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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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But there’s a start of something there.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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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…

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

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

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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…

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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.

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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.

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But it would be fun to do…

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

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

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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…

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

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

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I always love work by Peter Geise.

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He has such an interesting way of looking at things…

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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.

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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.

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

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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)…

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

Puppy love.

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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.

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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%…

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I ran off the paper on this one…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

I Did What I Could

It’s really early in the morning…it’s even earlier in California. Some Saturday nights, I would still be awake, for whatever reasons. On school nights, I try to pretend I am not as nocturnal as I really am. We’re leaving Athens, Ohio, and Quilt National. As usual, I feel like I should have seen the exhibit one last time, taken more pictures, something. But that was it. I did what I could.

Now we just hope we can make it home easily. Thunderstorms are all over the place…it’s peaceful right now, but it’s not supposed to stay that way.

Yesterday afternoon, we had quiet time. I sat and stitched and then drew. Trying to recharge my brain. I graded nothing. No surprise there. I’ll scramble this week. It’ll happen.

Drawing 1, while a thunderstorm passed over…

Some Sue Spargo, for it’s calming effect…

I managed all three days on this piece, all around the hand…fly and cross stitches…

And drawing 2…

I think I miss pizza.

Quilt National was very abstract this year, lots of channel quilting, very tight and perfect. I joke that I can’t quilt that perfect (it’s true), so that’s why I make the quilts I make. Some of the abstract was loose and free or big and open or detailed and complex. And sometimes talking to the artist made you feel something more about the piece then you did when you first saw it.

I missed seeing Pamela Allen and Paula Kovarik this time…I was here in 2013 with both, but never found a chance to talk to Pamela. They both had work in again this year. I really loved making it to the opening this time though! Even though I missed a San Diego opening, I think the interactions between artists are truly amazing here: people I’ve followed for ages and finally got to talk to in person. That’s the value in coming out.

Well I started writing this at 5 AM in Athens. Then we drove to Columbus and that’s where I’m sitting now, waiting for my plane. Hoping for trouble-free travel. Looking forward to my own bed and normal water pressure in the shower and a non-sticky floor…plus hopefully some mental space to process what I saw and heard.

I See the Bright and Hollow Sky*

I woke up this morning and a terrorist group had taken responsibility for bombing concertgoers. I still live in this world, where hate makes this acceptable, where this is not the first or last time this will happen. I woke up this morning and DeVos had released Trump’s education budget (because you know she didn’t write that thing…she didn’t have a pencil)…and not only are my students hit hard, because I teach in a Title I school, a school where poverty is everywhere…but my own children, needing to pay back federal loans for college, are now going to get hit harder…and me too, in helping them. I’ve seen a few (ignorant) friends say that if the teacher unions are against DeVos, that must mean she’s a good thing. I can guarantee you that all their children go to those rich white schools where immigrants and refugees are few and far between. They certainly aren’t showing any sort of empathy to humanity.

I think that’s the problem…no empathy. And being so sure your way is right, without any exposure to other. I’m not sure why we think that’s OK. It’s not. It can’t be.

This world. It pains me. I make art in response, sure, but it doesn’t stop the shit we keep seeing, the bad behavior, the crazy talk.

Last night, before I saw all that, I tried out a couple of backgrounds before I ironed her down…

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I always lean toward the dark…

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Then I started the stitch down…

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I finished watching 13 Reasons Why…it was hard to watch.

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In the first few episodes, listening to Hannah speak, I didn’t have much empathy for her…because as a middle-school teacher, all I could think about were the kids who would think a revenge suicide where you blame everyone else for your decisions would be a bad plan, that they wouldn’t have the fully developed frontal lobes for seeing the bigger deeper picture. As the show progressed, though, I could see how her brain processed (and again, I’m not sure my students would) and remembered lots of the shit from high school, which is now just exacerbated by the existence of the internet. Negotiating that is huge. There is no safe space…not at home, not anywhere. And they can’t see the future…they don’t have enough life experience to know you can get up and get past. Because most of us do. And we sit there and want to yell and hit at Bryce for her, want her to get out of the bathtub after the first cut and go find a phone, but none of that happens.

So I kept on making art. Because sometimes that’s all I can do. It’s gotten me through some intensely bad times in my life. And I’m still alive, so it works.

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After stitch down, I layered it with the interfacing we’re using on this quilt…

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This is for a larger quilt that will be in a show in July. So I started outlining…

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I didn’t quite finish, because I needed to sleep…

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But I got mostly done. And I have no idea what I’m working on next.

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I drew during my staff meeting…

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I met this snake on the way home…pretty sure it’s a gopher snake.

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Conversation with the boychild…

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At least he has a sense of humor about it. He’s coming home today. I spent time yesterday cleaning his room, putting his bed back together, and trying to persuade my vacuum not to die. Now I’m going to go to school and talk my way through menstruation and sperm production. Fun stuff.

*Iggy Pop, The Passenger

Watching in a Trance*

I had been distinctly NOT thinking about the next piece that needed doing. It was too broad a topic, like all the crap going on in my head and in the news anyway, so it’s not like I could consciously process it properly. Once I got confirmation that the block could be horizontal or vertical (I wanted vertical), even then, I didn’t think about what to put on the block. I let myself get through the work day, then dinner, and then finally stood up and looked at the blank paper I’d mapped out yesterday…just a rectangle that was the right size.

I figured it would take me a while, and I was pretty tired, so I wasn’t expecting much.

I was wrong. I think it took a whopping 30 seconds before I saw the hand in front of her mouth…and then another on her breast, well and then there’s the pussy, of course.

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I did start with a rough pencil sketch on this one. I usually don’t, but I wanted the proportions to work out OK…plus it’s easier to know where the stuff is going before you draw the stuff behind.

Once I had the body in generally with the hands, I filled in the rest.

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The whole time, I kept saying “Keep it Simple” because I know my deadline is only 19 days away. Yeah. I know. But it’s small and I kept it simple. Ish. Only 290 pieces. I had to keep telling myself to stop drawing detail. It’s not in my nature.

It took me about two hours to draw it…maybe.

And then I numbered it. The face is a little crazy, but it really is more simplified than what I normally do. Two pieces for the hair? Never happens.

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Tonight will be busy, but I’m hoping to have the energy to start tracing it. I basically have two weekends, because I’m going to Quilt National the following weekend. Just a little crazy shit going on here. Nothing new.

It’s teacher appreciation week…one of my students was a sweetheart and brought me lunch…

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It was good.

I did do this before I did all that drawing…the hand that will never be finished.

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Midnight watched. Then apparently at some point, she went and puked on my bed. Nice cat.

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The calico did whack me, by the way…while I was doing this. My Tivo is old and occasionally has massive brain farts and only records 1 minute of all my shows with now notification. So sometimes I have to find them on the computer instead. So I worked on this for a bit…outlining the tree bits.

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Wool stitching is so relaxing. Really. It is.

So both dogs are coned at the moment due to foot-licking activity. Probably both had foxtails involved, but I am assured that Calli’s is out (I don’t know that I agree, but whatever)…and I couldn’t find anything on Simba. But with cones, they are very sad dogs.

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Very sad. I am a horrible dog mom.

State testing starts today, so it’s a minimum day from hell with the kids and then meetings until like 6 PM. Woo hoo! And then book club…I’ve read the book, so that’s a plus. I don’t always make it to book club because of all the crap that comes before, but I’m going to try…I need the socialization. But hopefully after that, I’ll be able to stand and trace stuff. We’ll see.

*Peter Schilling, Major Tom