To Write or Not to Write

For those who have been reading for long enough, you’ve seen my moods swing all over the map. I wrote out an entire year and a half of recovering from depression. Was I recovering? I think so. Is it recovering when it’s depression, or just reclaiming the self you were before, which doesn’t exist any more, because you went through whatever it was you went through? So surviving might be a better word. It’s like a tsunami: major damage in the beginning and then you rebuild and it takes time and everything looks a little different afterwards. It will never be the island town it was before. Mine was a tsunami anyway…a major unexpected change in my life that I apparently couldn’t process for a very long time. For some it’s maybe more like climate change, slow and deliberate and mostly out of your control, but inherently world-damaging.

And I know now that I didn’t cause the tsunami…and I’m the one who did the rebuilding. So I guess that’s useful information. And I know that my own health issues, whether hormones or thyroid or iron deficiency, didn’t help the post-tsunami destruction, and I still am dealing with some of those health issues, because you can’t run away from perimenopause and it fucks with a variety of body systems.

But I had many people tell me I was brave or thank me for writing about what I was going through, commiserating with me, telling me how they felt the same way.

But they couldn’t write about it.

I wrote myself out of that hole. I can’t live in my head with this stuff. It drags you so far down that it’s like there’s no way out at all or ever, and if I didn’t write, I don’t know that I would ever have gotten out of bed. Art helped too. So did having two kids who were standing around trying to figure out where their previous mom had gone and whether she would ever come back. I think some version of her did.

And I don’t want to go back there. But you can’t control all the physical things that affect depression and you certainly can’t control a ton of external things, so once you have been depressed like that (and here’s where I admit that although that was the worst I had ever experienced it, it certainly wasn’t the first time I had to seek help for that), then you are at a higher risk for experiencing it again. “Experiencing” it. Like it’s a roller coaster ride (it’s not). Surviving it. Having it wallop you in the face. Throw you down that hole again. Send the wolves after you. Rain on your parade…endlessly.

You can choose not to say anything to anyone. I think at some point it’s obvious to those who know you. Or maybe everyone.

Why write now? I’m teetering on the edge. I can’t even tell you all the things that have pushed me to that edge, although the biological shit is just fucking annoying. If I could control that stupid shit, I’d be a lot better off. But I can’t at the moment.

Know that I continue to make art…although last night, that consisted of sewing bindings, because honestly, after having been gone from the house for over 13 hours, I was mostly braindead. So my goal of an hour ironing pieces? Yeah. Didn’t happen. Because I didn’t have the brain power or the desire and I was in my head, racing around like a wounded dog, snapping at everything my brain tried to push at me to mollify me. This is when having deadlines and being a responsible artist (ha! Not an oxymoron) comes in useful. I have to finish this shit. I told people I would. I do what I say. So I have to do it. And I will.

And I’ll keep writing about it because it helps me. And maybe it helps you to know that a lot of art comes out of this need to heal oneself, to remove whatever is inside from festering and spill it out onto paper or onto the screen. Put it where it can’t hurt me any more.

I don’t know. Maybe I just write. And I would do it no matter what.

I’m Not About to Stop Now…

Getting up earlier is hard, but the sunrises are worth it. Couldn’t find the camera in time though…the pink faded too fast. I realized this morning that I only have 2 1/2 weeks until Spring Break and everything has to be at a certain stage by then, so I really need to get my act in gear. This quilt is harder to cut out, for some reason, than other ones have been. Maybe it’s because I’m tired. Who knows. But I did work on it yesterday for an hour or so…here are the mountains…

I debated brown and gray, but purple won (as it should). I was a little concerned about how dark they are because the background is fairly dark, but there’s snow and wind around them, so I think it will be OK. I don’t ever really know though until I iron it together, which is strange, I realize. It’s sort of half-colored in my head, but it’s staticky sometimes, so I lose the image. I color it as I go usually. Like the big black and white drawing is on a projector in my forehead and I grab some pens and color in each section as I pick it. I don’t really see the whole quilt colored in until…well, until it is. At the end of the fabric-choosing phase.

