Some Amazing Splinters

Cue music. I am deep in summer mode. I find it torturous to do mundane chores or errands. I just want to write and make art. I’ll leave for social events, because I know I’m deep in hermit mode, but it’s hard sometimes to walk away. Yesterday, though? Yesterday I needed a break. I have a drawing I started ages ago…

April I think? And I enlarged it about 200% and then realized I had a whole ‘nother figure to draw and the piece could be up to 60″ square. I like big quilts. I like lots of detail. This was going to be my summer quilt, and yes, some other stuff jumped in front of it, but I delivered two quilts to the photographer today, and I’m feeling good! So yesterday, I pulled this one out…

And laid it out. You can see I added quite a bit to the left, where the other figure will be, plus some space at the bottom for the legs to be finished, and some at the top, just in case. Now it looks tiny.

There is no bathtub in this one.

I probably spent a couple of hours on the first part of the drawing. So yesterday afternoon, I started on the knees and the rest of the legs.

Then I penciled in a figure on the left and started deciding what she would really look like. I penciled in just general shapes…you can see some pencil of the torso.

It’s a good thing I started in pencil, because the head was WAY too big and had to be redrawn like three times to get it to the right size.

This figure needs to be standing over the other figure, but it also needs different things on it, so I have to keep stopping and thinking instead of drawing. That’s how I know it’s time to take a break…I’ve been staring at the drawing for WAY too long and nothing’s getting drawn.

The photos get more difficult at this point…it’s really dark in there. But you can see I got most of the head and chest area done…

One arm is done but needs decoration. The other arm is not done and I didn’t start the middle of the torso. There were just too many ideas in my head at that point, and I couldn’t focus. Why? Because I’d been working on it for two hours and 40 minutes. No small amount of time. And it’s not even halfway done, that second figure. Hmm. I’m hoping to finish tonight, maybe even number it. We’ll see.

My time totals rarely include drawing time, because I don’t usually keep track of that.

I tried to get a photo that shows the whole thing, but even brightened and put in black and white, it’s too hard to see. You can see the hips and legs coming down on the left.

So it’s almost 6 PM and I have to cook dinner. Well, the pizza dough is coming to room temperature, so I have some time. But someone is hogging the television, and my brain needs TV light to distract me from the part of my brain that wants to censor the drawing. Actually, I’m watching Helix, which is not light enough unfortunately. I keep having to rewind to figure out the story, but it is growing on me. Some virus that’s carried in honey or some mother tree or something. It makes the men infertile. I’m not sure what it does to the women. Having just spent time reading the summaries, my confusion between bees and honey and apples and Mother Tree and the bleeding tree makes complete sense. There is no sense yet. I think I have 4 episodes to make sense of it all. That might be how long it takes me to finish this drawing.

I’ve also been writing. I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo in an attempt to finish the sci fi novel I started last summer and wrote a giant chunk of over November. I’ve written about 5000 words, which isn’t great, but is better than I’d done so far this summer without motivation, and then I got asked to write another story, so I did that in the last two days, almost 5000 words there as well. That stuff takes time, for sure…as does writing here. But it’s all good. Writing clears my mind. Drawing does too, but in an entirely different way. I can have the drawing working in my head while I write, and a hand moves around, putting objects all over, trying them out, while the words spill out on the screen. Same as when I draw, while I’m moving the pen around on the paper, the story is writing itself, characters bouncing around, dying off, meeting others on the road, making decisions about plot while I draw.

My brain is truly split off in some amazing splinters.

One Done, Nine to Go…or Ten?

So I finished another quilt last night, actually this morning in the early dewy moments when you know you should be asleep, but you’re waiting for the girlchild to get home from a performance, so you can’t go to sleep anyway, so you might as well finish the binding, even though you’re tired of working on it. Yeah. It was one of those. Sometimes my brain just fights finishing (because it knows what’s next and it’s afraid, very very afraid).

OK, really just apprehensive because I’m not sure how the next step will work out and there’s a lot of other things hanging over me right now that I am trying REALLY hard to ignore. Really.

So I trimmed the quilt.

I really hate having to make quilts to a specific size. It gives me the heeby jeebies. I’m sure I’m going to fuck it up. I check the size in the paperwork or online over and over, obsessively, and then trimming it just freaks me out. I’m sure it would be OK if it were a half inch larger, but I just don’t like it.

