Learned That the Hard Way…

I didn’t make a conscious choice to stay up late last night. I walked both dogs when I got home from school. I fed myself. I did some work, which hopefully will turn into a job. I graded a big pile of science journals, the ones I meant to get done on Sunday but that got co-opted by a door issue. It was after 11 PM. But I know how my brain works. I knew I was already in a mood, that stress and work and life in general were dragging me down. Those are the days I really need to make some art, to spend some time drawing or ironing or whatever it is. Am I tired this morning? Well yeah, I am, and I can’t find the stuff I need for work (I think it’s AT work is why), and I know today is a lab day, so I will be exhausted by the end of it, but I also know how much worse I would have felt today if I didn’t make art. And honestly, even though it was late when I finally DID go to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep. Too much whirling around in my head. Or I don’t even know. I was wide awake. Truly annoying. Flip flop. Sheeit. I need to sleep. I hate that feeling. We all do. It’s even worse when you keep thinking about how late it is and how little sleep you’ll get even if you fall asleep Right NOW. And then you don’t.

Eventually I did, but then something woke me early in the morning too. It’s a 5-hour-sleep day. If that. I guess that’s better than some.

I ironed for a little over an hour…starting with the face…

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Faces are always fussy because there’s stuff that overlaps in a weird way around the nose and the hair, and you have to fuss with placement. Especially the eyes. I always iron the eyes separate and then place them on the face so I can move them around, make sure they’re level and not too close together or far apart.

Learned that the hard way.

That’s when I should have gone to bed. Naah. I sorted through the 200s and laid them out on the table. Then I found all the flesh pieces, which meant rummaging through the 300s as well. Ironed all of them down, separate from the head. It’s easier to do it separately and then iron the two larger pieces together at the end.

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Then I started on all the stuff that will cover the flesh…only got through the trees on her torso, but they look pretty good. It’s hard to iron this layer because I can only barely see it through the fabric and the teflon sheet. I will probably iron the vines, flowers, and cactus separately and then put them on top. Same with the lungs and the heart.

So there’s about 175 pieces left to do, probably another couple of hours, because they’re a bit fussy. And then I need to iron it down to the background. I might get to that this week…it depends on the job I bid on, whether I get it or not. Honestly, I need the work, need the money to get through the summer and its numerous college payments, but I’d also welcome NOT getting the job, so I can work on this. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but I try to do the Have-To’s first before I take time to make art. And if I tell her the work will be done by whenever, then I actually need to finish, right? I still need to finish the big drawing too…especially realizing how close to the end of the school year I am.

I’d tell you to wish me luck, but I’m not sure what I need most…the work? Or the art?

The artist for the day is Jason Humphrey, who works in ink and watercolor. Check out the original artwork tab and I bet you can find the stuff I like, especially the pieces with multiple layers of paper and complicated drawings…truly wonderful for long-term staring.

OK, off to Work 1, waiting to hear from Work 2, wanting to do Work 4 (art), but also realizing I need to do Work 3 (oh holey moley, I forgot about that).

I Swear It…

Well. Happy late Mother’s Day to all of you. I was quite glad to survive mine with only one trip to Home Depot and some strewing of tools all over the entryway floor. But at least I can open and close the front door now. I got almost nothing done yesterday besides the door, but whatever. I’ve been incredibly efficient this morning in the last 7 minutes, so that bodes well for the rest of the day. Maybe. I just realized what time it is. Fuck.

It’s OK. I will survive. I felt incredibly overwhelmed yesterday, even Saturday (hit 5 stops in 2 hours…no biggie) and last night could’ve used an assist or five.