Probably not like other people do it. I used to color in copies of my drawings back when I did screenprinting, but with that, you have to know what to block out to keep it that color, so maybe it was more crucial to know ahead of time? I don’t know. I don’t do that any more. Now I pretty much wing it. I figure my color sense gets me through most of the time.

Then I picked out the acacia trees…

That was a little easier because I try to reuse colors throughout the quilt to make it more unified, so I pulled the browns for the tree trunks from the browns for the ground in the base area. There were a lot of pieces in the acacia section though. I’m still in the 200s…although I’m about 3 1/2 hours into the ironing. Based on that, I could estimate about another 7 hours of ironing. So I might be done the middle of next week? Maybe? Then I have to cut them all out. I’m still on schedule…I’m OK.

Here’s everything I’ve used so far…added the purples and a few more greens from the night before.

I would love to come home from work tonight and work on this for a few hours, but I have a union meeting and a soccer banquet. Ugh. Sounds exhausting. I’m still planning to do at least an hour though. It’s a good way to end the day. It helps me sleep. Brings some peace.

Although Daylight Savings is still kicking my butt on that, so probably I would sleep pretty well anyway.

My mood was better yesterday…guess whatever that weird wave of sad that threw me under the bus over the weekend has finally wandered off, which points directly to hormones, unfortunately. It was a weird deja vu though, a peek at the depression that haunted me last year at this time. This concept of free will we have…it’s hard to reconcile it with the instinctual and hormonal and plain old crazy shit that the body and brain seem to do of their own accord. I am glad, though, of my ability to balance the art within the larger scope of my whole life. My house isn’t as clean as it could be, my yard is a mess, I don’t always grade stuff as quickly as I could, but I have this other thing that helps me be human and connected to the world. I try not to let the constant rejections from shows from the last year bring it down. I know the work I’m making is good…but challenging…and maybe doesn’t play well with others.

I can’t be mad at myself for that. I’m OK with making art that is unique and challenging. I’m not about to stop now.

Fighting a Mood

I think I started yesterday’s post with Oh Holy Hell. Or did I? I was sick yesterday apparently. No really. I was. Ran a fever and everything. It was strange. Woke up nauseous as hell, ran a fever, fine today. I do not understand. I feel like I have completely lost touch with my immune system. Or for that matter, my reproductive system. Possibly my nervous system as well. Digestive? Fuck. HELLO BODY. Please come in. There is no connection. We need to re-establish communication here.

So seriously, need to get back to exercising and hiking and the gym. She says, as she looks at this week’s calendar and snorts Cheerios out her nose. Huh. Good intentions.

So after I lolled around on the couch yesterday afternoon, feeling like crap, tired as hell, supporting a cat’s claws with my fleshy bits, I eventually dragged myself up and did the stupid independent study contract I needed to do for the kid who will be gone for two weeks before Spring Break but who already does no work, so I spent an hour making this thing for him and he probably won’t do more than half of it, if that, based on his current grade. Dear Politicians: I didn’t get paid for that time, but I did it anyway.

Then I finally got my act together and started picking out fabrics…well, I started with laying Wonder Under out…

Which requires almost zero brain power, and yet I fucked it up. I love it when I recut a complicated piece and then find it later in the wrong pile. Did I tell you I was running a fever? I was. Piece 29 was down in the 70s. No idea why. I didn’t actually get very far…

Fewer than 100 pieces ironed…the flames kind of discombobulated me. I couldn’t figure my own drawing out. (FEVER!) Here’s what I’ve used so far…

There were a lot of clouds and snow. It was good to get started though. It will be easier to keep going now…momentum you know. It keeps you moving. Science!

At some point, though, I was too tired to stand. Or sick. Hard to know. So I sat and sewed bindings for a while…

Yes, I used kiddie fabric on the back of the cancer hands. It was happy fabric. I used it to make baby quilts. I think we should totally fight breast cancer with baby quilts. (No, I’m not fucking delirious. Why do you ask? The fever is completely gone this morning.)

I finished the smaller one.

Then I started the larger one and went to bed. Perchance to sleep. Until 5:30 AM, when the girlchild came in and told me she was sick. (no fever) And then I couldn’t go BACK to sleep. Sleep is such a THANG for me at the moment. I never get enough, even when I try to get enough.

