Not as Daft as They Seem*

I have this goal every summer, maybe every school break, to get everything in the house cleaned up, voted out, put away, dealt with in some way. There’s too much stuff and a lot of it should just be gone, but it honestly overwhelms me on a regular basis. I started to clear off the eating table (it’s not in a kitchen or in a dining room, so I don’t know what the fuck to call it) and to put away some of the stuff that was on there, I had to clean off the bench, which meant a pair of scissors and trimming fabric. Don’t even ask. It’s a snowball effect. I’m trying to do 20 minutes or so a day, and then once I get some of this editing/art exhibit stuff under control, I’ll spend more time on some significant issues…like the garage or my bedroom. With the boychild’s help. But now, just looking at a pile of books, it’s not like I have anywhere to put most of them, with every bookshelf in the house filled, so I either have to go through and get rid of stuff, or I have to build a library into a second story, and that’s gonna take time AND money, both of which I have very little.

Yesterday I worked and I put off other work and it was hot and I couldn’t think straight. I did get new glasses though, which is good, because these are not always great. Mostly that’s because I’m tired though. I’m still tired. I didn’t sleep well last night…the cough is getting better, but I felt wired, like it was time to get up (it was…if I were going to school)…and I couldn’t go back to sleep. That will get better. I know it takes almost two weeks some years to settle into summer. It takes two weeks on the other end to get used to waking up for school, adjusting back to my work sleep schedule.

I found this in the front yard…a beautiful hawk feather. Symbolism? I will be observing more, become more aware, and then act decisively.

IMG_5517 small

It’s beautiful, whatever it means. I stuck it to the front of the house…protection against something.

I was giving this blue buttonhole stitch fingernails, or fingerrays. Or something.

IMG_5518 small

I finished the hippo and started work on the water.

IMG_5519 small

I had enlarged this again, but only 150% (I math) this time. It’s about 21″ wide, which works.

IMG_5520 small

Kitten is back in her hidey hole of paper…

IMG_5521 small

She sleeps hard. This photo reminds me that all my leftover mechanical pencils are in that leather thing behind her. I’d forgotten that.

IMG_5523 small

I added about 30″ to the bottom of this and drew out her legs in pencil, just to get the proportions where I wanted them (I won’t say “get them right” because I think she’s already out of proportion…but I’m OK with it). Then I was trying to figure out what to do about the crotch area, since this one has to be no nudity for the venue…and yes, the rocks are reminiscent of that, but they’re not that, so there. I still need to fill in that area with more stuff…

IMG_5524 small

Then decide where the third ground area is going and fill in all the rest. And remember this needs to be done by September. And it’s not the only one. Scary deadlines? Somewhat.

I also need to do a coloring book for the July opening. Yikes. I really need to get kicked off jury duty next week.

But today? Another drive to the north to finish the catalog for the first exhibit, then the chiropractor, then copyediting and maybe the gym, if I can pull that off. And quilting the community stuff, and also drawing please. I’m trying to carve vacation time out of the list of things that need doing. Plus that 20 minutes of trying to put shit away or toss it out or rehome it. And I need to meditate more. Ironic that it stresses me out to find time for meditation. And showering. And eating.

Oh yeah, tomorrow is the talk at Sparks Gallery. Again, I’m going to explain my connections to modern weaving. I think you’ll be surprised by what I’m going to say! I might be surprised too…

*Arctic Monkeys, Fluorescent Adolescent

Nobody Knows Me at All*

OK, I finally woke up without my eyelids twitching…that’s a good sign. Still coughing some. Still feel like warmed-over crap. Still tired as hell. That will work its way out, although not any time soon, I think. The heat is not helping. I don’t do well with heat.

Yesterday, everything took way longer than it should have. I set up the copyediting job…although I have yet to start. Today! Today I start! I don’t know why my brain refuses to get there…the heat and tiredness I suspect. But I need to start in case I end up on a jury next week.