So yeah, there was this…

That is a hole to the outdoors…it didn’t start out that way. I’d brought half the groceries up and then went to grab the handle to go back outside, and it pulled apart. It had been loose before, but not heinously so. In fact, I’ve tightened it before. My dad will tell you it’s because I’m hard on doors, but honestly, WTF, you should be able to pull on a door handle and not have it fall to pieces. I suspect it’s because it needs to be attached at the bottom too, but dad said no, it was a pain and unnecessary (I’m gonna do that bit sometime soon…OK, maybe summer). My dad will tell you all breakage and damage is because I’m hard on stuff, and maybe that’s true. But I’ve never had a handle pull apart like that and I’ve opened a lot of doors over and over and over again. So I think that’s bullshit.

After analyzing the pieces (because when the other side dropped, pieces flew…pieces that had previously been attached and now were not) and calling the ex, who gave his analysis of “I don’t know how the fuck this goes back together” and “You seem to be missing at least one piece” (goes digging around the pots and plants that are around the front door, like I haven’t already done that shit), and having the debate of Go Buy Another One (they ain’t cheap) or Call a Locksmith (they ain’t cheap either), I drove off to Home Depot and found the same damn thing and installed it in about 14 seconds flat.

And yes, the door needs painting and I should probably pick up all that crap on the floor, but I was sort of emotionally a disaster at that point. So there. I left it. Walked the fuck away.

Mother’s Day. Sigh. My ass. Girlchild posted a photo on Instagram which is kinda how we roll…

My students will tell you that’s how I take all photos with them. Like I know it’s gonna be a bad photo, so let’s OWN that bitch.

After making lunches for the whole week (stupid recipes that lie and say it will take 30 minutes to make this…in whose world? The one where someone’s helping you by chopping it all up? And why does yours look so colorful? Mine is decidedly brown. With brown overtones.) and dinner and reading while eating, I said Fuck You to my job and wandered into the studio for some me time.

Might as well iron this thing.

So I did…

It’s very meditative, this ironing stuff.

And it’s kinda cool that I’m doing this now, because I drew this on the flight home from dropping off the girlchild at college, and she’s done on Thursday, though I won’t see her for another 10 days because she’s gonna visit her cousins first. So I guess this ushers her home.

I stopped thinking about parents and students and the girlchild stressing out over finals and other shit and crap and doors and a house that needs more maintenance than I can handle.

I ironed the stuff in her hair separately…

Then plopped it on. It was almost midnight at that point (there’s math in the clouds by the way…I totally love that).

So I made the intelligent decision to go to bed instead of continuing to iron…even though I wanted to. Hopefully that will make me a less irritable person today, although it’s hard to say. There are 28 days of school left, and I’m feeling every single one. I have a ton of money-making work to do tonight (art CAN be money-making, but usually not), so I don’t know how much time I’ll get for ironing. But there will be some. I swear it. On the crap that is still strewn all over my entryway floor, I swear it.

It’s Not an Empty Room…

Sleep, glorious sleep. Occasionally you get a night where your head hits the pillow and stays there, no flopping about, no weird noises in the middle of the night, blessedly snoozing through until a normal waking time, no alarm waking you out of a weird-ass dream that drops you into a waking world, unsure of reality. I got that last night. And part of it was the rain that came Thursday night and washed away that damn mockingbird. It wasn’t out last night either, so maybe it’s moved to warmer, dryer climes. I’m cool wit dat.

I’m posting late because I had two quilts to deliver this morning for a show that opens next weekend, Feminism Now, at Gallery D in Barrio Logan. I also picked up my copy of the catalog…they are only $20, cat-approved, and full of feminist art from the US and Sweden, which is where this show will travel in 2017.

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Midnight thinks it smells nice. You’ll have to show up to the opening to see the two pieces. I made the second one as a response to the first one, only 4 1/2 years later. And my life 4 1/2 years later is much different. New relationships, kids gone to college, making even more art than back then. I honestly think the art is my healing web, what connects all the broken pieces of me back together. I get lots of questions about how it feels to have both kids gone and then how does it feel to have both of them coming back…good, but temporary. I know it’s only 3 months, not even that for the girlchild, and this might be the last summer I see both of them. OR…like many of my friends, they’ll move back and never leave. But I doubt that. I actually had a conversation with my counselor about renting a room out to someone…what that might look like, and is it something I could even handle (as I’m sitting here in my office, getting ready to finally clean some floors a good month after they started needing it, and blasting music. Plus the house smells like bacon. And my parents’ dog peed in the hallway. That carpet just needs to go. That’s the second dog of theirs that’s peed there, and then there was Babygirl, who considered the space outside my door her pissed-off litter tray, because I wouldn’t let her in there at night.). But OTHERWISE, it sounds like an idea. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but at some point, it might be necessary.

