Well that was a busy weekend. I’m still tired from it. I may have been semi-productive around all the things I had to do. I dropped a quilt at a gallery for a show that opens Saturday. I went to another exhibition closing reception and then pulled all 6 of my quilts down and packed them into the car to drive home. I was there for the artist panel, which I enjoyed, but I did work through it.
Writing and sending our team’s weekly email. And then grading warmups and test corrections. I was supposed to be on a Zoom from 3-4 and totally forgot. It’s fine. Hopefully they recorded it.
It was a nice panel. I’m always up for listening to fellow feminist artists.
I cut stuff out Friday night…that’s the moon. Ironically, after the shitshow of a day I had on Friday, I found out the full moon was Saturday.
Everything makes sense now.
Saturday night, after the Man’s dad’s birthday dinner (and 3 hours of canvassing for the local school board and another 3 hours of grading).
And then last night, I stayed up late to finish.
Almost 11 1/2 hours. Ready to iron together? Well, no…it’ll take an hour to sort all the pieces into 100s for easier ironing. So that’s tonight. Am I behind my schedule? Well, yes, I usually am. Can I catch up? We’ll see. I’m buried in grading; hence the grading at an art event and every afternoon/night this weekend. Never stops. But I’m closer.
Friday night, Bowie needed to be close.
And then, so did Simba. Well, he always needs to be close.
It’s hot again here, although we got a tiny bit of rain last night…leftovers from one of the hurricanes off the coast. There’s like four of them rotating around out there, throwing shit our way, but mostly hot and muggy shit instead of decent rain.
The Man’s dad turned 89 this month, so there was a dinner for him.
Not actually in Venice unfortunately.
This is too true.
I’d like to thank my brain for all the overthinking I do when I’m trying to fall asleep. I have a couple of potentially stressful conversations that need to happen today with other adults at school. One I think will be OK. The other one is defensive as shit and there’s no way it will go well. So that’s fun. Imma try anyway because I’m a mature adult who knows she has to work well with other people. Crazy, huh?
Otherwise, there’s like two hours of staff meetings, plus reviewing PE/KE for the roller coaster project, plus grading ten tons of stuff and buying a bunch of other stuff and trying to fix the sprinklers AGAIN and packing quilts to be shipped and/or delivered. Pro: got into four shows. Con: all the packup, dropoff, and pickup. Then grading and cooking and book club (timed dinnermaking wrong, didn’t I?) and then sorting fabric. Probably more grading. Did I mention grading? Yeah. Probably not enough times.
I feel like it must be later in the week than Wednesday. I was ON all day yesterday, teaching writing and graphing. Mostly OK, but like pulling teeth in a couple classes. Certainly lets you know which classes are lacking in some skills. Good thing to know. Since the standard we’re learning about requires graphing knowledge. At least knowing which line is going up faster…or whether it’s going up or straight. Sometimes I think old people thoughts like, “Back in the day, we could actually get them to do math in science.” Not so much now.
In between the 17 meetings (school and art) and trying to get my yard under control, I have been cutting things out. But first, I sorted the fabrics I used by color…168 fabrics in this quilt.
Heavy on the earth tones. Here’s Monday night…
It never looks like much…that’s more than an hour’s worth of trimming.
Last night, I cut these two crazy mushrooms…
Very satisfying to finish. Kind of crazy to contemplate.
I stayed up too late to do another hour. I had two Zoom art meetings last night and I graded through both of them…I thought about cutting stuff out, but getting the assignments done was more pressing. I just finished the last test/packet grading cycle and another one started. We did the test Monday and the packet is due Friday. Ugh.
I have a piece that was at the Rancho Penasquitos library, traveling, currently at the La Jolla library, that will go to University City library next month. These are photos from Rancho P.
It’s the quilty one in the bottom right.
I think this is the 3rd library?
Some San Diego library patrons have been trying to ban books by checking out the ones they think are problematic and then not returning them. Dick move. This exhibit is about banned books, so it’s important that it travels.