So this is not my studio or my computer. I drove up to Miramar to another artist’s studio because she had the program I needed to edit the catalog for the next show.

IMG_5501 small

Lots of fussy little changes…and there were too many unanswered questions. I had to leave it. I’ll go back tomorrow to finish up. Pain in the butt…but it needs to get done.

Then I came home and pinbasted the first of these…which went OK. It was a pain getting pins in the interfacing. I thought about spray basting it, but would need to get that shit online and I can’t wait for that.

IMG_5503 small

I started the quilting, just in the ditch. Manhandling these is a pain as well…although it worked out OK in the end. I just got hot and tired and quit. I’m not doing a lot of quilting on these…just enough to hold them together. Remind me to do an easy fusible binding. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to sew the two halves together…this stuff doesn’t squish or roll easily. I have an idea of how to do it. We’ll see. Hurts my hands to do this though…can’t grab on and the pastel is coming off still. Maybe I should spray again now before I start quilting again.

I sat around for a while before I worked on this…some lazy daisies and cross stitches on the right in a greenish yellow. I feel like I should put another thing in, like the tree or the hand or the eyeball. Not sure why I feel like that. I think I need a focus.

IMG_5505 small

Not for the piece’s sake, but for mine.

So I went and got these copied, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I need a finished size of no more than 24″. The sketchbook is 14×17″…so 200% is too big. I didn’t get far in the cut and paste before I realized it was too big.

IMG_5506 small

That was a fuuuuck moment. So that’s on my redo list for today…along with all the things I didn’t do yesterday. Plus remembering to eat lunch. Because that was an issue yesterday. Honestly it’s an issue today because I’m going to get my eyes checked (good thing the twitching is gone) for new glasses. And I’m supposed to leave in 23 minutes and I haven’t eaten anything. Nothing sounds good. Nothing sounds even edible. The heat really fucks with my ability to do anything.

I sound cranky. I feel cranky. It’s summer. I wanna be making art, my own stuff, whatever I want. And I can’t. YET. Growth mindset (that’s a teacher joke). I’ll get there.

Kitten enjoys all the things in my studio that she can lie on.

IMG_5508 small

I only got one thing done on my to-do list yesterday. Fucked up day. OK. Today I will do better. Besides the glasses, I have three things I can absolutely do, and maybe a fourth. Plus the next community quilt laid out and pinbasted. I feel like I need more room to quilt…but that’s not really an option in here. It’s just crowded. Ugh.

(OK, here’s an example of how crazy I was feeling yesterday. I was on my way home from the studio and the copy place, spent ages in traffic yesterday, and I was following this woman who had obviously been to Costco and bought toilet paper, which is one of the things on my list. I hate Costco. I really do. But we’re running out. And that’s easy. So I’m sitting there behind her at a stop light and wondering if her doors are locked, can I just get out of the car and run up there and steal the toilet paper and drive off with it. Luckily it was too hot for me to get out of the car for any reason.)

It’s OK. I will get through all this stupid angst and onto the stuff I love. I will get enough sleep. I will get rid of this cough. I will check stuff off the to-do list. The heat will ease. Hopefully.

*The Weepies, Nobody Knows Me at All

Came Back Only Yesterday*

Well hello this morning. It is my first official day of summer vacation, with no work alarm clock this morning (although between the trash trucks, the boychild, and the puppy, plus the incessant cough I seem to have developed, there was no hope of sleep). I am still short sleep. Still stressed. Still got too much going on, but at least school is out of the picture for a while. That should help.

Saturday I went to an opening, mostly so I could see my own work hanging in the gallery (I missed the opening for my stuff). I wouldn’t expect my work to do well on a brick wall with a vintage couch, but it does…

IMG_5443 small

There’s my official shot…

IMG_5476 small

And here’s my new friend. No. I can’t explain it, except to say that after the opening, we wandered a bit around downtown San Diego, because we don’t come down here often. We thought there was another opening (OK, I thought), and I totally confused a security door guy by asking about robots, but to his credit, he rolled with it. All that has nothing to do with the raccoon.

