it paperwork if it’s on the computer?) or the technological equivalent, and then I look at the clock and calculate how much time there is left in the day for artmaking. I really wish it didn’t always start after 10 PM. Especially when daylight savings is already kicking my butt. The night owl self wants to stay up an hour later, but the morning self reminds me I have to teach 155 7th graders tomorrow and patience is one of those things that wears thin with little sleep. It already wears thin on project weeks. Gone are the days of scantrons and multiple-choice tests (well, they’re SUPPOSED to be gone…some teachers still use them), which means more work on both sides. Kids want me to give them all the answers. Then they get mad when they calculate their BMI as part of this project (yup. I brought in a scale) and realize they are classified as obese. Or that they have a higher risk for heart disease because of their gender or their race. Or that the parent who smokes around them is increasing their risk as well. Yeah. Well. Welcome to critical thinking.

So what little patience I have gets fully used up by 3:30 and then I’m supposed to do tutorial after school…unpaid tutorial, I might add, and I’m doing it today because of that project that’s due, but what I really want to do is come home and finish ironing. Well, that’s not all I want to do. Tonight is a little different, but it’s OK. It will get done.

This is a messy pile. I don’t like messy piles, but even if I straighten it all up before I start, this is what it ends up looking like…

I had a lot of little fussy things to iron last night: a cat, some hair, a uterus, lungs, a jellyfish.

I actually had myself convinced at some point that I would have no problem finishing the ironing last night, but then it was after midnight and I stood there staring at this pile…

Totally exhausted and still completely undecided as to what color(s) the wings should be. And that’s all that’s left. The damn wings. Hard to make decisions at that hour. So I packed everything up, turned off the iron, peed the dog, and walked down the hallway toward the sweet comfy bed, and the solution popped into my head.

Yeah. That’s how it works. If you make art every day, even on the days when there is no inspiration and nothing strikes your fancy, and all you’re doing is picking up fabric and moving it around or drawing godawful things in your sketchbook, or even just stitching something down because it needs to be stitched and you don’t feel like being more creative than that…if you do all that, then your brain gets in the habit of solving those creative problems while you’re too tired to even consider them. My brain figures shit out while I’m doing the dishes, while I’m driving to work or on errands, while I’m standing in a line. I let it wander and it does. It wanders until the answer is just there.

This is not an instantaneous thing. You have to work at it. I make so much work because I work at it. It seems so easy now, but there’s almost thirty years of practice in there, some years better than others. More intensely now than ten years ago. In fact, that might be my greatest fear about getting old is that I’ll lose that. I won’t have art every day. So when I talk about getting old, there’s a few things I want: I don’t want to be that old lady with the cane or the walker. I want to be the one who’s still hiking the mountains. She may have poles and she may go slowly, but she’s still moving. I want to make art every day. In fact, I will have worked my butt off for years and I deserve to retire and make art every day. No, I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to afford to retire, but whatever. Those aren’t the only things I want, but they are two of the most important.

With that, I guess at least I know what color I’ll be ironing tonight…just the wings…and then I’ll be ready for the next step on this project. Time to cut out all those little tiny pieces. Way better than stressing out about school.

Sustenance

Deep breaths. It’s only 5 days, 1 major project, 1 unit of study, 2 parent meetings, and 1 field trip away from Spring Break. You Can Do This. Seriously, though, Friday was a bitch. So was Friday night and most of Saturday. I didn’t get anything done at all except art, because that was all I could handle. So that’s what I did. Friday night I drew…

I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, so I messed with one of them…

The cats kept me company…they don’t really like each other, so this is as close as they get.

No, that heating pad is not on. I guess it’s possible it had residual heat on Friday night, because my neck was still a mess. It’s better now.

Then I went into the studio and tried to iron a bit…

Exhaustion took over at some point. I got up the next morning, made my post-it list for the weekend (this is becoming a disturbing habit), and stared at it for a while. Then I ironed fabric instead…these are the flesh fabrics…

I needed to cross something off the post-it, so I went and picked up the dog from my ex’s house (soccer tournament) and walked her about 3 miles. She was very excited to see me. I brought her back here and she lolled around on the floor for the rest of the day. And I kept picking fabrics…

Honestly, most of this piece is the three figures, so lots of fleshy bits. At the end of Saturday, I had this stuff left to iron…

Basically everything that wasn’t flesh. Notice I still have all those loose bits of fusible web on that blue lid over there. Honestly, it hasn’t been that bad finding the missing pieces. I’ve only had to redraw a few.

