It was a busy weekend. I managed tiny bits of artmaking, through stubbornness and refusal to sleep, really. I did a few things I wanted to do, not as many as I would have preferred, but I also worked a heinous number of hours for the day job. And that will continue all this week, because the next unit is not planned and it starts in a week and a half. Plus grades are due. So yeah. I’m hating it right now, really overwhelmed and not happy with any of it. If you see me, I probably need a hug and a donut…well, no one ever really NEEDS a donut…I probably need a hike more, but a donut takes less time. And time is something I don’t have enough of at the moment, nowhere close.
So…art first! Always. Even if that’s not what happens in real life. Friday night, after a book signing and dinner out, I managed an hour before bed…it was late, but I did it anyway.
Up in the heads and robes.
Saturday night, it was really late, after the Man’s show. Stayed up too late again…but got another 50 minutes in.
More heads. And last night, after working a million hours and cooking dinner and watering all the plants, I managed another 50 minutes.
Heads are done…I’m doing the goddess’ arms and the things above her.
This is the only time you get to see the back…
It’s kinda creepy.
Anyway, there’s not much left. I’m at 7 hours and 24 minutes. I think I might have more than 36 minutes to go? But I’m not positive. Maybe tonight? I’d like to be pinbasted and quilting this week. That’s my goal. Harder to find the time to get pinbasted though. Need to wash the batting, piece a backing, lay it all out, and then finally pin. Sounds like a lot for a work night when I’m buried.
Friday was a field trip with school to Old Town.
It’s not my favorite field trip…that would be the zoo…but it’s nice to be outside. My group was OK…some infighting occurred, which I knew would happen, because I had the kid who causes those things. Could’ve done without that. That said, we came back and mostly the kids either slept, gamed, watched the movie, or built their roller coasters while I graded. Useful. I’ll be doing lots of that this week…and planning.
Old Town was decorated for Day of the Dead, which was cool.
We do a scavenger hunt, which is nice, because we have a purpose, unlike most of the time.
That night, we ventured out to a book signing (not sure I’ve ever done one of those)…Stephan Pastis, author of Pearls Before Swine (and other things) was here in San Diego and I went to high school with him.
Here’s the actual moment when I told him we went to high school together…
It’s OK, Steph…I don’t recognize the kid you were in high school in your adult face either, except sometimes when you talk. We were on cross country together, with my brother and others, but he was the grade between us. So yeah. Fun stuff though. We ate dinner in a total dive bar, but the food is always good, isn’t it? Not sure why.
Saturday was a clusterfuck of work work work, in between an art meeting at the Lakeside Library, which had art by Bhavna Mehta…her paper work translated into metal.
Pretty cool stuff.
And then at night, the Man’s band had a show at a tiny place that blew out my eardrums and gave me a sore throat from the smoke machine (ugh). It was a good thing to dance and be sweaty for a few hours’ break though. I needed that.
Up late.
So all in all a busy weekend. I’m looking forward to a nice quiet weekend at some point. Not sure when that can be slotted in. Probably never.
So the kids are building roller coasters all week. I need to plan one thing for this week, hopefully today so I have time to copy it. But otherwise, after I demo one thing a day to build, maybe two, I’m hoping I can just finish grading and then start planning the next unit. If it works. Don’t take my prep period, don’t add any more shit to the pile of things to do (insert snotty comments about people who don’t understand email accounts), just let me get the things done. That’s what I need. And then maybe I can get this quilt pinbasted and back under the machine. Hoping.
Ah a Monday off of work. The sweet sound of children screaming in next-door’s pool. The delightful challenge of installing a dryer vent with at least two trips to Home Depot, plus the scintillating smell of cat pee (gotta wash the litter tray completely out and or throw it out and buy a new one). I finished (almost) all of my work yesterday so I wouldn’t have to do any today. I would’ve done more, but the (um WTF is another word for delightful but when you don’t really mean it) ENCHANTING trait of one of my co-teachers to NOT upload the things I need to plan ahead NOR to answer emails or texts means I can do no more. Lucky that, I guess, although I’ll pay for it later.
This weekend has been a lot of gardening and house stuff, trying to get things under control, because the next three weeks are a little out of control already. I see them barreling at me, like a train on steroids. No worries. Really. It’s like this every year. Adding in an opening in Los Angeles next weekend and camping two weekends after that. Because there’s nothing like a little crazy when it’s already nuts.