Today I’m teaching conservation of energy…another concept that might be complicated. Certainly it’s another day where I am ON ON ON all day. Then pilates after school, figure out where I put all the greenery trashcans and put them out, maybe fill some more, cook dinner, and then I get to cut things out. Hopefully. Long day. Parents are finally on their way home, so I made the last mail trip for them. Nice to have that off my plate. Looking forward to the trimming part at least. And reading my book. It’s a good one. Not written by AI. I read enough of that all day long. One art meeting last night kept talking about what they were using AI for, and I’m like, nope. Not doing that. Not encouraging that. Not destroying the planet for THAT.
There’s a bunch of these coming up locally, so I’m putting them all here.
The Feminist Image Group show Master Glitch is closing this Sunday at the Techne Art Center in Oceanside. There will be an artist panel from 2-3 PM. The closing reception is from 1-4 PM; this is your last chance to see this exhibit.
I have 6 pieces, mostly big ones, in this exhibit. I will be there at some point, probably later.
Then Saturday, October 3, from 5-9 PM, I have one piece in an Oceanside Art Museum Artist Alliance exhibit, In Flux, at the Covet Art Gallery.
The exhibit will be up for most of October if you can’t make it on October 3. I will be there at some point, probably earlier in that time frame.
The last one is a California Fibers’ exhibit, Tactile Thinking, at Hyde Gallery at Grossmont College. The opening is Tuesday, October 27, from 4-6 PM.
I will have two pieces in this exhibit. I will be at the opening.
Hey Monday. As always, you appear too quickly. Busy weekends make you show up even faster. Hoping next weekend is better…oh wait! It is! Three-day weekend for the win.
The heat wave has finally backed off a bit. It’s still in the 90s, but not the high 90s. It makes a difference. I was actually cold last night in bed. A freakin’ miracle. I’m still getting woken up by the low blood sugar alarm every night. We’ve reduced my insulin. I’ve tried a snack before bed. Nothing seems to work. And now I have the diabetes nurse AND my doctor giving me conflicting info. I guess the educator I talked to last summer is gone? It’s so hard to get a working relationship with a medical person when they so often leave. I’m sure there’s a reason. My medical group has laid off hundreds of people…thanks to the big beautiful asshole of a bill. I don’t see this getting better.
So I did trace all weekend and managed to get within 100 pieces of the finish…
Friday night…
Saturday night…it all kinda looks the same…except for the cat.
Sunday night…
I have about 100 pieces left…I keep finding pieces I haven’t numbered yet, so I’m not sure what to say about that.
I sat the Techne Art Center gallery on Saturday for 5 hours. Thanks to all the friends who stopped by…like this one from school…
She came dressed for an evening out with her husband. I sewed two of his buttons on his suit coat for him. Then did one for the boychild last night. See? A sewing education is useful.
I wandered around and took photos of everything so I could write a blogpost.
Not as many people as at the opening. Much easier to get photos without random people in them.
Not sure when I’m going to have time to write that post for that group, or the other two for the other two groups.
I hadn’t seen this one for a while. It’s fun…for a quilt about the onset of COVID. Good show…you should go see it.
I’ve got a couple of local shows coming up…one at Grossmont College opening in October…when I have the social media blurb for that, I’ll post it…and this one.
I’ll be at this opening, although not for four whole hours. But you should stop by. It’ll be nice.
Speaking of nice, the boychild graduated from his fire training courses this summer…he was gone for 10 weeks. The girlchild went up to support him and we got this awesome photo.
We’re very proud of him for getting to wear the fancy uniform with all the buttons. Plus the better job situation. He works hard. So does she, but she doesn’t get to wear fancy uniforms and have bagpipes at ceremonies. I watched the livestream at school on my phone with my earbud in…I did tell my students what was going on. It was short. They were being taught by a counselor during that period, so I don’t feel bad.
I do feel bad about the fucking climate change idiocy that doesn’t believe in that stuff. Because Nepal. And Ohio. And my lord, the list of places will just keep growing.
