Why Now?

Yesterday was interesting. I gave a test. I’ve given a few tests this year. I always give the kids a study guide (required) with all the test questions and then they can use an index card on the test, with anything they need on the card. I’ve had so much apathy this year, from kids and parents, that it’s truly been one of the most frustrating years for me ever. I’ve questioned everything I’ve done all year, and finally sort of gave up on them. I couldn’t persuade them to turn work in, to prepare for a test, to give a shit. Until today. And I swear, I did nothing different, but today, almost every single kid turned in a study guide, most of them complete. Almost every single kid had a card. It’s like lightning hit them and their brains lit up with “OH YEAH! That’s how you STUDENT!” I was boggled. I didn’t know whether to be ecstatic that they finally figured that shit out, or annoyed that it took them so long, or just fucking confused because WHY NOW? Why not all the other times? What was different?

I think I just input those grades and hope to heaven the test grades improved as well, and never think an entire year is a failure…know that it might happen in the 10th month of the year that they finally figure it out. This is the stuff that bugs the crap out of me when people talk about making teachers accountable. I did nothing different in the first few months of the year, then started noticing the failing trend, the inability to turn work in…and I tried to figure out how to make things work better, worked MY ass off, honestly, worried myself, stressed out, blamed myself, had a really hard year. I’m not sure anything I did made a difference. Or they just reacted to all my work so slowly that I couldn’t see it happening.

I’m boggled. Still. I hope their test scores match up with the work they did…because then they’ll see the connection.

I was exhausted when I got home though. I walked the room while they tested…you don’t think about walking all day, how tiring it is, until you get home and sit down. There were things I wanted to do, and I was just too tired. I finished up some grades on an assignment, input all the stuff from today, and then made dinner. Then I did seating charts, because it’s time to move them around again to try to deal with some behavior issues.

Next step in the artmaking process? Trimming fabric pieces or finishing the big drawing. I know I’m going to quilt class tonight, which is a good place to trim stuff, so I decided to try to fit a giraffe on the drawing instead, because it had been in my head since last week sometime.

I found a picture that worked in the space and made the decision to have her standing in front of the rib she crosses over. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the others…maybe it will be a rib-by-rib decision.

Then I had this small blankish area to the left of the giraffe, under the uterus. Tulips! Of course. I can’t really explain how things pop into my head as I’m staring at these blank spaces, but they do.

This is actually a pretty large space to fill…even with the ribs drawn in.

It was after midnight by then, so I stopped. I’m not sure what to draw next. I have notes about bees and lizards and cactus, although I already put a prickly pear in. I already put in a cat…there’s always a cat. I always have birds too…I think the crane counts for that, although there might be more later. I’m debating a raccoon, after watching Guardians of the Galaxy while grading last night and staring at Rory from Furiously Happy for so many days. Probably putting a furiously happy raccoon in there won’t fit, but a real one might. I’ll think about it.

Turns out my Celebrating Silver quilt Awakening the Crone will be traveling to China, once again having a way better vacation than I ever do. The whole show will be at the 2016 8^th Asia Quilt Festival in Shanghai, China, from September 21-23, 2016.

I keep waiting for the organizers to email me and say all of them are going except mine, but that hasn’t happened yet. Cool beans.

Willy Nilly

So the good news is that I finished ironing all the pieces down onto fabric on the newest quilt. It’s not a huge piece, maybe 18×26″ or so. It’s from one of my smaller sketchbooks. It’s not FOR anything, no show, no deadline. Although it technically has no nudity in it, so that’s a plus for those weird little shows that want small pieces but can’t show boobies. After the last few demanding pieces, I wanted to do something just for me, something mellow, something easy, something that didn’t have a million hours attached to it. So it took about 5 hours and 45 minutes to pick out fabrics. Next I’ll start trimming them, probably at my quilt class on Thursday. I might work on the drawing tonight, try to get it done, since it’s probably the next one I’ll work on. That perennial debate between working on what I want to work on, and trying to make work that will get into shows. Everything has a theme and this one doesn’t fit many of them. That’s why I’m doing it though. Just a break from the artistic rat race.

