How to distract yourself from work: try to raise a caterpillar. First of all, I had to bring it home because it was eating so much that I was afraid it would starve over the weekend…
They ate through everything I had, so I offered them my own tomato plants, but they were a different subspecies and the caterpillar didn’t appear to want to eat them…
So I went to school Sunday morning, after watching the caterpillar pace around the edge of the container Saturday night and Sunday morning, and got the right kind of plant…no go! So finally I Googled some more details on the caterpillar and figured out…it wanted dirt! Well, that’s easy. I got dirt…
Oh, it was so happy. So was I. As soon as I put it back in, it started digging…
So in two weeks, hopefully we’ll see a moth. Things I will do to avoid grading and lesson planning, y’all. Totally. Although I did a bunch of that too. It felt like a lot until I got up this morning and realized all the shit I still need to do for this week. Whoops!
I delivered two pieces to a gallery curator/owner on Saturday, and she recorded me talking about them…
Apparently this post is mostly videos. I also packed up three more quilts for delivery tomorrow. I’d like to make art, but I’m spending a lot of time delivering and picking up instead. It’s a good problem to have.
I’ve done a little stitching over the last few days…
All letters really…well some stuff coming up to the letters on Friday, I think.
Last night, I managed to stitch the edge into the stitching, so I got to rip and restitch a bit…
Stitching down the letters is not a fast process. Nothing about those letters is fast.
Lots of video. Like I said.
Saturday night, the Man sang with another band, Sonic Moonshine.
I hung out and drew a bit…
This is Simba’s face after I got home…I was playing elk mating calls (don’t ask why…just know he was perturbed by it)…
This is remarkably true…
And this just made me laugh (as a non-church person)…
Well I’m going to take my container of dirt (and liquefying caterpillar) back to school, hope I survive the day (I’m just tired, still), and get to stitch some more tonight. This coming weekend is the Visions opening, which is nice…I think it’s also Quilt National 2021 with my sold quilt up at the San Jose Museum of Quilts, if you’re up there. I’ve got a busy week and I’ve only planned 8th-grade science completely about halfway through Wednesday. Minor issue. Ah well. I will get there. Somehow. I have three assignments, all in different stages of preparedness. One is typed up but needs slides and a video. One is barely started and only half a thought in my head (gotta navigate the stupid curriculum they provide us with). And the last one exists on paper in 5 different versions, so I have to make something out of that. So the first one needs about an hour, the second probably an hour, maybe more, and the third, at least an hour. Do you wanna know how much prep time I get at school? Not enough to deal with that and everything else, that’s for sure. So it will happen, but probably after hours. Along with the four meetings I have before and after school this week. This year is a challenge…and not in a good way.
THIS is the week where I get back to regular artmaking. I swear. I have two pieces to prep for delivery Saturday and three pieces for next Tuesday, but otherwise, school notwithstanding, I can art at night. Maybe. Ha!
The show I’m delivering for on Saturday will be at Liberty Station at the end of the month; first official opening is the first Friday in November…
I have two pieces in the show, and they’ll be up for a few months, so check it out. I’ve never seen this gallery space; looking forward to it.
I spent all weekend grading. And I’m not done. Well, I think I’m done GRADING…I just need to post everything and add comments etc. THEN I will be done. THEN I can try to plan Friday for 8th grade (I only got through Thursday in planning) and maybe even the next unit. I’m not crying. You’re crying.
When I grade, I have to constantly distract myself from how boring it is to just sit there for 5 hours straight, sifting through emails and docs and kid verbiage. So my eyeballs are constantly wandering…
Hummingbird through the weird coating on my windows where the kids tore it off.
Simba contemplating his hedgehog…
Simba contemplating ME!
Poor puppy. It’s boring when I’m working, I know. And I’m almost always working.
On Friday night, the Man had a show at the La Mesa Oktoberfest, which was pretty fun (albeit exhausting)…
It was their first time playing there…
Pretty crowded. And then Saturday night, his band played at the birthday party of one of the bandmates…
Nice location, although I was too exhausted by then to do much…
Except draw and read my book, amusingly enough…
Honestly probably should have stayed home and finished grades, but he wanted me to go. They played well. And I’m not going to the next show…it’s a school night and it’s some Battle of the Bands thang…nah. I’m good.
Last night, I headed up to PHES Gallery in Carlsbad, where FIG has its current show, Portals, to be part of the artist talk.
Ellen Speert ran the panel and Paul Henry took photos and found more seats.
We had our token mansplainer in the audience who tried to tell us women have all the same exhibitions that men do and there are no gender issues in the art world. I love it when that happens. NOT. All in all, though, it was a good talk. I hope.