So I have some other random stuff here, like this video from IQF Houston last November…this was the official video they took…

It’s pretty much the same as what Margaret Fabrizio posted (because she was standing there recording me while I did this one!). But you should go check out their other videos. I will…when I have time…I swear! They will just keep playing in a row, so if you’re standing there ironing fabrics, like I might be some time this week (looks at schedule again and chokes up with laughter), you could just watch all of them one after another. Though that might be more quiltspeak than you can handle.

And then there was this…the cats who hate each other…

I was sitting between them, but they stayed when I extracted myself and did not hiss at each other.

Cat in a box. All the cats have been in this box. It’s in the window in my studio, right behind the sewing machine. Apparently it is the best cat place ever.

I do not know why this cat tolerates this…

I delivered a quilt yesterday, so I had to put a label on it, dehair it, and provide sticks of hanging.

It’s a good thing I had that yesterday, because I got rejected from two shows in three days. I’m on a fucking roll! Whatever. While I was dropping it off, I was checking out the gallery space where me and one other artist will be hanging our dual show in January. So big fat whatever, right? Sigh. I don’t know what to think about all the rejections. Oh well. Move on. It’s not like I’m going to stop making art all of a sudden. I’m way too stubborn for that.

Yeah. I’m fighting a mood. I’m sure I’ll come out of it soon.

Put a Binding on It…All of It…

Oh holy hell, the daylight savings spring forward…it’s a Monday, it’s my birthday, and it was dark when I got up. The morning is making me nauseous. Not fair, as my students would say. I so want to go back to bed and sleep another hour or so, but the day marches onwards, with or without me, and unfortunately, I need to catch up.

Artwise, I used my weekend well…which is good, because the moods were like to kill an elephant. There is nothing pretty or pink about old lady hormone swings. They are more like a baseball-bat swing aiming at your head and uterus than a gentle porch swing with a glass of lemonade and a cute boy. So even when you try to manage the moods, plan for things that you know will help, sometimes life just doesn’t work that way and the brain can’t adjust quickly enough.

I started by quilting…with a cat almost on the quilt.

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I ran out of purple thread with just a small section left…turns out I would be cutting that off anyway.

Although there was a weird break in the thread in a lower section that I had to cut and tie off, but you can’t see it, which is good, because I didn’t have any more purple thread that would match. So it was either go balls out and use orange, or hope no one could see it. The latter worked.

So here I was, achieving art, finishing stuff…but the moods, they descend upon you like a piano falling from a 3rd-story apartment window, like a tornado plummeting towards the earth from a sickly greenish sky, like a plane dead in the air pointing nosewards towards the nearest mountain or empty field, to strew metal pieces and body parts across a 10-mile swath of land.

And I thought music was OK. But Pandora, she is fickle. She can make me bounce and dance, and she can draw on my heartstrings and make tears drop from the tip of my nose, falling on the quilt as I stitch about 100 miles an hour, just missing my fingers.

And then this song…

It was somewhere around there that I realized it wasn’t even something under my control. I drew…

And then I went to CIF finals…

They make them line up and do all this processional stuff…I have lots of blurry pictures…

The field lights were really bright, much nicer than the ones we have on our home field (I judge them by my ability to see my stitching), but not quite bright enough for good pictures. They played hard…they lost by one point though…a penalty kick in like the 71st minute. Which sucks. But they did get into the finals for the first time in four years, so that was a cool way for the girlchild to end her high-school soccer season.

There is no way I’m finishing this before I have to leave for school. And ugh. I am so not ready.

So now it’s after school, and I still feel like a bus slammed into me, but I had about 200 kids sing or say happy birthday to me (not all of them were my students), and even one of our security ladies came and gave me a hug (very sweet)…so it’s hard to stay cranky for long with that much teenaged love being thrown at you unconditionally. Because they hate you and love you and drive you nuts and beg for forgiveness, and that’s what teaching middle school is like. Oh yeah. And having teenagers.

So I decided a few things. First, I need to finish bindings because I was hoping to take my machine in to get it serviced, so I basically did all three bindings last night. I started by trying to find something in Mariah’s stash that would work for the recycled upholstery nude…

Yeah. I clean up quick. Not. But it was EASIER because it was all still strewn on the floor (keep telling yourself that).