I had gone to the fabric store before and gotten the binding (plus some others wanted to come home with me…all those pretty pastel colors and then SKULLS)…

I tried for a dark blue and it just didn’t work…couldn’t get the right shade and dark enough. And then I thought about turquoise, but I don’t know if it’s just my store (which is huge), but I haven’t seen any good turquoises for months. Something to keep in mind. I put it in the wash before I went to my quilt meeting and it was ready when I finally got done with all that and dinnermaking and cleaning the kitchen. Yes, I started after 9 PM, I’m sure…

But this really is a small quilt, so this went relatively quickly…

Binding on, two sleeves, bottom and top…and then the handsewing…

While waiting for the girlchild to get home. It’s done. Emailing the photographer this morning to do this one and the Bathtub.

I also worked on some smaller quilts for sale yesterday, because it’s an easier project to lug around outside the house…I traced all the Wonder Under for 7 projects…

Having done two of them last Friday and then not touching them all week. Here they are, all ready for trimming…

I decided to try cats this year instead of birds. But then I digressed. Because I do. But starting with the cats, here’s 1 and 2…

Both drawn from real life. Then 3 and 4…

Three is the curled-up one and that was real life, but it’s also much more complicated. Julie is shaking her head at me right now, because complicated means more time.

And Cat 5…

whose expression is my favorite. That’s Kitten’s face.

Cat 6? Well, let’s just say I can’t always be normal. I really wanted to make this one and it kept talking to me, and I realize no one will probably want to buy it because it’s weird, AND it has over a hundred pieces (Julie throws her arms up in the air and stomps away), but I like it. So there.

So that’s 6 cats…then I liked the heart in hands that I did for the FFAC donation, so I had drawn one version that was way too complicated and one simple one…

So the one on the left will inevitably be cheaper than the one on the right. Whatever. I don’t even know if these will sell, but it’s worth a try.

And then I did another owl…

I actually pulled this from one of the bathtub drawings. There’s another owl I want to draw, but I really need to stop and get these started at least, because I need to draw this giant thing this weekend and start working on it, because there’s really only 4 weeks until I have to start really thinking about school (besides all the texts and emails all over the place that have been annoying me all week). And that’s not much time. And I have to finish that commission piece too. I’m kind of freaked out about the next step with that…will have to just suck it up and DO it instead of thinking so hard about it. Like that’s possible.

But I’m really pleased that I’ve stuck with my schedule so far…in fact, I’m about a week ahead. Of course, I might be screwed later today if the job I bid on comes in…screwed timewise, but able to earn August’s mortgage payment. That would be a plus. Trade-offs…one of the things I teach in 7th-grade science. Clinical trials for medications, cancer treatments, how to get money to go to the movies…all trade-offs. Yes, I can be an artist, but I am going to be behind on everything else and sometimes my schedule will go crazy, even though it’s summer and I should be relaxing. It is relaxing to be tracing Wonder Under or picking fabrics…it’s a different kind of relaxation. The sort-of workaholic kind. Oh well. It’s obviously in my genes. I will take some time off this evening and relax a bit, and then go crazy again.

Speaking of relaxing, when I’m done sewing bindings but the girlchild isn’t actually home yet so I still have to be awake, or when I’m in a Barnes and Noble Starbucks with my stitching friends and I don’t have anything portable to work on, I do these…

This is Sue Spargo’s Bird Crazy, started three years ago? Maybe 2 1/2 years ago. I have 21 birds completely embroidered and 9 to go…here’s the 6 I’m currently working on…

They all have feet. The bottom half have all their background embroidery done. I’m working on that task on the top three. When these are done, there are only 3 left…then I can sew it together…and start on another one. Because I do need something to work on when I’m on a plane or in a waiting room or wherever, and these are easy and relaxing and don’t require a lot of thought, but the embroidery is fun to do. So yeah, I have those to work on.

OK, so I need to deal with that giant drawing now. Or breakfast. Whichever seems less traumatic…

Late-Night Title Number 17

I just can’t come up with a title. Sorry. Left all my brainpower elsewhere. It’s late.

So I finished quilting tonight…

About 5 hours and 21 minutes to quilt it all. Told you it was small. Small and quick. That was the goal. I’m ahead of schedule right this second. That could change at any second. So in a little bit, after writing this, I’ll calculate the binding and see if I have enough of something appropriate in house to do that…which would be nice, because I don’t want to lose time tomorrow morning with going out and buying it and having to wash it before I put it on. Why? I mean, if I’m ahead of schedule, why am I panicking? Well I had one copyediting job that I thought might start yesterday, but then that fell through (or extended out until October, hard to say), and then I had another request for bid tonight, so hopefully…maybe…I’ll have work for the next week. But THAT means I won’t have time (or as much time) to quilt. And the next one is a big one. A time-sucker. A giant-ass beast of a quilt. Well, at least I think it will be, because (don’t laugh) the drawing isn’t done. So that’s one issue. Plus I’m letting a ton of stuff just fall by the wayside at the moment. Because? I just can’t deal with all of it is all. There aren’t enough hours.