So I had all these cactus spikes lined up in order for ironing…

I had misnumbered some of them (I do this all the time), so there’s double numbers with letters to tell them apart, but in the long run, it’s cactus spikes. It doesn’t matter much. I actually used three different colors of spikes. Kinda crazy there.

Here’s the fabrics I used. Shit. I usually count them.

64 fabrics for a piece that has about 400 pieces. I needed lots of variety in the greens because she has lots of different types of plants covering her, from cactus to vines to sunflowers.

Here’s the pile, ready to be cut out…

It’s not a very big pile. I figure cutting them out will take less than 4 hours. I do remember that I’m missing part of her eyeballs. I had the Wonder Under pieces and then they disappeared. Probably on a fluffy cat butt somewhere.

I have two other smallish drawings like this that I copied and numbered. I thought I would work on them next, but I think looking at the time available (and yes, I am already thinking about summer projects…), I need to start on the big one next. I like to have at least one big project planned for summer, since I have more free time for long bouts of standing at an ironing board without having to work the whole day before I do that. I have a job that requires a lot of standing and walking. I hardly ever sit down. So walking all day and then standing all night is pretty tiring.

Last year I did it a little differently though. I had a piece I wanted to work on that I started in May or so and finished in late June…there was a show I wanted to enter. Ironically, it didn’t get in, but another piece did. Then I wanted to enter another show at the end of July, so I finished a smallish piece for that. It’s been gone since September, I think. Some of that was a shipping issue (not mine), but it won’t come back until late October this year, I think. Then I finally worked on the big monster piece for the summer, not starting until the end of July, which honestly, is right before school starts. This year, we have to go back August 15 (oh god, way too early). So the summer is really July. I didn’t finish that big piece until right before it was due, the end of October I think. Or was it September? Can’t remember. End of September. And I forgot the other giant Earth Mother I did last year, which I finished in April. It’s strange for me to finish a big piece during the Spring. It’s so crazy at school this time of year. But I had a deadline for that one as well.

So there’s the question. Do I work better with deadlines? Yeah probably. More efficiently anyway. So I guess I have to accept their existence. If I sucked at it, I might be able to ignore them and wander willy nilly through my artmaking process, but I’m deadline-oriented and it makes me get work done. So there we are. Try to pick deadlines that make sense with my work and not just make it for the theme. Make the stuff I would make anyway.

But instead of making right now (and I would like to be, trust me…know that I leave for work most days with art screeching at me to STAY STAY!), I need to work to pay the bills. Like most of us do…

Apparently I Have to Sleep at Night

A relief this morning…finding out all the financial aid documents have been processed. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems that will come up down the road, like last year, but at least we got past that hurdle. It’s a fucking miracle. A massive relief as well. Now we wait.

It’s Reach Higher Day today, Michelle Obama’s program to encourage kids to go to college. At our school, if you ask them right now if they want to go to college, what they want to do, a lot of them say yes, and they want to be doctors and lawyers and other educated professions…and some of them make it, some of them get full scholarships for sports or academics. We get little blips of info from them as they become seniors in high school. But most of them get bogged down by life, grades, the lack of support…no one knows how to fill out these damn forms (they take persistence and a little crazy, honestly). So today we are supposed to wear a t-shirt from our college (oops. I don’t own one…but I have my kids’ shirts) to help kids realize that almost every adult around them at school is walking around with a college degree…or in my case, like three of them. There’s so little parent support for this year’s kids…and there are plenty that would do well in college and should go. I hope they figure it out.

I walked the dog yesterday…I love the post-work 3-miler we do. It’s incredibly relaxing, although then it’s hard to get up and make dinner. I have to plan so that gym and hiking nights have food already prepped for afterwards. Smart move, when I can pull it off.

I had grading to do as well…never-ending pile (except mostly it’s online, so it’s a virtual pile…harder to hold sway over you if you can’t physically see it). But I was in here ironing at about 9-something. I wanted to be done…but…apparently I have to sleep at night.