This one was a real strong contender from the pile, because it had the red orange from her hair and the purple from the background…but it wasn’t good enough.

I was just intrigued by the orange/purple combination. I decided there wasn’t enough of it to get all the way around. Plus the strips were skinny.

I really liked this one. It seems strange to put green with it, but there is green in the quilt. Not a lot…just a little.

And the real kicker was that this was an offcut from something, probably an outer border or a backing. There were straight seams in it, but it was also wider than the other strips she had cut, and I like a doubled-up binding…easier to do the hand work I think. And I could get to 3″ wide on this…which is close to what I would do anyway…

And I had the 100″ that I needed. Not a lot more, but hey…100″ is all I needed.

Now I just need to do the hand-sewing. And email the magazine to make sure nudity won’t be an issue. Huh.

With that done, it was easy to turn to the other two smaller ones and do the same thing…

I guess I was really hoping my machine guy would say, “Sure! Bring it in today!” Because I know I will need it during Spring Break to sew down the Ventura quilt. I don’t think I’ll need it before then…

Turns out he’s as booked up as a gynecology department that assumes you are going through menopause and this isn’t the precursor to uterine cancer…or if it is, you’ve lived a long life anyway and there’s no rush.

Not really. I don’t disagree. So my machine is going in the first few days of Spring Break…it will be fine. Because I made an appointment, it will only be out of my hot little hands for 36 hours. I can survive that long. Seriously. I can. (Things Kathy will save in a fire: kids, animals, computer, sewing machine, quilts, sketchbooks. Huh.) Besides, I’ll be in the gynecology department. Ha!

I think I can finally focus on picking out fabrics. Maybe. If I can stay awake. What time is it? Hate. Daylight. Savings.

Outta Here…

The plus about yesterday is that it’s over. And my grades for Trimester 2 are done…four days early. Because I believe in a grade-free weekend around one’s birthday. I need to make sure my head is in the right place to celebrate my exiting my mother’s uterus. I don’t have a problem with getting older…the numbers don’t bother me. In fact, I have a hard time remembering how old I am on a regular basis without doing math in my head. So that’s a sign of old age! Not really. I’m not that old. At least in my head.

I wanted to start ironing fabrics last night, but there was some shit that got in the way. My office was a disaster area, so I had to put some stuff away and straighten up…plus I need a label on a quilt by Monday for delivery for a local show…so I did that…and hung the drawing so I can see it while picking fabrics…

Because you can’t tell which piece is which unless you do that. Yes, there’s still crap on the floor. Not sure when I will ever get that under control. I do need it…it just doesn’t have a home. Or it does and it takes time to sort through it all and get it into the right place.

So it’s ready. I just need to get my head there. I had plans for the morning, but they fell through, or they’re rescheduled. I don’t know which. So I’m trying to revise the head set. Mind set. I can get there I think. Maybe. But I need to finish the quilting too. So maybe I’ll do that first. The exciting part is picking fabrics. Not fighting fabric under the machine and trying to find a recycled fabric for the binding. Erg. Not looking forward to that. What if I pick a fabric for binding and then make a bandana out of it and wear it on a hike and then wash it and THEN use it for a binding. Yeah. I might do that.

I did this last night too. I can’t show you what this is for. But I needed more of them. Maybe I will try to take some artsy photos that just don’t show you anything at all. I think I’m not allowed to even do that. In fact, this might be a violation of my terms. I just don’t know.

I need to prep more for the CIF finals soccer game tonight. It’s going to be tense. Last time we played this team, it was a 0-0 tie with a major concussion thrown in and an ambulance and hospital trip (not my kid, but her friend). So…violence and a close score. Need needle and thread distraction.

The other thing I did after school yesterday was try to make a decision about the background fabric for the new quilt…

Yeah. I got it down to two. I think probably it will be the one on the left…but I have to stare at the two fabrics and the drawing a bit more to decide. More reason to wait a bit and finish the quilting. Give my brain time to make a decision. I do really like the one on the right though…but think it will wait for the next one.

Because my SIL called while I was at the store, I picked up my birthday gift certificate and used it right then…

Because. I need a palette.