I didn’t make art yesterday. I came home from gaming and finished this…

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Great book. Hysterically funny and yet right there on top of mental illness and other crap that fucks with you. Sending it to the girlchild. She’ll giggle on the plane to her cousins.

“You don’t have to go to some special private school to be an artist. Just look at the intricate beauty of cobwebs. Spiders make them with their butts.” Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy (she says her dad said it though…)

Honestly, all I want to do today is sit on the couch and read. But I have to work my butt off…not to make cobwebs unfortunately. I’m behind in grading again. I’m not sure how, but it has hit a level that makes me start to panic. I keep a list of assignments in a task manager, because it helps me organize and remember to grade the online crap, but also because I really enjoy checking it off and watching it disappear when I finish it. Weird, I know. But whatever. I have another book I started reading this morning. I just want to curl up with it dammit.

Sigh. And then while I was driving to deliver those quilts…

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(here’s my packing up…dehairing and cutting dowels etc.) I realized what needed to go in the space of the torso in the large drawing I’m doing…and it’s not a cute animal or a nice plant. San Diego has an increasing homeless issue here, and the problem is not just the growing number of people who are living on the streets in tents (if they’re slightly luckier) or boxes or not even that, but also our responses to them, as a local agency fills a space under a bridge where homeless folks used to shelter with sharp pointy rocks so they can’t, or a government agency does sweeps to clear areas of homeless encampments, so they have to go somewhere, people. We can’t ignore it and push it out and try to make it invisible. We need to feed them and house them and employ them and clothe them and medicate them (when possible). We need to CARE for them.

And I don’t know how best to do that, because I don’t have thousands of dollars or resources or anything but a sense that we suck. Because we often do. Anyway, that’s what’s getting drawn in there, somehow. Haven’t quite figured out the how and specifically what. I just know what it should be. A homeless woman framed in an Earth Mother who does provide shelter…safe and clean and dry and warm. And then I go back to having extra space here, but knowing I can’t afford to feed and clothe, let alone care for any more people than I already am. But maybe that will change. Who knows. I’m just thinking, not doing yet. Realistically, what would that look like? I don’t come home from work with extra energy for taking care of more people. Yeah.

So I’m gonna go work for a while, and then maybe I’ll read. Because I should be allowed to do that for a bit…and not just work for hours each day, right? Or maybe I should just fill one of those rooms with foster puppies and kittens. Then go lie in there for an hour a day, letting them romp all over me. That would be good. Anyway, it’s not an empty room yet. So thinking…and drawing…

Sorted

First of all, some crazy fairy has left all the black pens in the world in my office. In front of my keyboard. Right where my arms should go. I know that’s not really what’s happened, that every time I walked in here to do something worklike, I brought a black pen with me and left it here, and soon all of them will be here and then I will come in here to find them, and they will migrate back out into the rest of the house…but for now, they gather here, some sort of black pen reunion. There’s another batch of them in my purse…maybe I should reunite them. Got a pen? Yeah, I’ve got 12. All different.