I did manage ironing. I’m about 4-5 hours away from done, I think. I don’t think I’ll get there today, but I will sometime this week. Which is good. I’m in the mood to cut things out for a while instead.
Friday night, I ironed the rest of Kavanaugh down…
And started Coney-Barrett.
Saturday, I was much more effective…got Coney-Barrett done, plus Brown-Jackson, and started Kagan…
I did some before we headed out for some art openings and dinner…
And some after all that.
It’s getting pretty chaotic in the fabric bins.
There’s a lot of black and flesh tones in this quilt…
I added more after this…but I also took some out of the far left bin. They didn’t work.
Last night, I ironed the rest of Kagan and all of Sotomayor.
Just Roberts left…and Bader Ginsburg. I’m in the middle of the 1500s. So about 500 pieces left, but I’ve done a few of them already, Roberts’ robes I think. What’s left?
The rest of the goddess, which includes the Supreme Court building itself, then all the things planted on top of the goddess’ arms. So like I said, I’m getting there. The next bits should go a little faster. Maybe. When it’s more about what’s in my head and less about trying to realistically match a skin tone or make a decision about eye color…might be faster. I’m 27 1/2 hours into the ironing. Epic.
So Friday after work, I headed down to the water for a friend’s mom’s retirement party.
It was delightfully cool and oceany, unlike my entire week.
And it was good to hang out with the other work team for a while.
Her mom had lots of smiles on, which is a good thing.
Saturday afternoon, the Man and I went to two related art openings, one at City College and one at Art Produce. I loved Bhavna’s piece at City College, I Found a River in My Body.
Some of her smaller pieces are available at Art Produce. There is an auction going on to raise money for more art stuff. You can find the link at the Art Produce site.
We had a drink while waiting for the second show to open, and then went back to the same place for dinner. There are more bars and restaurants opening in the area, which is cool, because Art Produce has been there for a long time, waiting for the rest to show up.
Lots of art in the area, including this Gloria Muriel mural…
Yesterday I planted all the succulents that have been lying around after being trimmed off something else. I think I need to water today too. Plus iron. Plus book club is tonight, rescheduled. I really just want to lie on the couch, drinking tea and reading my book. I’m feeling a bit off, not quite well. Drinking lots of Vitamin C and hoping for the best.
Kitten is overseeing the ironing like a boss.
Sometimes she is more demanding than others…
Ah yes, thanks for Labor Day all…someone posted this wonderful reminder by @ricardolevinsmorales…
Really, that’s all teachers want. Less of the work, more of the rest and what we will. It’s too hard with what has been put on our plates so far. Certainly, I’ve probably done 8 hours so far this weekend. Most weekends it’s 5-6. Plus all the after hours stuff. Ugh.
OK. So for the rest of the day, I am going to read for a bit, then look at the to-do list. I’m going to iron as well, get myself through the last of the living justices. School this week will be short but probably painful (two early morning meetings, not my favorite). There will be a lot of grading coming the end of this week and the start of the next, and I won’t have a good chunk of the weekend. The neighbor kids have hit an unreasonable noise level that probably won’t let up for 5 or 6 hours, unfortunately. Ah well. And tomorrow, back to work. No more days off until November. The long stretch of September and October is here. Not a fan, although October weather can be lovely. Hopefully. Bright blue skies with cotton ball clouds. A bit of a breeze but not so warm. It’s actually like that today, but not for long…warm days are coming.
Mmmm. No class today. Well. I say that and I signed up for a different kind of pilates class, just because I wanted to try it out and that shit’s harder to do during the school year. But I like pilates and it’s actually an exercise class, which is good for me. No more literacy class this week…I did learn some things, but more remembered that we need to do more to boost reading, and that takes time, and time is something we may not have a lot of, so there’s that. But with two+ teams doing it all together, hopefully we can make some progress with the kids. Here was my setup on the last day, with everything back in the purple bag, which will go to school, plus the stitching I did to help me focus.
I put away all the highlighters and pens and post-its. Now I officially don’t have to think about school until…the next crazy email comes from that one teacher who apparently has nothing to do over break, no books to read, no relaxing beaches to lie on (I don’t really do that anyway), no giant-ass drawings to finish. Oh wait, that one’s me. I’m hoping to finish the drawing today. In between pilates, laundry, cleaning, moving gravel (got a whole ‘nother pile of it that needs moving), keeping the pup from licking his shaved foot (he had a dental cleaning on Friday and is notoriously bad about licking a sore into shaved areas)…all the things. It’s supposed to be hot all week, so that will be (not) fun. Not sure what my plan is for that. The boychild is home but going to training all day and then leaves again on Friday for his regular shift. Exhausting. I guess I work all week, but not like that. Gotta take days off…he had yesterday off. At least he has the pup in bed at night, so I have some chance of a decent night’s sleep.