OK. Stop wasting time. I’m outta here. Making art.

That Was Easy

Well, if you have a shitty day at work, then it’s easy to come home (after watching a soccer game) and say to yourself that you are done with your job for the day. There was a brief moment of guilt when I considered that I really should grade tests or extra credit or something, but then my art brain took over and explained how I had already used up THIS much energy on work today, and I wasn’t required to use up any more…so move on, little doggie, and make you some art.

Then there was the question of which project to work on, but I’ve got the Ventura quilt on my mind, kicking me in the frontal lobe, Hey! Get me done! Put me on the priority list! You don’t need to clean the house! I’m more important! So I cut out little pieces of Wonder Under while sitting on the couch with the girlchild, watching the same episodes of House that I’ve seen three or four times…until I finished. Wait. I finished. That was easy. I wasn’t expecting to finish cutting them out last night. But I said about 2 1/2 hours and it was just under two. Six hours and 17 minutes total…so not that far off the other one.

And it wasn’t super late…so I set up for sorting…

One bin for each 100 pieces…you know, it’s funny. I have this procedure now that I use with every quilt, and I don’t remember when or how I came up with it…I mean, at some point, I must have been sitting there with a few hundred pieces of Wonder Under (back in the day when I didn’t make quilts with over 2000 pieces?) and thought, how can I better organize this? It’s been so long, I don’t remember starting to do that. But now I have bins that are numbered, so I just go hunt down (in this case) bins 0-8 and lay them out and start…

Believe it or not, this quilt isn’t that complicated, so it was less than an hour. It’s funny that a 900-piece quilt is one I consider pretty easy to do at this stage in my art career. It’s big, but not huge. The one I’m planning for over the summer…I think I will be saved by the size restriction on it. Otherwise, it would have a million pieces in it.

Anyway, I’m ready for the next stage…fabric choice! Except I don’t have a background picked out yet, and that’s what I don’t usually have in my stash. I don’t know if I have time today to get a background…probably not, because she’s only open to 5 PM and I have dance practice (don’t laugh. It’s a long story, mostly unbelievable if you know me well enough) until 4:30 or so. Huh. So tomorrow probably, after school. I could do that. I should probably measure the drawing, though, so I know how much to get.

Exciting! I like the fabric part. The studio/office is a bit of a mess though, so I’ll have to deal with that too.

And complicating my schedule, as always, is soccer. Girlchild’s high school team was in the CIF (state) semifinals last night…

They started with this lineup that included the 9- and 10-year-old club players who hopefully will be future high-school players, which was cute. Apparently we were on TV too (local TV station).

It was a tense game against a team we had tied against before…

A very physical game…

Like check out the legs…

By the end of the second half, it was tied 1-1, and it stayed that way until the last 20 minutes of the game, when we got our second goal…

And under the light of the full moon, managed to keep the lead. There was a lot of screaming. This is the first time they’ve made it this far, and the finals are Saturday night. Not my favorite way to spend Saturday night, and I will have to stitch right through it to reduce the stress. Seriously…these games can shorten your lifespan if you don’t do something else while the girls play.

Anyway. It’s the last game of the high-school season…not to take a deep breath or anything, because the first tournament of the second half of the club season is two weekends later. Oh well. My trimester grades will be done by Saturday night…and worst-case? Her team comes in 2nd. Not a bad finish. And hopefully I’ll get some fabric ironed this weekend too (don’t think about having to grade tests and unit packets).

This Is Not It

Nope. Not it. I mean, I drew it, but it was late and I was kinda tired and you can tell because the lines are all loosey goosey and that’s not how it’s supposed to be. So maybe this is a study for the final one.

I mean, it’s not a bad drawing, and it certainly has fewer pieces than many of my quilts, and I know what I was trying to do, but it’s not it. It’s OK. I have the technology. I can draw a new one. The main idea is there. It’s not like I don’t do multiple versions of drawings on a regular basis, especially if it’s for a particular theme or show. Why wouldn’t I do a quick speedy draw…seriously, this took maybe 20 minutes, and most of that was trying to figure out the fingers around the wine glass…which I really like. I think that’s the only part I really like. No, that’s not true. There’s a fluidity of line in there that I like. So I’m not knocking it out. I’m not.