Maybe if the White House succumbs to a flood. Nah, they’ll just blame the Democrats for that.
Speaking of stupid…
I am totally ready for any lake to be named after Epstein if we can get all the files and then put some old white guys in jail for life. Plus bring home all those military people who don’t need to be at war.
And if you’re a billionaire, be like Dolly.
Bunch of wankers.
This car was parked where we were having dinner. I’m all for Hello Kitty doing some whack stuff (she had big teeth on the back of the car), but carrying automatic weapons?
Let’s not. This was not a small decal…it was about 3 feet high. Not a fan.
OK, I graded a lot this weekend, but didn’t finish (you never finish until the end of the school year). I did some other things. I realized that sometimes people don’t know how little spare time you have unless you tell them, and even then, if it’s not their experience, they probably don’t get it. Friday I spent a lot of time explaining food to students…like gumbo…which I’ve never had (seafood not good for me). Today though is hotdogs and they have to write about them and the pro is that it’s a pretty easy one. Which is great, because their reliance on AI is mind-boggling and they won’t have computers out today. Ha! But I need to put our surveillance software on them for the warmup, because it’s crazy what answers they will cut and paste without even trying to make sense of them. CRAZY. I fear for the future. But AI is gonna take over and get rid of us anyway, because we are causing all the bad shit. So it’ll be OK.
I have a staff meeting, I’d like to go to ceramics today, I need to finish tracing, and odds are, I need to grade more shit. What’s new? But it’s cooler. I can get behind that.
I’m still in a weird wiggly space, although this is more about relearning the routines I forgot on purpose over the summer. Remembering that school controls everything, however much you try to control it back. Ultimately, if you don’t do the work, you’re not ready to teach, and that’s a problem. Your problem. So sure, you can say, oh I’m going to take this weekend off, but if you didn’t do the work Friday for Monday, then you just fucked yourself over. That said, I’m not ready. I did some work but not all of it, because I didn’t have time to do all of it. Hoping to do some of it actually AT work today (what a concept). We’ll see how that goes. Two-hour staff meeting at the end of it. Could do without that. Apparently not an option.
I did do art things this weekend though. I finished two quilts, went to an opening, delivered the two quilts to my photographer, and started another one. Not a bad progress report.
I finished the binding and sleeves on this big one…
And then took a really crappy night photo of it…
Saturday, I ironed it and dehaired it and packed it up for the photographer, who will do a much better job. On Saturday, I did the last little bit of embroidery on this, on the phone…
Had to add the mail app. And then I quilted the background with the machine…
I did most of this embroidery at the residency.
Smaller, but not less time-consuming when you do this to it. So I also ironed it, dehaired it, and packed it up for the photographer. Two in two days sounds impressive, but the other one was almost done before I left. I just didn’t take it with me.
And now on to the next one…which I started as a drawing at the residency, after listening to/watching a bunch of videos about fungi and mycelial networks…
I enlarged what I’d drawn so far…there will be more. So there’s the next one.
I also put this together, Rooted by Sue Spargo…
I’d finished the embroidery a while ago. I also put the borders on, but there is some stitching on the borders, so I’ll need to prep that. Didn’t get to that last night…I was doing other artsy stuff instead.
Saturday night was the FIG Master Glitch opening at the Techne Art Center in Oceanside.
It’s a big space and we have a lot of work in it.
I have 6 pieces in the show, mostly big pieces, and they’re all upstairs.
Some of them are older and haven’t been out for a while. But if you’re one of those weirdos who is always looking for the penis in my quilts, that’s a legit penis in that one. Meant to do it. Not hiding it.
My work is surrounded by the ceramics of Linda Litteral.
There’s lots of reasons to go to this show, even if you didn’t make it to the opening.
There’s a lot of art.
There’s some great burger joints in Vista, which is pretty close.
And I will be there Saturday, August 29, from 1-6 PM. It’ll probably be less crowded then.
The Man did an admirable job of trying to get photos of me with my work…which is hard when it’s spread out along a balcony basically. That guy wouldn’t move. So he’s in my photos.