IMG_5462 small

We’ve been here before. There was some really drunk kid who sat at our table for a while. It was strange. He was almost unconscious, but they kept serving him. That I don’t understand.

IMG_5463 small

Then back to listen to music. I love watching the creative process, the creative brain moving shit around to make it sound or look better. I love it in my own brain too…

IMG_5481 small

Sunday was busy. Here’s Simba at my parents’ house. He dug a hole and then sat in it.

IMG_5492 small

And then the boychild painstakingly pulled all the plumbago out of his tail.

IMG_5495 small

If you don’t know about plumbago and fluffy dogs, consider yourself lucky.

I should have taken a photo of my dad, because it was Fathers’ Day. I was not that smart. Dad didn’t dig a hole and sit in it either.

So here’s what I’m working on…there are two or three community quilts for the next art show I’m helping to curate, and we have all these 18×24″ blocks that are on interfacing. Some have drawings, some paintings, a few in fabric. These were mostly pastels, which was messy…they were sprayed, but they still leave marks. I’m sewing strips together (the other curator has sewn most of it so far) and then adding fabric where I need to in order to make them the same length. There are two this size so far for one of the community quilts. I don’t think I can go wider and get them under the machine for quilting.

IMG_5496 small

So today sometime I’m going to sandwich this one with batting and backing, and then hopefully I’ll quilt it. Or I’ll finish the piecing on the other one maybe. Can’t decide. It’s not easy to maneuver though…too stiff.

I have two nights done on this…I did a chain stitch on the bottom and then last night, I added fly stitches to it and continued the thread around until it was finished.

IMG_5497 small

And then, I thought, it’s vacation. I don’t have to go to bed. Because that’s mature and all. So I found the sketchbook and kept working on this.

IMG_5498 small

I want to add more to the bottom part, but I think it’s ready to enlarge. I want to get this ready for as soon as I finish with the community quilts. So I think I’m heading to the copy place today.

Meanwhile, Kitten has tried to sleep on the drawings and has now given up and is sleeping UNDER them.

IMG_5500 small

That is the better choice. Copyediting. I have to do that today too. Busy. No change there.

*Yazoo, Only You

Take Only What You Need from It*

It’s funny…I spent a few hours last night trying to destress with drawing, because when I mentally went through everything I needed to do, I couldn’t DO any of them. I was too stressed. Mentally. So I drew. And then as I went to bed, the to-do list slammed back in and made me feel bad for not doing any of it (I actually DID do two of the things on there…but they were pretty low-key). Thanks brain. Appreciate it. In survival mode. Please respect.

Grades are done. Awards are done. Too much drama. Seriously done with it. Today is the field trip. Long day today…union meeting afterwards. Ugh. My classroom is a disaster. The prep room is even worse. Not our fault.

Anyway. It will all be done soon and then I can move on to the to-do list. The copyediting job. The quilts for the show. My own show. It will all work out. Somehow. Got a hike on the calendar already. It’s gonna be OK.

Stars on the top.

IMG_5368 small

I was trying to get my head around all the upcoming shows again…because another one got added and I’m not sure I can process the theme. But whatever. I’ll figure it out. Kitten was very helpful.

IMG_5369 small

Really, she was…chirpy cat noises and head butts. It’s a good thing. I have pets for a reason. Well. And they keep needing to be rescued. So I do that.

So I started that one drawing yesterday. It might have made sense to continue on that one. It certainly needs to get done. But then I’m looking at that art list, trying to decide how to handle the shows, whether I have stuff that I can use already or not. And I’m watching some total teen drama show, because I can’t handle much else. And this new drawing pops into my head (actually more than what’s below pops into my head…it’s not done). Just like that. Grab sketchbook, start with the landmass.