Meanwhile, my sourdough starter is still alive…
Oh yeah, and we got a gift for doing the artist talk…
Best kind…homemade stuff from the artists’ yard.
OK, school calls, loud and clear. Grades. Two-hour staff meeting that better be cut short. The potential for some crazy in science. Ugh. I’m tired. But my goal is to get it all done during the work day so I can drag myself in here tonight and start the stitchdown on this piece. I’ve got three more I need to make before March apparently, and that will be tight. So gotta get going.
Dear wild animals: I realize many of you are nocturnal and I sympathize with that whole ‘avoiding predators’ things, sleep during the day, yada yada yada. But I am not nocturnal. Well mostly. Let’s put it this way. I have to subsume…no, not subsume…sublimate (something sub anyway…is subserviate a word?)…my nocturnal tendencies to hold down a day job that requires some level of awakeness (oooh also not a word) and ability to make 7,000 decisions in 14 seconds flat. So when you, wild animals, are traipsing through my yard and on my roof at holy shit in the morning, the little dog who is currently sleeping with me loses his tiny little mind and barks and boofs until at least an hour after you are done traipsing. Please traipse elsewhere. Or do it more quietly. Please.
Tired. Yes. Why do you ask? When am I NOT tired? Hmmm. Good question.
I think I might finally be getting back to some normalcy in the art stuff after last week’s disruption. Monday night, I had to pack a quilt, a HUGE quilt, that need ironing and lots of dehairing and is just huge and awkward as hell to get done in here (stop making huge quilts!)…
So I got that packaged up into a box that was 83″ high. And yesterday, I shoved it into my car after school and dropped it off so it could go to Quilts=Art=Quilts in Auburn, NY.
Hello box that is almost as long as my car. I love this quilt. I love that it’s getting into shows. I don’t love shipping it. This weekend, I need to clean up and pack two more quilts…wait, no, there are five quilts going out between 10/8 and 10/14 I think. Still waiting for an answer on one…because they want delivery during the day…not shipped. Um. Artists have day jobs? Really? Sigh. It’s a school, too, so you’d think they’d get it. No answer yet. OK. So there’s that. It’s done. So last night, I’m like, where the hell am I on the quilt that I wanted done by the beginning of September that is now going to be an October quilt because my day job is a time-sucking asshole? Oh yeah, sew the background together. Easiest thing I’ve done all day. Seriously. Then I trimmed it. I did measure twice (good). I probably should have checked my drawing with the measurements twice (oh well) because I had graded for about 3 hours and I was tired. I knew I was tired, but I wanted to be making art dammit. Anyway. The measurements are fine. Somehow in my head, though, even though I’m staring at a drawing that is taller than it is wide, I started ironing with the fabric horizontal instead of vertical. Luckily I didn’t get far before I figured out shit wasn’t going to fit. And I didn’t iron hard yet, because I didn’t know if it was in the right place. So I could pull off everything I’d ironed.
It’ll be fine. Everything is fine. Tonight (hopefully…after school and taking the cat to the vet and cooking dinner) I will try again. Thinking it through. Again. Wish me luck. I also ironed the nonwoven version of my drawing down to some silk I had lying around (welcome to my weirdo stash)…plus a random diatom thing that we put on there to use up the nonwoven.
I trimmed the silk away on the smaller piece…didn’t have time/energy to do the larger one, but I will. Then I can paint the silk from behind and see how that looks. That’s not happening soon…I have grades due in less than a week and that’s all I’m doing is grading and trying to plan 8th-grade science with zero help. I emailed the other teacher and that’s a no. I don’t think he’s doing anything but the provided curriculum, which has no labs, or hardly any. It’s driving me and my kids bonkers. I’ve been trying to map out the next unit so there’s plenty of hands-on stuff, but I can’t even get my head around the subject matter (Force and Motion, Velocity, Speed, ugh…it’s not like there’s a shortage of cool things to do…I just can’t figure out how to organize it). I will have to get there at some point (actually really soon), but I’m not ready. Hopefully my 7th-grade co-teacher will be helping this week with some real basic stuff. Here’s my piece in the PHES Gallery in Carlsbad…the artist talk with four of the artists (including me) is Sunday night at 5 PM.
Hopefully I will be coherent. Questionable at this rate. This is a mental war I’m having with the online library at the moment.