There are 29 days of school left. This is somewhat relieving and yet also panicky, because of how much has to be done. That’s why I came home yesterday and graded another assignment…after a science meeting where we discussed my minor freakout about what I’ll be teaching next year. It’ll be FINE. I just need to figure out what an atom is. (shh) I was standing in Staples, trying desperately to remember why I was even in there (lab materials, but oooh! Pens!), and the principal called me (why did I give him my number?) and I tried to answer his questions best I could, wondering how on EARTH all these teachers are gonna learn all the stuff they need to well enough to teach it. My co-teacher handed me a pile of books, but my brain is completely shut down right now in terms of trying to learn anything. Talk to me in July. In July, I’ll be able to handle reading about materials and chemical reactions and protons and electrons and Strontium. Maybe. Not now. Now is a day at a time. Darwin today. Beaks next week. Survival next week (really, not just mine, but teaching about it). The fastest Natural Selection unit ever. In fact, only the strong will survive (topic for today), after inputting the last assignment in the gradebook. Progress reports go home today. Please please, argue with me that a D is a good grade and I shouldn’t add any comments to your report about how your work is always half done and late.

I didn’t start until late, as always. And honestly, I didn’t get much done.

I sorted the pieces for the new quilt.

It was nice to only have to deal with 4 boxes instead of 12 or so.

It took me a whopping 20 minutes…and that was it. I was done. I wanted to try drawing, but it was not to be. Too tired to think about how things fit in spaces and how I might draw them. Too tired to go quilt. Too tired to pick a binding for the orange quilt. Just too damn tired.

Your artist for the day is Paula Collins, a ceramics artist from Fallbrook. You can see her work here. The ceramic pieces range from pretty small to quite large, but they all have a quirky finish to them. I quite like the birdhouses and the larger busts. The facial expressions are great. This is where I wish I had never-ending cash so I could buy art I like, but alas, I will just have to stare from afar.

As far as tonight goes, I’m not anticipating getting much, if anything done. I do need to cut some dowels and slats and dehair a larger quilt for delivery tomorrow, so that will have to happen, unless I want to get up early tomorrow. And I don’t! Who knows…maybe I’ll come back from gaming tonight and have wide-awake energy and get a bunch of drawing done (probability calculations not good). You never know though. How I feel now is not how I’ll feel later. Hopefully!

An Everyday Habit

‘Twas a long day, full of testing children and 78 trips to the bathroom, none of them mine. Full of kids who went to bed at 2 AM and wondered why they were tired. Kids that were done after an hour and had to entertain themselves silently for two more. Teachers who hadn’t eaten or peed for longer than normal. Then once we let the kids go, we had to settle down to a large chunk of time to collaborate…despite our brains being equally fuzzy from long hours of trying to keep kids focused AND quiet. It mostly worked. That was Day 1. Day 2 is today.

I had stuff to do after school, plus got stuck in traffic. Stupid drivers during rush hour, cutting people off, not signaling, being assholes. It’s not good for me to be in that. I finally made it home around 6, tired, cranky, with a pile of work to do. So I did it. And then realized it was late. This is where living alone sucks…you’re too tired to cook, money is tight so you aren’t going out, but you need to eat. Leftovers are gone because you ate them for lunch. So I cooked. But it was late. Really I should have worked some more, but I was tired of it. I get like that. This job has so many hours of my life. I feel like after 9, that should be mine. We work to earn money to survive, yes, but at some point, it should also be so that we can spend time doing the things we love…hiking, art, reading. I want more of that this week.

So I didn’t keep working. I didn’t start grading the next assignment. I didn’t read yet another Teacher Appreciation Week email and wonder…hell…who is appreciating my being a teacher right now? Probably not the kid I harassed into sitting up and not falling asleep on the desk yesterday (thanks, parents, for letting him stay up late). It’s OK. I don’t teach for that. Our parents don’t send flowers or notes. They don’t cover our doors with big grateful signs. They don’t do anything, honestly. It’s enough that they are surviving.