When Midnight does this (and she is always in the green drawer for some reason), I can’t get to about half of my green fabrics.

The drawer she’s in and the drawer directly above her…if I were smart, I’d move the drawers around occasionally so I wasn’t always pulling out of the top drawer. Or yeah, I could chase her out.

Kitten is more well-behaved and picks the chair…when she’s not trying to climb up the window screen to get at the lizards that keep climbing all my windows.

I ironed for a couple of hours…forgot to take any photos while ironing…but these are all the pieces I have left to do…not many.

I think there’s some cactus and a sunflower or two in there. And then I’m done. Again, a small quilt for me.

I ironed for about 2 hours last night. There’s probably less than an half hour left in there. Here’s the pile of stuff ready to be trimmed.

I have quilt class on Thursday, so now I have something I can work on there. That was part of my motivation to get in here instead of out there with the big drawing.

Here’s the growing pile of fabrics I used, completely disorganized.

It was late and I didn’t feel like making it all nice. Sometimes sleep is a goal.

I forgot…I am still working on going through the pile of crap I pulled out of the studio and piled up in the boychild’s room. I know it doesn’t look better, but I threw out another pile of stuff and recycled some more.

So it’s getting there. I’m a little afraid of that red box on the left…it’s chock full of I don’t know what. I emptied the yellow bin. I have lots of piles of stuff based on where it should be going. It was a little sad going through the school stuff, because I found out Friday for sure that most of what I have taught over the last 14 years is going away. So I have samples of stuff…and you just don’t know if you’ll ever teach that again, so in some ways, it would be a good time to just toss a lot of stuff, which I did when I went most digital anyway, but we do some stuff on paper still when it makes sense. So I was filing assignments I will probably never use again. Teaching body systems and cells and genetics has been what I love…and I will have to find a way to love the next batch of stuff.

OK. I’m running late…as always. But art tonight…finish ironing that batch and maybe go back to the drawing. We’ll see.

You Get What I Mean…

Whoa Nelly, this feels like Monday. Teachers get Sunday panic, and then we don’t sleep Sunday nights, and then Mondays are rough. Then again, I’m just not a morning person. Don’t talk to me until I have one full cup of tea inside me, whether it’s a 6:30-AM wakeup alarm or an 8:30 version (when I’m not in school). Something woke me up around 6 AM and I thought, Holy Crap, it can’t possibly be morning. I just fell asleep. You always know that’s a good start to a work day. Don’t feel like I slept last night. I even went to bed a bit early. Well. 15 minutes. And then I couldn’t fall asleep. Brain in a twizzle.

Twizzle is probably a bad word somewhere. Then again, everything is a bad word somewhere. Nope. It’s a move in ice dancing. A twizzle is a multirotational one-foot turn in figure skating. The twizzle is most commonly seen in ice dancing, where it appears in a number of compulsory dances and is a required element of step sequences in the short dance, original dance, and free dance. Ah there we are…also a word for a form of crystal meth. Then again, probably every weird-sounding word is a form of crystal meth somewhere.

I’m working my butt off every weekend, it seems…trying to get school stuff done, getting through art stuff, not even catching up with anything. We must be getting near the end of the school year. I thought I had 43 days of school left, but it turns out we’ve been back after break for three weeks, not two, so there are only 38 days left. That’s good. I was thinking 43 sounded long. But I also lost a whole week in there somewhere. That’s gotta be a problem.

I had a meeting with one of my art groups yesterday, so I had to finish a bunch of stuff Saturday to make sure I had food in the house and my school stuff was ready. It was a good meeting…long drive, but good news about upcoming shows. In fact, membership is coming up in October, so if you live in the Los Angeles/San Diego area and you’re a fiber artist, and you can commit to 4 Sundays a year, then joining California Fibers might be a good thing for you. I’ve picked up some great shows with this group; plus they bring a wide range of talents and information. There’s membership info on the website here. I’ve been in the group for a few years and enjoy it.