But I do make choices about certain things…yesterday, I chose to go to this concert…

Vokab Company (eh) with their crazy painter accompaniment…painting John Travolta as he danced to the music…

I’m fairly sure he had a shitload of paint in his hair this morning.

And then what we really came for, Dopapod…

Great light show and fun music…

More fun without all the drunk white boys, but what can you say…cheap tickets and apparently easy to buy beer (funny that they have more money than I do to spend on beer). Concerts haven’t changed much since I was 16…I still dance, even just to keep my feet from going dead, and I refrained from offering the excessively drunk tiny girls in the bathroom a ride home dearies. Seriously, I really wanted to mom them…briefly.

Anyway, that and a variety of other things waylaid my responsibility cart yesterday, plus the panic about a possible job starting (silly, since it didn’t). I was much better today…got some stuff done and bid on another job and got my focus closer to where it needed to be. I have a plan for tomorrow that will be better once I finish writing this and looking at bindings.

Boychild deconstructed the ancient play structure yesterday…

Quite happily…and trotted most of it off the lawn today. He is doing a bit every day on the list I gave him. Girlchild has signed up for her first college classes. They will all be gone in six weeks…leaving me in a very quiet house where the only dishes are mine. That will be interesting. And lonely. Sigh. Pros and cons.

This is why I try to hike with them now. But I’m not caving into guilt trips about whether I should be making art or not. This is who I am, what I am. If they haven’t figured that out yet, they will. Soon enough.

After I finished quilting, I inked shadows…

Funny…looking at this picture, I just saw something I needed to fix! No, I’m not telling you what.

I like this one. It’s so small. Trim and bind…that’s it. Then call the photographer and get my butt in gear on the big one. I have a plan. It’s all laid out in my head. There’s other shit that keeps piling in on top of it, but I’m trying to keep the big goals in my head, keep them straight and prioritized. Because in the long run, I don’t care whether that box gets emptied out and put away. I do care if my art gets made and shown. I do care if my kids grow up to be responsible. I care if my sanity survives the next 6+ weeks. I care if I can pay the bills and still feel like I have time to do what I need to do. So that…that’s my goal.

OK, measuring for binding now.

Art Drive

When your brain wakes you up because it knows how much you have to do today. Not good. But I got a decent night’s sleep…for once, the mockingbird was silent when I crawled into bed. I was tired from kayaking and quilting. I finished the outlining last night (not early, by the way, but before midnight? I think? Wait, there’s an app for that. Yup! 11:50 PM)…

It’s funny, I’m not actually doing that much art each day (wish I were doing more), but this thing is getting done. It took 3 hours to do all the outlining…

It’s nice to do a smaller, less-complicated quilt every once in a while. It’s kind of a relief. Ha! The next one is a giant beast of a thing, and I don’t even know how big yet, because I haven’t finished drawing it. I piled all this stuff up on my light table yesterday, trying to get my head around what I needed to do, thinking about the proposal I submitted the other day for an experimental piece, something I’ve never done before (aack). But I need to stop worrying about that until they notify me (I won’t necessarily get in) and get this one DONE…

which means quilting the whole background today. No really. I mean it. And then draw the other one and get it started. Like now. OK. Maybe by the weekend.

Really, I should walk away from the computer right now, but my text messages are blowing up over school stuff (crazy changes ahead, again), and I’m supposed to go to the gym and I don’t feel like it. I feel like sitting down and quilting for three hours and finishing the beast. Aargh. This is what happens over summer. I can’t do anything but make art because it feels like there isn’t enough time for everything and the art is the most important thing. Fuck house cleaning and handling errands. Just make art. It really is a drive for me, a crazy impulsive thing that runs through me and tugs me along in this direction and talks to me when I’m trying to fall asleep. It murmurs in my sleep, disrupting circadian rhythms. It knocks on my skull during the work day and in staff meetings. Right now it’s screaming pretty loudly, but so is my plummeting blood sugar, so I should deal with that too.