And you get a good idea of how big some of my work is.
There’s a small one! Anyway, check it out, open Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6 PM, through September 30.
Busy weekend. Busy upcoming week. I’d like to make it to ceramics today after a month of being away. Not sure what I will be looking at. I know the glazes I ordered came in, but I don’t remember what I was doing before I left. Should take better notes. Glazing, yes. Be more specific. I’m hoping I’m not completely knackered by the end of the 2-hour meeting. What are the odds? But otherwise I won’t be able to get there until Friday. And I’ll be tired then too. Gotta get up, despite the tired part. I don’t have to cook tonight, but I suspect I have to empty the dishwasher. I think there should be a rock, paper, scissors thing for that, because I didn’t have a dishwasher where I was…I just had to wash them all myself. So I think there are some assumptions that might need blasting.
Speaking of blasting, is it true that the dumbass government I didn’t vote for is thinking about using nuclear weapons on Iran? Like WTF? Are they idiots? I mean, I guess I know the answer to that.
So much incompetency. So many bad decisions. Not even sure where to start.
Except I need to go to work and (ironically) teach about safety in the lab (don’t set off a bomb, any kind, especially a nuclear one). Then sit through two hours of yammering. Then hopefully go to ceramics. Then come back and discuss the dishwasher. And hopefully get to drawing at some point. That’s the plan anyway.
Well I’m home, as of yesterday at around 2:30 PM. 900 miles of driving in two days. It could have been worse. At least the landscape was gorgeous for most of it. Very little traffic. Some very stupid drivers trying to pass trucks unsafely…I’d like to see the death/crash statistics on that after making the drive. But southbound wasn’t bad.
I have a lot of photos I’ll try to deal with later…but here was our last dinner together…we went out to one of the two restaurants in the area.
We all got burgers; it was good. I think we all got along as a group, which is nice. The last night, we met in the Commons and talked about Playa and things (mice! birds!) and then went out on the Playa for stargazing. The smoke cleared enough to see shooting stars and the Milky Way, but also this weird yellow light that kept moving around that I apparently semi-hallucinated as moving. Sigh. It was moving. Then I stayed up too late packing the car and cleaning up. The mouse beat my trap one more time and met me on the stairs in the dark and then just disappeared (probably between carpet of stairs and wall, so sleep was not my friend. I left second, around 8 AM, and drove 9+ hours to Bishop, CA, through Oregon, California, Nevada, and then back into California.
My studio for the artist tours we did just for ourselves, because there were logistical issues. There’s four more pieces on the left wall and another one on the floor cooking and the last one on the table, just outlined.
We had a lot of smoke in the last few days from a fire in the Klamath Falls area. Honestly, we fought wildfire smoke most days. Coming back here to an air quality index of 43 is just weird.
There was a reservoir about 15 minutes away that was a daily afternoon trip for some. I went every three days or so…it cut into my afternoon painting time. This was Sunday…they’d been there longer than me and were staying…but I had one last painting to finish.
There was a water snake I kept seeing by the dock. The water wasn’t ever really warm, but it was refreshing and a nice break from sweating in the studio. It was just as warm and dry up there as it is down here (actually, it’s humid as hell here right now, at least for us).
I went out and collected some dried plants in the afternoon as well. There were a few that were really interesting and I never got a chance to do cyanotypes, so I brought a few home with me. See the smoky skies?
Yeah.
I finished painting this at about 7 PM or maybe 8. Some of my dyes were having issues; I washed it out in the hotel room and the brown is mostly gone. We’ll see if I feel like repainting it. I might.
I did bring all the dyes still mixed home. I might test the other brown out before I paint the whole thing again. The reds, oranges, etc are all fine.
I loved having a studio attached to my sleeping place. Very compact.
I mean, technically I have that here, I just don’t have that much room and I can’t leave things lying out like I could there. When I’ve dye painted here, it’s been down in the driveway, do it as fast as possible.