I finished cutting out all the pieces for the new quilt last night…

It’s not a huge quilt. The pile of trimmed scraps looks bigger than the pile of trimmed pieces. I spent 3 relaxing hours doing this last night. I needed that. I stayed up a bit too late to do it, but at that point, I just wanted it to be done. That’s a motivator in itself, that desire to move on to the next step, to not leave a few pieces sitting in the box until tomorrow. To FINISH. I feel like I need to achieve something tangible each day, something that will take me to bed and murmur sweet nothings of achievement. Then the next morning, when I sit down to write this post, I can feel like I did something worthwhile…for me, anyway. I’m sure some people would say I should spend more time cleaning (and certainly, if boychild could see his room right now, I’d probably be in a bit of trouble…but I have 20 days until he gets home) or maintaining the house or yard, and sure, I could. But I wouldn’t be happy that night, curled up in bed, and the next morning, I’d have that empty feeling I get in my chest when I don’t make any art.

This really is an everyday habit.

Here’s today’s Artwalk artist: Victoria Alexander Marquez, also mostly a paper artist. Her work is delicate and beautiful, especially the larger landscape pieces.

I Labeled Stuff

My internet is strolling through the park this morning with a dog on a leash who wants to smell every leaf. It will be a miracle if I get this posted before I have to leave. I have no interesting pictures of progress from last night…it’s not that I didn’t do anything. It’s just that all I did was iron two quilts flat and then put labels on them and sew them down. It was very exciting (not) and took more time than I thought it should. Plus I didn’t get much sleep the night before (damn bird, silly dogs, crazy cat), so I actually went to bed before midnight…barely. I don’t get much done when I’m asleep, unfortunately…at least nothing tangible. But the labels needed doing, and now I’m ready to deliver the two quilts on Saturday…well, once I dehair them and cut a dowel or two. Nothing is quick and easy.

But I labeled stuff.

I had to grade stuff first…same with every day, I guess. I just blow it off some nights. Or it’s just too exhausting to look at it again. I’m always behind. Until the last day of school. Even then sometimes. I’m realizing I don’t have a good handle on some of the stuff I have to teach next year. I’m a life-science teacher…have been for years. I didn’t take much science in college, but I worked in scientific publishing and I read a lot, so I made it through the teacher tests. But I had a teacher in high school who seemed to do everything in his power to make sure I didn’t understand anything, so some things are just mush in my head. I feel like I need to read a good college textbook, but they’re hella boring. Maybe two…maybe chemistry and physics. For old people. With pictures. Seriously, I’m a visual learner. All about molecules and nuclear fission. Maybe a short stint on atoms. OK. Maybe a longer stint on atoms. Something to think about for summer I guess.

So no artmaking for real last night…but hopefully tonight. I was even going to put up some of the Artwalk artists here today, but I can’t get them to pop up, so either my internet needs to fix itself while I’m gone, or I’ll need to restart some routers and crap when I get home. Wish that stuff really could fix itself. Or at least tell me what it needs.

I do have a piece that will be in Sandy, Utah, this weekend at the Sew Original Quilt & Creative Expo show. This is Part-Time Oasis, part of the Oasis show put on by SAQA and traveling around…

I made it last summer and it’s been wandering around, getting lost at one point.

Ah, the internet returneth, prodigal son and all.

One of the Artwalk artists was Sue Britt…from a distance, when I was walking up to her booth, I was sure I was looking at quilts, at fabric, but her work is paper…and sculptural.

Here’s a video of her inspiration about one of her pieces and her work.

It’s short, but you can see how she makes her work. She’s local and has a studio at Spanish Village in Balboa Park.

I don’t have time for any more, but I’ll get back to them. And for me? The goal is art tonight. Stuff I can photograph and write about, instead of boring old labels.

Thank You for Continuing to Hold

Apparently I never finished this in the morning. So here it is now…I guess you really had to hold, if you’re used to reading me in the morning…

So I finished hand sewing that 17 miles of sleeve on last night. Tonight I’ll put labels on the two quilts. I didn’t grade anything, because I’m lame. I did walk two dogs (OK, I got help about halfway through, but odds are I would have survived it). While I was sewing, I had an idea for filling more of the torso, so I headed over to the drawing. I’m really close to done, so my brain is sort of in overtime. I’m writing this right now while I’m on hold with financial aid because, and this is really stupid but true, TurboTax rounds W2 numbers so the line on the 1040 is not exactly the same, and Cornell’s financial aid cannot handle that, so I have to call and explain it to them so they’ll stop sending emails that they don’t match. Because they don’t. By 49 cents. I’m willing to concede that 49 cents, but Cornell is not. So I’m on hold with the same shitty music as last year. Getting a crick in my neck…wait, put it on speaker phone.