No one seems inclined to dust or vacuum or mop…even me, it seems. Oh! I also need to copyedit. I put my editing service back into vacation mode, declined all the other offers I’d gotten, so I’m down to the one. That’s the one I can handle. I have two weeks to do it, and it’s not very big, but I should actually start. Yeah. This afternoon. I will.
So the drawing. The drawing has progressed. My Art Brain has been engaged, now that it doesn’t have to think about Latin roots and spelling rules. And pretend teaching those. So Friday night, I drew the swamp. It was in my notes…and I’m realizing, I need to write a post that just documents all the stuff I took notes about and was thinking while I was drawing, because it may not be so so obvious from just looking at it. But here’s the swamp…
I hid a Swamp Thing in it.
Then what did I do next? Oh yeah, started working on the pedestals under the swamp justices.
Finished those last night…
So Gorsuch is all corporation instead of individual, so he is standing on individual people, who are sort of compressed by him. Alito has had some issues with a fishing trip and possibly some other money-related things, so he has the fish and the money. Roberts is a mess, with money clouding any decision he makes. He also seems to make decisions completely against his own race…he seems race-blind to me, or maybe if he does that, that’s how he gets the money. So I added a few chained slaves to his pedestal, because I’m not sure he remembers…I would like the Court to have more people of color, all colors, to make the decisions more diverse, more pro those groups who need support. I don’t think he does that. Kavanaugh likes beer. He also has some sexual issues of harassment in the past that popped up (ha!) before his confirmation, but it’s OK, because boys will be boys, right? Sigh. Let’s not use that as an excuse for bad behavior. Please. Amy. Oh Amy. Coney Barrett has People of Praise behind her. She claims she speaks for all people, that her religion doesn’t shape her decisions, but like the other swamp judges, I don’t find her trustworthy. Religion is fine unless it’s making decisions for a bunch of people who don’t subscribe to that religion…and reproductive freedom is something all five of these judges have voted against. Four of them have penises, so they have no right dealing with a uterus…and the other one thinks LGTBQ marriages are a sin. So should she be in the Court? Nah. I don’t think so…not representing the people and not interpreting the law appropriately for ALL the people.
So why is Roberts on the other side? Well, it was getting crowded on that side and occasionally he votes like a sane person. OCCASIONALLY. He’s also skating on a slippery slope. He has the key to the Court (being the Big Guy, the one in charge). I still think he’s pretty swampy, but…so I’m probably going to have to copy some of this into a Court post. I’ll do that. And go back and explain some of the other decisions I made. You may not agree. I’m OK with that. Unless you think we shouldn’t have rights, like all of us, then I’m not OK with it. Feel free to limit your own rights. Then get out of my face.
I’m still working on the left side. Literally and figuratively. But I need to go to class, so I’ll be back. You won’t even notice.
So the other thing we did on Saturday, which was a little nuts, was drive up to Los Angeles. I had an opening in Torrance (which wouldn’t have been as bad), but there was a show in LA that I wanted to see that closes in a couple of weeks, Faith Ringgold: A Survey, at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery in LA.
I know I have Faith’s Tar Beach book somewhere in the house. I loved her people flying in the sky at night. In looking at her website, I might need to buy more books.
I also love her mix of paintings with quilts. Although here is one of her prints, also very cool.
The handwritten words on this one…
Very powerful seeing her work in person.
Strangely, the same gallery had some work by one of my university painting instructors, Judy Baca. She has created some fairly awesome murals in Los Angeles over the years.
Honestly, although her art and achievements are impressive, she was (for me) not the most present professor. The rumor was that she was working on a mural in Los Angeles the semester I had her, so the teacher’s aide ran (ha! he did nothing) the class, and then she would show up maybe once a month and berate many of us. I have some serious painting PTSD from her class. Maybe not all artists should teach art? I don’t know…your mileage may vary. Maybe it was a bad year for her. I just didn’t really paint after that class. I still don’t think I CAN paint. That said, a lot of the art classes at UCIrvine were just show up, get an assignment, and go make something that meets it. There was very little technical instruction. We were often just left to our own devices…so there’s pros and cons to that. I do appreciate the time to mess around and fuck with stuff, but sometimes, a little more technical know-how might have been useful (exploded my ceramics final in the kiln, which I don’t actually think was MY fault, but I made do…glued all the parts to a plywood board…most were whole and the ones that weren’t, I glued the pieces and then the shards and quickly rewrote my statement). Sometimes I think I’d really like to go back to art school now just with a stronger, more confident state of mind, but then my adult brain slaps my face and says NO NO NO, we are NOT getting another degree. But maybe more art classes would be fun.