Food. Then an internal argument over going to the gym (you get to read there! It’s good for you! It will make up for what you’re going to eat for dinner!). Then quilting. Getting it done.

Relaxation…the Workaholic Way…

So relaxation does not come easy to me. If it’s “vacation,” I tend to be doing just as much if not more than I do during the work year. I’m a workaholic. I do vacation the same way. With the foot injury and recovering from pneumonia way way back in February, I’ve really been trying to get back on track with my exercise plan, which has included trying to hike with the kids once a week and get back into going back to the gym. I’m also continuing to try to make art every day, which is a LOT easier if you don’t have to grade papers every night.

So I managed yesterday morning to clean a floor (kick the dogs out!) and then lay out a quilt on it and pinbaste the beast…

It’s actually quite small for me, supposed to finish at 18×40″. Teensy. I managed the pinbasting before the dogs broke through the screen door to get back in the house, and more importantly, lie all over the floor and detach their hair upon it.

I also stitched down the handy boob from last night…need to figure out what next on it.

Then the boychild and I set out upon a hike…It was supposed to be about 6 miles, but I think the boychild added a mile and a half onto it. The first part was what I expected…this is Hollenbeck Canyon Trail out near Jamul…

Although I’d never seen these flowers before…

There was still a little water left in the canyon…

And the only geocache I can keep in my memory banks was still there…

But then we had a divergence of opinion (I was right). Boychild wanted to take this path, which is not actually the trail that’s on the official map. OK. I’ve done this trail before. I remember the bitchy hill at the end of it.

Here’s the beginning of it. No matter what on this trail, there is a bitchy hill…

You can choose this one or the other one. This path is longer, but I don’t think the hill is worse.

Notice he’s way ahead of me. Mom gets tired on the hills. Can’t breathe. So I stop and look back and take photos of the looming thunder clouds (no rain for us).

And he waits for me at the top. I actually picked this trail because there wasn’t a lot of having to wait for mom. So normally, we would now take THIS trail…down. Into the back end of the hike. But no…

He wants to take that one. Hell. That’s not on the map at all, dear heart. It’s not.

But I’m a good sport and he seems to think he’s done this before (he has).

But instead of heading north and then west to catch up with the other trail, it seems to be heading northeast. Like away. Hmnn. There’s a bird nest up in there.

Probably hawk or turkey vulture. So below, way far in the distance, is the trail we should be on. I just printed the map and I think we did an extra two miles on that section…

He’s going to argue it was less. Oh well. Eventually, after traipsing through poison oak and shady groves, we met up with the normal trail, a lovely walk through oak groves.

And this. Fenced off…marked with signs that it’s a wildlife special place (I’m sure there were more official words than that)…

And I’m betting this is a motion-sensor camera (which recorded me and the boychild making faces at it)…planted right in front of the water.

Very strange. More walking, as we consider when the sun will go down and whether boychild allotted time for his mother’s tiredness and short legs (he did it in 3 hours with a few walkbacks)…

Bug analysis…

Lots and lots of ants and their holes…I’m sure I killed hundreds of them by walking on them.

Long vistas with the marine layer coming in (a sign that night is near)…

These funky dead flowers…

And vistas worthy of a little home on a prairie apparently…

It was beautiful, and this little old lady did it (whatever IT is, 7 miles? 8?) in 2 hours and 40 minutes. With an ankle brace. Suck THAT.

Yeah. I know. I have issues.

So then I came home and actually was able to quilt after that…

No, I don’t know how. I just did. I didn’t do a whole lot, but I got started on the quilting, on the outlining. I think I’m up to the torso at this point. I might have part of a leg to do. Honestly, I got tired. Plus, I knew I needed to get up in the morning for THIS…

Oh yeah baby. Wet butt, probably sore neck and shoulders later tonight…kayaking on Mission Bay. A real joy. Mostly calm (some speedboats teaching kids how to ski), a seal ahead of us. I really enjoyed it. Not so long that I was in pain, although I’m tired right now…but totally long enough to know I did a mental and physical workout.

I need to do some more quilting now, because it looks like I might have an editing job coming in tomorrow. AACK! It really gets crazy now, doesn’t it? How many different ways can I have to earn money at once? As many as it takes. So quilting, editing, the odd writing job might pop up, a commission, some small art quilts. The boychild’s financial aid came in finally, and it was better than last year, but not as good as I wanted it to be, so I’m short money…I knew I would be. Just not how much. So I take deep breaths and figure out how to get it all done.