I order books online to read on my iPad, and they’ll be like 6 weeks out or 3 weeks out and then they all come the same week. Every time. Luckily they have a new thing where you can say, um no, deliver it next week instead…so if you’re like me and you already have one book you’re reading that’s supposed to take 7 hours and you only get to read for like 30 minutes most days and another book queued up that’s supposed to take 9 hours, and you really really want to check out a third book, but you can’t. Because you only get them for 21 days and there’s already 5 people in line behind you, so if you start reading it and don’t finish, it might be another 21 days before you see it again. Or more. Someday in the future we will just pay writers a living wage no matter what and all the books will be free and fully accessible. Seems reasonable, yeah? I think so. But for now, no, I will try to save up all the books I want to read (right now, I am obsessively checking out every book written by two women authors…been working on them all year. I think I have four books left for one of them and only three on the other. Then I can read other things (I do read other things while I’m waiting for these to show up). Who are the authors? Natasha Pulley and Sarah Maas…light, except when it’s not, total fantasy or steampunk or dystopian strange fantasy. Not real. Makes up for everything else. OK. School. Today is rocks and landforms in 7th grade and designing systems to capture energy in 8th. I’m hoping 8th runs itself and I can do some planning. 7th never runs itself. It requires constant putting out of fires and sometimes arguing with the adults who are supposed to be helping kids in the class, which I honestly could do without. So hopefully that’s solved today too and I can do art for real with a larger portion of my brain tonight
I had a great three days of art, although I hit some line on Saturday and had to come home a few hours early and take a nap to beat a migraine that was starting. I’m still tired, but that’s normal for me, unfortunately. Certainly, this is not the week that will fix that. I’m glad I signed up for the conference. Most class situations I need to travel, so there are travel costs, plus hotel etc, and then it’s too expensive for me. This was perfect…in town, no travel/hotel costs. Kept my food costs down by bringing lunch one day. Wish I had had more energy for hanging out after, but that was my body telling me I was doing too much. I know the next SAQA conference is in Florida, so that’s not happening, but I’d keep my eyes open for another one (although they don’t do workshops usually, and I really enjoyed that).
The best part about workshops is getting to know/hear how another artist’s brain works. Betty Busby has a very interesting and creative brain, and it was very cool to listen/see her process. We did lots of fabric painting, which was cool, but also the nonwoven stuff in the cutting machine was very cool too.
But first the painting…sun prints…
Plants under the silk…
Metallic paints…
This needs ironing…
I didn’t make as many as some…
I had more silk…just never know what to do with those pieces…
Although I have more ideas now than I did. The coolest part for me was the nonwoven stuff in the cutting machine. I did a few diatoms the day before…
And then went home Friday night, did schoolwork for 2 hours (ugh), then took one of my drawings, thickened the lines and simplified it…
Until it looked like this…
Then texted it to Betty, who put it on her computer, and then we made a cutting file of it…
Tossed my other piece of nonwoven into the machine…
And got this!
Fiddly as shit. The plan is to iron it to silk, then paint from behind, cut the silk away from the design, and then put that on a background for quilting etc.
The leftovers are pretty fascinating too…
I was not organized enough to save them for a backwards version. Not really backwards. Opposite? Notan? IDK. But certainly I have some ideas…she showed us how she has all these parts (if I divided a drawing into parts) and you can compose with the parts.
Hmmm. More ideas. Also finally found my Inktense pencils and played around with them a little bit before my brain shut down.
It really did shut down. I drove home and went straight to bed for an hour. In the afternoon. Took meds. Woke up and felt better. I did not get enough sleep last week and my brain was in overdrive. Plus Saturday night, we went to the Man’s dad’s 85th birthday party. So I needed to be awake for that.
Sunday was all work. Simba on guard dog mode…
Until about 9:30 PM, when I started searching out all the quilts that need to be shipped or delivered in the next few weeks. A big one needs to go out ASAP. I have one more roll of quilts to pull down for two of them that are going later, but I found a chunk of them.
Some of them have never been in shows, so that’s cool. And now the studio is a disaster area! I’ll get the exhibits on the page where I tell you what shows I’m in…as soon as I get progress report grades done and survive this week. It’s hot again. What are the odds that my class A/C is working? Three work orders, no change. I’m gonna be irritated if today is still no change. Probably gonna be irritated anyway, honestly, because I was gone for two days and a bunch of kids did absolutely nothing. Ah well. It is what it is. You reap what you sow. Or something. Off to the day job. Hopefully I will get back to ironing soon…probably not tonight, but soon.
Hello Art Friday. I’d like to make you a thing. A regular thing. I used to have Friday Draw on my calendar and then every Friday, at night, I’d pull out my sketchbook and draw for an hour. Ah the days! Then I got buried in school stuff and sometimes I do absolutely nothing on Friday nights because my brain is gone, and sometimes I grade things, because it means I don’t have to do it some other time. I don’t know what the solution this year is, but I want to draw more, but also, school is taking so much time that I can’t do the things I want.