IMG_5372 small

It’s for a show that doesn’t allow nudity, so I’m working with that. Another troubled earth mother I guess. There’s more to come. She might have a whole body…or she might not. I haven’t decided. I have some room at the bottom of the paper. Then I’ll enlarge to as big as I can (it’s a small space)…and then keep drawing down.

Ironically, we’re not teaching climate change next year…but conservation will still pop up. And it’s hard to get this shit out of my head, even if I’m not teaching it.

I feel much better having that all out of my head, and having one of those shows on the list now decided. Yes, I still have to finish the drawing…but this was an awesome, significant start. That was good. Really good. My to-do list brain can shut up.

*MGMT, Kids

Only Gonna Get What You Give Away*

I think I could just close my eyes and sleep right here at the desk. I think I slept last night (OK, I know I didn’t the night before…I guess it all catches up with you at some point). I don’t feel awake. Quick, get that first cup of tea down the gullet. The eye is gonna twitch until sometime in July. You know that. It happens almost every year. Especially with what I’ve got going.

The plus? Awards are all done and printed for today’s award ceremony. Only one more day of actual teaching, and it’s only three periods. Anyone can survive that. I hate starting the day feeling like I need a nap though. Brain doesn’t want to stop just because it’s midnight…I have to fight it to sleep. Then waking up is immensely painful.

I finished a bunch of stressful work stuff last night and some art management stuff…I have a quilt that needs to be in Massachusetts by July 1 that is currently in Kentucky. So I had to try to figure out the easiest way to get it there, and it wasn’t by shipping it back to California. OK. Figured that out. Then headed out of the office to this piece…which I use to try to ease my brain into NOT working. I did a variety of stitches, fly and French knots mostly, on the left side, in the cretan stitch on the far left…filler stitching really.

IMG_5340 small

There will be no sitting on the couch without animals. This one is particularly annoying at the moment, between the cone and the bad-smelling stuff because she really needs a bath and hasn’t been able to have one because of the healing foot. Plus I can’t persuade the two males to do it.

IMG_5341 small

So then I practiced for summer vacation. Of course, mostly I stared at the paper because I was really tired and totally braindead.

IMG_5342 small

But there’s a start of something there.

IMG_5343 small

I think it took an hour just to do that. And there’s a random line off that arm that needs to be gone. I’ll have to see if I can make something out of it.

I’m not entirely sure what the something is, but it’s pen on paper pulling shit out of my brain, and that’s all I can ask for some days.

The Threads of Resistance catalog is available on Amazon…I have two quilts in the show (one of them is currently in Kentucky in Fantastic Fibers)…one is detailed in the 2nd row, left side on the front cover…

Then one is on the back, 3rd row, third from the left. Yup. That’s a penis. And a uterus. Equal time…

Not that it happens in real time, right?

OK, well I have to go in early and get some stuff done. Ugh. Have to put away all the stuff that can’t be locked up. Thank you district for wanting to have all the beginning-of-year stuff at our school…adds three hours to my packing up and another three to my unpacking in August. It would be nice to just be able to leave it and trust the teachers not to steal crap, but we can’t do that…especially with all the science materials. Oh well. Three more days with kids.

*Sara Bareilles, Bottle It Up

Ready for Me

You know when you’re stressed out and there are things you know will help with like the grinding of the teeth and the flopping around in bed? Obviously exercise is the most healthy of those, but it takes time and often daylight or driving somewhere that you might have a membership for sweating in public. Then there’s the less healthy comfort-food eating (I’ve avoided that so far), the donuts or the cookies or whatever floats your boat. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll follow closely after (well, music anyways, since who knows which will make you happier, and for teachers, alcohol is probably the drug of choice). For me there’s art as well…drawing or sewing or cutting or whatever. Embroidery also…the meditative motion of needle in and out and thread pulling through just as you had planned it. I manage a little bit of that almost every night. Art has been harder for the last two weeks…just too much work and art management (ugh, that horrible thing) going on. It’s getting in the way of my destressing dammit.