But apparently the relaxing part means running around outside in the natural world…which is the best thing for us hermits to be doing anyway. Tomorrow? I might just go to the gym instead. Just for a change.

Hermiting

Making art is so often a solitary process. Yes, I love having the time off during the summer where I can spend a ton of hours making art (although I feel guilty the entire time for not getting my yard into better shape or finishing the painting of the house or cleaning out the garage or whatever), but it is really isolating at times. I spend hours talking to no one, texting occasionally, with a random phone call NOT from a solar manufacturing company tossed in there for some semblance of sanity. I try to get out and go to the gym or hiking or to meetings with friends, and that helps, but really…I’m spending hours in my head making stuff. I do WANT to be making the stuff. It would just be nicer if there were more people around occasionally. I need to be in an artists’ commune or something. Or not. That would drive me nuts.

So on the 4th of July, as the sun goes down, when most people gather with friends and family, I gathered with my fabric…

Only for a little while though. I did go to fireworks with the kids and their dad, like we do every year. But I got her eyes ironed down in the right place before I went. I always iron them together separately and then make sure they’re placed NOT crooked.

Sunday, I spent most of the day cleaning I think. Or trying to avoid the grocery store. The fridge is all cleared out and totally clean, except for the drawer that only comes out if the door comes off. I think I need to replace the door seals. I don’t know how to do that, but I’m fairly sure I can Google that shit. Maintenance is not my strong point.

But I did finally go back to the ironing. I only had the snake’s eyes to do, and then I needed to iron the whole thing down to the background…

That’s what it looks like when I pull it off the teflon sheet…ready to place on background fabric. I had a brief moment of panic when I thought it was totally the wrong size (I am making this one for a show, so it probably won’t get in, and I don’t care, because it will go somewhere. Sometime.)…

So I obsessively measured it and it’s fine. Not huge, though, which is a good thing, because I think I have to finish it this week. Deep breaths. So that was last night around 9 PM. Or so.

So what next? Start stitching it down? I’m working on this small commission piece, though, and it just seemed easier to put that one together now that the iron was all set up and ready to go…

So I started doing that. This is a smaller version of a section of my Mammogram quilt. This one is the actual size of the original drawing, whereas the quilt was enlarged probably 200-250%. So it’s tiny in some ways…

Yup. Those are some tiny fingernails. I probably could have reduced the detail in those for the size, but I didn’t think that through. But I did get it all ironed down to a background…

It’s straight in real life. Actually, it’s going to wrap around a canvas frame, so I’m leaving extra on the sides for that. Not sure how I’m going to finish it though…need to figure that out.

Then and only then did I start stitching the other one down…

Yes, I looked at the clock. I wasn’t going to finish it last night…just start it.

At least, that’s what I said to myself at the beginning, but then it just got easier and easier to think I should just finish it NOW (here’s how I get into trouble sleepwise)…there’s the back.

Yes I finished the damn thing. Why?

Now I can clean the entryway floor (dogs have been sleeping on it) and then lay this out. I think I even have enough batting for this one. Although I should be watching sales…because I know the next big one will need a chunk of batting and I don’t have anything big enough. Although I haven’t finished DRAWING that one yet (minor issue) and there might be another experimental one in between. PLUS, I’m supposed to be working on those little ones for sale. Got sidetracked again. By art. And yes, I have my own chores for today. Sigh. But I’m going hiking with the boychild (he doesn’t know this yet…in fact, I’m not sure he’s awake. I think he is. He has not shown his face.). But first, clean the floor and lay out the quilt. OK, I should eat too (diabetic). Maybe shower just in case someone comes here (doesn’t happen). Another cup of tea. I do shower every day. I swear. Unwashed artist hermiting in her house. I could do that. I could.

Ironing All Day…

A nice cool breeze wanders in the window. I spent over 7 hours yesterday making art. I was pretty significantly braindead at the end of all that, but I got a lot done. I didn’t get anything else done. Well, I made dinner. I copied some stuff. I picked up some stuff for my parental units. So not NOTHING. Just close to nothing. It’s OK to do that sometimes. Seriously.

I actually started by picking the fabrics for the breast commission…I had my iPad with the original quilt, so I could see if I could get similar fabrics.

‘

Which meant sitting on the floor and going through 5 drawers of flesh fabrics…but I found a range that worked.

I was supposed to be at my quilt meeting about 30 minutes after I got to this stage…I was only about 15 minutes late.

And this is what was underfoot.

The first fabric in the range, I’m down to this much fabric on this print…the long piece and the pile of tiny pieces above it.