Although I took these two days off for the SAQA thing…yesterday we got to listen to a bunch of inspiring artists talk about their practices: Jane Dunnewold, Paula Kovarik, Betty Busby. Best quote: “When you know what you’re about, no one can take that away from you” (JD). Paula made me want to use more, play more, cut things up more. Betty is just amusing and inspiring as hell. I’m spending the next two days in a workshop with her. Looking forward to it. I got to see lots of other people I hadn’t seen in years, since 2019 or 2015 or whatever. Yes, I also got a new student at school, had to add them to my online class, then to the app they were using in class, and then they pulled my sub, the one that has access to everything, fuckers, seriously, if I set up a specific sub that I trust while I’m gone, then you shouldn’t fuck with that. That shit pisses me off. So who knows. I did set stuff up so hopefully anyone can handle it, but you know how that goes.
I have all my art supplies packed up, I’m wearing an old holey shirt and shorts, I got sunburnt yesterday at lunch, so I have my sunscreen. I even packed a lunch so I could save some money and just buy caffeine and maybe spend more time playing during the 2-hour lunch break rather than waiting in line somewhere for food. I have ideas swirling around my head and it feels really good. So yeah, I’m an introvert (I needed a serious alone-time break yesterday between the talks and the two exhibition receptions). So I went to Liberty Station, walked around, ate…
(it looks better than it tasted, unfortunately) got some caffeine, and then sat in the car, trying to charge my aging phone (it was not happy) and drew for a bit…
Oh, I also graded a week’s worth of homework papers while listening to artists talk, and then stitched the rest of the time, because I am notoriously bad at listening if I am not distracting myself with something in my hands…
Definitely making some progress, but it will still take forever :-). Forever is OK though. For some things. Not traffic…
I don’t usually have to sit in traffic. But I did it for art. And besides, the location where the art is happening is pretty nice…
Cooler too. Always a plus. Autumn my ass. Southern California does Autumn for about a week in late October, and then that’s it. We’re done.
My ex is at a wedding in the UK…check out that building…also check out that family! It’s nice to see them all in a photo together.
Also looks like nice weather.
Last night, I sat on the deck in the dark, talking to the Man, collecting mosquito bites. Thought I was staring at a planet up in the sky. I was…it was Jupiter.
Also my birth constellation. Nice coincidence.
This morning, the sky was pretty. My phone can’t handle the pretty…
Unfortunately…
OK, well, the personal art project is definitely suffering this week, but it’s for a good cause. I don’t expect to get much done on it until maybe Sunday, but we’ll see. I will however be slinging some paint and who knows what else today…looking forward to it. Plus after all the emails from school yesterday, it’s good I wasn’t there I guess. I don’t know. Whatever. Just needed a break. If I take two days a month every month? Yeah, that won’t happen…and it’s too hard to do the prep and after stuff. But definitely to remember that making art helps…and maybe taking a day off to catch up on grading AND make art would be a positive thing. We’ll see. For now, though, it looks like there is less traffic today, so I will be leaving soon. Need more caffeine. I’m certainly failing on the sleep front still.
All the pieces are done, ironed together. I just need to make them fit. Ha! That’s always the issue. I love it when the quilt top is just one giant ironed-together piece with no holes in it, because it’s easier to get onto the background. Pieces like this with a little bit here and a little bit there, and they all have to fit together, which implies I ironed them together really well (ha!)…those are the hardest. I’ve got two big heads (here’s one of them from Friday night)…
Then there’s the head and upper torso of the main figure with the arms, then the lower torso with the rest of the three figures and the body of one of the big heads. They’re all attached in some way. It’ll be a challenge. It’s not a small piece, so doing it on the ironing board won’t work. I finished the Earth last night…
That was the last bit…and I found the missing ‘s’ finally. It was in the box of 1300s, even though it’s a 300. It has aspirations…
In other art news, Coronawood got into Quilts=Art=Quilts, which is cool. And I’ll be part of an artist talk on October 2 at the PHES Gallery in Carlsbad.
Should be interesting…a wide variety of work.
I spent a huge chunk of the weekend working on school, which is funny, because I only just got my nose above water and my mouth sometimes. Meaning 8th grade is planned through next Monday and is a disaster after that. I spent 5 hours on Sunday just dealing with that, and then the other 3-4 hours was grading stuff and posting stuff and trying to make sense of stuff. I brought home 5 things on paper that I didn’t touch, needed grading. I’m taking some of it to my other quilt guild meeting tonight. Valerie Goodwin is talking. I took a class from her last year on Zoom and wanted to hear/see her in person. Also I won’t be at school for two days this week, so hence my panic about school stuff. But I’ll be at SAQA Summit listening to artists talk and then taking a 2-day workshop. I still need to write sub plans.