This is just not it.

So when I don’t draw for a while (it’s been a month or so), my brain doesn’t forget how…it just needs to remember how to hold the pen and control it, to let the art brain have the pen, to let it go. (please don’t sing that damn song) I wasn’t able to really do that last night. Maybe tonight.

So once I’d purged that from my hand (brain?), I cut out more Wonder Under. I’m hoping to get to the ironing stage in the next few days, which means getting this done and ignoring the fact that it will take me an hour to sort all the damn pieces.

I’ve been cutting for 4 1/2 hours. My guess would be another 2 1/2 to go? It’s a total guess, by the way. I could make an educated guess, based on previous quilts, but that would presume I am way more awake at the moment than I am. OK. Apparently I’m lame. The last bigger quilt I made, I spent about the same amount of time tracing pieces, but I was done trimming Wonder Under in just under 5 hours. Either that, or these pieces are more complicated. I could go for that…because all those overlapping leaves and freakin’ feathers take forever to trace? (but they’re easier to cut out)…I don’t know. Or I’m just slow.

If this thing is really going to take 80 hours to finish, I need to get going. I have 3 1/2 weeks to Spring Break…I need it ironed to fabric and trimmed by then. That’s about 25 hours of work. Yikes! There’s a soccer tournament in there too. I can do this though. I just need to work smart. And not get sick again. Speaking of working smart, I probably need to go to work as well…that whole teaching thang. It pays the bills so I can buy more fabric.

Poking at Me…

So apparently after mostly recovering from pneumonia (I’m still coughing on and off), exercise can kick your ass. I finally got back into it last night, and I needed a nap afterwards. This is proof of old age right there! It’s OK. It was a really long day already, and an occasional nap is not a bad thing. I can either nap in the late afternoon (OK, it was early evening), or I can stay up really late, or I can do both! Like last night.

It did mean I started dinner late and then I was working on grades, which went even later. I have five things that still need to go in the gradebook, but I’m not collecting two of them until tomorrow, and the other three will get handled on Friday. Luckily, they are not grading things…they are just calculations of stuff the kids are supposed to do all trimester, so it won’t take much time. I want to be done on Friday night. Seriously done. And I will be. I still need to grade makeup tests, which I hate doing, but whatever. And then on Wednesday, kids are handing in the last unit and taking a test, but those will go to the next trimester, because there’s no way I can grade them in time. I’m really trying to be organized!

I’m trying to be organized because the art…she calls me. I was reading entry forms on Saturday (trying to be organized again) and one blurb made an entire drawing just pop right into my head. That’s two that are residing up there. I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to get them on paper. I keep thinking about it, but it takes mental energy and space to do that, and I haven’t found that yet. Last night, after dinner and grades, I had choices about what to do next: trim the two cancer hands and put bindings on them? Ugh. Sounds like decision-making. Finish quilting the upholstery nude? Ugh. Sounds tiring. OK, then there’s only one thing left (besides drawing, which I had already dumped off the table, due to a lack of available brain power): cutting out Wonder Under for the Ventura piece…

So that’s what I did. It was sufficiently brainless enough that I could handle it. Obviously, I had way more available brain power over the weekend (because I gave up on the grading?).

I also traced some stuff on freezer paper…

This is the piece I’m not allowed to show. In fact, I don’t know when I’m allowed to show it…it’s not my pattern anyway. This is what I work on at soccer games at the moment. I really should be finishing all those birds I’ve been working on for the last two years, but I haven’t been in the mood. The more tense the game is, the less I can do complicated embroidery. Just stitching bits of wool together seems to be all I can handle.

In other news, the girlchild should start hearing back from colleges in the next 2-4 weeks. No stress here! Seriously, I’m not looking forward to it…we know she’ll get in to a few of them at least, but then how does she choose? Hard to know…wait on the financial aid stuff, I think. The boychild really only had two choices…so it made it much easier.

Meanwhile, those two drawings in my head are poking at me like small children…hungry to be released. Maybe I should find a way to get one of them started today…or tomorrow…she says, looking at her calendar and all the shit that is piled upon it (metaphorical, vague shit…not actual shit). It’s possible I am overextended. As usual.