Also in the Deitch gallery was Karon Davis: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, which was very powerful. I didn’t photograph the whole thing, because I couldn’t figure out an angle that showed how large and dominating the judge and flag were in the face of this figure of Bobby Seale during the Chicago 8 trial.
I had been scrolling through Instagram the day before we left (like you do when you are supposed to be listening to someone talk about teaching vocabulary) and saw an artist whose work I love post that her stuff was in a show in LA…hey, I’m going to LA…I could stop by if it’s close. It was close to the other gallery, and on the way back to the museum in Torrance, so we headed for a small gallery, the Seis Gallery. The show was called The Horror…
I took a tufting class from her before COVID, and it was fun, but crazy lots of work. I say that knowing full well my stuff is also a crazy lot of work…it’s just what do we want to do more of. Anyway, it was cool to have a chance to see more of her stuff in person.
Straight up, traffic going to LA was horrible. It was a long day. We saw good art, but were exhausted by the end of it.
I have another LA opening coming up in September. Makes you think about driving to these things. We spent over 10 hours going up, going to three shows, eating dinner, and coming back. And we were exhausted the next day too.
So the Torrance Art Museum had two shows, one of which I was in (hence the original reason for all this). Art and Med, curated by Ted Meyer…
Here’s a video of the whole thing…
I did take a few photos, but was mostly (as always) overwhelmed. Plus I forgot how to smile, so a lot of the photos of me look psychotic. A good look for the summer. But here’s my piece, Here Comes Life…
And here’s Bhavna Mehta’s beautiful piece, I Found a River in My Body #3…
With a detail of her embroidery…
The other show in the museum is Body Politics…
Which also had some beautiful work…Liz Young’s Skinning Spilling Soiling Swelling Stuffing Balls.
I did Google this one because I wanted to know more about the thoughts behind the piece. I really liked that the Art and Med show had explanations with the art, and I can see the point of having the art stand alone, but…I don’t know. There must be a fine line there.
Sherwood makes a lot of work highlighting disabilities, having had a cerebral hemorrhage and having to relearn the process of making art with her other hand. Her work was wonderful, incorporating brain scans into the paintings.
I’ll try to post more art from these two shows later this week. I know this post is already LOOOONG…all in all, though, a good art day. Though tiring. Says Nova.
Also here is my brain at the moment.
Or always. Not sure.
Friday night, we also found this in the yard.
It has flashing red lights, presumably so it can be found easily, but it made me think it might be a drone, so I left it there. Like I’m not bringing that crazy shit in the house. The Man stomped out there and then left it on the deck after talking to it, also thinking it might be a drone. But it doesn’t seem to have a motor. Just flashing lights, which can be turned off. You might think, just throw it back into the yard it came from. Well, we have kids on all three sides, so it could be any of those houses. So IDK what to do with it. I might text the houses above and below me, and if they don’t claim it, toss it over the back fence. Seems like a lot of work.
Oh yeah, forgot this psycho. Annie. Sweet pup. Has scratched the hell out of my arms. Still love her.
OK. Laundry is going (fixed dryer yay!). I need to eat lunch. I need to fold all the laundry I didn’t fold. I need a long-term solution to my clothing during the school year…not sure what that looks like, but the piles I currently have are not working. I need to finish that drawing and do some copyediting. It’s supposed to be hot all week, so honestly, the drawing part of the house is hot as hell for a goodly chunk of the day, although better after noon. The office part is cooler in the morning, as long as there’s a breeze. And honestly, I’m still on break. So there should be some reading and maybe a nap. I took a timed nap yesterday and Friday and I am pro. It’s still July. I’m still on summer time.
I was gone for a few days. There was some chance I could have written a post yesterday or Saturday, but mostly I was tired, so I didn’t. I did do a lot of artsy things in the last three days though.
I finished the papercutting/embroidery class with Bhavna Mehta on Friday…and made a house. Each of us picked a body part for our house. I picked the vulva because multiple people picked uteri. This is the back of the house…I drew on the back and shaded what would get cut. To embroider, you need to make the holes where the stitches will go.
