I downloaded photos on Friday for a post, and that’s as far as I got. I think I briefly considered it on Saturday, but then got sucked into other things that needed doing and lost track of that thought. Last night, while I was trying to fall asleep, my ever-helpful (not) brain was trying to remember if I’d posted on Friday or not…not is the answer. So here we are, back to Mondays, back to school, three weeks of crazy to survive on many levels, not ready for any of it…except the next stage of the quilt. Oh wait. Not ready for that either. It’s chaos in here and I can’t iron a quilt together in chaos. So. Yeah. But I’m going to have to…and that might just be the best explanation of most of my adult life right there: can’t do it; gonna have to.
OK, quilt…the quilt that I’m a week behind on…easily. Here’s more cutting out, with Scribble.
And more cutting out…
with Scribble’s tail. And more cutting out with Scribble.
And the final push…
14 hours to do it all…
And I have a lap cat. Which is nice. She quickly learned to keep her paws out of the bins, until last night, when I started sorting…
She definitely wanted to be IN the bins. But wasn’t violent about it (unlike Bowie a year ago or so). I didn’t finish sorting last night…started late and then was tired and needed to go to bed to get up early this morning.
More Scribble pix…she is allowed in the sewing room if I’m in here.
Although she has already found Kitten’s cave, where she hid on and off for the last 6 years of her life…
I mean, it’s full of batting. Why wouldn’t you want to hide there?
The girlchild is here; Scribble is friendly.
Which everyone appreciates.
She just settles in and lets the other three cats try to figure her out.
Even Bowie is starting to come around; he wants to play with her, but he’s not sure how.
Three cats vertically in a row. So it’s been a good transition so far. Of course, today is the first work day, when there’s no one around for most of the day. That will be different. But she seems very adaptable…
Strangely enough.
The Man and I hiked again on Friday, because…
we had my family’s Thanksgiving on Friday…
Both kids cooked…nice food choices.
My dad fell asleep on the couch with Annie…
I think he was in her seat.
Saturday night dinner’s drawing…
Not finished, but I only have the time from when we come in the restaurant until they serve the food.
I finished the pomegranate seeds on May’s Forest for the Trees block.
At the moment, all I can handle is the applique. I’ll get to the embroidery, but who knows when? Going back to school has sucked up any loose time I had.
I still think we’re not allowed…
But I appreciate the sentiment.
OK, there’s so much school stuff I didn’t finish over break. Always. I have seating charts written for 2 of my 6 classes. Today is chill, though…starting a new unit, so just vocab and cover page and a short lecture on how to bring your grade up and it doesn’t involve Google or AI. Then staff meeting(s?) and hopefully ceramics. I need a porcelain patch kit from Home Depot too…purposely didn’t go get it this weekend, but I still need it. I also need to finish the other sgraffito frame at the studio before it dries out. I had plans to go Saturday and Sunday, and both fell through. It’s fine; other things happened and it was good, but I need to go today. And tomorrow. And Thursday. Or something. Three weeks…I can do three weeks. I think.
Late start on this. And if you’re gonna tell me about how YOU don’t have the day off, well, you probably didn’t work through the last three weekends, did you? So there’s that. I did a bunch of things this morning, because I have the day off, yay brain. I went to the doctor, I went to Fed Ex and copied a drawing for the next quilt, plus shipped a quilt to a traveling show that is opening somewhere, but I don’t remember where, ah well. I’ll figure that out. I got dog food (for the dog), plastic wrap (for Wednesday’s lab…forgot to get it at the grocery store yesterday), a new sprinkler head (that seems to be problematic and probably won’t fix the problem; might need to consult with my sprinkler guy, who happens to be my ex husband), plus more glazes/clay tools (local clay place is only open M-F 9-4, so they get very little of my business honestly), and the ceramics studio, where I did things that I forgot to photograph. Like a ditz. Seriously. My head is still in the glaze kiln and my tree is still waiting to be bisqued…probably that will all happen tomorrow and I’ll see stuff on Friday. OR I have a ceramics class next Saturday and I’ll see it then.
Came home, tried to fix the sprinkler, failed, ate lunch, started the dishwasher, made a mammogram appointment (they are scheduling 6 freakin’ months out ffs), read a chapter of my book, and am now trying to get my head straight. It’s OK. I need to do yardwork, but it’s like 90 degrees out there. It’s freakin’ November. Too damn hot. And mosquitoes. Sheesh.
OK. So quilt progress. I’m ironing bugs Friday night
Purple and green bugs. Then Saturday night, I did the body bag and some other stuff, like faucets.
And last night, I did the water. A satisfying grayish brown color. Or is it a greyish brown? Hard to say.
I’m in the 200s, I think. But nearly done with them. I’m ironing stuff on a rug next. Or a darts target. Something like that.