That whole 5 hours yesterday was on this chair with this cat behind me…
It wasn’t particularly comfortable.
Later we walked the little dog. Not sure why I call him that, since he’s the only dog we have at the moment. I guess I have a wishful big dog.
We only did 2 miles because all of us were tired. The boychild has been gone a lot lately for work, so Simba has been needy. And a shitty sleeper. I’d like to thank the local coyotes for my lack of sleep today. Boychild may be back Wednesday…depends on local fires. He was on one over the weekend, but seems to be off it now. I told Simba; he understood nothing.
We managed dinner out…
So I drew something very basic that I’ve probably drawn some version of about a million times. Which was fine, because at least I was drawing.
This school year, man. I’m hoping I get a better handle on it soon. It’s been shit. I should say the 8th graders are mostly fine. They are a decent group of kids. I just don’t have the curriculum down until like 5 minutes before class. The 7th grade, I’ve taught this curriculum enough times that I’ve got it, but the kids are a challenge…and not all of them. Just a significant enough number of them that it is hard and exhausting and sometimes they behave and sometimes they are shitheads. Because they are kids, yes, but also because of COVID and not being in school and still figuring out how not to be immature and some of them don’t HAVE to behave at home, so why behave at school? Some days are good, most are ok or tolerable, and then some are just shit. And because I end the day with them, it just throws me. And then the curriculum is stupid, the stuff I’m using for 8th grade. Hate Amplify. It’s lame. So repetitive, only one right answer, hardly any hands-on stuff. There are simulations, but it’s not the same thing. The kids need something to put their hands on, to mess with. Hopefully the next unit is better. I guess it’s only as good as I am, and I don’t feel up to it by myself. I don’t have any other curriculum that I can do with them. And I don’t have time to go searching for stuff, or the brain power, because I would have to be able to get the big picture to do that, and I’d need like a 40-hour week of planning to get there.
On top of all this, some messy shit with adults happened last week at school that still is pissing me off. I need to drop it, let it go, but it’s shitty and I can’t get it out of my head. Thank you brain for that.
I did finish one book, read a whole ‘nother book (the Man hates it when I use ‘nother)…
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy…second book in a series, but basically I love anything by Becky Chambers. Reminds me of why I don’t hike the PCT as a thru-hiker.
Anyway. I’m on yet another book now. It feels good to read. I do love to read. And draw. And sleep. I love sleep so much and I suck so bad at it.
Today is chaos. I’m giving assessments to both classes, although 8th probably won’t finish today. 7th will if it kills me (and it might). Staff meeting after school, plus counseling, pick up the parental dog and bring her back, then off to the quilt guild meeting. I’m not sure I can do all that, but I’m going to try. I should eat something in there sometime. I’d like to say I’ll iron when I get home, but odds are that I will just collapse. We’ll see. A girl can hope.
Well. A deserted island is calling me. Nah, it’s only a week until SAQA Summit: 3 days of art quilt stuff and making without being at school. Yes, missing 2 days of school will kick my ass. Writing sub plans for that will kick my ass. But it will be worth it. I just realized I probably needed supplies for the class a couple of days ago, so panicked a bit, but I think I either have most of it or can get it easily. Maybe not silk habotai. I know I have some silk, but probably not that. Anyway, looking forward to that while panicking about the everyday school stuff, like prepping for labs (did a bunch of that yesterday) and making sure my planning is done (it wasn’t). Trying to get far enough out to WRITE sub plans and have stuff planned for the beginning of the next week, since my weekend is pretty full. Good full, but full nonetheless. THIS weekend? Empty. I think. Hallelujah. Need some time. I also want to finish my book. I went to the gym on Monday after school because UGH that day, and I just exercised and read. So I’m at 86%…just need to finish. Not sure when…back-to-school night was last night, union meeting tonight. Busy week too.
Anyway, I am still ironing, slow but sure…maybe just under an hour each of the last two nights.
Worked on the right arm (on the left side)…finished it last night…
Also finished a rocket and a cat. Tonight will hopefully be the left arm (on the right side). I was wrong about whatever pieces I said I was on the other day. I’m now in the 900s, but barely, so I must have been in the 700s on Sunday night. This is not fast. I’m working too many hours for the day job. It’s double everything, double plan, double labs, double thinking. Art at least was a repeat each trimester, and the art teacher and I had a basic plan I was working from. Now I have almost nothing…a curriculum that is confusing and repetitive with a subject I’m honestly not that good at. Fun. I did do two cover pages last week…well, I’m still not done with one. I finished 8th grade yesterday…
Then quickly drew 7th grade (still need to color it)…
I did that in the 20 minutes between science not tutoring (don’t ask) and back-to-school night where the mom who’s been berating me for everything under the sun showed up. Also fun stuff. I would like to thank 8 years of meditation practice for my response to that shit.