I’m getting there though. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel is days away. Meanwhile, in the middle of all that, I’m bidding on copyediting jobs for the summer, trying to make sure the paycheck continues. That’s a whole ‘nother stressball.

Here’s an anti-stressball.

IMG_5207 small

Of course, she’s lying on the gradebook. Not helpful. It’s OK…I did about 3 hours of grading last night and managed to get a chunk done. Not enough, but some.

I did two spiderwebs in a blue/brown that I swear looks like another thread I already used…on the right side in the middle sort of.

IMG_5209 small

Then I numbered…I told myself I would do the piece that had the lowest number of pieces…this is the climate one and she’s only got 398 pieces, compared to the 700+ piece drawing of a few nights ago.

IMG_5210 small

And that’s including this crazy mess. I thought about trying to find the overlaps and continue the pieces, but realized the headache and the problems with stitching through all those layers…so they’re all numbered.

IMG_5211 small

The next one, Desert Daughter, came in at 542 pieces…which surprised me.

IMG_5212 small

It seemed simpler than the other two…but apparently 25 pieces just for a scorpion adds up.

IMG_5213 small

That’s not a flower…it’s a succulent. Lots of green stuff in this one.

IMG_5214 small

So I guess the climate one wins. Of course, when I look at my schedule for the next…well…week? I don’t know when I’ll have time to work on it. But at least I know it’s ready for me.

Well Every Day My Confusion Grows*

Yesterday, after working all day, racing around to try to fix stuff (one of my banks shut down all my accounts last week after some unknown problem with security…unfortunately one account is the one my paycheck deposits into) and mail important stuff and pick up quilts and photos, I was on my way home, negotiating stupid end-of-day traffic, and the need to get OUTSIDE and walk hit me upside the head. Hard. One dog still can’t go out and walk, but the other one, the little one, he needs it. Hell, I need it too. So we walked…

IMG_5188 small

It was good. We went further out than usual and found this weird pipe and bridge…

IMG_5186 small

They REALLY didn’t want us to go over this.

IMG_5183 small

Came back and ate and graded stuff and got really frustrated by the kids who didn’t complete the simplest assignments. Aargh.

Sat on the couch and stitched a bit with these guys…

IMG_5194 small

I did a blue/green lazy daisy above the orange flowers to the right of the hand. I seem to have run out of creativity…keep using the same stitches over and over. Seems like there’s no more stitches.

IMG_5195 small

Very philosophical that. I was fighting off a panic attack of sorts…too much to do, getting irritated by the cat’s tail on the keyboard, annoyed by people and all their crazy shit, putting together a crazy to-do list that keeps me at this heightened state of teeth grinding for at least another week.

Not a good place to be. Manage the shit…best I can. Grades are priority at the moment, but so is my sanity. I’m describing it as a very “intense” part of the school year. True that.

So I eventually managed to get off the couch and start numbering these. Because that’s gonna be part of the decision-making process…how bad are they? I did the 4-square of women first. It’s one of my favorites and will definitely be a quilt some day.

Although maybe not soon, because that sucker has over 700 pieces. And most of them are small.

IMG_5196 small

But it would be fun to do…

IMG_5197 small

Except all the women overlap, so I’d either need a huge run or two separate runs. Definitely doable…

IMG_5198 small

I feel like I should work on something easier…something quicker…to start.

IMG_5199 small

I don’t know why I feel that. Maybe it’s the tension I’m still carrying after a 3-mile hike and a crazy stressful day. Eight days. I swear I can do eight days. I’m just not sure I can finish all the other crap people want me to get done in those eight days. Plus I got my rescheduled jury duty crap, which just annoys me. I’m trying to bid on copyediting jobs and I don’t even know if I’ll have time to do them. Frustrating as hell.

OK. Well. Deep breaths. Meditative positive thinking (well survival thinking anyway, which in my eyes is positive. I WILL survive. And get mostly everything done.).