At the end of Saturday’s 5-hour ironing binge (yeah, you read that right…I only got two things crossed off the damn post-it list and one was walk the dog)…this is how much I had ironed down.

I went to watch a band play. The waitress really liked this one…

The sitting at the table part is a piece of another drawing in my head. I think I’m going to try that one in a bigger sketchbook.

And this one…

Three drawings in 25 hours…not bad.

Sunday was busy. I crossed two more things off the post-it list and did a bunch of stuff for school that wasn’t even on the post-it. Plus the grocery shopping and crap around the house and cooking for the week. And I graded. Shocking. But I tried to stay away from it most of the weekend. I want to be sort of caught up for vacation…which is actually impossible, because see above…one major assignment and one unit due this week. It will take a long time to grade those. Oh well.

But later Sunday night, I got started again…slowly. This is ironing a tea set. You know. Like you do.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far in a remarkably messy pile.

And here is the dog…still lolling around at my feet. She groans if I step over her.

Here’s what’s left to iron. Two sets of wings…I don’t know what color to make them. Should they be the same? Different? Bright? Dull? Earthy? I just don’t know. There’s a set of lungs and a uterus in there too. And her hair, which involves some seawater, a jellyfish, a starfish, and some other fish.

Here’s what’s in the box as of last night.

I’ve been ironing for almost 9 hours. Almost all this weekend. Yeah. I wasn’t really in the mood to Real Life it this weekend. Art. It’s what’s for dinner. Actually, no, bacon/leek risotto was for dinner and it was quite good. But art is my late-night snack, my dessert, my sustenance.

Upcoming Shows

Yeah. I blew off writing yesterday. Head in a place. May write later. Well, technically writing now, but just about upcoming shows.

Primal Scream will be in a local show, The Power of Feminine Energy, at the Centro Cultural de la Raza (in Balboa Park, one of the round buildings on Park), San Diego, CA, March 19-April 3, 2016.

The opening is March 19 from 6-10 PM and will have 50 women artists and over 100 pieces of work.

Then if you happen to be in Pennsylvania (there are some good fiber reasons to be there), I have a piece in Art Quilt Elements, Work in Progress.

In Deep will be at Artist as Quiltmaker XVII, FAVA’s 17^th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Quilts, Firelands Association for the Visual Arts in Oberlin, Ohio, from May 15-July 31.

Then I just found out Friday that Mammogram will be at the Oceanside Museum of Art in our next California Fibers’ exhibit, Eclectic Threads.

The opening is June 25 from 5-8 PM. There will be at least one other exhibit there at the time, Love Letters in Metal: Jewelry by Svetozar and Ruth Radakovich. Lots of work out there. I keep reminding myself of that when my brain goes for a swim in depresso-soup.

Minor Flail

Don’t you hate waking up in the morning and struggling to remember what day it is? Yeah. It’s Friday at least. That’s a plus.

I can’t say I got much done last night. I did a lot before I considered not getting much done. Like counseling and the chiropractor (yes!) and the gym and dinner and then it was really late. So I finished the last of these three birds…

I have two months left to finish (6 birds). Yeah, it’s taking forever. Here’s why I do this stuff though, because people always ask why I’m not working on my own stuff. My stuff requires brain power a goodly percentage of the time. Sometimes I don’t have brain power, but I want to stitch or handle fabric or whatever it is that lowers my blood pressure (actually, mine’s always low) and makes me less likely to yell at inanimate objects (it could be argued some of my students are inanimate objects, but usually I mean computers or the fridge or a couch). Last night I just wanted to veg out and so I watched one show and stitched on wooly birds.

Yesterday my principal said something about our classrooms being reflective of us, but the words he used were “you get what you put into it”. And wow. Did that bug me. Because I still have a massive number of Fs. And I had to walk away from how that felt, because as a teacher, you do assume that if kids are failing, it is entirely your fault. And then you try to fix it. And the trying to fix it was driving me crazy. So I stopped working so hard at the fixing it part, because then I’d meet with the parent(s) and I’d think, wow. They raised him. I can’t fix that. I can offer a variety of assists, but at some point, I can’t do a thing if the kid doesn’t want to do the work and the parent isn’t going to do anything.

I’m in the middle of a big project in class, and I’ve chunked it into smaller progress checks so the kids who flail when given big things don’t just stop working. I’m monitoring them regularly, which means I’m walking the entire room in circles. I’m physically exhausted from walking the room by the end of the day (hence the not-getting-shit-done last night). The hardest part is the kids who just sit there and try to fake working all period. Are they gonna keep doing that for four more days? Yes. Yes they are. So I get what I put into it? Yeah. Fuck you. Not even.

Another parent meeting this morning. Hopefully this one will actually show up. I’m really tired. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning (hear that cats?) and Spring Break in a week, even though it will be altogether too quiet and lonely. I do have a quilt to finish, and if I keep flailing at night, I’ll need a chunk of that time to get it done. Last night? Minor flail. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some stuff done tomorrow so I’ll feel better about this thing being due in 2 1/2 weeks.

Which Parent Will You Be?

Neck is still messed up. Call to chiropractor today. Same with the pool. Whatever. I survived yesterday with about 300 people saying or singing happy birthday to me. I think 6th period was the most melodic AND in tune. Fourth period was just screechy and although 8th period was a nice volume, they only knew three notes.

I sat through a union meeting and drew this…

I have two drawings in my head that are Big Heads (way bigger than this…the sketchbook is probably 6×9″). Need to find time for that.

Then a quiet evening with pizza, Walking Dead, and my sofa companions, some more needy and some more verbal than others. Then I did the dishes and put the dishwasher stuff away, wrote an email to my union people about what happened at the meeting, moved a bookshelf (17 other pieces of furniture had to move first), and finished putting fabric away. While I was doing that, I remembered Amanda Palmer had posted on Facebook about a new song, a serious song, not a last-minute plinking of the ukelele (not that I mind those), and I scrolled through until I found it…listening to the song, I read the story behind it, which is sad, of course. But this part got me…photo of babe in suitcase while she tries to finish writing a song all night. Being an artist AND being a mom…two of the hardest jobs to juggle at the same time.

And I like that…“you are either going to be the person who stayed up and wrote the song, or you’re going to be the person who went to bed and didn’t write the song.” I don’t care about the boring fucking parent side, but I guess I was always the one who stayed up and made the art. Who made it despite parenthood and divorce and all the other crap. I think that’s the artist’s drive, the one that woke me up around 2 AM with this vision of a drawing in my head. Anyway, the song is good…see link below for the story and the song. I read it while I listened, which I think is the best way to do it.

Amanda Palmer: Machete

So in the light of being that person, the one who stays up late to have her other artistic life, here’s what I did after 10 PM last night. First of all, the damn Wonder Under is being an asshole. Here are all the released pieces.

So when I’m ironing, if a piece doesn’t have the web on it, I do this kindergarten-level pattern matching. It has a pointy bit here, it’s long and skinny there, and I try to match them up. If I can’t, I trace a new one. It is a rancid pain in the ass. It’s like an online intelligence test.

Here’s the first 100 laid out.

I honestly didn’t get far, through the 50s and into the 60s I believe. Tiny little pieces and a tired little brain. But I started and that’s what matters. Now I have a plan for the next few nights. This is one of my favorite parts of the quiltmaking process, picking out the fabrics. The piece isn’t even colored in my brain. I just stare at the drawing and imagine it in a variety of colors as I’m picking stuff.

It’s a little crazy actually. The background is on the left. The stuff I’ve used so far is on the right. This drawing is small enough that right now I have it just sitting on the ironing board. Easier to see what’s what, cuz that’s some tiny-ass pieces.

I got to a stopping point and was trying to straighten other stuff up in the studio, when I realized I had a piece of dowel that would work for the SAQA auction piece I bought last year and hadn’t hung yet. I cut the dowel, stuck eyebolts in, and then realized it was REALLY tight. The sleeve was tight against the piece…making the dowel bulge out…

It’s hard to see in this picture, but look on the left, where you can see the bulge of the dowel. I hate that. I always leave room in my sleeves so that won’t happen.

So I ripped the bottom edge of the sleeve and repinned it.