You also have to think about whether stitches will cross your cut area…that would be bad.
Also it seems to work better if you do all the embroidery before you cut. On one of my practice pieces, I tore the paper because I was trying to embroider after I had cut. I’m sure with practice, this gets easier.
I was going to make another layer of hair for this section, but we were running out of time…so I cut instead.
Then the next part is to make the house itself. I also made sperm and an egg to hang from the roof inside the house…
The building was pretty easy. And then we put them into a little body part village…
A uterus, an ear, a heart, a ribcage.
A side view of mine with the sperm and egg floating around in there.
A couple people didn’t finish…I was looking at this as a practice piece.
A couple of feet, an eyeball in the back, a better view of the heart…
I have a few ideas of what I could do in paper and embroidery, but I think they would be a lot like my teacher’s work, and not necessarily mine. I’ll think about it.
It was a fun class anyway. No matter what I do with it.
When we got home, I had planned a birthday trip for the man…up to Temecula Wine Country. We stayed in an RV…and I stitched in the morning.
I don’t know if we’ll ever stay in an RV again. But it was a quiet and relaxing morning…
Until we headed to the first winery…
I signed up for a Groupon tour that would drive us around. We were a large group of 24 people. We went to three wineries: Maurice Carrie, Longshadow Ranch, and Oak Mountain (the Cave). They were all nice enough. It was a warm day, though, and shade was often inside…
Although we did find a table in the shade here…
I drew a little. These wineries are big money for this area. And there are tons of them.
We had a good time. And a long nap afterwards. Then we headed out to Old Town Temecula for dinner.
Harvest is in August…
We’d been talking about doing this for a while, so it’s a good thing we finally did (note to self. Who plans shit? I plan shit.).
Sunday, I had an art meeting to come back for…so we came back kind of early (damn roosters). The man was done with trying to live in an RV (yeah). At the meeting, we had planned to start our version/contribution to the Tiny Pricks project…I had a few pieces, but couldn’t pick a short piece of text. Then one of the leaders asked me if I’d do this one…
Aack. Well, the big piece of text will fit on it. But I need to put it on a backing. Somehow. So you can see all the stuff. So I brought it home. The interior stretches…the edging does not. I’m trying to decide how to do this. Dark background, then bright text? Or gray background, black text? Not sure. I found it kind of overwhelming last night with not enough sleep in the last…well…ten days. Let’s be real. It was a very busy ten days. So I’ll try to make a decision on that today. Not sure how I’m going to transfer the text…
With all that in my head, I worked on this a little more.
She’s close to done. Then I need to wash this one and the last one, plus design and stitch one more.
Plus finish a quilt and copyedit an entire book. Uh huh. I worked on a public video I’m doing for my Patreon…and then started the private video for my patrons…
Kitten was glad to have me home again.
And then I started the tracing on the next quilt.
I don’t have much time for this. So I’m trying to be efficient and on task. Ha! Well. We can always try. Busy weekend. Honestly, they’re all like that this summer. It feels like there’s no down time. Oh well. I overscheduled myself.
‘Twas a busy day yesterday. This notion of giving permission for creative exploration and play…it should be much more prevalent than it is. I realize I rarely do this…give myself time to learn something new creatively. I have to do it all the time for school, even when I’m not interested at all, but I don’t put time in my schedule for my own creativity. Now some of you are going, Nida, you draw/quilt/art all the time. WTF are you talking about? I do make art all the time, but so often I am drawing to a purpose or I’m in the process of making the quilt and there’s no PLAY. The process I use to make quilts is pretty controlled…fabric choice and the drawing are the most free, but even those are not stepping out of the boundaries of what I already know. And that stuff is hard to pop into the schedule.
Hence the paper/embroidery class I’m taking…it’s a way to play in a method I don’t usually use. It’s also in Liberty Station, which is a long and bitchy drive from my house. I’m pretty sure this woman and I have selfied before…
But that’s OK. She hasn’t changed. But it reminds me…I needed to send a headshot for something this week, and I hate those…but I like this one.
You should see the one I have in my prep room at school. Scares the crap out of any kid who sees it.
So I’m taking Paper, Thread, Story with Bhavna Mehta, who is an amazing paper and embroidery artist who I’ve known for a while…she’s in an art group with me. We started by embroidering on some postcards…recognize Georgia O’Keeffe?
Embroidering on paper takes more thought than embroidering on thread. You need holes. I messed around all day, basically…what could be better?