A Relatively Healthy Balance

I think I did an OK job this weekend of getting schoolwork done, but also feeding the art brain. There are only so many hours in the day, and stupid things like grocery shopping and laundry have to get done, but the remaining hours, they don’t all have to be about your job. I negotiated in my head…if I grade for the length of this TV show, then I will be able to work on art afterwards. That was Sunday. Saturday? Saturday I tried to grade, but got pissed off by some kid trying to cheat his way into a passing grade (because I’m an idiot and won’t catch him?), so I just stopped. I piled all the school stuff up, dumped my grading pens on top of it, and walked the fuck away from it. Because when you get to the point that you’re angry about it, it doesn’t help anyone to be grading kids’ papers. And yeah, I’ll get a bunch of kids FREAKING out this morning because I didn’t update their grade (because they handed everything in late?), but I will just fix my laser glare upon them and they will instantly stop their whining.

Well, a girl can dream, can’t she?

So I made art. And it looks like I did a lot, but really, it was only about 4 1/2 hours over the whole weekend (that’s not really a lot for me).

I pinbasted the upholstered woman (wait, that’s a better title than what I’ve been using so far)…

And then I panicked about actually quilting it. I bought some heavier thread for it, because I thought my regular quilting thread would sink into the upholstery too much, but I was worried about how my machine would handle it…so logically, I turned to something I knew I could do…the cancer hands. I outlined them first…

Which was a piece of cake and took very little time, despite those psychotic, spiky little breast cancer cells…

And then I was lucky to have a thread that worked with the background…seriously, I don’t have much of a thread stash…so I started doing the backgrounds as well.

And before I knew it, they were both done and it was time to head off for my daughter’s CIF soccer game…

They were first in their division, so they didn’t have to play earlier this week. Saturday they played in the quarterfinals…it was a tense game. I stitched a lot. I can’t show you any of it though because we’re not allowed to, which I find kind of irritating, but whatever. I do want designers to make money off their work, but we live in America, Land of We Think Everything Is Free for the Taking, so designers have to protect themselves. And then we’re back to the kid who was cheating in my class, the kid I have to deal with today, the kid who is going to deny it all.

ANYWAY. I stitched. They tied at the end, and you can’t tie, so they went into 15 minutes of overtime…all the while, it was supposed to rain on us, but it held off…

And with 3 minutes and 20 seconds to go, we scored the winning goal. Pro: we’re going to the semifinals! Con: we’re going to the semifinals! More soccer. More cold bleachers. More tense game-watching (more stitching?). It started raining as soon as I got in the car (thank you for that reprieve).

Sunday, I finally took a deep breath (after grading for a proscribed amount of time) and threaded my machine with the heavy thread and went for it…and at first thought it was going to be a giant clusterfuck…

The thread required many prayers to the Goddess of Unbroken Thread, although there are some interesting nests on the back of this quilt. I cleaned them up the best I could…I managed to get all the way around this beast before going to the parentals to cook dinner (girlchild was sick). Then I came back and miraculously had the right color of thread for the background…

which was way easier to quilt, a relief honestly. No super-slow stitching to persuade the machine to go through many layers of upholstery, no swearing as the thread shredded in the needle. Here’s the back…

I didn’t finish all the background quilting, because I remembered that going to sleep on a Sunday night at a reasonable hour makes the rest of the week easier to get through. I usually forget this by Wednesday or Thursday night, unfortunately.

So I’m hoping to trim and bind the two hands, plus finish quilting this one as well this week. I’ve also got a pile of Wonder Under to cut out (and grades for Trimester 2 to finish, but I almost have that under control). Perhaps I should thank that cheating kid for throwing my brain under the bus and forcing me to make art instead of finishing the grading. It all turned out OK, right? As long as I can stay on top of the rest of the grades this week…thanks to my teacher’s aide and my refusal to take any more makeup work, I should be fine.

My constant goal of a healthy balance between all the parts of my life…the art brain always wants more than it gets. I don’t blame it…it certainly is the first to suffer when there’s an issue like illness. But I feel pretty good about what I got done this weekend, so I think I’ll just hold on to that feeling for a while…until I need to motivate myself past the next big step.