And then I’ll sew it down where it belongs. So I can hang it up with all the other art that needs to get hung up.

Wow. Tired. Sore. But looking forward to that late night tonight when I can hang with the fabric again.

I Got This

Another day, another parent meeting. Gotta book outta here early. Long day with a union meeting at the end.

I have a hard time shaking some sense of fate. It’s my birthday today. I’m OK with the age I’m turning, I’m not down about getting older. I have a birthday gift to myself planned that’s been in my head for about 20 years. It’s all good.

And then I wake up with a massive crick in my neck (no chiropractor on the schedule any time soon), and get rejected from a show (second this week; I’m on a roll), the pool’s gone green and is making noise, so I was out there on my knees trying to get the pump cleared (I have a guy I pay for this because I hate the pool stuff and I suck at it), and everything starts to feel off. The universe! Out to get me! I don’t know where this mindset comes from, but I just told it to fuck off. Loudly.

The crick is because I slept really heavily for once. This is a good thing. If it doesn’t work itself out, I’ll call the chiropractor and schedule for tomorrow or Friday. Meanwhile, there’s Motrin. And maybe a neck rub, if I can persuade someone to do so.

The rejections are common…and I’ve never gotten into this particular show with any nudity, so maybe not so surprising. Besides, and maybe this is more important, my work shouts. It’s loud. It’s out there. It doesn’t always play well with others. That’s why it was so cool to have a show with just one other person, because our work spoke to each other, but it worked. So reject me. Go on. You know you want to. It’s OK. I know the work is strong, it’s good, and it will find a place to hang. The voice in my head that’s whining will soon figure out those pieces are now available for another show.

The pool guy? Calling him this morning. Hopefully he’s not on one of those random vacations he never tells me about. But if he is? The pool is still his problem, not mine.

It’s not fate. It’s just shit happening on the same day. The world doesn’t know when my birthday is. And if it did, it wouldn’t care.

The rest of the day will be survival for sure. And I can do that. I’m good at that.

I finished cutting out Wonder Under last night. I had to retrace some, and in the end, the little pieces just didn’t do well. I have a lot of released fusible. So that will be a pain in the ass. But it’s a pain in the ass I already know.

Ready to sort all those tiny pieces into bins…

It’s such a tiny pile.

All done. Didn’t take long.

Then I went into my office and started cleaning up from the last quilt, putting fabric away. Trying to find room for everything. The bookshelf in the back left needs to come out so dad can fix the shelves. Maybe I can do that tonight.

I need help with about three things around the house. The pets are remarkably useless with hanging art and moving furniture.

Alright fate, I’m going to school now. Whatcha gonna throw at me now? Huh? Bring it. I got this.

Finished! Sort of…

Well one art rejection down…two more notifying this week. I’m on a roll! I’ve been entering art shows since I was in high school…been rejected to more than I can count. It’s no biggie. You realize how many entered and how they tried to put a show together that made sense. It’s not the end of the world. It feels like that sometimes when you get rejection after rejection, but if you know you’re making good work, work that shows your voice, and I’m sure mine does that, then you don’t worry too much about it. It’s a dry spell. Rain will come. Although if you live in Southern California, rain doesn’t come often.

Plus now I have work I can enter elsewhere.

I finished cutting out Wonder Under yesterday…

I think it was a total of 3-4 hours. I still have some pieces I need to retrace and cut out, but then I can sort them and start on the ironing stage…

The web completely pulled off those pieces. Annoying. I keep my Wonder Under in a plastic bag, but maybe age is the issue. Can’t remember when I bought this bolt. And it’s worse on this quilt because the pieces are so tiny. If you have larger pieces, if some part of the fusible starts to release, there’s usually some section that’s still holding on, so you can use it anyway. As I got near the end, I was tracing larger pieces near the edges just because of that. I could also just stay away from the edges, but that’s harder for me to remember. I thought about trimming the edges, but I don’t know if the release would just occur further in if I did that.

I do like that there are little goals to be reached in the quiltmaking process. The drawing is done. The numbering is done. The tracing is done. The cutting is done. The ironing is done. It makes it easier to get a big project done because you have all these little tasks that add up to the big thing. There’s satisfaction on a regular basis. Cross off that task! Whoo!

Whatever. It’s done. Next step.

