Not Making Sense

I’m trying to watch a video while I’m typing this, which should be interesting, if I can keep the two things separate and make any sense here. Perhaps I never make sense here. I have to say it’s not my goal, making sense. There’s a song about this. Maybe more than one. I’m watching a fabric designer explain her new line, which won’t come out until 2021 probably. I like listening to her process, and since I can’t meet people in person, this is kind of cool; all the people with daily or regular videos right now are maybe helping with sanity? Who knows.

I’m in between my morning class and science meeting and my afternoon class right now. I’ve peed the dogs and eaten my lunch and tried to figure out what I need to get done for the rest of the day. I need to add some exercise in there somewhere, but it’s starting to get warmer and that’s harder. I want to do it in the dark. There are mosquitoes though. And the dogs can’t deal with high heat. So it’s just a logistical issue. So many things are logistical issues. I forgot to assign something this morning and went to do that and it didn’t work. Three times. So I kept assigning, and then it assigned it once on two classes and three times on the other three classes, and kids are already turning it in on ALL THREE classes (of course), so my Wednesday/Thursday are going to be a self-made (well, tech had its way with me kinda) hellacious fuckbeast. Ah well. What’s new? The kids are doing yardwork for Grandpa and probably they are all infecting each other, which is annoying, but the man is also back at work, even though he’s supposed to have today off, because you know, when you’re the person in charge, you get the shit shift. Unless you’re a shitty boss; we all know about those, they give YOU the shitty shift and they barely work.

I barely see/hear from my boss these days. Which is OK, because there’s enough other stuff to make up for it. This week, we added a new program to track plus a new category of assignments, and I’m about to run screaming into oblivion, but it’s too hot out there for that, so I’m sitting here with the fan on, realizing I have 39 minutes until the next Zoom call. Today is pretty chill, actually; we’ve figured out next week’s science assignments and have the following week fleshed out a little better. Tomorrow will start the crazy race into the weekend.

So the last two days…I did finish cutting out all the Wonder Under last night for the new quilt…

Let’s see if you can tell the difference between 10 yards cut out and 11 yards…from Monday night to Tuesday night…11 1/2 hours of cutting…

Looks the same. But it’s not. Tonight I will be sorting them…or maybe even this afternoon. Hard to say what I’ll be doing after class. My brain is usually pretty fuzzy. I need to check some work, see if kids are turning things in. Set things up for tomorrow. Get my head around my existence. Persuade myself not to eat cookies (pretty easy since we don’t have any). I finished cleaning the office yesterday. All my fabric is put away except for stuff I saved for napkin-making, so I’m ready to iron to fabric. Looking forward to that.

This will be another big crazy complicated quilt…sometimes people wonder why I make them, when they never sell (too big and expensive), but these are the ones that get into lots of shows and win awards, so no, I’ll never make the money back on them, but there is a reward for me in the acknowledgement, but honestly, more so in the time and energy I put into them, that’s a good place for my brain to be, especially when things are hard or complicated, like now. Yes, they’re time-consuming, and no, they won’t sell, but they are the most ME. So I’m OK with that. I’ll get this one done and do a smaller daughter quilt or something after. Maybe. If I feel like it. There are deadlines coming up. I’m just not sure I care about them.

Still doing the dots…here’s Sunday night’s…just under the blue ball of thread…

It was a pretty simple one, even with the trellis-stitch center.

Some of them are amazingly time-consuming. This wasn’t too bad.

Then Monday night’s…just under the blue spool…

I’m getting better at bullions with Razzle, a shiny rayon bitch of a thread…

The center looks like a starfish on its way out. I think I’m on Dot 37 today? Or something. Simba was helping…

He never really helps.

What else is up? So much schoolwork. Yardwork, which brings bug bites. NOT sleep, unfortunately. These guys don’t help with that.

Here’s Kitten bringing me one of my slippers…

She’s a freak. Drops them in the hallway half the time. Every night, I round up my slippers and put them back so she can bring them back to me.

These guys are sweet until they’re not.

They get mopey when their dad is gone and sleep more.

I did walk the dogs, but a shorter walk, yesterday…only 2.3 miles. Like I said, it was hot.

No one else wanted to go…to their credit, the kids did yardwork in the sun all afternoon yesterday too and they were tired. Legit excuse. I just wanted to get out and move. Like every day. Here’s a flower I didn’t see before.

I like to look for the new things or changing things.

Also, Fantastic Fibers is all hung, although no one can go in to see it…yet…

There’s Womanscape on the left…a big complicated quilt from two summers ago that is just weirdly popular. The black and white piece is paper and ink, so not really a quilt…it is by Emily McBride, i never wanted you. On the right, before the corner, is Rachel Major’s Still Life. Just to the right of it, around the corner, is Alicia Decker’s Culture Shock and Hannah Zimmerman’s Place.

