Slower and Sweatier

I was looking forward to this weekend. It’s three days for us (random school board decision), and I knew I’d have a ton of grading and other stuff to do (car needs oil change AND smog), but with three days, I had a chance of getting a lot done AND having time to relax and make art (those are two separate things by the way). But now it’s supposed to be hot as hell and I don’t have A/C and it sounds like ugh. Plus I’m at the ironing stage of this quilt, so doing hot things during hot weather is honestly not particularly fun. Quilts are hot. Hot on your lap. Irons are hot. They put off heat. I can’t have a fan pointed at my head because all the tiny pieces will fly off. So it’s even hotter. Three-day weekend doesn’t sound so lovely any more. Oh well. I’m still going to have to do the things; I’ll just be much slower and sweatier about it.

So I started to sort on Monday night…

Scribble kept trying to stand in the boxes. I spent an hour plus before this packing two quilts to be shipped, so I didn’t have a full hour to sort. At 11 PM, I remembered I had to be up early for a parent meeting, so I stopped…

And finished last night…

It never looks like much here. Just tiny pieces. I started ironing last night, but I didn’t get far.

I also entered a show. And laid out the first 100 pieces, most of which are much smaller than this. I’m not sure I’ll be finishing this piece in time for the deadline. I’d like to, but there’s a lot left to do and the day job is a time suck. All my grading time at school gets sucked up by other things. I have a kid who will be out for an unknown amount of time and we’re doing a hands-on group project. The curriculum has nothing relevant she can do, so I’m not sure what to give her. I will have to spend my prep period figuring that out. For one kid. Of 140+. It’s frustrating.

So interesting question…why do so many words associated with extreme heat start with the letter ‘s’? I don’t think I would have noticed if my weather app wasn’t overusing them.

And the next day…

Does sizzling feel different than scorching? I mean, I’m sure it does…dropping below 100 degrees after 104 (now going to be 106) will be noticeable. Sizzling has a sound factor that scorching does not. They both have smells associated with them. Yes, overthinking the weather. It’s not fall. It’s hell. I think I’ll take a break every 30 minutes and step into the pool? Maybe? Dripping chlorinated water and ironing might be a bad combo.

A German woman contacted me about writing an article for an online German textile publication. Here’s the article. I have another interview to do for one in Los Angeles. It’s been a heavy art BUSINESS couple of weeks: deliveries, pickups, packing, shipping (expensive!), writing stuff, etc. I have one more blogpost I need to do for another art group, but haven’t been able to find the time. Oh wait, I think there’s two I need to do. Ugh. Add that to the list.

Today though. Today is Wednesday and it is still a reasonable temperature. Hell starts tomorrow or Friday I think. I swear, every time I look at the app, the predicted temperatures have gone up. Now Saturday is 109. So today and tomorrow are still bearable. Good to know. I have to meet with a teacher this morning about a union issue; I need to talk to another teacher too, but IDK when that will happen. I’m finishing up a simulation today and then trying to reteach how to write the reasoning part of a CER. Double ugh. Then pilates and a Zoom meeting. The Man took over cooking tonight, which is a good plan. Apparently he doesn’t like eating at 8:30 PM (IDK why…I’m totally OK with it). Somehow I need to grade stuff in there, plus fix a sprinkler that looks beyond my capabilities, and iron some more. Same old.

Probably Not Enough Times…

Well that was a busy weekend. I’m still tired from it. I may have been semi-productive around all the things I had to do. I dropped a quilt at a gallery for a show that opens Saturday. I went to another exhibition closing reception and then pulled all 6 of my quilts down and packed them into the car to drive home. I was there for the artist panel, which I enjoyed, but I did work through it.

Writing and sending our team’s weekly email. And then grading warmups and test corrections. I was supposed to be on a Zoom from 3-4 and totally forgot. It’s fine. Hopefully they recorded it.

It was a nice panel. I’m always up for listening to fellow feminist artists.

I cut stuff out Friday night…that’s the moon. Ironically, after the shitshow of a day I had on Friday, I found out the full moon was Saturday.

Everything makes sense now.

Saturday night, after the Man’s dad’s birthday dinner (and 3 hours of canvassing for the local school board and another 3 hours of grading).

And then last night, I stayed up late to finish.

