Give It to Me What You Say*

I have to say the hardest part of vacation so far is the part where I’m not on vacation and I’m making less art than I would be during the school year. I’m really just trying to bully through it and get to the other side, but it’s kinda driving me nuts. Yes! I did manage to not get onto a jury yesterday. It was actually pretty easy. I sat in the “quiet room” (there is nothing quiet about a room that is located right next to a bathroom…I heard more flushing than I ever had before in my life.) and worked on the bibliography for the book I’m copyediting…

IMG_5648 small

‘Twas a mess. I sat there and fucked with it for about an hour and a half and then they called names for one trial. And the rest of us did the No Jury Duty Dance out the door. Of course, then I spent the next 5 hours working on the Bibliography. Ugh. What a mess. I said that already. Then I copyedited one more chapter. It was about 99° yesterday. No I don’t have air conditioning. I turned all the fans on and opened windows and we ate dinner outside, but blech. Ugh. Blah. Gah.

I finally gave up on being mentally present and worked on this…

IMG_5650 small

I did a yellow-green straight stitch with fly stitches on each end, then did some lazy daisy leaves with the tail end of the thread. Up in the top right. Like you can tell, right?

Then I sat there and vegged out for a good long time. I would send tiny tendrils of what was left of my mind out toward this drawing or that one (the cat was lying on that one, the other one needs copying and a do over, the third one is just not gelling in my mind). I considered cutting Wonder Under. And then I just did some cleaning instead…going through piles of paper and tossing shit I don’t need any more. I filled a recycling bin. It was the only thing I could do.

I’m frustrated about the no art thing. Really I could have done something, if I could have fought the heat and brain lethargy. Sometimes I’m really good at that. The first week or so after school gets out? I suck at it. Seriously. Every year.

Anyway. The solution starts now. Copyedit the last 5 chapters today. Then pinbaste the last 2 quilts. I’ll quilt tomorrow and then do a final readthrough on the book and get it the hell outta here. I bought the last batting and the binding fabrics yesterday. Get this shit done so I can have some of my own brain-powered work going on. Don’t let myself sit on the couch, even if braindead. Yes, the cleaning needs to happen too, but I can’t do this no-art thing any longer. Seriously. I need to be making stuff.

*Rick James, Give It to Me Baby

Choose Not a Life of Imitation*

I’m glad to say the heat has shifted today…it’s much cooler. That’s a good thing, because the boychild and I are hiking tomorrow…first hike of summer 2017. We’re basically repeating a hike from last year, because I’m not willing to do 10-13 miles. I’m looking forward to it, but hoping I don’t have a repeat of the dizziness from the last two days. If it happens again today, I know it’s the new medication and I’m calling the doc. I was so disoriented yesterday afternoon that I tried to nap (and mostly failed). But eventually I felt better.

I think the catalog for the upcoming show is done…at least as far as I’m concerned. I need to get my butt in gear on these community quilts…I’ll be doing some of that this afternoon. The copyediting is going pretty well, except the topic is…well…it’s stressful. I can’t read it without thinking about how brains work and how mine fucks up and how we try to deal with our students and this is why they can’t deal. Hopefully the later chapters will have magical solutions for dealing with our kids. Yeah right. Nothing is magical when you’re dealing with the brain and trauma.

Speaking of copyediting, I need to get some done this morning, so this will be a short post. I’m jumping around on all my art stuff anyway…can’t really stay focused on one project at the moment. I have the Wonder Under ready to cut on the first climate project, then I’m still drawing the long skinny climate piece, and then last night, I ventured out into another drawing (remembering I still have another drawing that’s smaller that is barely started). Focus? Yeah right.

Before that, I did work on the hand again, continuing the buttonhole stitches around it.

IMG_5542 small

A closeup so you can see what I’m talking about.

IMG_5543 small

And then I started this drawing.

IMG_5545 small

It’s wonky. It’s scary. It’s what I needed it to be. Now it just needs to be bigger and done.

So that was my brain last night. Who knows where tonight’s brain will go.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Can’t Stop

Push That, Push That, Push That to the Floor*

Well it seems like my summer break isn’t starting until July. I picked up a copyediting job…with a rush on it. Good news? Money. Pay college. Honestly, try to pay for the summer too. Bad news? Well, now it’s gotta get shoved into the two weeks after school gets out, which already has three quilts that need quilting for the art show I’m helping curate, plus jury duty, plus I’m sure I don’t even remember all the other shit I’m supposed to be doing. Finishing up for the solo show and delivering all that (need to work on one part of that tonight…maybe see if I can get all the paperwork done). Plus I wanted to make a coloring book for that show of my drawings. Hoping to still be able to pull that off.