I didn’t sleep much the last two nights…some anxiety about leaving, plus mouse drama. Beautiful skies the night before though.
And in the morning as well…
So hard to leave.
I mean, I miss the animals and my people and being here, but getting that time to do what my brain always wants to do…that was a gift. And now that I’ve done it, I want more. And it makes me really irritable about how much time and energy my day job steals from me.
The Lakeview (no lake, no view) Cowboy, driving out of town.
Then lots of driving. My lunch stop was all burnt out…well the rest stop wasn’t…the surrounding landscape was.
No shade. This is the Bug Fire, which started by the side of the 395 and then joined another fire and has now grown immensely.
I saw CalFire and USFS fire crews cleaning up two fires by the side or in the middle of the 395. Thanks to them.
Eventually I got rain even.
Went up to 8000+ elevation. Saw the Sierras…always a pleasure.
Followed them all the way down. That’s definitely rain.
Spent the night in Bishop with a struggling air conditioner. Got up early and left. More Sierras.
It’s a long straight road for a long straight time.
But the views are expansive. This photo is just for the electrical thingies…three different types. They look humanoid.
Yeah, so I got home and the Man met me and helped unload the car and then watered everything as I tried to get everything put away, washed, cleaned, etc. I did not get it all put away. Then he fed me, which is good, because he has dinner plans today and Friday.
I finished the quilting on this.
I petted all the animals (Simba is already waiting for me on the bed)…
And I already had two phone calls about work, plus a ton of emails and texts, and I have the first three hours already booked in meetings this morning. Could do without that. It’ll be fine. Sure it will. I’ll be fighting for my time.
I have an opening this Saturday, 5-8 PM, at Techne Art Center in Oceanside. I have 6 pieces in the show, including some big ones. Here they are hanging two of them.
Come by; I’ll be there. I’ll also be there from 1-6 PM, sitting the gallery, on Saturday, August 29, if that works better for you. There’s over 150 pieces in the show…it is huge.
OK. I have to go to school for the first meeting. Kids start tomorrow. I have lots to get done today, if I’m allowed to. I have pilates for the first time in like a month after school, and then dinner on my own. Then trim the quilt I finished and get the binding on it…I bought that before I left, anticipating not having the time when I got back. Still processing, y’all. Expect some mind lag. But not in a bad way. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
I really didn’t want to wake up this morning. It’s silly, because there’s no NOT waking up. There’s animals (one is barking his head off right now for no reason…OK, it’s probably something, but really…wait, that was his happy yip so the Man must be back from the dentist), there’s neighbors, there’s neighborhood noise (damn neighbor with his saw…you’d think he’d sawed all the things, but no…there are more things to saw). Really, I should go to bed at a regular time and get up at dawn and work then. Except that’s not how my brain works, especially for the first week or two after I get out of school (it hasn’t even been a WEEK)…I’m a night owl through and through. This morning shit is not fun (yes, I’m aware it’s barely morning at this point…I’ve been up for hours). I didn’t want to wake up because I started cleaning the office/studio yesterday and it’s in that stage when it looks like it will never be done and you will never find a home for all the things you’ve unearthed. I did, however, find the book I’ve been searching for since Thursday (it wasn’t in here, by the way…it was in the girlchild’s room, of course), but I have not found the frames I feel like I have somewhere. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I bought a set of 4 and will need to buy another set? Sigh.
So yes, I am still in the braindead flailing part of Summer Break, where I stare at AI-generated videos of cats diving into swimming pools and wonder why people like war so much. Like if we’re really gonna worry about nuclear capability and bomb people over it, why are we picking on the bottom rung of the ladder…
This is from a video comparing nuclear stashes, and Iran isn’t even on the list. Now, it would be stupid as hell to bomb Russia…and I don’t want to bomb anyone, but seriously, how lame is it to go after a country that was under control until the current president backed out of a deal that was keeping them under control. Idiots. Absolute idiots. But if we’re looking at this, we’re not looking at the protests and ICE and breaking laws left and right and stupid ugly bills, are we.
It’s a lot.
So I had started my next quilt drawing and began inking on Friday night…
You can’t quite see it, but in pencil, on the left, there’s a hand stopping a missile. I inked that Saturday night, after the bombs dropped on Iran.
Added an American flag to it, because it’s ours. The Statue of Liberty was already penciled in. Last night, I inked the ICE swamp…
Because that’s what it is…a swamp of people wearing masks and maybe being legal sometimes? But mostly racial profiling and who knows if some of the people out there are actually ICE or not? They apparently don’t have to tell us. Need to add some swamp trees. Decide what’s happening under the arm underneath them. Oh yeah, added a bomb and an explosion. This drawing is evolving with the current situation. Not sure where I’m going next. Into space? Seems reasonable.
I did some clay glazing on Friday. Very peaceful.
I did the red.
And some flesh.
I keep breaking the left hand off. Frustrating. It’s a level issue…it’s lower than the rest of it. I might need to make a base for firing. Hoping to be back today or tomorrow. We’ll see.
Saturday was the opening of In the Land of… at the downtown library. It’s on the first floor.
It’s super hard to photograph things in glass cases. Here’s the front of mine with part of Jennifer Spencer’s piece…
And here’s the back…
There will hopefully be a video of me talking about the piece and maybe a video of the whole show. I’ll post if I see them.
I’ve also been trying to applique all the flowers on the borders of the Homegrown quilt…
It’s time consuming. But I’m almost done with the top and bottom ones, so then I can do the side flowers. Until then…
Plus doing a lot of escapist cleaning and reading to try to manage my brain. I have a biopsy set up in 2 1/2 weeks. There were two things they found in the MRI that didn’t show up in a mammogram. Better safe than sorry, but it did ramp my anxiety up. Also, the last biopsy wound hurt for a good 6 months. So it’s fun when they say oh no, it doesn’t hurt. Such bullshit. Then last time, when I called after three weeks, they admitted, oh yeah, it might hurt for a while. But it isn’t the pain I worry about, of course.
OK, today. Finish cleaning this disaster of a room. Getting my hair cut (it’s way too long). Trying to find a dress for a wedding Saturday. I had one ordered, but it was too small in the boobage, and I don’t think the replacement will get here in time. Ugh. I hate shopping for clothes. Oh well. Whatever. Then do some drawing, maybe finally get the binding on that other wool quilt, pack up two quilts for delivery for another show coming up in San Ysidro area. Yardwork of course. Try not to roll into the hole of nuclear bombs and children dying and people being deported who came here and followed the rules.
Oooh. Friday. Thanks for coming. Nice to see you. Eight days of school left. Finally out of the totally dry sex ed teaching and into the meaty stuff of pregnancy and parts (they forgot all of them) and diseases (they think it’s all Herpes). Definitely at the document-the-shit-out-of-your-behavior time of year. So the really annoying ones can get out if they can’t behave. Also second Eid came early this year, so a ton of kids will be out today. Oh well. I was missing 9 kids by Period 6 yesterday. My coteacher had 10 kids total in her classroom. Lots of opt-outs on her end, parents who opt their kids out of the curriculum…which is FINE, if they do it on schedule, which large numbers of them did not, increasing our stress levels. Fun times. It’s the end of the school year; it’s always stressful. With the adjustment to a Tuesday end instead of a Thursday end, the grade file doesn’t open until Monday and it’s due Thursday…not sure when the heck I’m supposed to get all that done (well, after school, in the evenings, no duh) AND clean my room up to close it out. There’s a field trip Tuesday, then promotion lineups and next week, I think we’re barely in the classroom, which is fine, but usually grades are due after a weekend. So I’ll get everything I can done this weekend, but the early part of next week will be yucky. I guess at least I know it’s coming.
Art is slow right now because of all that. I did manage on Wednesday night to trim the quilt and get the binding machine stitched on…
Smaller quilts are nice because I don’t have to try to go out and shop for binding. I never have enough of any fabric for binding a big quilt.