Wonder Under Dreaming

Wonder Under dreaming…ten hours and 37 minutes of tracing Wonder Under, around 900 pieces (I didn’t number all of them, shockingly). I did the whole thing under the influence of pneumonia and rib-rattling coughing…starting February 17 and ending last night. I was obviously well and truly ill from the 19th through the 22nd, because nothing happened.

Here’s all but one yard, which I had already cut out…

So about 5 yards…most of it is the old stuff. One and a half yards is the new stuff, so I will apparently be performing a scientific experiment comparing the old to new on this quilt. I love that. (not really.)

I only have a little over 2 hours into the trimming of the Wonder Under though. I guess that’s this week.

It’s progress. I realized last night though that I needed one of the recycled pieces done (DONE) by April 1. Huh. That’s a month away. I can do that. I have one top ready to be sandwiched; I could do that today. And I bought some heavier black thread for the upholstery fabrics to quilt the outlining. Yes, I went to JoAnns. Hate that place. But I had a coupon. And otherwise, I have to buy Wonder Under online and ship it here. That’s expensivo. So I do the deed. I pull my numbered ticket and I stand there for-fucking-ever, waiting to tell them I want the whole bolt anyway, so they don’t have to cut anything, but I still have to wait in the fucking line. And then I go wait in the other long nasty line where they put all that crap on both sides of you, candy and shitty packages of socks and beads for Mardi Gras, just like at Michaels, and I think to myself, I hate this place, but I still go there, because it is what it is. Sales are more important than how shitty the store feels, I guess.

Then there’s this drawing that is fully realized in my head. My brain drew the whole damn fucking thing yesterday as I was driving to school. And I want to find the time and space (because you need mental space to draw) to get it out of my head, vomit it out onto the paper, but I have grading to do and I’m tired and still sick and kinda irritated today, which isn’t anyone’s fault, well except maybe the financial aid departments of all the colleges to which the girlchild applied, because why do you y’all have to be such giant pains in the ass? I mean really. This stuff makes my head hurt.

I entered another art exhibit last night. I didn’t think I’d have anything that would work for this show, even though the title and description are right up my alley…the size restrictions were part of the problem, and the rest of it is that so much of the recent stuff is already out traveling. But I found three that would work and went for it. Because why not? And then looked further out, the next 6+ months of big shows, and realized I needed to quit my stupid daytime job so I could make all the art I wanted to make.

Yeah. That’s not happening. I did ream my students yesterday for asking for MORE time to turn in late work. I said I wanted to have time with my daughter where I wasn’t grading papers. That I wanted to be able to sleep at night. That I wanted to go to her game this Saturday. That I was spending hours every night grading all their makeup work. That I was working way harder than they were. I’m done. Seriously. No more. This happens every year. There’s four weeks until Spring Break and the kids are mentally on vacation and I’m about to start the hardest unit of the year and I’m done. Another parent blows me off when their kid is doing nothing? Man. I just want to bring that kid home and feed him some real food and talk science to him, because he gets it, and then maybe after a year or so of my holding him accountable, maybe he’ll be the student he could be if he had someone around who gave a shit. And that’s what I told him yesterday when he said mom didn’t care: “You have 4 teachers right now who care, but we need you to care too. If you don’t care, we’re not going to waste our time. So you decide. Let me know.” And that’s the truth. He has that right now and it makes him alternately angry and full of hope, and he doesn’t know what to do with any of that. Neither do I, honestly. Neither do I.

That’s the reality of being a teacher. Dear politicians, y’all don’t know shit.

Calli. Such a doofus.

Yeah, so maybe I should make some art today and fuck the school crap. Because it’s messing with my head right now. I’m so frustrated with excuses and the reality of what I can get kids to do and the parents. I just can’t face it. I tried last night. I tried this morning. Better off losing myself in that Wonder Under dream…that place where I don’t have to think about what happens tomorrow or in April or this summer. Just cutting little pieces of fusible web out to make another scary Nida picture.

Or the other bathtub drawing. Yeah. Odalisque in Bloody Bathtub. Awesome name. Won’t ever get into a show. Whatever.