I just wanted to try a bunch of things. Here’s some of the samples…
Although there were a lot more later…ah yes, now we have a hand.
It’s funny…when I first started drawing stuff in ink, like my own stuff, in high school, I used a technique that looked like this, but the cut parts were black ink.
A day of play. In something I don’t usually do. OK, papercutting has never been my thing. It was fun, though. Today I go back and we’ll do a collaborative project. We are each picking a body part. Before you even ask, someone has already chosen the uterus. Sigh. OK. Well. I can do lots of things.
In the evening, I had my 2nd to last meeting with my friend who is moving. After some chaos, we found the Starbucks where SHE was, and I stitched.
I’m only doing one more of these for a pattern. So far. Trying to decide what to do. This one is getting closer to done.
The meeting was fine most of the time. Some weirdness from religious folks about people who don’t believe in God and how religious people could never harm anyone (um. OK. I really had to force myself NOT to say anything…but I knew I would never see that woman again so I was fine. Well, not fine because it’s still bugging me this morning.).
And I finished the drawing…this took about 5 1/2 hours.
It’s big. IDK how big. But big.
So I numbered it…
My goal was large and detailed, but not horribly so, because it needs to be finished soon enough and the copyediting job I knew was coming in August is actually coming early. Like this weekend.
So I have 100,000 words to copyedit, a quilt to finish, school to prep for, and all the to-do list to finish before the world ends. Hey. 727 pieces isn’t too bad.
I really like this quilt. I’m glad to be making it. If I don’t get it done in time, it will still be a great quilt.
And this…
Was in my wallet. I used it to buy tea. I did not go on YouTube.
OK, traffic is piling up as I type. Must leave. More later…although this weekend will be a challenge for that. We’ll see.
This weekend is even more chock full than I thought. I’m getting some stuff done, though…but probably not all of it. Today will be a little crazier than I thought. This week might be a little crazier than I thought. Oh well. Roll with it.
I have one class left to grade of the big huge assignment. I need to get it done like now. I also need to calendar the week, so I can get a hold of the minutiae. I need to quilt. I need to write the warmup for the week. I’m sure there’s other crap I haven’t even thought of…laundry, team email, groceries. OK, I’ve thought of those.
Yesterday, I had a school thing to go to, repping for the team. I live closest to school, so it’s easy enough to show up for the girls in science. I got to see one of my kids from 4 years ago too, and she’s still interested in science, so that’s cool. Planning on going to college in a science career too. All good. Although not necessary. I just want them to find their happy, their passion. My kid from this year, who is normally so self-assured and confident, was terrified. She’ll be fine. She’s awesome. She doesn’t know it yet though. School is the safe place. She fits in a slot there. This is bigger and different. I hope she rocks it.
I did quilt yesterday…I was right…this is quilting really fast. I’ll be fine with the deadline…
Although getting binding…not sure when that is happening. That’s the problem with my job and the open hours of the quilt store. So I’ll have to figure that out. They used to be open later one day a week, and they stopped that. It makes it difficult. If today weren’t so crazy (I keep using that word), I might go today. Thinking about it.
Yesterday also meant a trip to Campland to watch the man play…I stitched…
If you don’t face the kickball game, you will get hit in the head.
Chair turned around toward the stage (kickball was over). At this point, it was starting to get too dark to stitch, so I quit…
But I got a bunch done first.
I also tried to draw…
It was a little too dark for it. Lights from the stage got in the way of a successful draw. I was trying to record it too. We’ll see how that looks later. I’m constantly trying to think of what I could record for the Patreon. I have one video that’s done; I just can’t show it until after June 30. So there’s that.
Friday night, we went to the opening of Bhavna Mehta’s new exhibit at Art Produce…The Body Is a Home…
As always, her work is beautiful and different…
I’m taking a class from her in July about papercutting and embroidery. I just want to try new things. I think it’s important to consider how to branch out from the work we always do. It’s easy for me to make art quilts. I like my women’s art group because it makes me do different things than what might be easy. So we’ll see how that goes.
Kitten is often frustrated by the geckos…
And yet fascinated. Me too, Kitten. Me too.
OK, so many things to do. I should start with shower and food, and then try to make sense of the world after that.
The opening last night was nice…the show itself looks really cool, some really interesting work. Although all these local shows can be a pain in the butt for delivery and pick up of work and trying to get to all the openings, I like the opportunity to put my work in with other people’s work that I’m not usually hanging with. There were a few FIG members in this exhibit, but there were a lot of other people whose names I didn’t know. It’s cool to see my work hanging out with theirs.