Unfortunately, my assistants either roll over to have their bellies rubbed or roll their eyes at me.

Where are the post-it notes. I need to write things on them. Somehow that helps. Chipping away at the crazy to-do list a little at a time. FIVE days of school left. All the awards are at the printer. Grades are closer to done (not done though). My classroom is a disaster. My house is a disaster. I took 5 minutes and gathered shit to be tossed off the kitchen counter. And then I tossed it. Well. I recycled it, because I try to be environmentally responsible.

I do try to leave the house for something besides my job sometimes. This is my stitching group…since I was pregnant with the girlchild, who turns 20 in August (really. Holy Moly). My friend Julie has been working on this uterus pattern from Knot by Gran’ma for me…we both bought the pattern, but it turns out there is no way in hell I would be able to make this…I’m just not talented (or experienced) enough. Luckily Julie likes to do weird shit like this for me. (I have a zombie fairy doll and a Frida Kahlo fairy doll from her.) So last night was the finishing touch…here’s a side view as we tried to decide how to photograph her.

IMG_5217 small

On the ledge behind the chairs at the Starbucks inside the Mira Mesa Barnes & Noble…in case you want to replicate this look. I LOVE IT. Seriously. Love.

IMG_5219 small

Almost as much as I love the uterus I built. And the girlchild around it. (Yes, I should dust…I didn’t realize until I saw this photo).

IMG_5222 small

Freakin’ awesome pattern and hard work by Julie (she had to say her personal mantra many times in constructing this). Much appreciated.

Then I did the blue-green cretan stitch on the far left. I still need to fill in some, but wanted to spread out as well.

IMG_5223 small

I should remember to take a shot of the full piece of fabric so you can see that I will probably run out of room by December.

I worked on this at the meeting. That’s trellis stitch in a psychotic rayon thread…it’s fussy shit man. I love that in two hours, all I really got done where knotted Italian stitches on the tree and the whipped stitch outline on it. Time-consuming shit.

IMG_5224 small

Speaking of time-consuming shit, I did start tracing Wonder Under on the climate piece. I did all of it until I got to the fussy tree trunk. Then I went to bed.

IMG_5226 small

Like an hour late. I really need to have more sleep, but I was incredibly stressed by the increasing to-do list and couldn’t fall asleep anyway, so whoo! Yeah! It’s Friday! And I’m currently teaching sexually transmitted diseases! Yah!

My lord. The plus is that the teeth are no longer grinding (no, I don’t really know why), but both eyes are starting to twitch. I’m going to get a better night of sleep tonight. Really. I am. And then finish EVERYTHING. I’m going to finish it all. Yup. I am. Just don’t fucking bug me while I’m trying to do that, OK?

Oh yeah, I forgot. I was desperate for something cookie-like last night and we had a box mix of gingerbread that said you could do this that or the other and make cookies out of it. It wanted me to roll them out and use cookie cutters (who the fuck do you think I am? Is it fucking Christmas?)…well so I made hockey pucks.

IMG_5221 small

They taste about as good as they look. Sigh. Left them for the boychild.

*REM, Radio Free Europe

Head above Water

Yesterday. Was good. Although a little frustrating in the first half. Jackhammering continued (none this morning!), starting too early for me…and then, because editing was going so EASILY…the document turned into a Frankenbeast of formatting headaches. I made one change, moving something into a list that needed to be there, and it literally screwed up the formatting in the entire document. And I didn’t notice until I’d made another 50 corrections or so, so I couldn’t just undo without losing all of that. Aargh. I searched for ways to deal with bulleted lists, and got nothing relevant…probably because I didn’t know exactly what words to use. Formatting can be such a bitch. So I had to redo a chunk of it, which lost me time and money. Sigh. It happens.

After that, I managed to finish a book, hike 7.34 miles with the kids, make dinner from scratch, and cut stuff out. Yup. This is how I relax. Seriously. Look under the definition for workaholic and you find me.

OK. I never really relax like this…

IMG_7238 small

That puppy is spoiled.

So the hike…we did over 7 miles of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, leaving from the Black Mountain trailhead and hiking out to the waterfall in a roundabout way, trying to avoid trails with bikes on them (although the bikes appear to just ignore the signs that say stay off, because they’re assholes? Or illiterate? Or special? I’ve never understood that.). There was poison oak everywhere…the wonders of a high-water winter and spring in Southern California. This is cactus overrun by poison oak…which you can only find here.

IMG_7246 small

The weather was much better than last week, and honestly, this isn’t a hard hike. There’s no up and down…just long.

IMG_7250 small

We made it to the waterfall and hung out briefly.