Almost 11 1/2 hours. Ready to iron together? Well, no…it’ll take an hour to sort all the pieces into 100s for easier ironing. So that’s tonight. Am I behind my schedule? Well, yes, I usually am. Can I catch up? We’ll see. I’m buried in grading; hence the grading at an art event and every afternoon/night this weekend. Never stops. But I’m closer.

Friday night, Bowie needed to be close.

And then, so did Simba. Well, he always needs to be close.

It’s hot again here, although we got a tiny bit of rain last night…leftovers from one of the hurricanes off the coast. There’s like four of them rotating around out there, throwing shit our way, but mostly hot and muggy shit instead of decent rain.

The Man’s dad turned 89 this month, so there was a dinner for him.

Not actually in Venice unfortunately.

This is too true.

I’d like to thank my brain for all the overthinking I do when I’m trying to fall asleep. I have a couple of potentially stressful conversations that need to happen today with other adults at school. One I think will be OK. The other one is defensive as shit and there’s no way it will go well. So that’s fun. Imma try anyway because I’m a mature adult who knows she has to work well with other people. Crazy, huh?

Otherwise, there’s like two hours of staff meetings, plus reviewing PE/KE for the roller coaster project, plus grading ten tons of stuff and buying a bunch of other stuff and trying to fix the sprinklers AGAIN and packing quilts to be shipped and/or delivered. Pro: got into four shows. Con: all the packup, dropoff, and pickup. Then grading and cooking and book club (timed dinnermaking wrong, didn’t I?) and then sorting fabric. Probably more grading. Did I mention grading? Yeah. Probably not enough times.

Participating in Art…

Rough weekend. Not as bad as next weekend. I think of a good weekend as some relaxation time with a book or some art, and a hike in the late afternoon (haven’t done that since I got back from Oregon…mostly due to heat, but lately due to life). Lots of time to wander the house, maybe water some stuff, clean up a little. Just not a lot of pressure to get things done. No deadlines looming. This was not one of those. Grades are due Tuesday (I finished those). It sucks to spend most of a weekend day on that. And that’s what happened. There’s no way to get all the planning, copying, designing, and grading done during the real work day. Or even in an hour after the kids leave. It’s frustrating. September is always a hard adjustment. We’re getting near the end of it though…so maybe I’ll adjust better in October. Ha!

My art goals this weekend included washing a few more dye paintings out and finishing the ironing to fabrics on the current quilt. I did achieve both of those things. I ironed Friday night…

This thing took forever, mostly because each little clump of mushrooms needed a new color range.

I ironed for a little bit on Saturday afternoon, after finishing grading the assignments I needed for the progress report.

The Man had a show Saturday night until midnight, so I knew I wouldn’t get time after that. And then last night, I stayed up a little late to finish all the ironing.

Almost 16 hours to iron 800+ pieces. Insane. Also, I need to organize the fabrics in color order. There’s lots of brown. Because mushrooms. Anyway, I’ll be cutting things out starting tonight. Hoping to be done by the weekend, but that may not be realistic. I do have 70 thousand Zooms this week I can trim through (slight exaggeration). This one has a deadline.

I also managed to wash out two dye paintings. No photo of that. I have two more to do and then another one that needs more dye painting. Not sure when that will happen. I have a Friday off next week (random 3-day weekend, thank you, school board). Maybe then.

Some book club friends of mine drove up to Oceanside to see the FIG exhibit there with 6 of my pieces in it. They sent me a photo…

I was in the middle of grading and it was so nice to see that. It’s one thing to tell people you make art, and another to have them just show up to see it. It was cool. By the way, the closing exhibition is this Sunday from 1-4. I’ll be there for the last bit, mostly to take stuff down.

The Man’s show Saturday night was interesting. I enjoyed the show…the venue was weird about glass on the dance floor, but they ran out of tables/seats and the bar was serving in glass?

The Man had hurt his back on the way over…but he powered through.

They do fewer shows now, so I try to go when I can. I was pretty tired though. Not so tired that I didn’t dance a bit. A lot. Maybe.

Scribble tore up a cat toy and then fell asleep on the innards.

She’s a cute baby.

I wish this were true…but it’s not.

