Fabric Meditation

Well, so now we know that the mental state in which Kathy is most content is while she is picking fabric out for her art quilts. I can live in that state and push all the stupid crap and stress and depression and did I mention stupid crap? I can push it all out the door, slam the door on its face, and keep that damn door closed as long as I’m working and for a good period of time afterward. It is unfortunate that not ALL the stages of artmaking are so effective at calming my overactive mind. It really is a form of meditation. I’ve actually blown off meditation the last two nights and it’s been fine, because I spent 3 hours meditating with fabric each night.

I’m not really sure what to do with that information now, but…

So I met my goal for once! A miracle! Let’s not consider that I expect to be done with ironing AND cutting out in 9 days. And I’m days behind in grading. Priorities! I actually did a lot of yardwork yesterday before I ever started ironing. I started on Saturday night, in the almost dark, by sweeping around the pool, trying to clean up the crap from the storm last week, and then trying to clear the path to the upper yard, because Katie (mom has recorrected my spelling…apparently my dad doesn’t know how to spell his dog’s name…I’m sure Katie doesn’t give a freak. She’s just happy. HAPPY.) is scared of my yard in the dark, and ended up peeing on the path instead of heading for the plantlife. So Sunday, I went out in actual daylight…it was a gorgeous day, not too hot, perfect fall weather here (which will disintegrate into hot again this week), and it was nice to be out there cleaning up and trimming things. Yo Dad…I filled all 6 trashcans that they’ll pick up and I have two more ready for next week! So probably 2 hours were spent checking things off the list and making it easier to look around the house and not be dismayed by how it is falling apart.

Did I grade? Fuck no, I did not grade. Hanging head in shame. Sigh. Teaching. It really is not an easy job. Certainly not if you want a life.

But the girlchild was gone to a birthday party last night, so I had dinner in the oven and I started looking at fabrics for the two birds in this quilt. I used to do simple birds, less than 20 pieces. These suckers are over 70 pieces each.

with a run of 7 colors to do it properly. So I was trying to decide for almost 20 hours…do I go for realistic bird colors or out-there? Or parrot? Or raven (not good on a dark background)? Or what? I finally decided to start with the browns, because I want the main figures to pop more, and there is brown in the tree that will echo down the side into the birds. I actually stand there and stare at the drawing and go through the color ranges visually in my head, coloring it all in my head as I stare at it.

I had out one of the smaller bins of browns that I use (this is the smallest bin by far), because it has most of my newer fabrics in it, and I laid out the range on the right…

Browns are another difficult color to get a range in…some are very gray, some very red, some have that orange/yellow tint. The last two purplish-brown colors were the tailfeathers.

Once I had all those, though, I had to decide what to do with the decorative parts of the bird, and that’s when the color forced itself in…

Ayep. This bird is not fucking demure. Anyway, I had all the Wonder Pieces laid out behind and laid out all the bird pieces for both birds before I ironed…

It took a while. And then the next part was the fleshy bits. There are two figures in the quilt and I tried really hard to keep them relatively simple, compared to some of my figures…mostly because I realize I am going to run out of time if I don’t stay realistic on this piece in terms of details.

Anyway, I spent a good hour (after 11 PM) laying out human figure pieces, focusing only on the flesh colors, pushing all the other stuff (heart, lungs, pubic hair and the like) out of the way for later. I had the flesh colors laid out and was putting all the pieces on top of them for ironing, when I realized there was no way I was going to finish last night. I might be able to lay them all out if I stayed up until 1, but that kinda kicked my ass last week, and I’m trying to be better. And then it would take me at least an hour to iron them all down. But I didn’t want the cat to be able to jump up and dislodge pieces after I’d spent so long figuring out what went where, and even an errant breeze would be an issue at the moment, so I put each color in a bin with all its pieces…

So I can finish it up tonight. I don’t know how many pieces I got done last night, because none of these are ironed and I was pulling pieces from the bins numbered 300-700 for the flesh colors, but leaving a bunch behind for later, and I still have to get the male’s neck and head out of the 800 bin. And I think some of his fingers are still on the table. So yeah. Maybe by tonight, I will have everything through the 800s ironed down, although it seems like a lot…I am on a roll, though.

I guessed about 12 hours for ironing down to fabric and I’ve hit the halfway mark. I’ll know better after tonight how close I am to my original estimate. Progress! Progress is good. And I really like the mindstate I’m in when I iron. It’s peaceful. I’m mostly content.

I had both dogs in here, underfoot, at one point…

But mostly I just get one. This one is a little crazy.

Someone spiked her punch I think.

An article on the Fence/Barda exhibit is here…it’s nice to get some publicity up in LA for one of our shows; she surely read my blogpost on the FIG website, which is also good. Too bad they didn’t link to us.

This is a DALeast video of painting a whale on a wall.

I love how he is so nonchalant with his painted lines. They are so simple up close, but make such a complicated image from far away. I did spend a little time this weekend reading on the couch and reading art blogs for inspiration and peaceful thinking. Gotta take care of ALL the parts of the brain, best I can.