OK. School. Plan like the wind. Grade like a hurricane. Go to a union meeting and take notes. SLEEP (oh wait, not yet). Cook dinner. Trash out. IRON for as close to an hour as I can get. THEN sleep.
Today is a holiday for some, not all, as the boychild went off to training today, earlier than I wanted to be up, so then all the animals were ready for me to be up, in fact, I think Luna purposely got herself stuck under the dresser just so I’d get up (and then got herself remarkably unstuck) and the boys next door have new toy machine guns (seriously. I’m not kidding you) that they run around shooting at each other, rat-a-tat-tat, which is not conducive to sleep or thinking or anything but rage, honestly, or maybe less rage and more WTF toward their parents. Religious as fuck but machine guns. Anti-Satan (gasp!) but OK with killing. They seem like nice people. I just don’t get it.
ANYWAY. So I’m up earlier than I want to be, which has been the case since before the kids were born, so you’d think I’d be used to it. It’s still hot here, which make everyone cranky, although I think yesterday was cooler. We had clouds a lot of the day, and sure, they were monsoon clouds, so it’s humid, but not as bad as Saturday. Today dawned clear and hot, though…so all the fans are on and I’m in here typing before it hits 95 degrees inside. Even the internet is cranky in the heat. I was trying to do school work yesterday afternoon, and that was a no-go. Slow as hell and kept freezing. Could be the new loaner computer though. Either way, it gave me an excuse to quit working and iron instead. For whatever reason, my studio was cooler than the living room. There was actually a breeze yesterday. Not so much today…a little air movement, but not much.
So I finished the one figure…her right hand and face were all that I needed to do…
Then I started on the figure next to her…
That’s when I took a break to try to do schoolwork. Waste of time really. We went over to the parentals for dinner, brought side dishes and dessert (what requires the least amount of time in the kitchen)…then came back, it was dark and night and a little cooler, so I got the third figure done…
And started the large figure on the right, after the broken Statue of Liberty…
Some of my drawings are more stream of consciousness than others…I think of them as brain dumps or an anxiety drawing, how do I just get it all out of my head and onto paper. This is one of those. Whatever my concerns and anxieties are, for some groups of people (BIPOC/LGBTQ), this shit is way worse and doesn’t seem like it will ever go away. My old-white-lady concerns are ten million times worse for them. Anyway. I love that I made progress…hopefully there will be more today, but first, I really need to do schoolwork. Way fucking behind.
Friday night, we went to see the Threads of Inspiration show at Inspirations Gallery in Liberty Station. Here is my quilt Bill! Bill! Bill! about Bill Nye…who not only made all those awesome videos we know and love, but continues to advocate for the planet.
This quilt was part of the A Better World exhibit pre-COVID about people who make this a better world. So he’s traveled a bit. A friend of mine sent me this…
So I believe I am 4 or 5 degrees separated from Bill…which feels good. I hope he laughed.
The show is up through the end of September, so check it out, because there are some cool pieces…
It is a SAQA local show, so Southern California and Nevada…
If you’re coming the the first day of the SAQA Summit, the official artists’ opening will be that night.
I will be there for that. I will also probably be exhausted, but what’s new?
Lots of color in the show…
Some fun work…
If you want to see each of these pieces with all the artist info, I’ll be posting them on the SAQA SoCA/NV instagram page @saqa_soca-nv once I get done posting about Desert Diversity, the local show in Phoenix, Arizona, right now. Or stop by on Thursday, September 22, from 6:30-8:30. I think otherwise it’s open only by appointment.
The next opening is next Sunday, from 2-4 PM…
I delivered that piece Saturday. First time out in the world with that one. I will probably be at the opening earlier rather than later, depending on when the grocery shopping gets done. Sundays are a little crazy usually. This coming weekend is a little more packed than I like them. I like some down time, some art time, some reading time, some hiking time. Which means it needs to cool the fuck down enough to hike. Not happening today. Maybe Saturday.
I drew before we ate out on Friday night…it was definitely cooler at Liberty Station. Hungry man…
Didn’t feel like a serious drawing. So whimsical it was.
The view of clouds on Saturday reflected in the pool where I kept putting my feet to cool off.
I couldn’t find the energy to put on a bathing suit and go all the way in…so up to the knees it was. With my book.