AI is staying. It’s annoying except when it’s helpful. Like what is up with Muse wanting to help me. I don’t even know how to turn that off. I just keep Xing the box. I read a thread about AI and art and someone was saying that if we didn’t let them use AI, then they weren’t allowed to participate in making art. Um. Sigh. So many things wrong with that. Also, I could stop putting my images online, but the whole purpose of social media is to share, and I want to share my art…I just don’t want AI (or anyone really) using it to copy or make their own art. I’m not sure why that’s so hard to understand. It’s not the same as a human brain processing images it’s seen and interpreted with its life and background and turned into its own art. It’s just pulling bits and pieces and putting them together. There’s no life experience in that. And it shows.

Anyway. No AI here y’all. Shockingly. Work today though. Giving a test. Didn’t really tell them it was today. I’m OK with that though. Then a staff meeting and chiropractor. Trying to get my neck/shoulders to behave. Then hopefully cutting some stuff out. Probably need to do yardwork first…I did some of that yesterday. It finally cooled down enough and I had time during daylight (well, almost…I was stomping around in the dusky bits trying to figure sprinklers out. Was not successful). So more of that this week. Also have a fence falling down I need to deal with. I’m not sure HOW to deal with it, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Mushroom Ironing

It’s finally cooler. Still summer for us, but not in the 100s. Still running all the fans and appreciating when it cools down at night…knock on wood, so it doesn’t go away. My studio still holds onto daytime warmth, which is great in winter and not so much now, so I’m ironing with a fan on my legs so it doesn’t blow the pieces away. I feel like I’ve been ironing for days (I have). Wait. Not a lot of days actually…well, I started slow. I’m not sure I’m not still slow. It feels incredibly slow.

OK, I’m 7 1/2 hours into the ironing and I’m still in the early 300s. That said, I did iron a bunch of the 800s already. It still feels like I should be further along. Here’s Friday night…

I got all the flesh laid out and ironed…

I feel like there’s some 400s and 500s in there too. Can’t remember.

Saturday night, I managed a couple of hours…

Ironed the heart and some other stuff. Then last night…

A couple of trees, some mushrooms, some of the bits and pieces of the body that weren’t flesh-colored. Like I said, low 300s. Over 800 pieces in this thing. I usually figure 100 pieces a night, although I’m not hitting anywhere near that at the moment. Each little clump of mushrooms is a different thought of what color, how many shades of that color. So notionally, I could be done ironing Friday? Ugh but this week is painful and grades are due next Tuesday. We’ll see how that goes. Too much on my plate again.

I made time on Saturday to set this up…this is the last dye painting I did at Playa, on the last day. The flesh color washed out completely.

I checked the dyes a few weeks ago and they were still holding. The stuff that washed out had been mixed with about a thousand other things at that point. So I made a new version of the flesh color.

It won’t be that dark…I added a bunch of print paste to lighten it. But it looks much better. Now I just need to make time to wash it out. Hopefully tonight.

Bowie and Scribble come in here to investigate. I think Bowie is still looking for Kitten. He was mean to her in the end, so I locked him out for a few weeks at the end.

He does like to come in and sniff around.

It’s baby lizard season. The leaf in the background shows how tiny this one is.

Luckily it’s outside. We keep finding them inside, and I think there’s still one in my car. I’m hoping it got out. I mean, it got in.

I saw something yesterday about how the current admin is gonna let power plants pollute with impunity.

The ignorance is mind-boggling. And devastating.

OK. It’s Monday. I’m tired. What’s new? I have a parent meeting with a translator this morning, the counselor called in sick, we need to call the translator, and our current conference room doesn’t have a phone. Because the main office removed it. Because we don’t need it? WTF. In case you’re wondering about the state of education these days. I have to use my personal phone to call a translator so we can do a parent meeting in Haitian Creole. Yup. I am still teaching energy transformations and transfers. Hopefully getting to a little independent work today, because I need to grade packets…and tests…and set up for a lab later this week…and realized that Back to School Night will be in the middle of a 2-day lab, so my room will be a mess. Fun times. Two-hour staff meeting after school teaching me how to do something I already know how to do AND already do. Regularly. Also fun. Then hopefully ceramics, because I didn’t get there all last week. Frustrating. I canvassed for the local school board on Saturday, because two of ours are ignorant. Annoying. But there will be mushroom ironing at the end of the day. Not often you get to say that.