We have a presentation of sorts every meeting, and this time, two of the members had been to Guatemala to look at the textile collectives there, and they brought back some samples. If you’re on Facebook with me, you probably saw the detail of this…

This is the bottom of a strip of fabric that would become one leg of men’s pants. Which is boggling in itself. This is machine-embroidered by a Guatemalan man who does it all freehand. Amazing stuff. He works out of books, looking at the pictures for ideas. There were other things, beautiful soft scarves and beading, but this thing blew me away.

Anyway. So that was yesterday. I was so efficient that when I got home, I realized I had a chunk of time, almost free time. Because it’s never really free, is it? I really should be grading stuff at all hours, never-ending. I needed to straighten up the studio a bit, put fabrics from the last quilt away before I started a new one. So I did that.

And then I started laying out Wonder Under pieces and I hung up my original drawing with all the numbers all over it.

And I started picking fabrics. This is her hair. Blue is in.

I was trying to figure out why all of a sudden, after two weeks, now I feel like doing this.

Here’s the flesh…really not much in this quilt. She’s sorta covered in stuff that’s not flesh.

At the end of the night, I cover up the Wonder Under that’s still laid out so I don’t come back to it all over the place, some stuck to cat butts. The bin at the bottom is everything I’ve ironed so far, which is in the low 200s, I think. I believe the box to the right is all the 300s.

It’s a small quilt. There’s not a lot of pieces in it. I spent about 2 hours and 40 minutes ironing and I’ve probably got another 2 to go and then I’m done.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far. There will be more color once I get into the bits on top of the flesh.

So what got me going? Well I have all these shows coming up now with no work that will fit. Four of them have themes, although the themes are not necessarily limiting, and two of the shows have the same theme. I didn’t like the theme though, until I let my brain play with it and I think I got there, but for two different shows, and at least one being juried, I might need more than one related piece. And then I need a smaller piece for another show. Waiting to hear on nudity or not for that one. All these deadlines are in the next year, but it’s potentially about making 4 large quilts and 1 smaller one.

Although I had a few hours of whiny crap in my head where I just wanted to make whatever I want, damn all the themes. It passed, though, because I’m fairly sure I can still make what I want, but force it to work for these shows. But I can’t sit around waiting any more, because there’s work to be done! Beyond just staring at that drawing every night.

So I’d better get my butt in gear. Because I want to make the Earth Mother one too, and does she fit with any of the themes? One…barely…by the skin of her teeth. Wait. Dammit. She doesn’t have teeth. You get what I mean.

My Work Travels More Than I Do

I always forget where my work is when it’s traveling…especially those that travel for years. It’s possible you saw two of my pieces if you were in Paducah this weekend for the AQS show. The SAQA People and Portraits exhibit has been touring for so long, I forget it’s still out there…but two of my pieces didn’t forget…I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket…

When people ask me where I get my ideas, I often say from dreams (I don’t clarify that sometimes those are daydreams, not nightdreams or nightmares), and that sometimes things just wander in my brain for a while until they collide into a drawing. I drew the figure on the left and the one giving birth in my smaller sketchbook and then the Gulf oil spill happened and it ended up in this thing, along with a bunch of other weird shit. Let me tell you, this is where I wonder how Dali got into my dreams and why they haven’t packed me away in a nuthouse yet.

But yeah. That was a dream. The owl has an iPhone screen and is plugged in. Those are sisters by the way. And there’s about a thousand details. Along with an oil spill. The title? I was listening to the radio and someone said it. And that was the title.

I don’t always channel crazy when I draw. Honestly. Sometimes there’s other shit going on. This one, Fully Medicated…

I’m diabetic and have other health issues. Had them for a long time. I take a bunch of meds. Actually, I think I take more vitamins and supplements at the moment than meds, but that is always in flux. I worry about my liver and kidneys. They bear the brunt of that crap. Anyway. This is a really old piece. They both are. But they were both at Paducah this last weekend.

I have never been to Paducah. I’m not likely to go soon.