Thank you for continuing to hold.

So I thought of an owl and fit it into the space below the ribcage…

It’s not particularly big. Then I added violets around the owl and raccoon, daisies in the rib space above the owl, and some bits and pieces around the rest of it to balance everything out…some landscaping behind the giraffe, another grape leaf, another tree.

Julie’s asking for a piece count, but I already know this one will be a bitch. I’m not expecting it to be easy or fast, so I’m OK with that. So all I have left is the torso above the hand. I have a few more ideas of what to draw up there, but nothing’s beating me around the head and shoulders. I guess I have to sit and wait for that. No rush…I’m still trying to finish up the other quilt/art stuff for now. At some point, I’ll think it’s a rush, but not yet. As the end of school rushes towards me. Aaargh.

Nothing else cool is going on but this stuff…and I’m finally off hold and talking to a human. HOO MAHN.

It Won’t Take Long…

So here’s what I know now, after last night: at 4:35 AM, the mockingbird shuts up. Totally quiet. Asleep even. Me? Not so much. That was a clusterfuck of not sleeping. OK. It’s all right. It’s Monday…always a rough day. I’m just gonna roll with it.

Grades are due Tuesday. I spent some time this weekend dealing with stuff that needed to be graded and then filling in all the the secondary grades, behavior and effort, then all the comments. Sometimes I don’t do comments for progress reports, but I want parents to know why their kid has the grade they have. And so many of them are one or two assignments from passing, but they don’t make the effort. Frustrating on my end. Maybe on theirs too. But seriously, if I’ve been telling the parents, in one case, for 4 weeks that she has two missing assignments and what they are, and those assignments still haven’t shown up, then hell, she deserves the damn F. I just don’t understand it.

So that frustration over, I considered grading some more and then slapped myself around a bit (seriously, enough is enough), and thought about what I needed to get done this week in the art arena. I have two quilts to deliver to a show on Saturday. One needs a bottom sleeve…it’s big and I made it before I automatically started putting bottom sleeves on. Then two need labels. Huh. Well, there’s a quilt under the machine that’s almost done…I should just finish it so I don’t have to switch machine foot and thread more than once. It won’t take long.

Last words of crazy people…it won’t take long.

Two hours later, I finally finished.

It took about 5 1/2 hours to quilt this. I’m not even sure why it took so long. Thread breakage maybe. It needs ink, embroidery, and a binding. I might deal with that this week. I might not. I really only needed it done so I could use the machine for the other thing. But hell, if that gets it done, then so be it.

Here’s the next two things hanging around…the one on the left needs quilting. I’m cutting out the pieces for the one on the right.

I just haven’t done anything with it since Thursday. I’ll get there.

First this beast needs a sleeve. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more of the brown or enough of the binding fabric, which is what I used for the top sleeve, but I think the gray will do well enough.

I only really care because we’re hanging this one in the center of the gallery, so there won’t be a wall behind it. So it’s best if the back is not too chaotic. Hence the need for the second sleeve as well…it will hang much better with weight on the bottom.

So I made a second sleeve and pinned it on, and now I get to sew it on. Some quiet hours poking holes in my finger…unless I remember to put those plasticky protective pads on. That would be smart, wouldn’t it? Let’s hope I remember. Then labels for this one and the little one that goes with it…which also needs dowels. By Saturday. Plenty of time. Let’s hope I get more art done than that this week.

I also went to Artwalk this weekend…saw some good art and a lot of schlock, as always. I’ll post about some of it when I get my act together. Or sooner. Whichever makes sense.