Ebb and Flow

Weird week. Really hot…supposed to be 105 degrees today. My studio was 91 degrees at 10:45 last night…right now, there’s a tiny coolish breeze coming in, but it’ll be gone by the time I get home again. This house just holds heat…it sucks. This is the time every year when I think about air conditioning. Because we barely slept last night…it was just too hot. Sigh. One more day of the really bad, then one just in the high 90s, and then some reasonable semblance of a fall temperature in Southern California. Low 90s sounds lovely. If you say 80s, I may swoon.

But today is still hot. And ironing fabric when it’s hot is hard. I did manage to do the small piece for the ceramic sculpture that’s been sitting around, waiting for it.

This piece is obviously not much of a rush.

Then I started ironing for the new piece. It has some really big pieces because I was trying to keep it simple.

For some definition of simple. Last night, I managed about 40 minutes of dirt before I gave up in here…

It was (still is) hot and I was tired. It was a long weekend and a long day. I’ve been taking care of my parents’ dog, and we knew she was near the end. Well, yesterday was the end. Poor Katie girl…a good long loved life.

It sucks. But it was time; she was ready. And she was a good girl.

Luna is also a good girl, but very much alive…and kinda flat.

All the cats are kinda flat. It’s hot. Looking forward to Friday’s temperatures. Sooner rather than later.

I’m unfortunately going to have to sit in the heat this evening again, trying to grade papers or iron in yucky temperatures. I could stay at school to grade for a while, but it’s not very comfortable. Can’t iron there. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to stand it in here for a little bit tonight, at least an hour. This one is on a deadline. Aren’t they all?

I got two pieces into Quilts = Art = Quilts, so that’s cool. I had a dearth of acceptances at the end of the last school year, so it’s nice to get into a few this fall. Appreciate the ebb and flow? Or not.

Today, I’m teaching energy…despite my lack thereof. I might need to find some stuff when I get to school. Sand. Thermometers. Ice. For a demo! Not my shirt. Although last night, as I was attempting to fall asleep, I thought putting all the ice packs under the sheets wouldn’t be so bad. Union meeting after school. Then home to swelter, grade, and iron. Maybe sleep at night, but probably it will still be too hot in here. Ice packs, y’all.

The Drama

Ah blessed extra day off. I am actually in a union; nay, I am a union representative. So I gladly take this day and thank those who had the brains before us to make good laws about labor. Will I be laboring today? Unfortunately yes; despite putting in about 4-5 hours yesterday, I am nowhere near done. I did spend a chunk of Saturday doing art things (while doing school stuff in between, when I was waiting for things to heat up). I had some art plans for this weekend that may or may not happen, and the next three weekends, maybe more, are a shitshow. So yeah. I’m thrilled about being back at the day job. It wants to steal so much time…it will take every moment you allow. And even those you don’t. Because you can’t be in front of kids unless you do some work. So on Friday, when I realized our TA didn’t show up and do the thing we needed done for tomorrow, I stayed and did it. Because I knew Tuesday morning’s self would appreciate it. I don’t have everything copied for next week, unfortunately, but planned? I think so. I finished one rewrite of a doc I’ve hated for probably 10 years…on Saturday…while waiting for water to boil. I also submitted for a residency for next summer…I need a backup in case I don’t get in (very good chance I won’t).

Why boiling water? I washed out four more dye paintings from the residency. They had some washing in the sink in Oregon, but not at the right temperature. So they are good now. Two of them are for a show I need to enter in January. Need to figure out how to finish them. When this big one is done.

There’s a haphazard pile of them. I have two more big ones to wash out and some glue resist pieces that will need even more hot water. I’m paranoid about using our hard water, although the final washout is in the washing machine. It seems to be holding up pretty well. Definitely washout, but not horrible. I still have the dyes I mixed in July. I did a test piece and they are still OK. I have one piece, maybe two, that I want to dye paint. I don’t know where to do it though. I had this great setup in Oregon and I don’t have that here. I was hoping to do that this weekend…not sure I can pull that off.

Because I’d like to go into ceramics today too…I’m almost done with the underglazing…

Just need to do the flower petals. And some red around the hole and on the fabric. I keep forgetting about that. I have meetings all this week, so if I don’t go today, it’ll wait until Friday. It’s not the end of the world…I’d just rather get it done and start working on the head. No breakages (knock on wood) on this one. It’s been solid the whole time.

I trimmed Wonder Under Friday…

Side view…

And Saturday I finished…

Last night, I sorted them all out by 100s…

Scribble observed.