Then last night, I sewed the sleeves on and started the handstitching…
Didn’t quite finish; I will tonight. Then I’m going to start trying to draw the next big one. Wish me luck.
I made it to ceramics on Wednesday finally…it’s been almost two weeks. The girlchild gave me a stamp for Mother’s Day and I finally had a chance to try it…
Very cool. She had it made from one of my eye drawings apparently. So fun. Much easier than the crappy carving of my name I’ve been doing.
I glazed, after fixing one thing that broke and breaking two more things, because that’s the stage we’re at.
This color is much better, so I started glazing other things, like bombs and tires. Hopefully I’ll be doing more of that tonight.
My banned book piece will be in this show, opening up in a couple of weeks at the downtown library.
It’ll be on the main floor, I think…
The opening is June 21 from 12-2. I have a dental appointment at 11, so I’ll be rushing a bit.
Liars. Also this…
I don’t want to pay federal taxes any more. It’s not doing me any good.
Here’s Nova again, trying to be ON my lap while I read. I’m literally holding her head as she tries to smoosh her entire chonky self under the iPad.
Sweet but demanding (and shedding fur all over the place).
OK. Teaching how to prevent unplanned pregnancies today (aka birth control). More cleaning of the room, although not during classtime, because classtime is all talking, all the time, no rest for the wicked. Or me. Then clay, then finish the quilt. Sounds OK. Sounds doable. No more late work can be turned in after midnight tonight (well, it CAN, but I won’t grade it), so that’s a hard line. It means that in a week, there will be no more grading. I love that for me. No planning either, except for some bits and pieces of stuff I keep tossing out there. My coteacher and I have two days for planning for next year set up already, for the beginning of July…gives us time to mentally reset, but works around our summer schedules. I’m jealous of her travel, but also want to stay home and make art. And I’ve been finding and ordering supplies for the week of artmaking in July for me. Going to do some painting on fabric and some fabric manipulation and some threadpainting. I have avoided Amazon and Target and Walmart and Hobby Lobby and all the other lame companies. I feel good about it, excited even. Not excited about cleaning the garage out, but it is also on the list. So is painting the shed. Fun times. Not. Maybe I’ll even get the sprinklers fixed finally. Ha!
I’m up early again. Another eye exam. I failed the field vision test in one eye. I told the doc it was because the spinning cabbage was in the way. So I’m up an hour early on a Monday…a MONDAY…before school to go in and fail again. Fun times.
Busy weekend…but good in general. Still had to do some work, but not as much as usual. I think. Who knows at this stage?
Art opening in Liberty Station on Friday night, in pure exhaustion mode…
Ah. Just realized the show is up for a while.
Moya Devine and I shared words, made pieces, and then made pieces in response to those pieces.
The drawing at the top left and the quilt are mine. Moya couldn’t make it to the opening. She is in San Francisco. Part of the reason we paired up is because she lives far away and I didn’t have time to meet with anyone locally. I love all the people who did, and hopefully I can post some stuff from the show later this week, when I’m not totally rushed.
We had dinner out afterward. And I drew.
I drew Saturday night too, but IDK what happened with that one. Oh yeah. Great food, nice servers, shitty ambience caused by uncontrolled screaming children, and then when we moved outside to escape that noise and kids careening into our chairs, then we had cigar smokers. Multiples. Surrounded. Not going there again.
Anyway. I had quilt guild in the morning, an interesting lecture on Aurifil threads…
My official stitch for guild meetings.
Also took a ceramics workshop this weekend with Sarah Anderson to learn sgraffito.
It was really fun to do. And it came with dogs.
I will always come for the dogs.
I did two tiles…
But I also had a planter…it just wasn’t quite hard enough yet.
I started carving it in class and realized I’d never finish. Plus it wasn’t hard enough. So it’s on my shelf hardening now. It’ll be fine. I’ll get it done. Although I have no carving tools. It’ll be fine!
It’s a fun way to turn my drawings into a physical thing though.