Feminism? Or Not.

I started this post two years ago and was collecting links, but really, I should just let it go out into the world…as I tell you about the new show I’m in, Feminism Now. It’s not the 1st, 2nd, or the 3rd wave…it’s just what we are now, and if you’re a woman and you think you should get equal pay and not get harassed when you’re on the internet or out in the real world, for any reason…your clothes, your looks, whatever…then as Maisie Williams offered up, it’s not that you’re a feminist…”I also feel like we should stop calling feminists ‘feminists’ and just start calling people who aren’t feminist ‘sexist’ — and then everyone else is just a human. You are either a normal person or a sexist. People get a label when they’re bad.” And I don’t care if you’re male or female or identify somewhere else, if you don’t agree that it should be as equal as we can get it? Then you are sexist. You are making it worse for everyone with your attitudes. Knock it off.

Here’s the announcement for the show…the opening is May 14, 6-10 PM, at Gallery D in Barrio Logan. It’s during the Barrio Art Crawl, so there are about three galleries just within walking distance of Gallery D and others close by.

I have two pieces in the show about being a single mom and what that looks like…one from 2011 and one from 2016…the updated version.

This is an interesting article about sexual harassment and geek culture by Dr. Nerdlove.

Here is an interesting article about the role women’s magazines played in the beginnings of feminism. Because I used to read mom’s magazines, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, etc. when I was growing up. And they do make you question how you’re doing it…I’m Womaning Wrong is the basic message I got out of it.

Here is an article about feminism and comics, another issue…”For me, a feminist comic is one in which female characters aren’t just a plot device providing male characters with an opportunity to react. They aren’t a thing to be rescued, fucked, killed and discarded. Feminist comics show women as people, not tits and ass whose stories are only interesting if they’re sexy.” –Casey Gilly, providing a list of 15 feminist comics. And yes, there are way more than what’s here, and I love that we are now seeing choices out there for girls and women to read…because we ARE reading comics and watching sci fi and playing games, and y’all need to get with the program and respect us.

Here is a page Lucy Knisley did about nerd girls.

Here is a BuzzFeed article by Kristen Radtke called Let’s Draw Naked about why we should have more depictions of women drawn by female comics doing things normal women do…so boys realize how normal those things are and stop calling us names for being normal. And now let’s add in ideas of sexuality and trans and gender-queer and accept those in comics and stories and gaming and movies. And even in toys for kids. The whole Star Wars Where’s Rey? issue. Seriously people. Do you HATE us?

Here is an article about a Gender in Comics panel at San Diego Comicon 2014…and I love the comment that Laura Hudson (writer, “Wired”; former EiC, ComicsAlliance) makes, “If you’ve grown up in a situation where everything is about you and is catered to you, I think there is a degree to which equality can be perceived as oppression,” said Hudson. “If you’re used to having everything be about you, to some degree, and then suddenly it’s not, I guess in a way you perceive that as oppression.” And in recent discussions about all the superhero movies and how they portray females…sure, some of them are STRONG, but then they’re dead. Or being saved by Thor. Or whatever. Hudson continues, “If you work in the bell factory long enough you stop hearing the bells. I think super hero comics has stopped hearing the bells for a long time, but now you have other people coming in from the outside and [the gender issues in super hero comics are] very apparent. Having the Internet, having these other perspectives that are suddenly in front of us and are not subject to gatekeepers and are far more able to be heard exposes a lot of [these issues].”

Here is a blogpost about how to figure out if you’re a feminist. If you’re still reading, you probably are. If you clicked off and are now swearing about hairy women who just need a good fucking, well, you’re gone, so I’m not talking to you anyway. That’s the problem with talking about feminism…the ones who really need to hear it aren’t listening. Well, except for the boys who THINK they’re all pro-women and talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk. Their actions show them to be what they really are. They WANT to be feminists, but they don’t have enough empathy with women to actually BE one. By the way, this blogpost is funny. It’s not a test or anything.