And then I came in here and started cleaning up and putting stuff away so I could actually start ironing to fabrics tonight. It was a mess in here. It still kind of is. Too much stuff. I still need to put all the fabrics away from the last quilt I made; they are piled up by color on the ironing board. Next on my list. After breakfast.

Saturday night, we went out to North Park…but here was the eastern sky from the house…

The western sky driving through town…

And the western sky from the parking garage…

The hurricane remnants that are making it hot and muggy as hell here (supposed to be 101 degrees today, 102 tomorrow) are making pretty skies at least.

We went out for a drink and listened to really bad karaoke and then had a burger and fries at Crazee Burger…always a good choice.

We came back to drama.

Oh no!

Go mantis!

Freedom!

That is one weirdass bug there. But pretty.

Katie is still holding it together. Sometimes she’ll eat where the food is and sometimes we provide personal delivery service.

She’s having a hard time getting up, doing lots of sleeping. We’d like her to hang around until my parents get back. Meanwhile, I do a lot of cajoling and lifting. She’s still enjoying dinner; breakfast is not as exciting (no green beans…seriously).

Yup. That’s September for you. If you’re a teacher, you know what I’m talking about. If not, buy a teacher a drink. Probably caffeinated.

OK. Today. Yes, it’s a day off work. I have a test to grade and some homework as well. I got all the posts done for the week on Saturday (water boil watch!). I need to put fabric away. I’d like to go to ceramics. I’m supposed to do two blogposts for art groups. I’m going to do one of them. I haven’t even dealt with the photos on the other one. They just got sent to me with no info. Sigh. Whatever. Then ironing to fabric tonight. More color, more fun. Looking forward to spending time on that, although this might be the hottest room in the house at night. And my fan is failing. It’ll be fine. It’s just sweat. Drink more water. It works. Oh yeah, finally got the blood sugar to stop crashing at night. Not really sure why it took such a drastic change in insulin (down, not up) after a year of being on that dose. Weird shit.

Give…or Explode…

OK. Deep breath. Wednesday. All I can think about is making art and applying to shows and residencies. My job is demanding though, so I keep waking up at 3 AM and going SHIT. I FORGOT TO DO THAT. This morning, I forgot I set my alarm early, ignored one of them, and reset the other one. SHIT. It’s fine. I got it. Just so many things happened yesterday and so many balls are in the air that something is gonna drop…and bounce. I’m not sure if bouncing is good, bad, or neutral at the moment…or just more chaos. I know that my nighttime art brain wants more time. And my day job demands more time. At some point, things give…or explode. Kinda like me. For now, though, I’m demanding an hour a night and hoping for more. The real problem is having all these more computer tasks for art, and not my personal art, but for groups I’m in, and it’s hard to give up my personal art time for that. I do have a 3-day weekend coming up though…hopefully I can do both. Plus grade. And plan. Ugh.

I finished tracing Wonder Under on Monday night…

Thanks Scribble. It’s a little more than 5 yards.

Trimming is usually about an hour a yard. There’s a lot of big pieces in this.

As of last night, I trimmed the little piece, one full yard, and about 1/2 another. So yeah, about an hour a yard.

On Insta I said I thought it would take another 5 hours, but I think it’ll be less than 4. One a night. Sometime on Saturday. Then sort, then start ironing to fabric. I don’t know if I have a background fabric that will work, so I need to start thinking about that, because that’ll have to happen Saturday if I need to buy some.

I made it to ceramics on Monday and it was quiet and almost empty and not as hot as it would have been last week. So I glazed all the ribcage.

I also started on the front with some details. I had some glazes dry out over the summer, so I rehydrated and am hoping they’re OK by Friday. Getting close to done with this part. Then I can work on the head, which is just a neck at the moment, sitting in my damp box.

This is Social Justice Sewing Academy…and I started the block in the bottom left.

Presumably someone embroidered it (can’t tell) and then it made it into a quilt. I made it at the first QuiltCon in Phoenix after COVID. It’s about trying to protect kids from all the things teachers have to worry about with them. Still doing that…the worrying.

Still worrying. Because this is sick.

Seriously, this is where every dystopian novel goes. And then real kids are caught up in it because the AI isn’t ‘good enough’ or the AI gets trapped in it. I’d be OK with the AI taking out the users of this when that happens. I just don’t get why the lawmakers don’t think this through. They won’t stop with AI…they’ll just use it as a jumping-off point.