Next step should be putting the quilt burritos away…

Although the dog does seem to be enjoying the new floor pillows.

OK, busy day. I’m tired. Hoping to make art tonight. And maybe go to sleep early. Some day I have to make up for all the missing sleep. Just not sure when.

That Purpose Is Art

You know you’re in trouble on a Monday morning when you feel like it’s a Friday morning, the level of tired is sand in your eyeballs and your head is reeling like you were out drinking, but you know you weren’t. At no point in time over the weekend did you make up the missing sleep…in fact, you are now deeper in debt and you will have to pay the piper at some point. Damn body, requiring shit like nutrients and rest. I can’t wait until Spring Break…I mean, I can’t wait, because lordy, school is weighing on me, but I really can’t logistically wait two weeks to get more sleep. I need to figure it out now.

Well, maybe not RIGHT now, because in about 45 minutes, I have to race the rainstorm named Goliath out of here to school. Since when do we name storms like this? I remember growing up in Southern California, fishtailing my parents’ car across Los Angeles County roads with never any knowledge of that storm’s name, or I might have yelled it to the heavens. It rained more then. It wasn’t a news item.

What art have I made in the last two days? I’ve done pretty well, mostly because after I finished grades late Friday night, I blew off school pretty much for the rest of the weekend. I sent the parent email. I posted one thing on Google Classroom. That’s it. And once I finished rolling up all the quilts, I started tracing stuff again, at least for an hour or so. I had to drop off a piece for a show where they were confused by my medium. I said, “It’s a quilt.” She said, “like a blanket?” “No, a quilt, but it hangs on the wall.” Blank stare. Oh well. This show was kind of a crapshoot. At least I’ll be educating people.

So I had almost half of the current quilt left to trace as of Saturday afternoon…

But all the pieces are tiny, so it doesn’t take long.

I think this is one of the biggest pieces in the quilt…

I kept tracing on Sunday night, and finished around 10 PM or so I think.

It took just under 6 hours to trace 819 pieces. Except there were two I never found. Sometimes I skip numbers in my head, count pieces that don’t exist. Sometimes I go the other direction and start numbering backwards for a while. And I found at least 4 or 5 pieces that had never been numbered, so they get to be a’s and b’s of the nearest number.

I fit it all on one yard of Wonder Under. Normally it would be like 4 yards of the stuff with that many pieces. Tiny pieces man. I’m gonna be in pain later trying to iron them all down. It’s like the Babygirl piece I did except much bigger…

This is 12 x 18 and the one I’m working on is 16 x 24. OK, not that much bigger. But lots more pieces, that’s for sure. Crazy numbers actually. I’m actually hoping I get no more shows with themes and crazy deadlines for a few months. I know I have some stuff to deal with over the summer, but I’m gonna need a break after this last run…and yes, I put myself in this position by trying to make pieces for shows with very little lead time, but whatever. So far it’s worked.

Anyway, I was watching the last episode of Downton Abbey and started cutting pieces out. I actually got pretty far along. It’s not going to take long…

Although I’m having problems with the fusible web releasing again. Seems we have come full circle with their fusible formulas. Sigh. Whatever.

Cats abound. Sometimes they sleep with me…sometimes they curl up far away on the other couch.

So I may get to the ironing phase this week. Which means some cleanup time in the studio. Aargh. Sleep? Or get ready to iron stuff to fabric? I know which I usually prefer. Even though cleaning sucks, it’s always for a purpose and that purpose is art. Sleep? Eh. I don’t do it well anyway. Best to leave it to the experts.

Made Shit Up

So I finished my trimester 2 grades last night. Around 1 AM. Because the thought of working on them over the weekend gave me the heebie jeebies. I really truly must have a break dammit. So I graded the last assignment and input a bunch of stuff and finalized all of it and analyzed the kids who were on the cusp and determined they hadn’t made an effort to bring their grades up, so they were stuck with the real-live numbers. I really am a numbers woman when it comes to grading. Let them fall where they belong. Rubics for all! However, I’ve decided I need to start using some new codes. I had one I was using with the kids that I can’t remember now, because I was tired of writing them same thing over and over again. So if they saw FRUP (or whatever the fuck it was), they knew what it meant. They already know WU is warmup (not to be confused with my personal life, where WU is Wonder Under…luckily I can tell them apart) and EC is extra credit and HW is homework and I is incomplete. And no. F is not Fabulous. It’s Fired.