Funny, I thought it was huge until I saw it next to that black and white quilt…I need to go look online to see if I can figure out whose is what (not a quilt, see update above). Here we go…on the far left is Orb by Evian Zukas-Oguz.

Originally, this was three different drawings that ran for about 95″ horizontally…and then I pulled it apart, redrew, and added.

It’s always interesting to see what detail shots other people choose.

The show is open for a while longer…Not Open. But there.

Fun masks by Sarah Pramuk, Balaclava Tryptich…might be a little warm for Southern California right now. Pandemic fashion Winter 2020. Seriously, these are NFS because she needs them back.

OK, going to look for names on this…but class starts in 13 minutes, so…I got them! In time. So I can post this right before class starts. Wait. No. After class. My brain. Is fuzz.

The rest of today? Sort Wonder Under, exercise, start ironing to fabrics. Taco Tuesday! All good. This is the part I really like. Need to make some margaritas too. I think I have stuff for that. Maybe. We’ll see.

It Still Holds Tea…For Now…

I started writing this and then somehow overflowed a toilet. Yes, I realize there are things that do that, but I don’t think I’ve overflowed a toilet since the kids were little. Makes me wonder what my plumber is doing right now…probably escaped to the desert with his significant other, never to be seen again. I’m supposed to be seeing this as a staycation, and sometimes I can do that. I’m home. I’m limited in what I can do. Yesterday the pilates place canceled two weeks of classes, but gave me some online freebie, which the gym did too. I just need to schedule classes in my mind so that I actually do something physical. I thought about walking to school today to distribute food, but it’s raining, so maybe tomorrow. It’s less than an hour there and another less than an hour back. I think. 2 1/2 miles each way.

I know this feels weird for everyone. It is weird. It’s all weird.

Yesterday, I came home from food distribution and packed up a quilt for a show.

Womanscape is on her way to the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, KY, for Fantastic Fibers. I managed to catch the UPS driver and he took it, rather than having to drive all the way to the customer center. Yeah, I insured it. It’s big and expensive and who knows what will happen in the next few months. But it got me thinking about the fact that I really enjoy working on the big complicated quilts, and maybe that’s the solution to my brain right now. Get the next one started. Stop worrying about stuff being ready for deadlines, because all those are going to change or disappear. This is an artist’s retreat of sorts (although I envisioned a new landscape and that’s not happening, is it?).

Yesterday I didn’t do much with art stuff…well, art fabric stuff. I have this pile of stuff that’s brainless, all prepped, so when we’re watching TV after dinner, I can just pick one without thinking about it.

I worked on Fresh Cut last night…black on black is hard at night, that’s for sure. I need better light.

OK, in daylight, it’s better. Maybe this is a daylight-only piece. Things I’m learning.

I did start a drawing though. I’m not sure I like all of it, but it’s a place to start. I think I’m going to enlarge it a bit and make something LAARRGGEE.

Arm needs to move. Cat needs to change. I like the lungs and the heart though…although the heart needs to shift a bit. Maybe. I’ll think about it.

Calli is enjoying more people home. I threw the ball for her a little bit (she’s old and starts to breathe really heavily). You can see the mallow we planted on the left yesterday…bottlebrush right above her.

There’s a ceanothus going in next.

I noticed the crack in this cup is getting worse.

It still holds tea. For now.

I have too many of these in my head…

This one…

Yeah. Well. We run dark here. I guess.

So I didn’t iron yesterday. I think I finished my taxes. It looks good…because of the solar installation.

Might be able to pay off the girlchild’s college…my part of it anyway. Maybe. That quilt is Disrupted. It’s from 2010. The #marchmeetthemaker and #igquiltfest prompts were about your favorite quilt and what you’re proud of. I do love a lot of my quilts, but I’m proud that everything (arteries etc) lined up on this one. It’s impressive when it hangs too. It was for an exhibit called Sightlines.

OK. Well. Chaos around us all. Exercise today. Ironing today. Who knows what else today. Right now, I’m going to go feed kids. And then maybe sit down and plan my day.

Put Your Money Somewhere It Will Do Good

So this is really early and only vaguely coherent…either that or it’s really late, but still vaguely coherent. I was trying to get myself to bed early last night to get up for this crazy-ass flight this morning, and honestly, I suck at the relax and go-to-bed part of my life, so we’d watched the end of one of the Marvel movies (don’t have to watch TOO hard) and I was tracing Wonder Under (only got to about 720 or so, more on that later) and then stopped drinking tea (don’t attribute my sleeplessness to that…it doesn’t matter…I’ve tried without drinking it and I still am wired until after midnight) and drank a glass of wine and stopped trying to trace and was trying to actually physically walk down the hallway to the bedroom, but I had this Facebook post I wanted to do for one of the groups I’m in, but I was missing one piece of information. So I went to the website to see if I could find it on my own, and I found out (about a month after the fact) that my gun control quilt, Rooted in America, won 2nd place in Fantastic Fibers. Wow. OK. Wasn’t expecting that (isn’t that the best kind of award? Yes. Yes it is.).

But (and I woke up at about 1 AM on this one) I’ve had this tab open on my computer for a GoFundMe that I really wanted to send some money to, but it’s the time of year when I have to make sure I have enough to get through the whole summer with no paycheck, and I’m not sure of that yet, so I was waiting on the donation until I got through the end of school and all the kid expenses etc. before I donated, because maybe it was going to be a significant donation because I think this group is doing really good work and maybe it was not going to be as significant because two months with no paycheck is kinda painful. So now I can gladly send the larger amount…which makes me happy.

So the awesome cause is one I’ve talked about before, Social Justice Sewing Academy. They’re doing a summer program for kids and will be matched dollar for dollar up to $10K. You should check it out here…and give them some money, if you feel up to it. Not only are their quilts amazing, but the kids they work with are our future and we need to get them involved in politics and change for all our sakes. So as soon as that check gets here, I’m pushing most of it back out into the world to do good.

Meanwhile, like I said, I traced some stuff, but not enough…I shall survive.

I started the fourth yard of Wonder Under…

I’m in the 700s…

I misnumbered…again! Pieces 670 to 699, and then I restarted at 670 again. AGAIN. So that’s 29 pieces with a’s on them (all on the back at the moment…hopefully I’ll be able to figure it out in real time when I iron)…plus one that wasn’t even numbered, so it got a b.

I’m leaving 5 animals in the capable hands of this guy…I’m sure he’s up to it, although he’s rethinking it right about now, when all three will start barking at the arrival of the car to take me to the airport…

This one was not sure at all last night as to why there was luggage and Katie (my parents’ dog) and all this hustle and bustle…

They will all be fine. With that, I gotta go get moving.

I’ve Got Nostalgic Pavements*

Sometimes there’s a moment and it reminds you of a space in the past that was so incredibly different, a moment that should have been the same or similar, and you have a choice: be thankful that the current moment is not like that at all, or worry that all moments will be like that eventually. My brain is a worrier. I spend a lot of time telling that core part of it that those moments aren’t inevitable, that they are the choices of others, sure, and you have no control over those, but that there is a different person in each of those moments, and it’s better to believe (hope?) that this person is better at moments than the last one…or the one before. I think humans are great at hope…it’s what keeps most of us going.

Including that student from yesterday at tutoring who was telling me his plans to play American football and I’m thinking about his grades and, straight up, his size (sure, he’s gonna grow, but maybe not enough), but I’m not going to tell him nope, that’s not your future. I pull out my phone and show him a picture of a former student with not-great grades but an amazing drive and attitude and I tell him about his full college scholarship and his current amazing GPA and maybe just maybe plant some drive or motivation in there, because he has the hope, the hope of a 12-year-old, and I’m not getting in the way of that, and he asks, then can I come back and show you what I did? And I’m like, well hell yeah, I hope you do. I hope you all do.

My car is back. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. It’s funny though…because they want me to bring her in for an oil change every 3000 miles, and I barely remember to check the little sticky thing in the car. I don’t even know when 3000 miles might be. I mean I did 2500 miles last week (whoops, with not enough oil, although THAT light never came on)…but during the school year, I have no idea when that is. And when you’re talking to someone who lives, breathes, drinks cars on a daily basis, it’s hard to explain to them how low the car’s fluids are on your priority list. I mean, I can’t even get the floors and the bathrooms clean at the moment. I swept around the pool last night, but didn’t have time (I was grading) to scoop it all up into the composting trashcan. There’s Too Much to Do. In fact, I stopped typing this for 5 minutes to send a school-related email that I should have sent two days ago. I’m sometimes surprised that my brain can hold onto some of the threads tangled up in there.

Calli agrees.

Anyway, one more assignment is graded. One more thing to check off the list. That’s a plus. Gotta keep doing those.

I finally got done with that assignment around 9 or 9:30 last night…then spent some time trying to center myself. But almost falling asleep at the same time. Fighting that sleep instinct is the crazy part of my existence. This week I am so tired. And I’m hot-flashing constantly…although that might have been my air conditioning not working at school. OK, no, it’s hot flashes…thought they were mostly done, but apparently not.