Making the world a better place gets harder and harder every day right now.

OK, I woke up late, I have a meeting early, I’m teaching (ironically) about AI today, but mostly with the environment (bad bad bad) with brief forays into trade-offs. Then Pilates and book club, with a dog drop-off in the middle. It’s busy. I’ll be grading in there somewhere. And cutting out little pieces of Wonder Under.

You Never Finish…

Hey Monday. As always, you appear too quickly. Busy weekends make you show up even faster. Hoping next weekend is better…oh wait! It is! Three-day weekend for the win.

The heat wave has finally backed off a bit. It’s still in the 90s, but not the high 90s. It makes a difference. I was actually cold last night in bed. A freakin’ miracle. I’m still getting woken up by the low blood sugar alarm every night. We’ve reduced my insulin. I’ve tried a snack before bed. Nothing seems to work. And now I have the diabetes nurse AND my doctor giving me conflicting info. I guess the educator I talked to last summer is gone? It’s so hard to get a working relationship with a medical person when they so often leave. I’m sure there’s a reason. My medical group has laid off hundreds of people…thanks to the big beautiful asshole of a bill. I don’t see this getting better.

So I did trace all weekend and managed to get within 100 pieces of the finish…

Friday night…

Saturday night…it all kinda looks the same…except for the cat.

Sunday night…

I have about 100 pieces left…I keep finding pieces I haven’t numbered yet, so I’m not sure what to say about that.

I sat the Techne Art Center gallery on Saturday for 5 hours. Thanks to all the friends who stopped by…like this one from school…

She came dressed for an evening out with her husband. I sewed two of his buttons on his suit coat for him. Then did one for the boychild last night. See? A sewing education is useful.

I wandered around and took photos of everything so I could write a blogpost.

Not as many people as at the opening. Much easier to get photos without random people in them.

Not sure when I’m going to have time to write that post for that group, or the other two for the other two groups.

The ceramics are by Linda Litteral.

I hadn’t seen this one for a while. It’s fun…for a quilt about the onset of COVID. Good show…you should go see it.

I’ve got a couple of local shows coming up…one at Grossmont College opening in October…when I have the social media blurb for that, I’ll post it…and this one.

I’ll be at this opening, although not for four whole hours. But you should stop by. It’ll be nice.

Speaking of nice, the boychild graduated from his fire training courses this summer…he was gone for 10 weeks. The girlchild went up to support him and we got this awesome photo.

We’re very proud of him for getting to wear the fancy uniform with all the buttons. Plus the better job situation. He works hard. So does she, but she doesn’t get to wear fancy uniforms and have bagpipes at ceremonies. I watched the livestream at school on my phone with my earbud in…I did tell my students what was going on. It was short. They were being taught by a counselor during that period, so I don’t feel bad.

I do feel bad about the fucking climate change idiocy that doesn’t believe in that stuff. Because Nepal. And Ohio. And my lord, the list of places will just keep growing.

Maybe if the White House succumbs to a flood. Nah, they’ll just blame the Democrats for that.

Speaking of stupid…

I am totally ready for any lake to be named after Epstein if we can get all the files and then put some old white guys in jail for life. Plus bring home all those military people who don’t need to be at war.

And if you’re a billionaire, be like Dolly.

Bunch of wankers.

This car was parked where we were having dinner. I’m all for Hello Kitty doing some whack stuff (she had big teeth on the back of the car), but carrying automatic weapons?

Let’s not. This was not a small decal…it was about 3 feet high. Not a fan.

OK, I graded a lot this weekend, but didn’t finish (you never finish until the end of the school year). I did some other things. I realized that sometimes people don’t know how little spare time you have unless you tell them, and even then, if it’s not their experience, they probably don’t get it. Friday I spent a lot of time explaining food to students…like gumbo…which I’ve never had (seafood not good for me). Today though is hotdogs and they have to write about them and the pro is that it’s a pretty easy one. Which is great, because their reliance on AI is mind-boggling and they won’t have computers out today. Ha! But I need to put our surveillance software on them for the warmup, because it’s crazy what answers they will cut and paste without even trying to make sense of them. CRAZY. I fear for the future. But AI is gonna take over and get rid of us anyway, because we are causing all the bad shit. So it’ll be OK.

