A Lot of Artsy Things…

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.

Permission…

‘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.

More Chock Full…

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.

When I Pick Up the Pen

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.

It’s a fascinating piece…here’s a link to a video of it from her website.

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.

From the Ranks of the Freaks*

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.

Another view as the pieces keep twirling…

And people are hiding behind, reading the pieces…

This is Hurts Like Hell by Michelle Montjoy.

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…

This is Gail Schneider’s Sally Yates.

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’s San 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.

*Aimee Mann, Save Me

I Went in Seeking Clarity*

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…

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.

*Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine