Lots of Pieces…

Rain does one good thing for us, besides soak the ground and fill the reservoirs (I guess those are pretty good things)…it makes us stay indoors. Now honestly, on breaks, I’m kind of a hermit anyway. At some point, I don’t want to leave the house at all, because there is art to be made. And lots of it! So I do that. And I like it. Even if the weather is lovely out…which it’s not.

I have a leak in the roof…it’s been dripping very slowly through a light fixture (ever so safe, water and electricity). I suspect half of Southern California has a leak in their roof at the moment, honestly. Luckily it’s over a tile floor in a relatively unoccupied section of the house, so I’m politely ignoring it and hoping I can deal with it later…because accessing that section of the attic means pulling my studio apart. Not thinking about that. Might think about it tomorrow.

Otherwise, we’ve had 2.6″ of rain where I live…I’m such a weather geek that I have a website linked to a local weather-info-gathering station about a mile away.

And yes, in Seattle (which was sunny yesterday), this is nothing. But our annual rainfall has been as low as 3.3 inches before…our annual is somewhere around 9″/year. So getting almost that in 2 days? Roads underwater, rivers running through sidewalks, standing water everywhere. Plus no one knows how to drive in it, so when girlchild’s friend asked her to come over yesterday in the worst of it? I said nope. No. Not driving anywhere right now. Sure enough, people had to be pulled out of cars etc.

A damn good excuse to stay home and sew, if you ask me…although I did do a lot of grading too. But that’s just a survival thing. I’ll do it again today. I finished grading another assignment…and one class worth of the big unit that they turned in…just two more classes of those. I’ll do one today and one tomorrow. When I finish that one, I only have 3 assignments left to grade, and one is posters that three kids worked on, so do the math…I only have about 50 of those to grade instead of 155. Not that everyone turns in their assignments anyway. I should probably knuckle down and finish the torturous one that I did one class’ worth and then quit. Sigh.

Anyway, besides grading, I finished the drawing for the next quilt. Now this is for a deadline that I may very well not make. But I’m going to try. So it has to be within a certain size…easy enough for me to do. It needs to be a smaller quilt so I can get it done in time, right? I start the drawing…y’all have seen the headless woman with way too many arms…and then I added more.

She has 10 arms total and 3 heads (way more than anyone really needs). Each hand has an object associated with it as well.

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The drawing is about 30″ wide by 42″ high, so a finished size of maybe 40×50″? Same as the last one basically.

And I know I have about 7 weeks to finish it. With a major installation and school starting back up and grades due. But there are three 3-day weekends in there! It might not matter. I did finish one quilt in just under 6 weeks during school (well, with Thanksgiving and Winter breaks, so not really just school)…but I think it had a lot fewer pieces. Because I numbered it last night. And I was a very bad girl. I drew a LOT of pieces. As I was doing it, I was thinking to myself…that’s a LOT of pieces, Kathryn. But I did it anyway. Because it asked for them.

OK, the one I did in 6 weeks was 768 pieces…this one is 980. Big-eyed stare. OK. I own that. And I will figure it out. Either it will get done on time or it won’t.

I am one step closer to that happening though. Tracing Wonder Under tonight? Maybe.

Most of the afternoon, I spent piecing blocks for a baby quilt…

I was given the colors…cheated a bit with the one on top. Oh well!

I don’t make baby quilts often, and I always use the same pattern.

It took about 2 1/2 hours to make 20 blocks, and that’s because I was being careful, not fast.

I don’t piece particularly accurately unless I pay really close attention. Now I can lay them out…although I might wait until my parents’ dog is gone again. It’s hard enough to keep the cats off it. It usually takes about 5-6 hours for me to do one of these. Not hard. And it’s for a good person. Hopefully the baby won’t be too early, because I think she’s due in less than three weeks. It’s OK! I got this.

The post-it with tasks on it did not get much crossed off yesterday, mostly because what’s on there is huge things like “fix bookshelf” and “prep Grossmont show.” Which I really should start to do today. Like now. Except I need to grade too. AARGH. Too much. I got a lot done yesterday…and it still feels overwhelming today. Gotta work on that…the FEELING. Because the lots-of-stuff-to-do? That never goes away.

More Do

There’s a day during vacation (and this really isn’t a vacation, people…it’s way too stressful) when you realize you have to go back to work at some point and you have 700 things that still aren’t done. Yesterday was that day. Actually, it kind of feels like Every Single Day of Winter Break has been like that, where I’ve looked at the calendar and tried to parcel stuff out amongst the days and completely failed. I actually went old school yesterday and wrote the to-do list on a post-it. And then crossed stuff off as I finished it. But every time I walked past it, I wrote more stuff on it, and that’s just not helpful. I crossed off 4 things yesterday. I worked on three others, but didn’t finish them, so I can’t cross them off. And I did three or four other things that weren’t on there, but I should retroactively put them on there so I can cross them off, right? Sigh. Sigh!

Meanwhile, all of San Diego is underwater. I did manage to do my driving errands yesterday in non-rain hours (it happened)…well, except for groceries, which were flood-level hours, and that was just in the parking lot. Today is supposed to be worse (I should probably check on the garage…it gets wet in rain). I did sweep leaves out of a drain that wasn’t…well…draining…and in fact, it needs to be done again (I can see that one from this chair). Haven’t seen any roof leaks, so that’s good…it’s a relatively new roof. But it gets gloomy and cold, and I don’t want to run the heating and turn all the lights on unless I have to…too much money. So I rummaged through the firewood and started a fire around 3 PM that (due to the monster-sized pieces of wood from trees that have fallen on my property) kept going until well after midnight. And warmed up that part of the house and looked nice as well.

Artwise, I didn’t finish the binding. Dammit, I need to email the photographer (write it on the list). There are 15 things on the list for today. I need kid assistance on some of them. Artwise, I cut and taped the headless drawing and then started working on it…this was the after-3PM activity, with dinnermaking and some grading tossed in for variety.

So I knew I wanted to add some width, although not a lot, to this drawing, and it definitely needed a head, so some height. Maybe more than one head. She’s already got 6 arms. Again Kali is where I started…I always think of moms as Kali, many-limbed destructive forces, but still earth-mother-like. Earth Mother doesn’t always have to be nice. Nature isn’t always nice. And that’s kind of where I stopped drawing Kali and started drawing something more in the mom range. We do many things, multitask (have post-its with too many things on them), and yet we’re juggling all those things in a not-so-healthy way sometimes. I read somewhere this morning about the purpose of marriage (or partnership) not being all the religious, societal stuff, but just to have a partner to help with all the crap in life. You aren’t the ONLY one emptying the dishwasher and cooking the food. You have help.

Oh My Lord. And there it is. Because I think that’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve spent years without it honestly, even with grown-up kids (they’re gone a lot), so many tasks have to be managed or directed or whatever. And I’m so tired of that. Just walk in the house and do what needs to be done. Someone walk in and fix the stuff I don’t have time to do…take a look at that post-it and cross something off of it (because you did it…not because you’re being a smartass).

Anyway. So I added paper to the sides and the top.

Then I started adding arms and a head…I did start with pencil at one point…just to make sure I didn’t screw it up too badly at this stage, although I’ve cut off the additional drawing before and started over, so that’s always an option.

And I kept going. There’s a lot of time spent staring into space or at the blank parts of the drawing, figuring out what fits there. I remember one college painting professor getting mad at me because I don’t draw all those iterations…I do them in my head. He wanted 30 or 40 sketches for each painting. I did one or two. And then argued with him about the waste of time to put them all on paper. They were in my head. He said I wouldn’t be able to do that forever. Well. OK. Maybe so. But I’m still doing it now.

So that tree took a while to appear. I am timing this part of the drawing process…

I don’t usually keep track of the time I take doing drawings in the sketchbook, but I do on the enlarged drawings because it’s usually the harder part, and I like to know how long it takes. HOURS. It takes hours.

And at some point, my brain craps out and stops looking. Hence the liquid paper on the left arm and thumb. Walked away after that.

Granted, it was late. I’d been drawing (well, or thinking about drawing) for an hour and 20 minutes. At some point, it’s diminishing returns. I’ll finish today. And number it. And then figure out a schedule. Can’t really do that without a piece count. This one will be tight. I might not make the deadline. But the quilt will still be a good thing. So I’ll do it anyway. And I already have one in line behind it. Aack!

Because of the cold rainy day and the fire in the fireplace, I had cats…

Any time I sat on the couch, there they were. In fact, Kitten is sitting on the quilt that needs its binding done. You can tell I grade here too, right? Notebook, 17 colors of pens (I might as well enjoy the grading with pen color choices, right?), piles of papers. Ugh. Need to do more of that this morning. In fact, it’s the next thing on my list unfortunately. Which is why I’m still writing. Procrastination.

View of the driveway during some of the worst of it.

It’s a giant pool of water. Yes, I know it rains where you are…but like I said yesterday, when we get our average annual rainfall in one week, we all freak out. Strangely, it’s sunny right now. It wasn’t 10 minutes ago…it was raining. But there’s another inch and a half coming in the next 24 hours…after flash-flood warnings yesterday. So if I had errands that needed driving, now would be the time…except I’m missing the kids, and they’re the ones I need to errand with today. Ugh.

OK, grade, draw, cut, organize, prep. Those are the things I need to do today. Less worry. More do.

Not Ready…

And there isn’t even a major holiday for me to be not ready for…

I did not reach my goal of having the binding on the quilt yesterday. I ran out of time. Now I could have blown off all social engagements (which would have included dinner and cake with my son for his 20th birthday), but I remembered I was a human and went and did ALL the things, and now I am about to go to school for professional development, so it’s early and I’m tired and I’m not quilting. I could have quilted last night, but I got home relatively late from a stitching thing and potluck that was fun and nice, so I vegged around on the couch (yes! I do that!) and then went to bed with a cat, a dog, and a book. Maybe tonight. I hope. I really only have about an hour of quilting left, around the very edges. Then I need to trim it and bind it. I also copied the next one, but it needs more drawing. Luckily, San Diego is getting rained on for days, which just reinforces my hermitlike tendencies, so I can get stuff done. But also…baby quilt, figure out what’s going in the Grossmont show and prep all of them (iron, dehair, hardware), and grade stuff. So not a stress-free relaxing week. It’s possible that I don’t know how to do those. I admit it.

I did get my holiday photo of kids and animals…

Calli refusing to look at me, both cats pissed off, and boychild refusing to smile. Oh well. Nothing new. Actually, he used to smile in the past. Kitten being reluctantly held by boychild and Midnight looking like a black blob being held by girlchild.

And then girlchild with her dog…who just went in the pool even though it’s cold and raining…

That dog drives me nuts. Notice Midnight trying to get into the photo on the right.

So that’s done. And the tree is divested of its ornaments and just needs sawing in half, which we decided against doing in the dark at 11 PM last night (but only barely). Because once Christmas is down, you just want everything put away as quickly as possible.

Anyway. So back to the goals…because if I can keep them clear in my head, I can maybe achieve some of them. Finish bathtub quilt in the next day or so…quilt and trim tonight? Maybe get binding on depending on exhaustion/frustration level (I really should grade stuff). Tape together enlarged drawing for next quilt (which has to be done very quickly, so remember that as you’re doing the rest of the drawing). Finish drawing it. Number and start tracing onto Wonder Under…OK, here’s the problem with that. I was going to use the light table to pile quilts that were prepped for Grossmont. Rethink that plan. I can’t wait to start tracing until after I install on the 18th. Stack quilts in office until done with Wonder Under? Yikes. Keep thinking. Has to be somewhere the dog can’t lie on it. The cats are going to be a whole ‘nother management level. Start baby quilt. Baby is officially due in like um dammit, I don’t have a 2016 calendar next to my computer like I always do so I don’t have to pull up an electronic calendar (I’m a visual person…it needs to be Right There). I was using the My Owl Barn artists calendar, but they don’t seem to have done one this year, so I will need to be more creative later. Not now. I think I have 3 weeks and a bit before baby is due. Almost 4 weeks. No problem. I should start cutting this week though.

See how vacation is eaten up? Yeah. Me too. OK, off to work in the rain. Not ready. Ugh.

It’s OK. I Have a Plan…

Hello 2016. It’s nice to see you. You are bright blue skies and slightly warmer weather. You are currently quiet and peaceful (except for that crazy kitten racing down the hallways chirping at me) and I think you will be a good year. My biggest challenge for the year…at least right now…is money. And balance. It’s always balance though. The art brain wants more time. It always does.

With that, here are the 25 quilts of 2015…

Oh yeah baby. Nice job. Five major pieces, one freakishly long lady, three smaller works, and a host of small pieces for sale…still working on that part. One commission as well. And one ready to be finished hopefully in the next 4 or 5 days. You gotta love starting off the new year with a finish.

I already have plans for the new year of quilts…I have one I started drawing last night (more on that later) that has to be finished next. Then I have a plan for the next one, a la Earth Mother. And I’m hoping for a big one over the summer, like always. I don’t know if I’ll keep doing the smaller ones for sale. I’m going to toss them on Etsy and see how they do. I don’t want to waste time on them if they won’t bring in some extra money. But I’ll consider doing some smaller ones that are more Kathy style and see how those do. I have a lot of drawings I copied last year that I want to try…so this is the year, I guess.

Next week, I’ll be picking the work that will go in the Grossmont show…ironically, most of what’s in that collage up there can’t go to that show because it’s already promised out or traveling. But I have plenty.

So back to the drawing. I didn’t draw much in 2015. There were reasons for that, but I’m hoping to get past those this year. I’ve been working on it. So a week or so ago, I started this one based on those muses I posted earlier in December.

I’m redoing this. I don’t like the proportions on the middle female. And yeah, I’ll have to enlarge and then add legs once I’ve enlarged. But it’s a start.

But I know I have another deadline coming up and I wanted to work on that one last night. On New Year’s Eve, I like to ring it in with artmaking in mind…so I’ll either be quilting or picking fabric or drawing or something. I was watching science fiction (Ex Machina and then The Zero Theorem), but I had this idea with Kali, the Hindu goddess with all the extra limbs. I had read up on her, but didn’t want to just draw another Kali…and I’ve done multi-limbed women before.

This is another one that will need enlarging so I can add all the stuff that goes beyond the arms…remembering that the max width is 40″ (ha!).

No problemo. I can do that. It’s more detail than I wanted, and there’s another set of arms…or two more sets. I haven’t decided. In fact, I might just go copy it today like this so I can draw the rest at full size. Maybe. Enlarge 200%? That’s 28″ wide right there. Gives me about 10″ to play with. That’s plenty! (The part of my brain that draws is excited. The part that makes the quilts happen is a little nervous.) So a trip to the copy place today. And the grocery store for the boychild’s cake ingredients. Plus some grading. And a ton of quilting…because I didn’t do much yesterday…

I started…

I’m most of the way around the outside edge, but I really should have done the bird while I was there and I forgot. Whoops. And there’s a shitload more quilting to do.

It’s OK. I have a plan. Sort of. Balance? Yeah. Working on it.

Bathtubs

I finally made it to the best part of making the quilt. Well, besides the drawing. I love the drawing part, but I usually make quilts a really long time after I’ve drawn them, so that’s a totally separate endeavor in my head. My favorite part of making the quilt is ironing it together. I don’t make a master colored drawing, so I never really know what it will look like until it’s all ironed together. It’s all in my head up until then. My head’s a big place, apparently, with lots of colored drawings in it. And undrawn drawings. And piles of worry. I did try drawing last night, but I’ll need a redo. It’s OK…it’s a process…especially if I haven’t drawn for a while. I can get a little rusty. It’s harder to get what’s in my head out on paper. But it’s coming. Today I think.

Anyway, so you’ll see the not-so-good drawing and then the better one…I promise you. I hide nothing. Well, almost nothing. I’ve hidden how many cookies I’ve eaten in the last five days. But who needs grocery shopping? We have cookies! Breakfast lunch and dinner, there’s cookies. Yeah. I know. Whatever.

So I started ironing yesterday, just like I planned…I didn’t get far.

OK, I got a little further than this…started on the rug on the right side. But it was a good start. A pile of books, some scissors, some embroidery thread, and a hoop. Because yes, that’s what I have hanging around my bathtub. Just to clarify, I don’t have a free-standing bathtub like this. At all. I don’t even know if I’d like one. I do love baths but don’t take them often because the kids’ bathtub is not particularly comfortable. And cats like to walk the edges. Well, not all cats…just Midnight. And she’s a big ~~fat~~ fluffy cat, and occasionally she falls in. So that frightens me. Well, and taking a bath is such a thing…I used to do it in the old house all the time, especially pregnant. Soaking in warm water. It sounds quite nice at the moment, but I don’t have time. Maybe that’s part of what this series is about…taking the time to soak in the tub with all your things around you, populating the room. Yes, I am admitting now that I didn’t think out this series before I started drawing. Yup. That’s pretty much how I always work. Just start drawing. Sometimes there’s an idea or a spark or a phrase or a theme, but the bathtubs came out of nowhere. That thing I used to do to relax. Hmn.

Anyway, I’m hoping to iron for 4 or 5 hours today. Isn’t that what I said yesterday? Can’t remember. Yup. But I also said iron a few hours yesterday and that turned into about 45 minutes, because it took longer to pack stuff up to ship, and then I finally FINALLY finished the Christmas letter (it’s OK, I titled it Holiday Letter, and it’s still the fucking holidays, so get off my back) and printed it, and now all I have to do is address all the envelopes and put stamps on them and decide if the kids should sign them, and yes, it would have been smart to sign the original before I copied it, but here’s one OTHER thing I decided…sometime between now and the start of the next school year (that’s 8 months from now-ish), I’m buying a new color printer, because mine is crap. It’s seriously older than my divorce and it won’t print color for shit…and I’m done with it. So there. Maybe even in a combo with a scanner so I can get rid of that beast as well. Maybe. I have a small space in here. Because that would be cheaper than copying the letter elsewhere, plus I print color stuff for school sometimes.

So. I did that and I moved money for college, and that’s where my head went down a giant financial rabbit hole, because that’s a whole shitload of money I need to make in the next 5 months. OK. So there it is. I need an extra 1-2 K a month. Deep breaths. I can do this. Probably not if I spend a bunch of time in a bathtub.

Really it’s much better to deal with the short-term goals for today: shower (always a good plan), grocery store (for something besides cookies), clean up a little, maybe even start pulling quilts for the exhibit before I put everything away in my room, and then iron. I’m even going to grade some shit. Seriously. I am.

Bathtubs though. I’m thinking a big deep white bathtub somewhere in the house (is the boychild coming back this summer?). Or maybe just in my head. For now.

Making a Gift

I occasionally make quilts as gifts…I sometimes get hints from people that they’d like a quilt, but often that’s just not an option for me…whether I don’t have an idea for them or because my larger quilts are pretty significantly time-consuming. You’ve got to be a fairly important person in my life to have one of those, and it might be even more difficult now, because I did give one of my big ones away and now I wish I hadn’t. It’s hard to think about one of my babies out there where I don’t think they deserve to be…but that’s life. I don’t mind selling them…that’s a fulfilling transaction. But if I give you a $2000 quilt, hell, you better deserve it. That’s months of work.

Anyway, so I made one gift quilt this year. I was making those cats and realized someone I cared about would probably like a quilt of his cat…so I took some pictures of Satchemo’s squished little face…

He has a tiny nose and kind of a grumpy cat facial structure. These pictures were dark too, and I realized I had no full-body pictures, so I trolled Facebook to find this one…

Perfect for his body coloring and how he curls up. Then I spent about an hour trying to draw him…the first few weren’t quite right, but then I got his face right, traced it, and added it to a better body shape.

So if you’re wondering if I could make a quilt of your cat…well, probably. Because if you had a perfect picture, that would be awesome, but obviously I can take one cool picture (the sink one) and mess with it to make a straight-on quilt. Although maybe I should have done the sink too. Except then there was no way I would have finished it in time.

Tracing the Wonder Under…

That’s all of it…

And then cutting it out…

Satch has 40 pieces, so more than most of the small cat quilts I did earlier this year. Some stages of the quilt took longer than with other quilts, because I wanted to make sure the quilt looked like its namesake. So color choice and drawing were kind of time-consuming. I’ve found that people like the quilts to be in the $100 range, but with the style of quilt I make, that’s really difficult. That’s about 3-4 hours of work, not counting materials, and I make these in more like 5 or 6 hours. And yes, I know people who would work on something for 10 hours and charge $100. I won’t. I work hard to put my kids through school and keep my head above water (most of the time). I’m not working for $10/hour, because my 25 years of quilting experience has to pay better than that.

I had the sink photo up for the body fabrics on my iPad. The face photo was up earlier. The grays are always a challenge.

Here they are all ironed down. I thought his back end was too dark until I saw him sitting there again. He really is darker in back.

It didn’t take long to trim the pieces…although now I’ve lost my little scissors. No idea where they went…and that’s the second pair gone missing. I need to do a deep clean. There’s gotta be 50 pairs of scissors in this house.

Ironing is the next step…I did the head separate to make sure it all went together well…

Before I put it on the body. Faces are important. If it’s human, I iron the eyes together separately and then put them on the face, to make sure they’re not horrendously crooked.

Then to pick a background…can’t be too dark, because of the dark parts. Can’t be too gray or too light, because the lights won’t show. Has to be a color and pattern that isn’t too busy.

I finally found one…mostly blue with some green in it. Then I stitched it down and pinbasted it. Starting quilting with a dark thread around the cat itself.

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Then found the thread for the background, except it wasn’t anywhere near a full spool. Oh well. It’s a small quilt, right?

Oh yeah, I ran out. Oh well. I did a fairly good job of quilting evenly around it before that happened.

It does change colors in different light.

Then yesterday, in between cookie-baking, I trimmed and bound it…

Finishing the hand-sewing about 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave to meet the recipient (it’s OK, I had a backup plan).

I forgot to measure it though. I can do that later. But here’s the finished piece.

Satchemo took about 6 1/2 hours to make, not counting drawing time…in a commission, I would count that…legitimately. I think he looks like his namesake. That cat spends a lot of time on my lap, clawing the crap out of my thighs and/or boobs, so I’m prettty familiar with his face. And he was the 25th quilt I finished in 2015. I’m unlikely to finish another one by January 1, so I guess he’s the last quilt in 2015. Not bad. Now on to the next one…

There’s a Line

So apparently I was done with school last night, because I came home and made art for three hours instead of working. It’s unfortunate that I have to go back for two more days, but whatever. Certainly the headache that started yesterday morning is notice that I need some time off. Or it’s the weather. Or that crick in my neck. My chiropractor says I should get regular massages. Um. OK. But those cost money. It sounds lovely and all, but…I can pay for college or pay for massages. Suspect my kids would prefer the former. Speaking of kids, both bedrooms are clean and vacuumed and one kid comes home late tonight and the other, the girl, tomorrow. Her roomies will miss her greatly of course, because they will only be able to read her mom’s blog and not have the fun of harassing her. I’m being stalked by her roomies…it’s OK, I stalk them on Facebook and Instagram…and as soon as they send me photos, I’d be glad to make a giant-ass nude quilt of them, a la Botticelli? The Three Graces?

Or if they’ve been eating too much junk food, it might be a la Rubens? A sign of wealth, all that chub…

Or my favorite for simplicity (aka fewer drapey lacy fabric bits), Raphael’s Three Graces. The girlchild gets the butt view…y’all can fight over left or right.

Actually. That would be a cool idea. I did Crone/Mother/Maiden already. The apple thing is stupid though…are those even apples? They should be brains or heads or eyeballs. Seriously ladies, I think I’m doing this drawing. Good thing I have your photos off the web.

OK, enough crazy. I finished the fucking wine glass…it only took 11 fabrics. Here I was trying to decide about the color of wine. Red is often easier to do in fabric, but the glass is right next to the heart and I didn’t want to compete with that.

Now I don’t remember what color the wine bottle was. Oh well. The quilt doesn’t have to pass a logic test. Certainly I’ve put screwier mess-ups in my quilts before.

I used a whopping 102 fabrics…for a quilt this size, that’s a lot. Don’t know what to say about it, except that’s what happened. Some of it is because I took so long to work on it, I think…

The more stretched out the time in between picking stuff, the more I forget about what’s actually in there. When I was sorting the fabrics out by color for that photo, there were a couple that I didn’t remember using. I also had some fussy moments with the blues in the end because stuff I thought matched before didn’t seem to match now. OK then. Eleven hours and 24 minutes of ironing for only 770-some pieces. I started Dec 6 and finished on the 16. Not super fast. Eight days of actual working on it…most less than 2 hours at a time.

Bathtub 2 only took 4 hours to trim the fabrics. I’m already 4 hours into this one. I started on the 10th, but haven’t been doing it regularly.

Here was the pile I started with…

By the end of the evening, I was working slowly through it. There’s a few more hours of cutting there, to say the least.

Wish I could take it to school and just get it done, but I need to be grading stuff still. I have 8 assignments to grade, including the one due today and the three due tomorrow. Some are easier and less time-consuming than others. I’ll probably have to come by school on Sunday to clean my room up for the custodian and work crews, but also to pick up all of Unit 3. Ugh.

Looking forward to doing some drawing and ironing a quilt together, and even making a baby quilt, and a few things for Christmas, plus seeing my kids and not having to see the other kids (the ones I teach) for a while. Not looking forward to grading stuff and cleaning, which needs doing…my dad finally got the shelves up that have taken so much time and energy on all of our parts, thanking him for that, but now I have to get my act together and put stuff on them, which means going through stuff that’s been packed up for a year and a half. Obviously desperately important stuff. Not putting the CDs back up there.

I really do want to draw that three graces thing now. You can totally see me making that quilt, can’t you. Huh. Wonder what it will bump in line…because yeah, there’s a line.

It’s Time to Get Out of Here…

I made no art in the last 36 hours. I did nothing except some social stuff and grade crap. I went through three weeks of emails from students and Google Classroom, searching out all the last-minute work kids have been throwing at me. On Friday, I got through most of the F counseling, but there is very little change in grades so far. I will have to clarify that handing me stuff on Wednesday, when I have already printed out the list of special students who need additional work to prove they know what I have been teaching since August, well it will be too late.

It makes my neck and shoulders tight. It makes me grind my teeth. I’m going out to about 5 art openings tonight to make up for it. Of course, it’s dark and bloody freezing out there, and I don’t have my regular gallery companion with me tonight, so it will be a little weird. But I need to get my head out of my job for a bit. Because tomorrow I am going back to the endless grading and checking Google Classroom for their late assignments. (Dear Google…)

And hopefully I will be ironing tomorrow as well. Although my day is already looking semi-crazy. As always. The week before break just kicks my ass on a regular basis.

I don’t even have a picture for you. Hang on…

I was cleaning out the last of the stuff that was in the boychild’s room. I found some screenprinting drawings and mockups from probably the early 1990s…I think at some point I was considering making them into quilts…this one used to hang in the house somewhere…

dated 1994. Can’t remember the name…

And this one…this one started out as a Sharpie drawing on a 4×8′ piece of plywood that was partially painted in enamels (cuz that’s not crazy enough) and then I got rid of that, because it got termites. That painting was started in college. And then I drew it smaller and screenprinted it. This is the color mockup for the print…

You can see all the colors I was going to use on the left. This did get printed and hangs in my laundry room. It would make an interesting quilt. But you can see that I’ve always been a bit weird and the Christmas lights were in even then. The original was probably done in 1988 or 1989. It might even have been 1986. Actually, I just looked in the laundry room and it’s not hanging there. Not sure when that happened.

Well, and that explains the last ten years of my brain right there. Art openings it is. Now. It’s time to get out of here.

Desperately Grading Papers…But Home…

I think that’s the longest blogging break I’ve taken in a while. I managed to blog the second day I was in Seattle, but not after that. It was a little busy, and honestly, any time I had with the computer, I was desperately grading papers…which I’m still doing, unfortunately. It’s all so time-consuming. I even graded in the airport yesterday while waiting to board the flight. I have a ton of pictures, but culled them down of course. And I just got off the phone with my bank, because my debit card number was stolen…but they declined the over $500 at a GameStop in Chula Vista. Little fuckers.

Anyway, guess banks are better at catching the liars now. I’m glad. Because I had to pay college and didn’t need them rampaging through my already troubled checking account right before Xmas.

So I went to Seattle to have Thanksgiving with my brother’s family and my parents. I haven’t seen them in almost two years, so it was nice to be up there, despite the noise and argumentation levels. It made coming back to my quiet lonely house quite a relief…how ironic. I’m sure I’ll be tired of that by Monday, but last night, it was pure bliss. Except for the grading part. And the headbutting needy cats. And I must not have gotten enough sleep, because getting up this morning was extremely prolonged and somewhat painful.

Anyway, I guess this is like a photo essay of the holiday…well, actually, the first batch are my own kids. I flew girlchild to boychild in Ithaca and she cooked for him. I couldn’t afford to fly them both home for 4 days, and they’ll be home in 3 weeks anyway.

I miss the little bastards. Despite their obnoxiousness…

It snowed a bit in New York before she got there…

Yeah. So she’s back in Boston now at someone else’s Thanksgiving and he’s reveling in the silence. They hiked and went to an art museum and who knows what else. She made a decent Tday dinner.

Meanwhile, her mom did Seattle…here’s the middle cousin, my nephew…

We spent a few hours at a car museum…not my favorite, but I survived. I have about 700 pictures of grills and hood ornaments. I don’t know why.

We ate here. My bro and I are expert yelpers. It was good. And close to that car museum…

Plus around the corner from this cool bookstore where I could have bought everything on my Goodreads to-read list. If I’d had a million dollars. I bought one. There’s my mom, resting…

We came back and made stuffing and a Brussels sprout salad…two piles? Yeah, I did one and my SIL did the other.

Then we made mom over. OK, that’s a wig, but I don’t think it looks bad on her. She might consider a hairstyle/color change…

Then Thanksgiving morning was kickball in the mud, kids against adults. I should have stretched before that…

Mud yep. I brought some of that mud back with me in my suitcase. (p.s. do laundry)

Then we did Thanksgiving at my cousin’s house, whom I haven’t seen since she was a teenager. Now she’s married with 4 kids. Yeah, so that was interesting. They’re nice. There were a lot of kids. I had a long conversation with a Mormon feminist. It was interesting…didn’t I say that? It’s gotta be harder to be a Mormon feminist than an atheist feminist, that’s for sure. A good chunk of my family is Mormon, in case you didn’t know. It’s made for an interesting childhood.

Then on the airplane home, I did draw…

I kinda love that line. I knew exactly what it was going to be…

I was reading a book about dragons who can change into human form when it’s useful to them.

I did this drawing first…

I’m sure the people next to me were a little confused, but hey, they didn’t talk to me. So that was good.

Then I got home and made some food and sat on the couch and graded more stuff, mostly trying to finish out what I had done on the computer in Seattle. I still have 700 tons of grading to do…it’s not even funny. There are four piles the size of the one on the coffee table of science units that need grading. Then there’s the pile of tests on the right, on top of my work bag. Then on the couch, there’s the pile of warmups under the notebook. I did all the ones online in the Seattle airport, but some kids prefer paper, so those aren’t done…four more periods of those. The piles on the far left of the couch are all done. So it’s not like I didn’t do a ton. But there’s a bunch on Google Classroom too.

But I don’t think I can handle any of that today. I need to run some errands and hang out and be human and sociable with adults who aren’t stressed out. It was fun but exhausting. Thanksgiving is always a bit of that. I’m OK to be back where no one argues with me (until I walk into the classroom on Monday morning). My house is still a disaster, and now I have a deadline…boychild wants his room back in three weeks. I don’t blame him, but I’m not out of there yet. Not enough hours. At least I get to pick the music here. Oh yeah, and the bed needs flannel sheets. It was bloody freezing here when I got home. Funny considering I was in Seattle, but I got used to the cold there pretty easily. Their house was really warm at night, way warmer than mine. So unless you went outside, it wasn’t so bad.

So I hope y’all had a good feast and avoided the crazy shopping crowds. And you still have intact bank accounts. And you’re ready for the rush to Christmas etc. I’m not.

Haiku

So I ran into drunk Larry, my soon-to-be ex-neighbor, in the grocery store with some woman (girlfriend? I don’t know.). He saw me and made a beeline straight at me. “I was meanin’ to email you about your big dead gray tree.” Big dead gray tree? I don’t have a big dead gray tree. “The one near the road. It’s dead and it’s blocking the view.” It’s not dead, you idiot. It’s deciduous. I don’t use that word because I’m fairly sure he won’t understand it. It’s lost its leaves. For winter. “Well, we’re trying to sell the house and it’s blocking the view and I was wondering if you could talk to your dad about trimming it.” Because my dad trims trees. No, my dad hires scary big Gypsy guys to trim trees. I look at him and tell him I can’t afford to trim the tree; I have two kids in college. “TWO? Do you want 20 bucks?” You cannot make up this conversation. He actually reaches into his pocket like he’s gonna slap a bill on me. I said I needed a lot more than 20, but that trimming trees is not in my future. At that point, I had no food in my grocery cart. Drunk Larry doesn’t know that I am about to buy an 18-pound turkey for $8.74. It’s true. I named her Wilhelmina. He said something about going in on it with like your dad (the tree, not Wilhelmina). I say my dad is out of town, but I’ll see him Tuesday. He says how they need to sell the house to pay for his mom’s Alzheimer care in a home that’s costing $6K a month. OK. Whatever. His mom was always nice to me. I say I’ll talk to my dad Tuesday but we’re gone all this week.

Which means he will probably try to cut down my dead tree on Thanksgiving, so then I can sue him for the house, take it over, flip it for twice as much as it’s on the market now, and pay for the rest of college.

Oh wait, that only happens in the movies. The rest of it is true though. Even Wilhelmina. She’s in the freezer. The girlchild says I don’t need 18 pounds, and she’s probably right, but you can’t beat the price, and I can freeze the leftovers. I just wanted real turkey sandwiches next week. The girlchild’s roomie says I should buy Oscar Meyer turkey from the deli section, but that shit’s disgusting.

Back to grading and trying not to write haikus to my students…

Follow instructions

If you want to get an A

Otherwise you fail

Yeah. So. Too late.

I drew this last night while sort of accidentally watching Mockingjay Part 1…

It turned out entertaining enough…the drawing AND the movie. This is my 9×12″ sketchbook, the one I carry in my bag onto the plane. I bought a slightly larger one, 11×14″, for the trip to Seattle, because it fits into the smaller luggage I’m taking, borrowing from my parents because I had to throw mine out…old and finally unfixable. I should be able to put more detail into drawings on that size, but it will have to go in the checked luggage. Honestly, it’s a relatively short flight…I might not even have time to do all the things I have planned! Sad but true.

With that said, I think I have to go back to grading unfortunately. There’s way too much of it and I blew off a lot yesterday. I did go to school and finish the cell models and larger infographics today. Then I brought all the stories home and that’s when that haiku popped into my head. I think I might do it in a fancy font and blow it up and laminate its ass, and put it up in the classroom. Damn skippy.