Friday, I added these shapes to one of the frames.
Today, I underglazed this one in black and will start sgraffito on it on Friday probably. I added some shapes to the other frame and didn’t take pictures of either of them. Good times.
I allowed myself a little stitching on Friday night…
Almost done stitching everything down on this one…then embroidery. I’ve had so little time for embroidery or any handwork lately. I’m struggling to get the time to do any art. School is just such a timesuck. I graded all day Saturday, then finished the major assignment last night. I’m not doing school today, except for posting a video I took on Friday for the absent kids.
I’m Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is traveling with Fierce Planets. It’s currently at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT.
I’m hoping to see this show when it wanders west.
It looks nice.
I didn’t have time to put all the planets in my quilt…maybe need to do a bigger one?
That piece on the right is fascinating: Jennifer C. Solon’s Untamed Fury.
I have another piece traveling to Connecticut…The Way Out is part of Enough Already, work from the Sara M. +Michelle Vance Waddell collection. It’ll be at the MOCA in Westport, CT, opening November 13. I’m excited about how much it’s traveling with this exhibit.
Speaking of traveling, Simba and I went for a hike on Saturday.
He can’t go as far as he used to, but we did a solid 2 miles. He needed a bath after due to the unfortunate genetics of his butt fur.
Check Bowie out, sleeping like a normal cat. Not parkouring across the coffee table.
Not body slamming my teacup. He must be growing up. Might be time for a new kitten. He’s reached 18 months. Might be out of the velociraptor stage.
This is me always.
The night is better.
I did read the article. And sigh. But the comment above it is the best.
Because we all wanna know.
Anyway. I am not grading today or tomorrow. I have fabric to iron, a political project I joined that I need to do something for, lots of yardwork, some housework, books to read, always books to read, maybe some actual sewing. We’ll see. Short week of school. Nice. Chaos though, because I planned two labs. Like a fucktard. It’ll be fine. I’ll get in fast, won’t kill anyone, get out and take a day off. Sounds perfect. I think I’m giving them a test in between too. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, breathe deeply and wonder where winter…or even fall…is.
I have this post-it on my desk at home that says “2:07 damn x 2, WTH”. I stared at it for a bit this morning until I realized it was from the recording my co-teacher had two students do for us of the lab stations. I needed to edit out the swearing, best I could (and I did on one; the other one had to be redone for other reasons). IDK what your day job looks like, but that shit is part of mine. I do edit my language at school. In case you were wondering. I did get called out for a student for using the word ‘crap’ the other day (oh my; after being told to shut the fuck up by two different students…fun times). And I had a student years back who didn’t like it when I said “my lord”, which I do all the time. That was a hard one. I get her complaint, but I couldn’t fix that one. I think we settled on the fact that I wasn’t talking about HER lord, but some random British lord. And also some teaching about the fact that not everyone had her beliefs and she needed to relax a bit. I wonder where she is now? I wonder what she’s doing…
OK, so I’m still not done quilting, but it’s not the thread anymore. When I switched to the new spool, it did keep breaking, so I used some of that Sewers Aid stuff on the spool, but also, suspect the outside thread of the spool was more dry than the inside, because it stopped breaking. I would have finished quilting last night, but I went to a concert instead. Can’t say no to Billy Idol, Joan Jett, VIP table, and free tickets, can you? Yeah, it’s a school night, but I didn’t go to bed a whole lot later than normal, and I fell asleep right away for once.
Back to the quilting though…too many variables to know what solved the problem…science teacher should know better, but I was so frustrated that I just needed it to work…and it did.
I’ve made it all the way around three sides. I have half a side left and two little bits in between things, and then I’m done. The two possible binding fabrics were purchased Saturday morning before I went to LA, because the store I like is only open during my work hours, except for Saturdays, which is yes, in fact, totally annoying. But hopefully trimming it Thursday night and getting the binding on, done over the weekend, photographed next week? That’s the goal. And I had an awesome idea for the next one, which needs to go to a show and be done in December. Ha! OK, I know. I can do it.
I finished grades Monday night at 7 PM, so I allowed myself some stitching time…still stitching things down on this.
Those are pomegranates, so there are little circles going in each of those fruits as well. I will never finish.
So yeah, great show last night. Both singers in their late 60s. Joan rocked it.
She did not throw herself around like a 20-year-old, but she had the voice and the attitude.
And still played guitar.
Impressive.
Billy fucking Idol was good too…
Although seemed to show his age a bit more…for some reason, he reminded me of William Shatner. Not the sexy guy he was in the 80s, but who is? And he had a few musical moments that were questionable. But it was a good rocking show.
Definitely worth going out on a school night.