*New Order, Bizarre Love Triangle

Words Are Very Unnecessary*

It’s Monday. You know how we all feel about Monday. Except there’s some anticipation here…only two more Mondays of school this year. Now that’s stressful because of awards and grades and cleaning the classroom…but in general, it’s a good thing. People keep asking me what I’m doing this summer. I really don’t know. I mean, I need a copyediting job or 17…and I’ll surely make quilts. Plus the boychild claims we’re cleaning the garage. Frightening! I have some quilts I need to do for an art group I’m in…the first of 3 came home with me yesterday, but it’s big enough that it will have to be 2 different pieces for quilting. So it’s not like I have nothing to do. I have too much to do, as always.

I spent some time looking at art and listening to music at Art Around Adams this weekend. We walked the whole 2 miles again, even though we said we wouldn’t after doing it last year. We stopped twice for refreshments this time. I think that helped.

We saw some cool ceramics at Clay Associates…

IMG_5127 small

Made me remember how much I loved to have my hands in clay.

IMG_5129 small

Love the spiderwebs on this guy (he’s been hanging up there a while I guess)…

IMG_5131 small

I always love work by Peter Geise.

IMG_5133 small

He has such an interesting way of looking at things…

IMG_5134 small

This one had quite a few wonderful word combinations…couldn’t decide whether they were band names, quilt names, or the names of future children…Chinchilla Forcefield Mishap seemed particularly good for that one.

IMG_5135 small

I didn’t get the name of this artist, but I know my friend Julie will have it, because she bought one of the smaller pieces.

IMG_5137 small

Ah those eyes…this is one of the painted city boxes.

IMG_5152 small ‘

It was nice to get outside and relax a bit (I didn’t…I was grinding my teeth most of the way, still stressed by school etc.). Sigh. Getting there.

I’ve been doing this every night (or doing three nights in one, like I did Saturday, while watching The Handmaid’s Tale)…

IMG_5157 small

Is it halfway done yet? I’ve noticed a huge dropoff in people posting pictures of their pieces.

Puppy love.

IMG_5161 small

I’m rambling. My brain.

I’m in this show with three pieces, I think. I’ll be at the opening Sunday from 1-3 PM.

IMG_5162 small

I graded, of course. Then I made the huge time commitment (not) to tape these together…still trying to decide which one to work on first. This one still has tiny pieces, even though I enlarged it 300%…

IMG_5169 small

I ran off the paper on this one…

IMG_5170 small

So I added a little piece at the top to do the meteor and then added some on the right so the nuclear power towers could be completed.

IMG_5171 small

It looked weird otherwise. It was bugging me. I leave things for a bit sometimes, hoping it will stop bugging me…but then it doesn’t stop. That’s a sign I should do something to it.

Here’s the third, another in the Earth Daughter series, I guess. I didn’t originally consider a series, but here it is.

IMG_5172 small

People tell me to do all three, but I do actually have stuff I need to do as well…I just can’t deal with those AND with the end of school…so I need a transition piece. That’s all. Time and space to create without all those other pressures. So I’m trying to give myself that…because after the drawing, the rest of the quiltmaking process is pretty easy. It can take time, but the creative input is easier. So there we are. Decisions later…tonight probably.

*Depeche Mode, Enjoy the Silence

I Ran So Far Away*

It’s hard to go through each day with the news the way it is…it’s hard to pick one or two things to focus on in your art, the things you think are the most important, when you’re being bombarded by absolute ignorant stupidity…well, I’m a middle-school teacher, so some days it feels like that too…but some days, the kids’ insights are amazing. I’m not getting that out of the federal government right now…although I’m consistently amazed by local and state governments and rogue entities that show me what America is made of. It’s disheartening though, to see such ignorance tossed up as representative of the country. It’s boggling. I’m teaching my students to question and search for evidence, and their role model can’t even spell or speak coherently.