Peace Through Scissoring…

Hid myself in the gym yesterday. Nice and cold. Reading my book. Peaceful. Achieving something useful.

I came back home and tried to finish tracing Wonder Under, but the girlchild needed more water before her game, so I packed up and headed out into the sweltering heat earlier than I wanted…only 100 pieces done. Like it’s cooler in my house (it’s not. It’s the 7th pit of hell here.).

I spent the time before the game writing…this story I’m writing has a mind of its own. I read the last paragraph I’d written and didn’t remember writing it. Trance writing apparently. And the story is writing itself in a direction I wasn’t expecting. I’ll have to figure out if that section really belongs. But for now, I’m going to keep writing. Sex scene and all. My goodness. Who knew?

Soccer in 100-degree heat…it doesn’t look so bad in photos…it’s not like the flames of hell are on the field.

The girlchild made two goals and they won the game…4 bottles of water later. I even left her my water. A mother’s sacrifices…never appreciated.

I left the game early for the Fence/Barda opening at Art Produce in North Park, so I missed the end…

The opening was nice, lots of people and interactions above and through the fence. Here are my two birds outside the bathroom.

My friends showed up and hung out…we ate and had a good time. Thanks y’all. I do appreciate you.

Things have changed a lot since we originally installed, but I think it works. The American and Mexican sides of the fence are definitely different: one very formal and one very loosey goosey. Strangely, the installation process was flipped…we (the Americanskis) were very methodical in installation, even though things moved around. The Mexican contingent is still delivering pieces, somewhat due to border and vehicle issues, but their side is very formally presented, while ours flows and hangs and moves.

There’s my house on the right…and the birds I helped hang in the windows.

You couldn’t walk in and find the Kathy Nida piece. There were no uteri, no boobs. It’s not like that.

Anyway, so it was a good opening. There are more events associated with this exhibit and another opening. I’ll post as we figure that shit out.

Once I got back, I was determined to finish tracing pieces, no matter how late, no matter how much wine I had ingested. I finished up around 11:30 PM. It took 11 hours and 38 minutes to trace all the pieces, about 1080 total.

Today it’s over 100 degrees again, and I keep looking out at the clouds, hoping they will bring rain.

They didn’t, but hopefully temps should drop tomorrow. It’s still in the 80s and it’s 10 PM. Ugh.

I’ll start cutting Wonder Under out today…tonight…right now, I’m dealing with school stuff, designing an online assignment on food and another on zombies. I graded a bunch of things using the iPad, which was nice, because I could watch PBS on the computer and grade on the iPad, although it would be nice to have some sort of a notes function in Edmodo to use while I’m grading things on Google Docs. Maybe a rubric I could click on or something. Wish I were technological enough to design the stuff teachers actually need. Maybe it’s all in Google Classroom and I just don’t know it yet.

Anyway. I’ve meditated and it’s time to Wonder Under…although I don’t think I’ll be done by Tuesday night. Oh well. That’s because I worked on other things.

Like I sewed the binding on the LAST of the bird quilts. Well, I thought it was the last of the bird quilts, but apparently someone else wants another owl.

Yeah, but do they want a WHITE owl or a PURPLE owl, or an owl of an entirely different color? And can they wait until December? Because I really really need them to be able to wait that long. Rainbow Fucking Owl.

I finished Owl 2, Bird 15 today. It actually still needs a label…

But assuming she still wants it, it’s a goner as of Thursday. I might do cats next. Not for a while though. I’ve got stuff on my plate.

I spent only an hour cutting things out…

They were a pain in the butt. I was tired. It was hot. Damn, it still IS hot. And although I definitely should be asleep, I’m not. Because. That’s the way I roll. Badly and with limited rest. My goal? To finish the Wonder Under trimming in the next two nights (could be an issue) and start ironing fabrics Wednesday night, so I have something to cut out on Thursday night at quilt class. If not? Maybe I’ll trace one of the smaller quilts I need to work on as well.

But there’s progress. The progress gives me some peace. I feel it in my chest, like someone took a deep breath and gave me all that oxygen. Like there’s something in my head that feels the scissors tracing around the edge of each piece, analyzing how each piece should be cut out, with the minimum of Wonder Under and fabric waste, but not so much time and energy on the cutting out that it borders on the crazy. I did meditate tonight: once with the Headspace app and the nice British man, and once with scissors and Wonder Under, a careful trimming of the good from the bad, a metaphor for how to live, to cut out the shit, the crap that was thrown at you, the bullshit that people make up in order to excuse their bad behavior. Yeah. So I cut that. And tomorrow I will cut more.

Wonder Under meditation. I should charge admission.