Where can you see my work in the future? Well go to the Current Shows tab above for one, but also…

There will be a piece at the Home Machine Quilting & Sewing Show, Salt Lake City, UT, May 5-7, 2016. I’m thinking it might scare some people, but whatever. This is part of the SAQA Oasis show, which was supposed to be at the Mancuso show in Palm Springs last October and then at Santa Clara PIQF…well, it will be there this year instead. So if you went looking for it last year, look again.

There will be another piece at the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts, Oberlin, OH, opening May 15.

Two pieces will be at Gallery D, Barrio Logan, San Diego, CA, part of Feminism Now, opening May 14. By the way, there will be a catalog available for this show…bring $20!

One piece will be part of California Fibers: Eclectic Threads, Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA, opening June 25.

Earth Stories has two pieces, at the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, Jun 25-Oct 2, 2016.

I actually talked about the issue that is the focus of this piece, saving the Earth by providing free birth control to any woman who wants it, no matter where they live, what religion they practice. If They Want It, they can have it. It was Earth Day Friday and I made my students write about how to save the Earth, and mostly they’re gonna recycle. Um. Well that ain’t gonna do it. It’s a step in the right direction, sure, but what will make a bigger difference? Population control by choice…I do teach human reproduction, so this is not far off what I teach. It made some of them think, start to ask questions…like how do we get more natural resources? They don’t think about how lucky most of them are. They have clean water and a roof over their head (most of them) and junk food whenever they want it. Some of my refugee students understand more. You can see it in their eyes. But many of them also come from a culture that does not allow birth control. I like to pop these little worms into their brains, make them think outside the box.

Celebrating Silver has one piece, at the America Quilts Expo, Des Moines, IA, May 26-28, 2016.

And that’s just the next few months. You can see why I forget where they all are. I’m curious how they do at these smaller quilt and home sewing shows. I suspect it’s eye-opening for a few people. I’m applying to a new art group that has regular exhibitions, and as I was putting the application materials together, I realized that my work is not necessarily pretty and low-key. It’s kinda in your face and challenging. I’m OK with that, and I guess I accept that it might mean there will be a violent anti-sentiment in any group to which I apply. I appreciate the groups I’m in for only giving me a modicum of shit about that. Really, it’s kind of a joke because I often don’t have work available for smaller-sized shows and/or those that restrict nudity (worded as “family friendly”).

Wait. I’m not family friendly? Because we don’t want kids or families to know about what’s inside the body? Or because we don’t want them to know that women sometimes get sad or pissed off about stuff?

It’s OK. I get it. I don’t even get particularly irritated about it. I do absolutely feel like there should be a prominent place for art that’s not pretty, for art that makes you stop and think. For art that slaps you around a bit sometimes. I guess that’s my role. To make that.

A Sparkly Clean Brain

First of all, I wrote this before school today. Most of it. And then chaos. Because that’s how it rolls at the moment. Brain overload. So it’s still sitting here when I get home and there’s no title on it and I don’t even know how I didn’t get this done. So here it is…

The plus is that financial aid is notionally done, except for one form that needs to be uploaded (just did that. Before I did this.). The minus is the hours I spent last night dealing with it. Still. Again. And thinking I would have to call girlchild’s financial aid department this morning and beg for forgiveness. The minus is the probably 5 years of my life that I will lose at the end due to financial aid forms and dealing with my ex over those. The plus is the kids are in college and someday will have to change my diapers and feed me applesauce with a bib on, but they will have college educations and will be able to afford the really good bibs and diapers.

Or not. Honestly, I don’t care at the moment. I want them to have a job that fulfills them. And I can’t say that mine doesn’t, because it often does, but right now it also tires me out. It wears me down. It makes me want to eat ice cream and drink wine (not a good combo on so many levels). I wrote two versions of a test last night and graded a bunch of stuff. Some kids are taking it seriously, figuring out that they need to step up their game. Some of them? Yeah. Whatever. And their parents too. I feel sorry for some of them, because I think if someone at home were paying attention, they would be doing better, and I do the best I can with those, but they are often the neediest and not in a good way. It’s like puppies. They’re cute when they’re playing and when they’re asleep, but they bite like motherfuckers. And pee on everything. And chew up your favorite stuff.