If that’s a goal of mine. Yeah, I made it into the official video (everyone did…it’s OK).
I did a bunch of tracing too.
Almost two hours Saturday night (to make up for none on Friday…too exhausted).
Almost an hour last night. In the mid-800s…finally halfway.
Tetris washing up in science prep room on Friday.
Doing the dishes. Things they never told you about in school.
Anyway. I did relax a bit this weekend. Well, I say that and I’m still grinding my teeth. Ah well.
OK. Eye doc, start of state testing review, long staff meeting, hopefully followed by some clay stuff and tracing. We’ll see. That’s my goal anyway. I won’t be done tracing this week, I think…maybe next week. My clay pieces won’t be done this week either. I have to make some glaze decisions though. Scary stuff. OK. Gotta go. Oh wait! So I haven’t heard the baby owl for a few nights…again. I hate this. I think like two or three have died so far. There was a parent around last night, some squawking. Thought this was dad…maybe mom was in there laying another egg and that’s why baby was quiet? I don’t remember any quiet the last two years though.
Who knows?
Hope everything is OK in there. Hope everything is OK everywhere.
So in totally awesome news, even though we trimmed the shit out of the trees, the owls are back! I finally got the camera up and working and there they were! I was so happy. I thought I’d heard them, but not the young one I’d heard before for the last 9 months…that one left after the tree trimming. We would hear it every night, going out to hunt. This must be one of the original parents. Much quieter. The male parent last year was loud as hell too. But so far, these are quiet.
It’s the weird little things that make my days.
This weekend was rough…I don’t feel like I got enough of any one thing done, unfortunately. Crunch time for school plus a lot of art things going on. I got a little bit done on the piece I’m doing with a partner…just some tracing done on Friday and Sunday night…
I think I had a whopping 26 minutes last night…
I was speed grading before that. I’m in the 200s…just about 150 pieces to go. I could finish it tonight, but I have a baby quilt that needs to be done by Saturday. Ha! Well. Hopefully.
I put borders on it Friday, then pinbasted it Saturday morning.
I did a little quilting on Saturday after buying an insane amount of thread, because I didn’t have the right kind.
I didn’t get any more quilting done all weekend unfortunately. It won’t take long…I just need to do it. Hopefully more tonight. But grades are also due and that’s stressful. So yeah. I’m trying to do all the things.
Saturday was the pop-up opening of Collective Retrospective, a show with a current piece and a piece that’s at least 10 years old. It started on Instagram. I only had the old piece, and it will be 30 years old in October.
This is The Cold Cement Basement of Our Love from October 1994. It’s a screenprint that I then drew all over with Sharpie…some things never change. Lots of words and DNA and a cup of tea. And sciencey things going on in the body. Before I ever taught science. I did work in science though.
I absolutely sucked at pictures of this show…I do know this is Judith Parenio’s piece…
I got a picture of her speaking (there’s video of her rousing words on the Insta link above)…
Except this is before she actually talked. Cool things happened. But I was there for like 3 1/2 hours. Time. Sigh. There was a beautiful sky though…and friends came by to see me and my art.
The Man stopped by at the end to help me load my piece into the car and then we went to dinner…
He had a show the night before that I was supposed to go to, but he texted me while I was driving that they had stopped letting people in; the venue was full. So I turned around and went home and graded instead. He didn’t get home until almost 2 AM, so we’ve barely seen each other this weekend. Yesterday was two art Zoom meetings plus trying to grade.
Anyway. So I’m quilting this week, hopefully tracing, obviously grading and lesson planning. Listening to owls. Reading when I can. I’ve got my second ceramics class tomorrow…already have ideas. It’s coiling. I love coiling. Busy weekend coming up. Again. Lots of art going out, which is good. Wish I were making more of it, but it’s here. I’m getting there. After a staff meeting today, teaching pedigrees…actually, letting an assignment teach them. I did my part. It’s time for them to do theirs. Ha! Hopeful anyway. First full week of teaching since January…with holidays and COVID and doctors’ appointments. It will be weird.