The show is Art That Cuts, and it’s only at Mesa College through next Friday. Definitely worth a visit, though. Bhavna Mehta was the juror and the class on campus designed the exhibit and all the stuff that went with it. I often say I would have loved to have taken a gallery class like that when I was in school. I even occasionally think about it now (and then slap myself a lot because I don’t need to take that on right now).
Helen Redman is still rocking the art world in her 70s (I wanna be 70 and still making art)…this is her piece To Become Her.
And Bhavna’s two pieces Beat and Wade…combining paper cutting and embroidery.
My piece, Some Like It Hot, is hanging on the wall with their work, which I loved…
This piece was fascinating…lots of sewing paraphernalia, but then there are rattles…from rattlesnakes…and they’re wired to rattle…
So there’s this constant low-level rattling going on that is just so dangerous sounding…
The piece is Now Is Not a Good Time by Margaret Noble.
This is one of three by artist Kirsten Francis, Sounding OFF…
I was looking at her work and I liked it, and then I read her name and thought, hey. I know that name. Why do I know that name? There was a printmaker about a million years ago whose work I just loved, but never had the money to actually buy any of it. But I saw her at Artwalk or something. Well this is her. Obviously, she’s moved away from the printmaking, but I was so glad to see that her work still speaks to me. Weird, huh?
These were fascinating. One of the materials used in making this? Fire. A beautiful piece, Colour Bunny, by Vincent Wray.
A detail…
This is a tiny piece, but so detailed. Little Hands, Little Feet by Nicole Waszak.
And this piece…Resistance through Existence II by Martha Gil…her Instagram is @gildednopal. Definitely worth a look at her nopal-influenced uterus stickers on Etsy.
Home after all that, picked up dinner for me and the sick guy, who was getting all the sad looks from Calli.
I was pretty exhausted. I did some sewing of wool circles and eventually made it to a standing position to work on this…it’s slow. But it’s coming.
Yeah that one boob was way too high. Although that’s more realistic. Oh well.
Tonight was to be gaming, but sick guy is too sick. So I’ll be grading. It’s OK. I need to get it done. And maybe I’ll have the energy to draw as well. I won’t be marching for science unfortunately tomorrow…I’ll be driving to LA instead for an artist talk and take down of a show. Long day.
But first to get through this one…to the fun stuff, when I pick up the pen.
I need to go back and read blogposts from previous months of March, to remind myself that this month is a slog…through grades and assignments and trying not to look ahead to Spring Break, because if you do, you’ll forget about the 7 meetings you have this week. OK, I’m not up to 7 yet, but it’s getting there. And two of them are 2 hours long. I just checked. I’m at 6. 6 meetings. Ugh.
My birthday was Friday and I have to admit it was a rough one. I have a friend who always takes her birthday off from school, but her interactions with kids are not as a teacher, so I think it’s easier for her to walk away from it for a day. Ours requires lesson plans and a hope that shit will actually go the way you planned. The kids singing Happy Birthday was alternately awful and heartfelt. I got lots of hugs. But it was still a lab day…and those are hard. I’m not a big birthday person anyway…I just like a little acknowledgement. Middle school is probably too much acknowledgement.
So I decided that I was not working yesterday. I did do a little work, but mostly I quilted. Which was the right thing to do. My brain is still not happy, but art brain had fun.
Really all I’m doing is outlining. It’s the drawing line brought back in…
It was a rainy day anyway…
Sure, I had errands I could have done. I could have graded tests. Ugh.
It was way more fun to finish the outlining. Besides, I had a plan of getting the binding fabric on Saturday, because we have a thing today that will take up some of the afternoon.
So I just kept going. It’s meditative. It lets my brain relax.
I haven’t quilted the outside part yet, but that’s tiny and won’t take long. I finished the shoe about an hour before the quilt store closed, kamikazed over there, and picked out two possible binding fabrics (I’m not good at deciding sometimes)…
Came home, threw the fabrics in the washing machine, and then headed out to two art openings in the rain. I feel like when it rains, the artists need even more support, because fewer people go out in it. More on those shows later this week. I’m way behind in posting about where I’ve been.
This is Friday night, though. I was waiting for my dinner companion to show up, so I was tracing Wonder Under for the next piece. I didn’t quilt Friday night, because I was tired and that’s when I make mistakes. So I traced. Except Satchemo was pretty convinced it was dinner time (it wasn’t).