Not in My Nature…

Oh Holey Batpuddle. OK, so the plus is that I have had a breakthrough on the painful drawing of death (it’s not really a drawing of death. It’s a drawing that was trying to kill me. It failed. Fuck you, drawing. I will prevail. I am way more stubborn than you are…Yes, I am arguing with a drawing that is coming out of my head and is composed of paper and pen). I got it to the right size (even this was an issue on Friday and Saturday nights) and then penciled in the legs…

I wanted to make sure the proportions were right. I already have issues with the length of the arms, but have decided I don’t fucking care. Once I had them in pencil, which yes, required some erasing and redrawing (apparently I think people have HUGE feet), I inked in most of the bottom.

I kept thinking I should add more stuff on the bottom bits, but I do need this to actually GET MADE. It’s not anywhere near done, of course…the tibias and fibulas are missing. Extra credit points if you know what those are. Of course, then crazy brain popped in and suggested drawing phalanges and the other foot bones, so I slapped myself around a bit and moved on. I’ll work on it again tonight, although I’ve been exhausted all weekend, despite TRYING to get more sleep, so I don’t know how well that will go. Yes, I wanted to be done with the drawing by tonight. No, I won’t be. Oh well. Moving on.

I also worked on one binding last night…

I have two more to put on, one ideally by Thursday night, but it’s the smaller one. I think I have another week or so for the larger one.

In the morning, I had an idea for adding something to my floating house…

Last-minute decisions. A human figure that hangs down on the inside.

I will never be able to sell this for the time and materials I put into it, which is kinda sad.

Oh well. The cats will be quite happy when I bring it home and hang it so they can reach it.

I spent most of the day dealing with stage 1 of the Art Produce install…

Which was supposed to be hanging all the houses. We spent the first hour locked out (ah, the wonders of miscommunication) and tying fishing wire to the houses for hanging.

We had a wide variety of types of houses. Most people did more than one…

I decided to do one big one…

Linda Litteral’s houses are beautiful…

Hand-drawn on tracing paper glued to wooden bases.

We got the fence parts in place…

Installed some hanging apparati above…

And I spent about 2 hours going up and down a 10-foot ladder, tying fishing wire to the supports above. I was a little tired afterwards.

One of the other artists was going back today to install a bunch more, and we’ll all be there this afternoon to install birds.

Here they are attaching the fence to the wall…

Art Produce is a gallery in North Park (San Diego) that has applied for nonprofit status. The exhibit we’re installing is called Fence/Barda, and is in coalition with a group of Mexican women artists who we have barely met. There is an American side of the gallery and a Mexican side.

But mostly the houses went in today…the inside of mine from below.

I was down there for 3 hours yesterday and it will be another 4 today. We got the fence location put in place and then moved it out of the way so we could start hanging houses. Then put it back with a ladder on each side for installation purposes.

I finished the two birds for this exhibit. If you come to the show (the opening is 6-9 on Saturday, September 13), the birds are all selling for $100. This meant I had to spend less time on mine than I had with the original versions. First of all, the birds are all 8×10″, so that was smaller than my originals. Then I didn’t bind them…I just satin-stitched the edges. I also didn’t put a sleeve or a label on them…I just wrote the info on the back of the quilt and sewed on two little rings that can hang on nails.

This is Bird 11, Dove 2:

And this is Bird 13, Diving Bird 2 (although this one is less divey than the original):

They will be in the show through October; if they don’t sell there, I’ll put them up here when the show closes.

I’m also possibly hanging a quilt that I never finished from way back. I’m taking it in today and asking if they want it…it has two houses on it and it’s a significant departure from the work I do now, but we have some blank wall space on the American side and I think it might fit. I just need to put about 2-3 hours into finishing the quilting and putting a binding and sleeve on it. I was going to do that last night, but decided that I wasn’t going to put time and energy into it if they didn’t want it. So I’ll take it today and see what they say, and if they want it, I’ll finish it by next weekend, when the Mexican contingent installs…I can just go over and hang it on the wall in about 5 minutes flat.

Anyway. So I made lots of progress yesterday. I’m exhausted today and still have 12 things on the to-do list, not the least of which is getting ready for school tomorrow. Yikes! And the girlchild is in a mood (finally school stress starts to weigh on her). I miss the boychild. We had a brief text conversation yesterday about the lameness of Mexican food at Cornell (a shocker). We would FedEx him burritos, but suspect they won’t make it.

My mood’s been halfway between too busy to even notice how I feel (there are pros and cons to that) to sinking well below into the depths of yucky shit. Fun stuff. I’m hoping artistic progress will keep pulling it back out. A girl can hope. Whenever you think the depression might be gone or reduced, it comes back to remind you that no, no it’s not. HERE I AM. Whatever. Fuck you. Now I need to jump on the rest of my to-do list for the day. While many people are lazing around, planning their Labor Day barbecue, I’m trying to decide what I’m taking to an installation potluck (I’m not making anything…there’s just no way) and how to fit 10 more hours into the day. Such is my life. I keep making more work for myself. Trying to draw the lines…I won’t do this or that, I will keep a balance. Ha. It’s not in my nature.