Other bits and pieces from the week…I thought this drawing was a pretty effective explanation of yo-yos and energy.
Made me laugh anyway. And here’s the apples I brought home to compost from the apple batteries…they were getting buggy after four days…
Seems like a waste of food, but the kids learn a lot from this. Mostly they’re a little mind-boggled that apples have energy.
I keep finding caterpillars on the milkweed and on the citrus trees, but no cocoons so far…on either.
I think I have too many birds for the caterpillars to survive. Something has been stealing the tomatoes again too…I had one almost ripe one and it’s gone. Probably rats.
This…true…
What can I say? Black is versatile. Hides the spills.
This one was at my parents’ house, just hanging out on the grass.
Probably close to dying, but it was pretty.
I worked a tiny bit on Sue Spargo’s Homegrown. I think I’m still doing April’s blocks.
I had to read the instructions four times and then turn the book with the embroidery stitch instructions upside down to help me get this far.
This. Sigh.
And finally this…
Kitten is doing OK. She’s not great. We’ve been switching her meds around, trying to make her more comfortable, but also increase her appetite with giving her horrendous diarrhea. I think we’re closer to a solution, but I will be happy when I can stop giving her the medicine that makes her foam at the mouth.
OK, so all the things that need to happen today, on my holiday: cook lunches for the week (meat is in the crockpot already), laundry (I did not get to the washing machine first, so I will have to wait…also to shower), grade a bunch of stuff, post things for this coming week, pay some bills, get some posts ready for SAQA’s instagram, fix my website current shows and recent work sections, read my book (maybe), iron some art (definitely), and get ready in general for a short but packed week at school. I’m finally getting my lost filling replaced, got two parent-teacher meetings and one “how-the-fuck-do-we-manage-this-parent” meeting, got one stitching meeting, chiropractor with mini-massage before (that’s a necessity), plus a Pilates class. I think that’s it. I’m not counting next weekend. I wanted to hike but it’s too damn hot. So I’ll aim for next weekend for that. Plus there’s some stuff on my to-do list for the day that I’ve already forgotten, even though I only wrote it down like an hour ago. Hence why I write it down! At least this is a day off…I appreciate that, even if I haven’t been very efficient with my time. Hopefully the heat won’t be too bad today and I can get things done. I will feel better going into the week if I can.
I feel like this whole post is about energy, which is what I’m teaching the 8th graders. Less what I am teaching and more what they are learning. I just throw a bunch of materials at them and then they figure out the things with a little bit of help from me. Which is the way it should be.
Oh my. I’m not even halfway through the week and I feel like a truck hit me…not because of COVID…I’ve been fine except for some residual phlegmy grossness since last Tuesday. And yes, I just taught two days in a row for the first time this school year, but geez. I know I’m getting older, but man oh man. Three more days? It’ll get better…I’m doing labs all week with 8th grade, so that’s a lot of physical movement…a LOT…and then 7th grade is the mental thing…they still don’t know how to do 7th grade science and their behaviors are insanely inappropriate: yesterday was walking out without permission, arguing about observations (I’m right! The teacher can’t be!), throwing oneself across the table (not me, y’all…not me), yelling “he didn’t do anything” when I sent a student outside for a discussion (dude, not talking to you), plus a plethora of minor stuff, stupid noises, yelling out. My co-teacher uses a citizenship points system that I’m implementing just with 7th grade to try to curb some of this crazy. I know it’s because I was out for 6 days, so I will just need to stay the course and be that hardass mixed with personal conversations (had two good ones yesterday with boys who need attention, and yes, they do!) until they start to get it. There’s rules. Disappearing for 25 minutes during class is breaking some big ones.
Sigh. So it’s making it hard to get art stuff done…and I have a bunch of administrative-type stuff I’ve been doing…entering shows, cutting slats, putting on labels. All good, because it means showing my work. It doesn’t mean a lot of progress on the current quilt…but now that I know it won’t make the deadline I was hoping for, it doesn’t really matter if I speed through it. It’s all ready to be ironed together, and hopefully I will start tonight.
As I was doing all that stuff, Kitten knocked down a piece that has been hanging on a board in my studio that is basically hidden by a pile of batting (that Kitten likes to sleep on)…I totally forgot about this piece…
People have been trying to date it based on the fabric…I can tell you it’s probably early 2000s. But the best part is that I never finished the sleeve.
I swear, I have a million sewing pins stuck into an in-progress piece, which is why I keep having to buy more, because I run out. Mind-boggling if you think about it. I should finish that damn sleeve, yeah? Totally. FREE THE PINS!