I think I had a 1/2 yard to start. Luckily, I didn’t need much. The way I make quilts works well with tiny pieces of fabric for most of it.

Here they are, all ironed down…

And then I went to the meeting and cut them out…

I also started working on some smaller quilts for sale. I have 1 owl, 2 hearts in hand, and 6 cats. One cat is really weird. Can’t seem to not make the weird. They are all numbered and two are traced onto Wonder Under. I did all that because the larger quilt I’m working on is not really portable at the moment.

Then I came home and ironed for a good long time.

Kitten was hiding from Katy. The stuff above was what I got done before I started dinner. Well, except I had already done the head and random hand last night. Each hand has around 27 pieces in it. And they’re tiny. Kinda crazy.

I kept going after dinner…

I did actually converse with humans (albeit related to me) at dinner. OK, I conversed at the quilt thing too. Before that, I went 16 hours with no talking, except to the dogs and cats.

I stopped here, tired, and took a break. I had one part of an arm and another hand to do (you can see the fingers in the bottom right)…

I actually ironed the lungs and heart separately, and then put them on top and made them fit.

Then I had some apple crisp and managed to finish the arm. And that’s where I stopped last night, well after midnight.

There will be a lot of detail added with stitching. There’s just the last head left (and all the crap around it). And I need to iron the legs to the torso. I’m at 7 hours and 15 minutes. Not bad. It’s fussy ironing, tiny pieces, but not particularly hard to do. There’s at least another hour, maybe two in this…and that’s to get it down to the fabric as well.

It’s actually really hard to stop at this stage. But I needed to sleep. And be woken by dogs early and often until one kid took one onto his lap (yes, a dog) and the other finally settled and I put my pillow over my head, which is my signal to Kitten that I really need to sleep and she’s annoying me. And for the first time all summer, I did sleep. A miracle.

Katy really isn’t letting Kitten be Kitten…

That look. She might kill you, Katy. Katy is under the ironing board there. Because that’s not an annoying place to sit.

But no. I need to go to the gym, and there are fireworks tonight, and I might even socialize with people. OK. Person. Let’s not push it people. I don’t count my kids in all that. And I should get some ironing done as well, as I’m waiting for everyone to be wherever it is they want to be. No barbecuing with the family (parents are gone, kids are with their dad…I got them last year), no party, just another Independence Day. Reminds me of the July 4 we spent in Sweden, where no one celebrated with fireworks etc. It was strange. I think it was the first year in my life I hadn’t had all that. We are not hiking to fireworks this year. Maybe next year. I just don’t feel like it. Too tired. I want to sit right under them and hear all the annoying people playing their stupid radios and the crowd getting there and getting back. I want to hear the little kids alternately squealing and screaming, not sure if they’re scared or excited.

Meanwhile, need to get my butt out of here so I can come back and iron. In true independent fashion…

Found My Happy Scissors…

I’m plugging along on the art stuff. Summer is so strange. I don’t have to deal with the stress of students and lesson plans, but the home stress increases because everyone is home all the time or they don’t want to be home and they’re going to complain about having to pay for gas or whatever. And yeah, I made you come back and wash all your dishes. I’m that mean.

Giant ass sigh. I actually got shit yesterday for making art instead of driving someone somewhere. Someone who has a license and doesn’t need me to go to that place. And I wanted to say, you know, your mom actually made some money last year and this year off her art, and she used that to buy food last summer. Did you eat that food? Plus art. Sheesh. It’s the part that keeps me alive sometimes. It’s the part that keeps me going when I don’t get enough from elsewhere. It is the only thing I really truly know I have, the only thing I know I can trust to be there. I no longer listen to that voice from that early professor who had lost it, the ability to come up with new ideas. About how it would someday be gone and I should plan for that. I am older now than he was then. And I have enough drawings in my sketchbooks to make quilts until I’m 172, so I think I’m good. Fuck you for putting that worry in my head. Or thank you, because I’ve fought to make sure it would never happen. Hard to say which.

I know the girlchild knows how important it is. Notionally. And when she gets older, she will understand more. I know she knows it was more important for me to be sorting pieces than to drive her to have her TB test checked. I was there at the physical. I am at as many places as I can be. My job…that’s what she should really be mad at…because it’s sucked up more time than my art ever has. And I’m blowing my job off to fly her to college, even though I know we will probably argue the whole time and I will go back to my hotel room in tears…it’s OK. I know it will be OK.

But right now, today, this week. Not so much.