IMG_7264 small

But we had to be out of the parking lot by 8, because they lock it, so we were motivated to keep moving.

IMG_7265 small

There’s a few river crossings…I think we did this one twice.

IMG_7269 small

And the oak groves are always my favorite.

IMG_7270 small

A grave of a former ranch cook…

IMG_7271 small

And this sign amused us…because really? The trail to the right was pretty poison-oaked as it was…

IMG_7272 small

But whatever. We just didn’t touch the stuff.

After dinner, I managed to cut for another couple of hours…wait, make that three hours. So I think I’m over 11 hours in right now.

IMG_7273 small

There were lots of little pieces last night…some I didn’t even try to cut out (you can see a few on the bottom left), because they’re too small and I’ll just lose them. I’ll cut them out as I iron.

This is all that’s left…

IMG_7274 small

It doesn’t look like much, until you see how many of the pieces are small. It took me about 30 minutes last night just to cut out the giraffe’s spots. All curvy and weird.

This was my scrap pile from last night…

IMG_7275 small

You can see the color changes below…four different scrap piles from four different nights.

I’m getting there…slowly. Too slowly, I think sometimes. But I’ll get there. I do have to copyedit again today…and tomorrow. But I’m hoping to leave the weekend free. That would be a plus. It’s hard knowing that what would really help me relax and be ready for the upcoming (stressful) school year is not having to work NOW…but also needing to work NOW because of college and cat payments etc.

A friend sent me a link to a gallery in New Orleans where she saw stuff she knew I’d like (and I did)…and I’ve been thinking of trying to do an actual vacation trip in the next 12 months, but the money is nonexistent, and then girlchild tried to guilt trip me about coming to visit my kids instead. Ah. OK. That was discussed at one point. So we’ll see. Price it out. Work some more hours. And I have a quilt going to Houston, but I won’t be there…which sucks, but again…money kicks me upside the head. Keep making art. Keep working. Head above water…

The book I finished (and I will be reading the next one, once I get through the three I have checked out from the library) was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch…very good, although in George R. R. Martin style, he likes to kill my favorite characters.

liesoflockelamora

I should make time to draw today I think. I believe I need to do that. I keep saying it and not doing it.

All the Things

Although the jackhammering started early, to my night-owl brain, it seems to maybe be done? I eavesdropped on the guy in charge, and it certainly seems like today is the last day. AND I am currently enjoying my new keyboard with keys that actually have LETTERS on them. I know, right? What a luxury item.

I did work most of yesterday. Copyediting. I’ll be doing it again most of today and tomorrow. It’s OK. I need the money.

Meanwhile, I do toss in some artmaking, mostly at night, when I probably couldn’t continue to work anyway. I’m a little over 8 hours into the trimming, and this is where it gets slow. The pile doesn’t change much over time once I get the big pieces cut out. Because then I run into pieces like this…

IMG_7232 small

Daisies…that was all of them in one of the three colors I ironed them onto…so imagine about 30 minutes spent cutting them out.

Midnight helped…

IMG_7234 small

At the end of the evening, well, night…because it was well after midnight. The time, not the cat. The top box is all cut out. There’s still quite a bit in the lower box.

IMG_7235 small

Simba finally settled down for a nap after I threw two balls consecutively for about 15 minutes, nonstop.

IMG_7236 small

I need to be focused today. We’re hiking this afternoon too. So yeah. Trying to do ALL the things. It’s just not possible. Plus I need to know ALL the stuff too. So I don’t have a lot of words today. Brain is fuzz.

Warm…

It’s warm here in my part of town, hovering around 100 degrees, although they say the “real feel,” which is the sweat dripping down my back, is 110 degrees. Ugh. Love summer out here in non-air-conditioned land. All the animals are flat and splayed out. I don’t blame them.

I worked most of yesterday, and will continue that today, as much as I can…waiting on a decision between style guide and opinions. Apparently not everyone works all weekend. Shocking!

I got no Wonder Under done yesterday, although I could have…but I decided to draw instead. I was driving and this drawing slammed full-force into my brain. You could almost feel the impact. I have a couple/several shows coming up that I need to make work for this summer, and so they are always floating up there in the netherwhere that fills my brain, percolating in a smelly corner, fires fanned by crazy-ass artistic fairies who form images and then squish them together until they are almost fully formed. So I drew. And this isn’t really it…this is the practice drawing…

IMG_6908 small

For one thing, the real one needs to be big, and this is the 9×12″ sketchbook. So I’ll do it again and stretch it out. I think the largest figure does actually need a head. And more of a torso. And something in the background. Maybe. But it’s the first official drawing of Summer 2016. So that’s cool.