So last night, after being frustrated by non-scientists trying to explain science, after listening to what other countries were saying about the Paris agreement, after reading the mayor of Pittsburgh’s tweet and hearing all the other mayors standing strong for renewable energy…I couldn’t draw. I swear, I am tired and overwhelmed and I thought about the gun drawing a lot and it will come to me, what I want to say with it. The two I had are not what I want to say. They were what I was thinking when I drew them. I can’t force myself to draw on topic sometimes. I am still so tired, to the point of considering I’m sick and trying to figure out what’s causing it (no other symptoms though). So I went to the copy place (which is now half the size? When did that happen?) and enlarged three of my smaller drawings.

IMG_5101 small

One is about climate change, sort of. One is about women. One is about the desert. I don’t know which I feel like doing right now. I was going to tape them all together last night, but even that was too much for my tired brain, so I went to bed (see, this is why I think I’m sick). I just know that I need to be doing something, so if I start on one of these, start tracing, maybe the rest will come. I mean seriously…there are 10 days of school left and I’m buried in grades and I can’t even think straight about all the shit I’m supposed to be getting done in the next two weeks. Why do I expect Art Brain to save me from that?

I don’t really. I just wish she would. It’s OK. I can spend time with one of these and then look back at the deadlines and figure out what I can do. Only one of them is coming up in the next six weeks…and then the next one is September. That’s doable. Until then, off to school, try to get caught up on grading, get that shit under control, so I can force time for art…remembering that in two weeks, there will be All Day for art (well and cleaning house and garage and doing all the shit I don’t do all year long because I’m a teacher. Fuck.).

*Flock of Seagulls, I Ran (So Far Away)

I Never Did Anything Out of the Blue*

Fuzz brain. Ten-hour days at school don’t help. I’m just trying to give my body a little more sleep than normal. I know a lot of people are getting sick, so I’m trying to keep myself healthy. Making art helps with that, but art brain seems to have wandered off…or she’s still asleep. I pulled out all the art entry information last night, made a list of what was coming up in the next 9 months that I had an interest in, started looking at requirements, sizes, due dates, whether I already had a drawing that would work…one that I actually wanted to make into a quilt. I even considered just picking a smaller drawing and starting to make a quilt, even if it wasn’t going to fit a specific place in the to-do list…just to get me working and jump-started.

I’m still considering that. I have three drawings marked. I need to get them enlarged though. I might do that tonight. Maybe.

I have 5 quilts that need better photography for the solo show, so last night, the boychild and I went through the crazy pile of quilts on the girlchild’s bed (yes…she’s coming home in July. I will have a solution by then.) and found all of them. Well, one was on the wall above my bed, where it’s been for years. But otherwise, all in the pile. I ironed all of them and cleaned them up, ready for the photographer tomorrow…

IMG_5086 small

I think they’ve all been in shows somewhere before…but it was interesting to look at this older quilt and see how I was using color and fewer fabrics back then…and BEADS. Yeah. I love me some beads.

IMG_5087 small

I don’t use them much any more though.

I did some blue/brown variegated cross and herringbone variations on the right side between the light fly stitches, near the red flowers. I wanted to fill in some space.

IMG_5089 small

And then I sat there and looked through the sketchbooks. I knew I had some gun-related stuff in there that never became anything. Looking at the feet and the hands in here, I can see why I didn’t go anywhere with it.

IMG_4846 small

Plus, honestly, just drawing a gun is scary for me. I wasn’t raised around people who shot guns. I don’t like them. I don’t even like fake ones. They just scream out danger and death and pain to me.

IMG_4847 small

So I’m going to have to figure that out if I want to pursue that imagery. Mostly I sat and stared at a blank piece of paper while art brain curled up in a ball.

So I suspect I’ll have to jump start it with something else, something easy and light? Well. I don’t necessarily roll that way either. I have a couple of ideas. We’ll see. Or maybe I’ll come home tonight and the drawing will roll right out of me, right? It could happen.

*David Bowie, Ashes to Ashes