I have a staff meeting, I’d like to go to ceramics today, I need to finish tracing, and odds are, I need to grade more shit. What’s new? But it’s cooler. I can get behind that.

You Will Keep Making Mistakes…

Hey. Halfway through the work week. Woke up out of a dream that I don’t remember, but I do know I wanted to finish it. That said, I want to finish the bad ones as much as the good ones, because I want to know how things end. This is how I end up reading the next book in a series even when I’m not really that into it. I’m not sure it’s a useful trait, but it’s the one I have.

I’m tracing Wonder Under this week. It looks pretty boring, but there is always a cat involved.

She starts out lying on everything and eventually gets annoyed with my moving her around and leaves.

Mostly I’ve been tracing a lot of big background pieces with the occasional burst of tiny mushrooms.

See? Side by side. The big pieces take longer to trace. I always like to get 100 pieces done in an hour, which is the amount of time I have most nights, but last night, I only did 90 because they were big pieces.

I’m in the 200s…I won’t be done until early next week. But there’s always progress.

Here’s one of the quilts that went to the photographer. It actually has a name, Interminable Wait.

Hand embroidery with light threads, so easy to photograph! Ha.

This one’s name is percolating. I have a potential…I’m mulling over it.

It’s coming. I’ll post both of them on my New Work page in the next couple of days with details of size etc. Nice to have real photos of them.

I’m exhausted from work and the heat…it’s so hard to sleep when it’s hot. The windows have to be open, so it’s light (full moon coming) and loud (cars and nature and the neighbor’s roosters…drive me nuts). I need to clean the kitchen and laundry room floors soon…here’s the natural detritus on the floor of the laundry room telling me how it feels about contributing to the dirt in there.

I did it right before I left on my summer trip. I haven’t done it since. TIME! I don’t have enough time. I come home and read a chapter of my book and then grade stuff and then deal with food. Yesterday I had a meeting that I thought would be 15 minutes go to an hour and then I had to drive to pick up my quilts, so I didn’t get home until 5:45 and I was half dead. I still feel half dead. Not sleeping enough. Plus we did a lab yesterday. Those are also exhausting. You know what else is exhausting? The world. One of my school board members and his wife do videos every week and last week, we saw a clip where she is claiming teachers are evil predator communists who turn kids into the opposite gender.

Lady. I just want your kid to wear deodorant, not lose all their papers, charge their Chromebook, come to school, and have a pencil. What the everloving fuck are you talking about? Please don’t vote for the two Project 2025 ignoramuses (ignorami?) in our district. Text me or email me for names. I’ll be canvassing against these sweethearts in September.

This was too true…and then Dolly Parton died. A good person. Instead of the other 80-year-olds who are performing evil predatory things on our country.

Reality is that we DO have to go to work and pay the bills and pack lunches. Plus this…

I made a quilt about that.

Meanwhile, this is me.

Always.

OK. Work. Finishing up all the lab writing stuff and starting to talk about how to write claim, evidence, and reasoning. Again. There was a minor bit of stupid behavior yesterday but no one was sent out. A couple people were told to stop touching things. Ever. Always. Never again. And the principal violated one of the safety rules. Good teachable moment there. Then pilates after that. It’s hot here; did I mention that? Then home to grade and cook and maybe clean a floor, if I have the energy for it (unlikely). Then tracing into the 300s. It’s all planned out. I need to make at least one video today…without my co-videomaking partner. Awkward. Bringing a tripod instead. Can’t replace her really, but it’ll have to do for today. Need to make some copies for later in the week too. Like maybe for tomorrow. Should really figure that shit out. Missing half my science teacher brain…I minorly messed up the lab in Period 1 and revised for the following periods. Glad I did that at least. Learn from the mistakes. Sometimes you can avoid making them in the future. But realistically, you will keep making mistakes all your life and you will need to do your best to fix them, and the sooner you become comfortable with that, the better.