Here’s an article about why feminism needs men. It’s fucking annoying, honestly, that we can’t just say, HEY, you fuckwads are doing it wrong without men having to support it for it to be real. There’s one of the major things wrong with society Right Fucking There. That said, if you’re a man and calling yourself a feminist and ACTING like it too (because you can’t just say it, you have to show it), then thanks. At least you’re not one of the bad guys.

Oh shit. Don’t accuse me of hating men. I don’t. I hate power trips and sexism and violence against anyone and I really hate that like over 60 million girls don’t have access to a decent education Just Because They’re Girls. That is truly fucked up. But I don’t hate men. Because feminism doesn’t mean hating men. It means hating privilege and inequality and violence and stereotypes and all that. Are you really gonna say you’re pro all that stuff?

Here’s an article about Anita Sarkeesian and the whole sexism in video games issue. If you’re a man who thinks there’s no problem here, wow. You need to be a woman for a month. Maybe then you’ll get it. In fact, that’s one of the things that drives me nuts. Men who don’t think there’s a problem. Way to downplay my existence, asshole. Why not speak up for women’s rights and deflect some of the rape and killing anger that has been directed at women who dare to criticize the gaming industry. Because I look at all those games and I know I don’t belong, simply because of how my people look when I log in. Even the book from Cory Doctorow, In Real Life, the young girl gamer picks an avatar who is much much skinnier than she is…and why? Because we know you don’t want to look at us any other way but cute and pretty and laughing at your jokes.

It’s not like there haven’t been new links about sexism in the last two years. I think I just got really overwhelmed by the negative vibes towards feminism…especially with politicians and tampons and Trump and pregnancy and my growing invisibility because I’m not a hot 25-year-old (wait. I never was a hot 25-year-old). Coming up next…my women’s art group is doing a show on Sexism in the Art World, and yeah, we’re going after Comicon as well. Because if we keep yelling, maybe y’all will stop. Or start making it all equal. Like it should be. So posting this now…with added content.

Bits and Pieces

I’m still plodding along on this drawing…it’s getting there. Last night, I was on a roll…I started by drawing grapes (because there aren’t enough tiny freakin’ pieces in this thing). Then I added the gecko above the hand and another tree by the giraffe to fill that empty space.

Then I added the raccoon. Meanwhile, despite the late hour here and in Boston (AM hour really), girlchild and I had a discussion about whether raccoons are evil or not. They’re not. She says they are. Something about one that runs out in front of the van she drives for school.

But it’s not often you see one in the same drawing as an ovary.

So I’m filling up the space, slowly. I need more ideas…

My brain usually obliges. Give it time. It took about an hour last night to do what I did.

Before that, I had quilt class, so I started cutting out pieces for the smaller quilt I’m doing…

On the left, that’s about 2 hours’ work. Doesn’t look like much, does it? It never does until it’s all ironed together. I’m kinda looking forward to that part…but I’m really tired right now, and I haven’t even started school. I’m not expecting a burst of energy tonight. We have an outdoors assembly today, so I need to remember sunscreen. Last weekend, I sat out in the late afternoon sun for about 20 minutes and got sunburnt. Me paleface. It didn’t even cross my mind that I might need sunscreen. I need skin that changes color with the sun, like those glasses do. So yeah, an hour in the sun for an assembly might kill me.

Anyway, looking forward to some Vitamin D. And cutting stuff out. And working on the drawing. She’s got 10 1/2 hours into her so far. Impressive. Lots of staring time though. I joked earlier this year about finishing a quilt every month in 2016, but then I blew it with the March finish by deciding three days later that it needed ink…on the 1st of April. So there was technically no March finish. Well there won’t be a late-April finish either. No way. But there should be a May finish. I guess that’s something to aim for. If I do this big one next, no way will it be done in June. I’ll aim for early July. Planning it out. Getting bits and pieces done each day.