I don’t really teach puppies.

So I didn’t finish all the financial aid and grading until 11:09 PM. And I was half dead on my feet by then, tired and irritable and weepy and shit. But I had a random idea to fill in the arm between the crane and the octopus, and I thought I could probably do that…so I did…

Oh yeah. That’s kelp. It fit nicely. I also pencil drew in a ribcage and a bellybutton, but I haven’t decided whether stuff will go behind the ribs or around them, and I was way too damn tired to draw any more after that. I looked at a lot of pictures of giraffes, but that’s as far as I got. And Damn, they have lots of spots. I keep picking spotted animals.

I’m pretty sure I won’t get anything done tonight. And this weekend is already busy. It’s OK, because there’s no rush on this drawing. I’m just doing it because it was in my head and it helps me calm my brain down, wind down at the end of the day. It’s meditative. It’s like the spin cycle on the washer…flips out all the bad stuff down the drain and leaves a sparkly clean brain for sleep. Well. Sort of. Better than it was anyway.

I Need a Demonologist

I needed to get outside and walk hard, hike fast yesterday. So I did. With the dog. I had to wait for temperatures to go down below 90 first though, but it’s a crapshoot, because some hikes I don’t want to finish after dark. I wanted to be out out out, nowhere near houses if I could pull it off, far away from people. We had to drive a little, but then it was three miles with only one old guy and his old dog, who wanted to beat us up but couldn’t move fast enough to pull it off (arthritis), and then an old guy on a bike. And a dead snake…in pieces. But otherwise, nothing but bugs and plants and birds and clearing your mind and breathing in the dust and walking it off. Cuz you can walk a whole day off, you know. Harder to walk a whole week off, but a day? No problem.

Wilderness refuge near my house. It was still warm out, 86 degrees at 6 PM, but there was a nice breeze. Good pace. Tired the dog out too.

Then I made dinner, spaced out for a bit with a book, graded some assignments I needed to get out of the way, and then communed a bit with animals. They all followed me into the living room. Mommy! Mommy!

Pet the dog and the cats. Kitten settles down into her favorite place. On the drawing.

And the brain just spilled. Oh yeah, you’ve seen the eye in the uterus thing before…in the last quilt. The REAL third eye, the all-seeing one. The one that rules the woman’s roost.

I pushed and pulled and the drawing ended up still being under Kitten. I started on trying to fit a crane around an elbow. I look at pictures and try to imagine how to move the wings and feathers around where I need them to be. Kitten starts flicking her tail in the middle of where I’m drawing and that’s it. I poke at her until she leaves. Petulant beast.

I made it work, turn the corner. Then drew the hand and some pine-tree-like things on there. You can see I don’t have much left…just the main torso and it already has a bunch of stuff on it.

Closeup of the arm.

So I need to connect the arm to the shoulder with something and then do the rest of the torso. It’s going well. Peaceful brain.

This is from last night’s grading, where a student suggested a demonologist to test lung function.

I laughed a lot. A LOT. Because you’ll take anything humorous at this time of the year. Anything. Calling a demonologist to take care of my class.

More drawing tonight, although there’s always grading and I think I have to write a test. Not sure what I’m drawing next anyway, so it’s OK to let the brain percolate for a while. Like all day. I didn’t start drawing last night until 10:30 or so. I’m about 8 1/2 hours into this drawing. It’s time-consuming, but good. I write about the hours because I want people to get that it takes a long time to make art and even if some of it is standing around, staring at the piece, it’s still part of the making. I know some people can just whip stuff out, but I’m not one of them. This is big and complicated. But I think it will be worth it.

Do It or Lose It

I’m getting there. I managed yesterday better, although I woke up to chaos this morning. About 6 emails that had to be dealt with right now. RIGHT NOW. Which is why I’m running late.