Signed Up For…

Weekends feel so short. I mean, I work for 3 or 4 hours every Sunday, so that doesn’t help. But if I don’t do that, I can’t keep up. I’m already behind, and we’re in the 2nd full week of school. Welcome to the next 10 months. I did manage to keep Saturday work free, but then Sunday, I got an email about the upcoming school board elections and how I will need to give up 9 hours to canvassing in the next 2 1/2 months. Sigh. I signed up for that job. I know it’s important. Just losing those hours hurts my art self. My sleeping-in self! Which I need. I didn’t sleep last night. Too hot, too noisy (windows open due to hot). It was over 100 degrees yesterday, cooler today, then the surface of hell for the rest of the week. Fun times. Eventually I’ll sleep because of exhaustion. Rough way to start the week though.

So artwise, I finally made it to the ceramics studio on Friday; I’m going again tomorrow. I picked up these two pieces from the class I took in June. They fired well.

I’m just sticking them in the yard. They were fun. I might make more. Yes that’s a uterus.

I also did the 2nd and 3rd underglaze brown layers on this…

I really wanted this to go in the bisque fire before I left on the residency, but I spent 5 or 6 hours glazing those other two, so that didn’t happen. I also ran out of one of the browns and the local store didn’t have it, and it shipped after I left.

Surprisingly very few cracks, no breaks. Needs a lot more underglazing, but I’m getting there.

In new quilt news, I finished drawing this (although I added a spaceship later).

Saturday night, I numbered it…

I’d like to say that Scribble is helpful, but she really isn’t.

I thought it had 848 pieces but then I added the spaceship and found another chunk of pieces I hadn’t numbered, so I’m in the 860s somewhere.

And last night, I started tracing…

With the help of Scribble, who kept lying on the drawing.

She’s mostly easy to move. And then she left. But not until this happened…

I didn’t get very far. Big pieces take longer to trace. With a cat in the way. Not helpful.

I spent most of Saturday dealing with some of the dyed paintings, doing final washouts. I had issues with the last one…I washed it out in a hotel sink and the brown skin color completely washed out, and then I couldn’t get the blue to stop washing out. I’m not unhappy with the blue…it was meant to be lighter, less intense. The blue in the body was mixed in with the brown that didn’t stick, but all the other colors mostly did. I think the brown had been contaminated by the soda ash on the fabric transferring on the brush. So I’m going to redo the brown.

I ran a test on the dyes I brought back to see if any of them were still good. I forgot to wash it out yesterday, but I’m hoping these weren’t contaminated so I can just do the skin tones sometime this week…whenever that might be. Ha! Yeah. Work? or Art? Or whatever else?

I washed another out and there’s one head that needs more, so I’m going to try Inktense on that section…it’s pretty small. I have two long skinny ones I did on purpose for an upcoming show. So I spent a couple of hours dealing with dye paintings, which was nice. I have some blog posts I have to write for art groups; I started one. I’m a little annoyed by the other one, but whatever. Obviously I’m the only one who writes posts for them, even when I’m not there and didn’t get into the show. I did get into one locally in October though, so I’ll be there (more info to follow) and the big FIG show is still on in Oceanside; I’ll be there Saturday for 5 hours, so come visit.

While I was gone, Nova (probably) puked on a lot of things, including a ceramic frame I hadn’t hung up yet with a photo of my niece I liked…honestly, I might like it better like this.

I washed it. Yeah. The ceramic frame fared better than the photo paper.

The old man slept in on Saturday. Nice.

No boofing at me at 6:30 AM.

Saturday date night…

I did not buy any fabric this weekend. In fact, I haven’t bought any fabric since mid-July. No hiking Saturday…too hot. Miss that. Want to do that.

It’s OK; I probably will soon.

Good science meme; but my students won’t get it.

I did name one of my loaner computers Marie Curie.

As we get ready to go over appropriate AI use in the classroom (I’ve already seen a bunch of it).

Unfortunately, middle schoolers often don’t have the prefrontal cortex development to understand this graph. And why it matters. And it’s why all my tests are on paper now. Can’t use AI if you don’t have your computer. God knows they’re using it everywhere else.

OK. Today…is kind of a mess, but I think it’ll be OK. We’re doing an observation lab…followed by another more complicated observation lab tomorrow (am I nuts? I might be). Staff meeting after, but the boss has been super vague (which is kind of their thing) about the meeting after. He’ll tell us right after probably or ignore it completely. I have book club tonight but I don’t remember which book it’s for (whoops). I’m pretty sure I read it. Then I’ll be tracing on Wonder Under. I should grade somewhere in there too…in the heat. Ugh. Yeah. OK. I guess I have to.