And then it was 11 PM and normal people go to bed if they have to get up at 6-something the next morning. But I hate going to bed without some art being made, so I managed to wake up enough…because that drawing had been muttering inside my head all day. So it’s rude not to listen. Get up and grab a pen and do something.

I stared at the paper for a while. I’m not ready to draw the thighs, even though it’s weird to start at the bottom and then jump to the top. It’s weird, but I did it anyway. I’m trying to think about who I was as an artist when I was a kid, when I was in high school and college. It was harder then. I didn’t do it every day. There were many other things to do and I wasn’t always inspired. I love that the inspiration is such a deep well now.

So the head…and the cat…

And I put roots in…

Hopefully more tonight, although this evening is a clusterfuck.

I sat on the couch for a moment to finish my thoughts…Simba was happy to be with a human…

There’s some art stuff coming up in the next few days…the opening of Art That Cuts at Mesa College is Thursday night from 5-7 PM. I’m planning on being there. I have one piece in the show…

Then Saturday, I have two events…I unfortunately will only be at one. The one I won’t be at is the closing reception of Mind the Gap at Southwestern College on Saturday from 1-3 PM…I’ll finally see the show next week after school one day.

I’ll be at the artist talk for California Fibers’ Surface and Structure, at the Branch Gallery, Saturday at 2 PM. The show is coming down after the talk, so it’s your last chance to see it. I hope you come by.

See? Busy week in art. Oh yeah, and Fantastic Fibers opened last week I think? Or is it this week. It’s the 14th…right. So that’s in Paducah, KY, at the Yeiser Center, and you should go see that from 5-7 PM. It’s not just quilts, so that is also cool.

Meanwhile, all I know about the girlchild is that she had to walk to the next village (12-15 miles?) and I haven’t heard from her since…it’s possible that I won’t hear from her until she gets back next week. Hopefully all is well and she’s doing interesting things. Crap. Gotta go to work! I love when time just flips by like that.

*Kate Nash, Mouthwash

I Think I Thought I Saw You Try*

Well I have a vacation planned for Spring Break…first time in a long time. I travel a bit, mostly family-related, but haven’t had a real vacation in so long I can’t even remember what it feels like. It’s been a pain to book stuff, but I think it will be OK in the long run.
At least I hope so. It’s 8 weeks away, though, so there’s some significant survival and work that has to be done before then.

In good news, my piece Work in Progress got into Fantastic Fibers, so it will be at the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, Kentucky, from April 22 through June 17. Paducah, home of AQS, right? This amuses me. Yo! AQS! There’s a penis in this one! I’m laughing so hard right now. KARMA BITCHES.

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Seriously, that is amusing. I’ll need to figure out how to send an invitation to them…

I’m still doing this stitch a day thang. It seems crazy sometimes in light of how little time I have, but it takes like 5 minutes a day and I find it focuses me. So for Saturday, I did the purple/pink stitches around the left side, lazy daisies in red/pink, I did straight stitches fanning around them, and then some french knots to use up the rest of the thread. Then for Sunday, I did the green feather stitch coming down from the “r” in Prosper.

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I am getting a clear idea that there are only so many stitches in the world and I have some I prefer over others. It’s hard to come up with new things. They lend themselves to flowers and plants.

I had dinner with the parentals. Despite his annoying status, Simba is well-loved by the elders…

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It is easier when he sleeps…he’s been barking at night almost every night…mostly in response to wild animals I think. It’s exhausting me.

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I’m hoping to walk him as soon as I finish this. Maybe after I sweep around the pool…hard to do that after dark.

So I finally got done with grading two major projects last night (input the grades today) and sat down at around 10:30 PM to work on the binding. I was determined to finish, so I stayed up way too late.

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Puppy helped immensely. I still need to stitch the two sleeves down and then ink and dehair it, but the photographer doesn’t want it until Wednesday, so that works. And then I’ll start on the next one.

Simba is very happy to hear that (not).

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Let’s not consider the six assignments I still have left to grade. Six? Seven. Not sure any more. The gradebook opens next week for Trimester 2, so I need to get my act together. Always. What’s new?

Well, there’s this friend of mine, Linda Moran, who has written a novel about detention centers in a religious state, with Arizona seceding from the union. She started before all this political yahoo began, and she has a Kickstarter to get it published. You should go check it out…and if that’s something you want to support, even $5 is a step in the right direction. I personally went for the pledge that would get me a copy.

It won’t take just the visual artists and musicians…we need the writers and poets along with us. She has a great little video that you can watch about the project.

*R.E.M., Losing My Religion