I meditated last night, although my brain was all over the place. And then I drew. I did financial aid stuff before that…almost done…woo hoo! Three more things to scan and submit on one kid, the other kid stuff finally came through this morning, so I’ll do it tonight. This stuff is so stressful, my brain wants to explode.

So meditation reined the brain in a little bit. Maybe. Because then I got up and I drew…I finished the earth on the bottom…

Hard to see, but I tried really hard to not make a bunch of tiny things on there. Really hard.

Then I went back up to the torso, staring at the other boob. I had been looking at leopards and jaguars and cheetahs, but the spots…holy moley, the spots. And I couldn’t find the picture I wanted. The pose. I don’t know. I just wasn’t sold. I’ve done lots of lions. Female lions are just gorgeous creatures, so strong and determined, although I hate when they watch a new male come in and kill their babies. Yes, I’ve watched every episode of Big Cat Diary…like 7 times. I miss that show.

Anyway. So I went to tigers…because the stripes can be kept simple, and in a piece like this, where there’s already a ton of detail, I don’t need to be making 100 spots on a leopard.

I added the other lung, decided to continue the grass just under the neckline instead of putting something different on the other side, and then put a prickly pear cactus above the tiger to fill in that space.

What you can’t see here is that I have one arm and then the rest of the torso, which will include a uterus this time around, because when I make things for myself instead of for shows, I don’t have to worry about the nudity. I even added a nipple on the tiger, to be done in fur colors.

I’m enjoying drawing this. It’s soothing. I can’t say falling asleep or staying asleep are getting better for me, but I think that’s hormones and stress more than anything else. So exercise, meditation, drawing or making art in some way. Deep breathing when necessary. Get done with stupid stuff that stresses me out and that will help. Ignore all the people who are stressing me out (whoops, that’s half of my students right now and about 17 other adults) and hang out with those who don’t. Or hang out with the dog and the cats, because they’re demanding in their own way, but it’s pretty basic needs…pet me, feed me.

At least I’ve figured out where art fits in all that…do it or lose it.

Make Art or Die

Hi. In about 4 days, all the financial aid stuff will be done and I will no longer feel like ripping my eyeballs out of my head and mailing them to Cornell and Brandeis…along with my ex’s entrails. Seriously. I went to the gym late last night (long day, couldn’t get up off the couch for a while) and then cooked a new dinner that tastes OK but cooks like a natural disaster. Then I came in here and tried to finish up all the financial aid for the boychild (still not done…because it’s a giant fucked up mess, that’s why).

So did I get any art done? Fuck no. I looked at the clock and it was almost midnight and I just went to bed. Frustrated. Irritated. Woke up to texts and emails and more financial aid crap and realized I was grinding my teeth. Really. I love this stuff. The smartest thing I did was buy a new printer that actually scans multi-page documents into a PDF file (I know y’all are going, Kathy…they’ve been doing that for a while…but you don’t know how old my last printer and scanner were). This was joy compared to last year. At least that part of it.

The place my brain goes on the stress-o-meter though. Tonight I NEED to draw. Or something. Yes, I have 7 other things on the to-do list tonight that have nothing to do with art. Dammit. Quickly evaluating what can be put off…at least two of them. Maybe. Sigh.

In four days it will be done. Maybe sooner. I love all these happy-go-lucky slide shows and videos you see about how you make your own happiness and stress can kill you and take control of your response. Oh. OK. Except I go straight into fight or flight and then have to meditate myself back down into semi-stressed. I’m trying to do that RIGHT NOW. Except I have to go to work and that’s not a stress-free place at all. It’ll be fine.

This was cool. This made my day…except I got it last week and didn’t even look at it. So it was a nice surprise on Sunday when I finally did.

Yeah. That’s my quilt cropped on the front of the postcard. It’s a cool crop too. I’m pleased.

See. Think about the card. Not the financial aid. Not the other crap. The card. THE CARD.