I drew it while watching the second of the Somm movies about wine sommeliers and winemaking. I liked the first one better.

So here was my view most of yesterday (and continuing into today…).

IMG_6906 small

As time went on, the cat got longer and more into fondling the keyboard and the mouse…not helpful. Right now, she’s covering the number pad and blocking half of the mousepad and trying to whack my hand every time I touch the mouse. Must be warm…

Boychild decided to teach Simba about the pool…Calli already knows how to cool herself off…as is apparent…

IMG_6903 small

Simba was not thrilled, but did know how to doggy paddle (apparently some don’t). But then got out and rubbed his entire body in dirt. So he got his first bath from us right after. Apparently that was also traumatic. And exhausting.

The heat certainly does suck energy out of you. OK. Back to work. I will resurface for Father’s Day dinner and then see if I can get some of that Wonder Under done, despite the heat and the workload. I can’t actually finish the editing without a definitive answer, so that’s OK. It’s good to have an excuse not to work all night.

And maybe I’ll get another drawing in there too…

A Small Break…

I worked 16 hours yesterday. I spent 8 hours, maybe more, at school. Then I went home and sat on the couch with a cat, the dog’s head on my feet, and I graded stuff and fought our grading system, which kept crashing and locking me out. But I got some stuff updated in there, probably enough for progress reports anyway. I might do more, depending on the next few days. I didn’t actually do my progress reports. Minor issue. Then I copyedited until midnight, maybe later. I think my eyeballs were unseating from their sockets at the end of it all. I couldn’t see straight, that’s for sure.

No art. And I’m cranky about it. But if I can finish the editing today, maybe I can make art tomorrow. Or grade more stuff. Because I’m not caught up. I never am. I got an email about a show I entered recently, one where I made a piece specifically for the show, and they are delaying the notifications about 3 weeks because there were so many entries. Damn. And I know the space…it’s not particularly large. But whatever. It’s an awesome piece, so it will go somewhere. Unlikely that it will get in…suspect there will be lots of dramatic and pretty things, and mine is…well…I don’t know what it is. In your face? I love it, but whatever.

It’s October, usually my favorite weather month. Not my favorite school month…too long! October and April or March, depending on where Spring Break hits. I think it’ll be April this year. But you get these cool breezes and vibrant blue Southern-California skies with fluffy white clouds bouncing around, and you can actually go outside without dripping sweat. Well, until next weekend, when it’s supposed to be 103 degrees! Oh well.

So what can I post here for pictures? I hate posts with no pictures. Maybe the drawings I’m considering for the next quilt? But then people will give me opinions! I don’t want those. Sorry. Guess that makes me sorta weird. I know all these artists who are sharing and asking questions, like what do you think about this color or that? And I’m like, well, I don’t care what you think. It’s in my head. I already know what I want.

My next-door neighbors, who actually built the house I live in as a spec house, are selling their house, which is a mirror image of mine. I feel kinda weird about that…I mean, this was the neighbor burping I was complaining about before, but they are a known quantity…occasionally loud, pirate parties where everyone is drunk and yelling ARRRR. And they would love to have me clean up my yard. I actually found a plan for my front yard that I like, all natives, drought-resistant, not grass. Now I just need manpower, money, etc. Yeah. So not happening. Oh well. If I keep barely watering that section, it will eventually be covered by the ice plant. I can see my neighbor up on the slope actually gardening. I usually only see him in bars, and he always recognizes me. Scary, because I’m never really sure if it’s him.

There’s that beautiful October breeze coming in the window, and what I need to do is do some more copyediting, and then probably run a couple of errands. I’m taking tonight off, which is a good thing, because my eyes hurt.

Today, this morning, Bathtub 5 is first on the list for the next big one…

I’m finding it unbalanced though…needs something on the bottom, and I don’t know what that is. With the mood I’m in, it might be a dead body. Hmn. Now there’s a message.

This one is in 2nd…it needs to be made, but I don’t know if I can make it yet…

Maybe it needs to fester some more.

And I originally pulled this one. But then it slipped to number 3.

I like the other two better. I have to decide which one I want to spend 100 hours or so interacting with for the next few months. But today is not really the day I get to think about all that. I can let it all slurp around inside my brain, and one morning I will wake up and it will be decided. But I’m too stressed by work(s) to do that right now.

I just finished this…This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki…

I love that I can read a graphic novel quickly, just to give me a break.

thisonesummer_07

I liked it…lots of adult drama on the edges while two preteens try to enjoy their summer vacation. Good topics, good art.

So with that, I will now dump art and reading and get on with one of my paying jobs…