So I make art. And apple crisp. And tea. And I try to shut down the part of my brain that gets sad.

I finished cutting yesterday…because I found the good scissors…and I labeled them so I could find them easier next time…

And because I couldn’t be in the living room because it was already occupied, I came into my office…

I think the cutting took about 5 1/2 hours. Everything on this quilt is taking about 5 1/2 hours.

I’ve been having to manage the animals though. Because Kitten, that’s where I lay out my pieces, so you can’t sit there.

No really. Even though Katy is staring up at you…

saying to herself, Oh My God, what IS that? Is it tasty? Does it want to play? Katy, the answer to all your questions is No. No, she does not want to be your friend. Kitten. I need that space.

Then I got Calli, and Kitten moved down onto the chair (see the tail?)…

So I could actually start ironing. And when Calli left, Katy took her spot, so I was always walking over a dog.

I started ironing in the afternoon…

And then onto the legs, after a 45-minute-long conversation on what the girlchild should be allowed to do and who was responsible for what. Because honestly, I’m a little tired of being responsible for everything. More than a little tired.

So the legs were not easy to iron. Fussy little shading pieces that overlap in a very specific way…

Plus I had numbered by body, not by logical ironing order. Or maybe I thought it was logical at the time, but it obviously wasn’t. Because it never is.

So I pulled the 200s before the 100s, ironed the bottom of the front leg (front body’s leg), then the top of the back person’s leg, then the top of the front person’s leg, then the top leg, which belongs to the back person. Oh yeah. Follow that?

I almost quit then, even though it was only 10 or so. But then I realized the remaining leg was a piece of cake compared to what I’d just done, so I whipped it out. Four legs…

Very pale without their outline stitching of course. I could have stopped then, but sleep has been difficult lately, falling asleep, so I figured I was better off continuing the work…

Then a patterned head. This is back into the 100s…

Which are almost done. So I think I have about 275 pieces done, close to half. I need to do the whole torso and the hands (the hands are fussy bitches, and there are four of them.). That will take a while. Unfortunately, my quilt class today is taking up the afternoon, and this isn’t really a portable section of the quilt, so it will have to wait until tonight and tomorrow.

I’ve got a brace on my right foot. Rolled my ankle back in April…now I have another list of exercises. Luckily, my podiatrist is a hiker, and besides telling me to spend about $300 on new shoes, he doesn’t want me to stop exercising and hiking, which is awesome, because at one point, I was looking at the shelves of boot casts in the doctor’s office and saying Oh Fuck, Not Again to myself. So I’m relieved. And pleased.

Now I just need to get my butt out of the studio long enough to do those things. It’s hard, because there is so much art to be made. Meanwhile, I have been bidding on editing jobs, but it hasn’t turned into real work yet. Hopefully soon. Meanwhile. It’s not so bad to be making art. Really.

Lost Days

I keep losing whole days to minutia. Today? Chiropractor, shopping for college crap, photographing a gallery space so I can write a better proposal. I finished a book (that’s not lost time. I’m OK with that.). I wanted to be further along with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So be it.

I spent some time cutting out pieces yesterday…

I hate my scissors. I don’t like how they cut. I feel like this is not the pair I usually use. I worry that I’m developing arthritis, because I have these weird pains in one finger that were never there before. I cried last night and this morning. I don’t know why. I mean notionally there’s the hormone thing, which is obviously messing with my tiny little brain, and then girlchild had texted me last night about her roommates for college, and I was feeling the empty space around me, even with a dog and a couple of cats, and it was too empty and quiet and because it’s summer, I don’t talk to as many adults. I go into this hermit phase, which is fine when the kids are around, because they check in with me and I with them and there’s at least people around if you fall down and can’t get up or your blood sugar goes wild, but in two months, there will be no one. No one at all.

Yeah. Shut up brain. You suck.

I’ve cut out everything but the flesh colors. Of course, the flesh is a huge part of it (and I did start on those last night, because sleep seemed very far away)…

I wanted to get the rest done today, but the day disappeared, lost in errands and time wandering and muggy humid thunderstorms that are wandering across the county.

When I was driving from the chiropractor to the art space, I was on this freeway and a good song came on and I accelerated with the music, and the road was rushing by, and the tears were doing the stupid shit they do, and I thought “road trip.” Girlchild had asked me about her and a friend doing one, and I pushed her off, because I don’t trust the car or honestly two barely-18-year-olds, but we can have that discussion with her dad present as well, but fuck me…I’m 48 and I haven’t had a real vacation in a freakin’ long time, unless you count a weekend in San Francisco or Houston, and I had this incredibly huge urge to just keep driving. To not go home. To run away. I had $11 on me. One sketchbook. No food. Yeah. I didn’t say it was a good idea, but it was a big one. A very alluring one. I should keep that in the back of my mind. Run away. You can. Sort of. You do have to get someone in to feed the animals.