The opening is June 25 at the Oceanside Museum of Art. I don’t have a time yet I think.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been watching all these home renovation shows and it’s making me irritated about my own house, but I can’t afford the money right now, let alone the time. So I keep watching, instead of switching over to the cooking programs, which make me think I should’ve been able to flip those damn quesadillas last night without causing a mess. That’s why I end up on the sci fi channel so much! It doesn’t make me feel bad. Aliens? I can handle aliens. And zombies and the X team. No problem. Bring it.

OK, long day at school, at least one contentious meeting and then tutorial, which mostly drives me nuts, so there we are. A goal for later on, though. Make art or die! OK. Maybe just make art. Ignore the silly videos with their dire warnings. They actually stress me out more.

Look. There was a tshirt. But no longer.

I Need to Listen…

Really I should listen to myself. I flailed all Saturday morning, rightfully so, wrote the blogpost, and finally got a shower, but worked…on school stuff…for the rest of the day until about three, when I headed out for some openings…one art, one music…well…sound anyway. And then yesterday, I worked almost all day and then did financial aid documents for about 2 1/2 hours before I wanted to scream. I am missing three pieces of information that have to come from the boychild, I need two signatures from him and one from his dad, and then I need to upload a bunch of stuff. Then I’m done. DONE. I’m getting faster and more efficient at filling out this bullshit, but I still hate hate hate it.

So at 11:09 PM, I had been grinding my teeth for almost two days straight, and I was gonna explode. I didn’t sleep well Saturday, so I thought about going to bed, but I wasn’t anywhere near tired. I was wired instead. Close. One-letter difference. That letter is a biggie.

OK. Let’s draw.

I’d like to say the drawing slowed my brain down and calmed me, and maybe it did a bit, but I know I saw the other side of 1 AM and it was still wide-awake time. So I’m a bit rough this morning.

While I was showering Sunday, I had this great idea for how to do the bottom of the figure in the drawing…I even typed up a note to myself in the Notes app on my phone. A very useful beastie that phone app.

Speaking of non-useful beasties…

Kitten. You’re sitting on my drawing. Why do cats like to sit on your stuff? Is it a possessive thing? She’d spent all day lying on my clean bedsheets until I offended her by making the bed with them. All of a sudden, they are now not very interesting. But this drawing is…by god, mommy, I need to sit on your drawing…you can see the other cat in this picture as well.

Unfortunately, I needed to draw on the bottom, which meant slowly pulling the drawing along the light table until she realized she was unwanted, shot me a viciously nasty glare, and set off (apparently to find every hair scrunchy I own and strew them down the hallway, because that’s where they all were when I went to bed). People wonder why I have cats in all my quilts…I think I socialize with them more than other living things.

So I ended up adding another 8-10 inches of paper at the bottom, as I penciled in the torso to the part where I wanted to stop, then drew the Earth. Well, half the Earth. In this picture, I had a photo of the Earth from space on the Pacific Ocean side.

I find it really strange that the most-common view of Earth on the internet is the one with North and South America almost in the center. You rarely see the back end…maybe because it’s mostly water. Less common is Russia with Africa, Europe all tiny off to the side. I wanted Japan and Ecuador, reminders of the earthquakes there. I’m still drawing the stuff in the Earth. It took me about 45 minutes to pencil, tape more paper, and do the stuff on the sides…volcano and mountains on the left side…

Hills and waves on the right. I think that’s South America drawn underneath it. Needs some work.

And there’s the whole thing, so you can see what I drew last night and then way up at the top, the stuff I had already drawn. There’s a lot of space in between to get filled up with plants and animals.

I’ve spent about 6 hours on drawing this so far…4 documented on my task app and the 2 that it took me in the sketchbook. Some drawings are so easy, 30 minutes to an hour or two. And some are beasts…the one in Earth Stories took about 25 hours just to draw. A lot of that time is think time, stare time, but it’s still time I count. It’s part of the making.

There’s a little voice in the back of my head that keeps whispering that I need to look at the two shows coming up in fall, start thinking about them too, not just focus on this giant ass piece that might not get in anywhere. And then I tell it that it’s fine. It’s only April. That I will look at those and think about them, but not right now. Right now, I’m head-in on this piece and it’s talking to me and I need to listen.