So that night, nothing but admin. Last night, I graded late…trying to stay on top of things. But then I remembered that I had scanned some photos for a 9/1 deadline for a coloring book one of my art groups is doing, but I needed to clean them up. So I spent an hour doing that (stayed up later than I should have, probably not helping with the exhausted feeling this morning, but I wasn’t watching the clock).
Kitten is entirely unhelpful. She had her head on the keyboard at one point. Even now, her tail is whacking up and down in front of the screen. Anyway, drawings are done and emailed. Woohoo!
I did finish sorting all the pieces on Monday night too…it only took another 10 minutes…I was sure it would be longer. So here’s the whole quilt…
Doesn’t look like much right now. Hopefully it will look better in a week, although it’s supposed to be like 106 degrees this weekend, so I’m not sure how much ironing I’ll be doing. I’m just hoping they fix the A/C at school. Rumor has it they have the parts and they’ll be installed this morning, just in time for the beginning of the heat wave. Woohoo! Gonna need that.
Growing mushrooms at school…my co-teacher and I are trying to do a fun/tutoring thing with science after school once a week.
Hopefully will be successful pizza in a few weeks.
Here’s my first compost tomato (that wasn’t stolen by wildlife)…
Are cherry tomatoes just immature tomatoes? Or are they a different subspecies of tomato? Is this a cherry tomato? I just don’t know. It is awfully cute though.
Yeah. Did that. With a bang.
Now I’d like to move on to surviving the rest of the week. Or even today. Pilates after school. Then finish packing this quilt up so I can start ironing in the hottest time of the year. Woo! No really, I love the ironing-together part of quiltmaking, because it’s the first time I see all the fabrics together the way they are in my head. Really love it. First, though, finish this tea. Need more. Then get outta here.
Am I ready for a full week of school? I’m never ready. I never get enough done on Sunday afternoon. I never feel like I’m ready. I have done many things to get myself and my stuff ready, but it never feels like enough. My biggest issue today is that I need a computer…mine was refusing to connect to the digital projector on Friday. I was able to limp along for the day, push stuff out and try to get kids in the right place without being able to show them, but today, I actually need them to see what’s on my screen and there’s no other way to easily push it out. There are no loaners that we know of. I might be using one of admin’s computers instead. Which is awkward and a pain. Not looking forward to it, no lie. Last year around this time, IT had to send my computer out to get a new battery. I told them then about the charging issues (because I think all this has to do with issues with my USB-C ports), and they chalked it up to the battery thing and then I spent all year trying to persuade my charger to seat correctly so the computer would actually charge. My computer is not due to be replaced until the next school year. The last loaner they gave me was so old that things wouldn’t load. I’m not looking forward to that either. I already tried compressed air in the ports, on the off chance that a big blob of dust was causing all this. No luck. Ah well…to be a fully funded teacher! What a dream!
I did follow my new plan of no work on Saturdays (actually did this most of last year too)…so I dealt with some art stuff, bought the compressed air (that’s all the work-related stuff I did), bought some slats for a piece that needs to be delivered next weekend…it needs a label too, so that’s on the list for this week. I entered a show, did some other art paperwork. I read my book a lot. And then I hiked for the first time in a long time…
My legs were not quite ready, post-COVID and no exercise for a bit, but I powered through. Felt pretty good after the first mile.
Saw a coyote…
No really, there’s a coyote in that picture. It was not happy about my presence.
I started late…but it was still warm. Also saw this tree face…
Probably hiked past that tree a few million times and never saw that. So the hiking was good.
I also finished cutting stuff out…
It took over 24 hours of cutting to do this thing…
And then last night, I started sorting, but I should have started earlier…why didn’t I? Because I was still doing school work. Probably did about 5 hours yesterday. Just trying to get organized and semi-caught up. You are never really caught up until the year is over.
I didn’t have much left to sort, but it was already late and I needed to go to bed…
It doesn’t look like much, but it would have been at least another 30-45 minutes. And I’m already the last one up here, so all the noise from the previous two wakes me up anyway. Don’t need to start the week more tired than necessary. Finish sorting tonight, and then start ironing this thing together.
The Man had a show at Stone Brewing Company on Saturday…
I did not go. It was a long way and a long time and I was tired. I needed some quiet me time.
They seemed to have fun though.
Meanwhile, I chilled with the cats…
OK, mostly they slept. It was fine.
I recently wrote an article about my work for Art Quilting Studio…it’s the Autumn issue…
I’ve been able to find it at Barnes & Noble, but it’s also available online.
I get paid a small amount for the article…but also it looks really good…
It’s nice to not be censored. Or remembered just for the dick that wasn’t there. And the internet just deleted the rest. And I need to go to school…so this is where we end. More tomorrow!
Kathy Nida 