Kitten came out and sat with me for a bit. You can see the reflection of the light table in the window. I love my light table. It’s my favorite piece of furniture in the house.
And here’s back in time to Thursday night, the opening of #MyVoice/#MiVoz, the 11th Annual Dia de la Mujer exhibit at The Front in San Ysidro.
This piece was fascinating…the three parts kept turning, so it was hard to photograph, but I tried! This is Hidden Treasures by Paola Viola, 3rd place in Emerging Artists.
This piece is by Kim Niehans, a fellow FIG member. I was tired, so I was bad about photographing the labels, so I don’t know what it’s called. Luckily, I am computer savvy, so I went to her website and checked…and she is so good at posting her work! I love artists who realize they need to post stuff. This is Self Evident…
More fiber! This is Will Work for Free by Cat Chiu Phillips…made of fabric from designer bags.
And one of my favorite FIG artists, Bhavna Mehta’s work in paper and embroidery, Resist with your voice #3.
She’s got crazy talent…
I saw the mural at the San Diego Art Institute for this, but love this print too…this is Arzu Ozkal’sSan Diego Women in Resistance.
Detail shots…
It’s a beautiful piece…
This is another FIG member, Judith Christensen, and her piece Women’s Work 2015-2018.
Each piece is part of a list, lots of groceries and other stuff. We all make lists.
FIG member Anna Stump won 1st prize for Established Artist with her Another Fucking Princess piece that was in our Don’t Shut Up exhibit last year (my piece in this show was also in that exhibit).
This is a detail of Ingrid Hernandez’ Make America Great Again (MAGA)…
Ah yes, Donald Trump on toilet paper. A classic.
This piece was resin and leaves, very interesting…Mara Nasland, winning 2nd place in Emerging Artist, with her piece Rising from the Ashes, Stronger Than She Ever Was…
Intriguing structure, glowing with light.
So that was Thursday night. I think I have 4 other shows to post about, but not now. Now I need cat food and breakfast and a plan for groceries and maybe a revised birthday sometime in the future. Like a day where I redo it. Redo’s are good.
I did pretty well yesterday practicing being a normal human being who isn’t holding down three jobs on a random basis…I haven’t started copyediting yet. I think I’ll do that tomorrow. I have been working on the quilt that has to be done and photographed by January 1. But even spending 3 1/2 hours ironing yesterday, which puts me at 6 hours total, and about a third done. That’s it. (Laughing hysterically in my head). And schoolwork? Didn’t fucking touch any of it yesterday.
Good job, Kathy. No really. We have to live a life that’s worth it. And the art is always part of that, although venturing out of the house occasionally is also a plus.
So I had some Christmas shopping I needed to do, which made driving to an arts and craft sale (a really nice one) a good plan. And it worked. Because I got a good chunk of the shopping done. And then I was rewarded with this…a flight of awesome ciders…drunk while watching the guy prep pomegranate seeds for a future batch. Amazing place, Serpentine Cider up in the Miramar area.
This art on the wall…also awesome…
Wood burned and painted…totally amazing.
Then we came home and I spent about an hour and a half piling up flesh pieces…which I then had to cover up so we could go to an art opening…because I couldn’t get it all done. It’s not even done now…I just picked a place to stop (everything but the little heads on top).
So I have loved Bhavna Mehta’s paper-cutting work for years. You’ve seen her work here before. She did some community work, helping people make wearable paper art, and last night was the (very crowded) opening at Art Produce Gallery. Bhavna had her floral/leaf strips hanging from the ceiling, and then the women who had created works were walking around…
And there were pictures of them with their creations on the walls…
It was very hard to get photos of anything.
But I tried…
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Some dinner found its way into our gullets and then I came back to iron all that flesh down…
I still have to do the little heads, but I couldn’t handle the giant piles any more.
And these are all the other pieces of the body that aren’t flesh-colored…so lungs and heart and tattoos and I don’t even know what else. That will be today maybe? After I finish the heads. We’ll see. I was going to do some schoolwork today too. Plus I’m doing a holiday card workshop. Why? Because I felt like it. Yeah, I already know how to carve a lino block and print it, but this is easier than trying to do it here. And I can walk away from the cleanup! Yeah, I know…whatever.
It’s a week off, but it always goes quickly. There’s so many errands and tasks associated with the holidays, so it makes it a lot harder to feel like you got a lot done this week. But I’m gonna try to be efficient as hell.
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Kathy Nida 