I have two more codes to add after grading the last few assignments: FA for Fucking Awesome. Like you’re the kid who makes me get up out of bed in the morning and come into school, because you remind me that I know what I’m doing and you’re getting it and running with it and BLESS YOU MY CHILD. Luckily there are about 10 of these. Mostly girls. Interesting that. They really do help me survive this year. LOOK! I taught them.

The second one? MSU…for Made Shit Up. Because you did. Because I asked you to summarize what you just read and (a) you didn’t read it or (b) you don’t understand it or (c) you are just a jerk who thinks teachers don’t read assignments (sometimes we don’t). You just made up random shit and typed it up and turned it in and if I call you on your shit you will tell me “I tried!” or “That’s what it said!” at which point, I throw the story at you (I don’t do this in real life…just in my head) and demand you POINT TO WHERE IT TALKS ABOUT THAT in the story. I got that from the English teacher, who might be as frustrated as I am this year. Which helps, because then I know it’s not just me going off the deep end.

I think I’m probably gonna get in trouble if I use this one on a regular basis. But seriously, nowhere in the story did they mention surgery or cystic fibrosis. You just fucking made that goddamned shit up. And you alternately annoyed me and depressed me with your actions. So no. You get no points for that.

So I just needed to be done. With grades. And I was. And that would have been fine if I hadn’t had to get up this morning to take down my show. Which is now down. Took a whopping 10 minutes to get it down. And now I’m exhausted because I didn’t sleep anywhere near enough.

Now I didn’t put all those other quilts away that I pulled out while the show was up. Didn’t see the point. Wanted to reorganize the whole mess anyway, because sometimes I can’t find stuff. Seriously. Annoying. I had rolls of quilts I had taken and not used in the show, rolls of those I decided not to bring at the last minute, and rolls of those that were never in the running. One was on the floor in my bedroom next to the bed. I’ve been climbing over it since mid-January. Two were in the little living room and another smaller one in the living room.

So today was the day. Put it all away. In the past, I’ve kept them rolled up in old sheets on the upper shelves in my closets…or the kids’ closets. And that works pretty well, although sometimes lifting up the rolls (or quilt burritos) is difficult by myself. I’m still young! Well. You know. Enough. I’m not very tall though.

So I laid out two sheets, the one on the left for larger quilts and the one on the right for smaller ones. Although in this picture, there doesn’t appear to much difference in the size of what’s on top!

So this is another excavation. You may not know that I made my first “art” quilt in 1990. This may or may not be it. No seriously, I think it is. We were supposed to bring in a drawing, and then she taught us machine piecing of all the curved pieces and machine applique on top for some of it as well. Or maybe she had a drawing for some people to use. I know I had drawn this for a screenprint I never made. I’d taken classes from Susan before…one is further down this pile. But this one is dated 1990. And it has a small amount of silk ribbon embroidery on it as well. What’s amazing is I still have some of that gray street fabric.

Susan taught me traditional quilting as well. The one and ONLY mariners compass I have or will ever make. Seriously.

Pain in the ass. Then I started taking some art quilt classes from local quilt guilds and began to mess with the more freehand approaches they taught me. These were all pinned down and sewn down. Something to do with Frida Kahlo…can’t remember exactly, but I actually started keeping track of the art quilts at this point…this is 2000…probably based on how Joan Colvin taught me to construct quilts.

Meanwhile, I had been making applique landscape quilts with Susan all that time, so I tried an art quilt with hand applique. Oh yeah. That’s not fast. This is dated 2000, but I know the drawing was done when I was nursing my son, because it’s called Soda Sux, Wine Is Better. I had these nasty headaches during and post-pregnancy, but was encouraged not to drink tea. She suggested sodas (ironic considering my current status as a diabetic, but whatever). Dammit. We all know what’s better.

Anyway, I quickly realized I was never ever going to finish quilts if I did them all by hand. So with a few more teachers’ techniques under my belt, I figured out the way I make them now.

Anyway. More piling of quilts until the pile was big enough to roll. I needed a way to keep track of what was in the roll, so I wrote them down and put them in a plastic sleeve that’s taped to the sheet…

Rolled-up burrito o’ quilts.