Sigh. I saw this while looking at the art space…

Love street art, paintings on buildings that wrap around doors and windows. Some day. Some day I will do that.

I’m still setting goals. I’m just kind of slow getting some of them done. It is summer. I should excuse some of that slowness. It’s not so bad. I don’t lose whole days; just parts of them. Most of the daylight parts. Maybe I’m just not meant to make art during the day. My night owl brain can’t process it any earlier than it does.

Who knows.

Finishing Up…a Quilt and an Exhibit…

Normally I’m a fan of rain, but not when the thunder associated with it makes the girlchild’s dog want to climb into my lap. Then it just sucks big time. She shut the computer down in the middle of a long post for one of the art groups I’m in. I finally managed to close the door to my office, just to get some peace without her trying to dig a hole in my fabric (she’s a Golden Retriever, not something that is easy to hide in a drawer of fabric, but she does it nonetheless). Her mom (the girlchild) is apparently NOT at the Fair, because it’s raining up there too, and the boychild just lost 4 wisdom teeth, so his patience is worn a bit thin and bloody. Plus it’s humid and muggy, not good for me either. But I’m trying to get all this computer crap out of the way, and then I can come out and sit with Ms. Whinypants, because I really need a Retriever on my lap.

Last night, finally, after a ton of stuff was done, I managed to finish ironing the pieces for the newest quilt…

I told you I would be adding color. It has 49 fabrics and it took about 5 1/2 hours to pick them all.

Pretty fast, actually. That’s because the majority of them were the same fabrics, so I just had to find them all and figure out which of the 6 flesh or 4 bone colors it needed to be, rather than find all new fabrics.

Kitten has appropriated the chair once taken by Babygirl and by Limbo before her.

In fact, she’s sitting there now, curled up against my back. I rarely get to sit in the chair properly. I’m always sharing it.

I did start cutting them out last night, mostly because I had to stay up until the girlchild came home, but also because I’m a night owl…

Although I’m feeling it this morning. Hopefully I’ll get the rest cut out tonight and then move on to ironing. Or maybe I’ll cut out the commissioned breast fabrics. That wouldn’t take long. We’ll see how tired I am. Cutting is fine while tired (I still have all my fingers). Ironing is harder. It requires standing and conscious thought. Always a problem.

I posted for California Fibers about the show opening on Saturday. You can see it all here, on the California Fibers blog. There were a few other artists involved in the show, so I wanted to post about them here.

This is Dani Dodge’s Sutured Jane with her video The Weight of Fabric playing on top of it.

I met Dani and had a conversation with her after we accidentally photographed each other in this panoramic…

She’s holding up the camera in the right middle…you can see how crowded the gallery was.

And here’s another view from more in the middle…of the gallery, not Dani.

Sandra Lauterbach was there with 6 pieces…yes, I know there are only 5 in this photo. I’m not sure where the 6th was.

Here’s a view from the stairs in the back, where more pieces were hiding…notably, Camilla Taylor’s We Waited, 4 figures total.

Here you can see three of them and her piece on the right, Feign.

I was more than a little fascinated with their construction…

listed as fabric, welded steel, paper pulp infrastructure. The stitcher in me wants to know HOW.

Terri Hartman’s work continued down the stairs with her Melancholy Sideshow…

Her Bullseye pieces…

In different sizes going up the stairs…

And her highly amusing My Family Tree…

consisting of descriptions of people we ALL want in our family…

Sold separately!

Seriously. I know these people.

And her Altered Definitions…

Lastly was a room with an installation, photographs, and video by Marisa Caichiolo…No More Blood in Your Clothes…

As you can see here…

The requisite picture of the harried artist, finally in front of her art (which was in a good place, right in front of the wine station)…

This guy matched the quilt…

Anyway, it was a good exhibit opening, which was nice, considering the drive. I would love to go back and peruse the hardware store as well…

Walls and walls of fun stuff. Now on to the next exhibit…although, honestly, I’m not sure I have one coming up with a local opening (or even one within a 3-hour drive), so it might be a while before I get to have those types of photos again. All the more reason to enjoy this one.