I used to just have a paper list taped to the roll, but this makes more sense I think. Because they got all torn up and trashed over time.

Found this one too…Genesis. Very simple, bunch of embroidery on it. I had some weird idea and here’s what happened. Can’t always explain art brain.

I got the one big burrito rolled up and started on a second big one, while I kept the small one going.

And the final product: two large and one smallish burrito. About 90 quilts in there.

I pulled one big one that needs a bottom sleeve so it will hang better. It might be in another show this year. I pulled another big one because I’m going to hang it in the living room finally. And I hung one other one that had been out for the show. I have two more that I think I need help to hang. I’m only so tall and long-armed. Like not really. No one’s here to help me lift those burritos up either. I can do it by myself…usually. But I’m debating storing them under the bed instead. Just for easier access. Yes, there’s already stuff under the bed, but maybe it can find a better home. I’m thinking about it. So I’m not putting these away until I decide.

Now I’m going to go trace some Wonder Under. Because I fucking can. Because I finished my work for the weekend (except I have to deliver a quilt…debating doing it tomorrow, although it makes more sense to do it today. Aargh). I hate this shit where you have to be responsible and do stuff you said you would do. And I want cookies. So there.

I Suck at Sleeping

Ahhh tired. I never think about you at 11:30 at night when I’m thinking it’s time to start tracing. Even though I had to take a 20-minute nap last night before I found the energy to go to the gym. I’m not sure why our culture is so against naps for adults except for the elderly. I’m starting to think they should be a part of every day, based on my nighttime sleep habits.

It’s not that I hadn’t done art-related stuff before 11:30 PM. I had to iron, dehair, label, cut slats for, and pack up a quilt for a show. And make a label for UPS. So that was like an hour plus. That was the problem. And I graded before that. And gym. So it’s no surprise that I started late. I could have justified not tracing last night, but I want to get this thing done and that means working every night. Even though grades are due.

Head down, getting it done. All of it. Whatever it is. Mornings are rough though. And tomorrow will be no different, as I have to be in early to take my show down. Sleep! It’s for the…sleepy. Ha.

I haven’t cleaned out all the photo files from last year yet…I have a weird system, and I’m not sure it’s a good one, but it helps me find the photos I need for art stuff. Anyway, the March 2015 files are mixed in with the March 2016 files, and I keep opening the old ones…what’s funny about that is I was tracing Wonder Under then too (I think for Earth Mother for Ventura), so the photos look the same…except that one had way bigger pieces. These are freakin’ tiny. As I keep mentioning…

The pieces are so tiny that they don’t take up much room on the Wonder Under. I’m only 3 1/2 hours in…and up to piece 476, which is the jellyfish in the larger figure’s hair. So I’m past the halfway mark.

You can see I group similar pieces together and then draw a line around them, so I cut them out as one piece of Wonder Under and iron them all together onto the fabric. It saves cutting time at this phase, and if they’re really small, like some of them, I’m less likely to lose them.

So maybe another hour tonight? If I’m lucky? Tomorrow is looking a bit hairy. So probably Sunday night will be the next tracing day…although it also has its challenges.

I feel like this every year about 2 weeks before Spring Break. Exhausted, overwhelmed, head down, trying to survive. And the girlchild is texting me about how shitty she feels and you can’t make an adult who is 3000 miles away from you go to the doctor. Luckily, there’s Google and she can just diagnose herself. And probably medicate herself.

Meanwhile, boychild has scored himself housing on campus again just by waiting it out. I know I didn’t want to have a roommate by my junior year, but it’s easier than finding somewhere else to live. And he possibly won’t come home this summer. Which is depressing. But again, I did realize they would go away to college and eventually they would not come back, and my future would be this house, mostly empty, a really annoying dog who is scared of the ducks next to the pool and cats and everything in the world sometimes, and two very needy cats who headbutt my hand while I’m trying to do stuff and lick me and want to sit on me and get annoyed if I don’t do what they want. And all the fucking quiet, even with Pandora and TV and Netflix, it’s just way too damn quiet and empty.

I guess it’s a contrast to my daytime job. I might sleep all Spring Break. Except I suck at sleeping. OK. Going to the job. The place that sucks up all my time and patience. Aargh. It’s chaos there right now. Too much.