I was in bed before midnight. But then woken up after midnight. Ugh. It’s fine. He’s more tired than I am this morning, and the dog is just sad that barely anyone talked to him yesterday. Poor pup.
Cute Nova/Luna moment.
And this…not so cute acknowledgement of the current fuckery.
Oh so true. Get the fuck out.
OK. School. Fuck me. I was going to do something low-key chill today, but then I got a bug up my butt and now we are cutting and gluing. Because I’m nuts like that. It’ll be fine. I’m just concerned it won’t take the whole period. I have a couple of periods that literally can’t complete work assigned on previous days…if you give them 10 minutes to finish stuff, they spend it all goofing off and talking. I guess that’s the difference between me at that age and them. I would’ve been finishing everything so I wouldn’t have to do it at home. They just never finish it. After all that, and after torturing my co-teacher into planning for next week, because we literally have NOTHING planned (I’m freaking out), I will have pilates and I will have to take the trash out (with help) and cook dinner (wtf) and THEN quilt. Oh and probably grade shit too. Ugh. It’s fine. I got my grades done. The world is not ending. Yet. I have the next quilt in my head. Deep breaths.
I think I just ran around all weekend. I don’t feel particularly rested. Well, there were two late nights. I can blame one on Art Brain…I would have gone to bed. The other one, I blame Delta for flying the boychild in 90 minutes late on an already late flight. It’s fine. And last night, the new glucose sensor is off by 40 points again so the alarm kept going off…which is when I silenced it (it still buzzes) and put it on the floor. It’s still off this morning, so it gets 24 hours. Last time, that worked. Annoying though.
I did get the top ironed together on Friday night. I was exhausted (long short week), and was just going to piece the background, but once I had it all laid out, I’m like, it’ll be fine. How long will it take? That’s art brain talking, because the answer is 90 minutes past bedtime.
Awesome sauce. Looks good on that background, which is always nice. I pick those out when I start ironing all the pieces to fabric, so I’m never really sure what it will all look like in the end.
I started stitchdown on Saturday night.
Going about 100 mph, while singing along (probably quite badly) to whatever my phone was playing. Good thing the Man was also on headphones. Then I left at midnight to go pick up the boychild from the airport; he’d been hiking part of the PCT up in Washington.
And last night, further on in the stitchdown. Lots of details takes a bunch of time.
It’ll look better with outlining when I quilt it. That skeletal middle finger will be obvious.
I did a lot of school work this weekend (ugh). I remember now how trying to do the house stuff, run errands, go to meetings, but still have some time for art, reading, and relaxation…it feels like you’re constantly running.
I took a little time to sew stuff down on this during dinner TV time.
I also worked on one of the Rooted blocks during my quilt guild meeting, probably the first one I’ve been to in 6 months. First Saturdays are hard. I’m gone for the next one; I know that. A lot of the people I like to hang out with weren’t there.
I finished a cover page in science…a miracle for the first month of school!
Yet another roller coaster.
This show, with two of my pieces (one in the bottom right corner), opens this Friday.
I unfortunately won’t be there…and will never see this show, because it’s at Coastline College in Newport Beach and they are only open part of the week, certainly not the weekend. Ah well. It isn’t the first show I haven’t been able to attend. If you go, send me pics.
I also hiked 3 miles on Saturday…
It’s been hot still, so I didn’t leave until like 5:30 PM. The Man’s back still bugs him too much to join me, but hopefully in the future. It was still warm, but there was a cooler breeze in the second half.
I met one human and her massive (unleashed) dog…who saw me, stopped, and then started loping toward me. Kind of nerve-wracking. She’s searching through her pack for the leash and calling the dog, who isn’t listening at all. Sigh. I don’t care if he’s the gentlest giant around; if I’d had Simba with me, there would have been a problem. Leash your fucking dogs, especially in wildlife preserves, where it’s required. Humans are annoying.
Seriously, he was huge.
I saw this while driving home.
I chose to read it as What Would Jesus Do? Get rid of those two buffoons. Also badly centered ‘Vance’, which might be a metaphor.
Back to teaching, this is part of my regular job apparently.
The kid typed the stuff on the left. I mean, it’s probably true, and I did tell two kids that Spanish was OK, but Turkish is out of my knowledge realm. How to get these kids to write in English! I mean, I could have them write in their native language, then use Google Translate, then have them read it to me in English, then write it in English, but that would mean the other 32 kids in the class are just sitting there while I do that for 10 minutes (there’s multiple language kids in one class). This kid, legit writes in English most of the time, so I’m OK with it, but the three Spanish speakers have been in US schools for over 2 years and won’t even try in English. Sigh. I can’t do all the things. There isn’t enough time for all of it.
And for those thinking Chatgpt is teaching for us, we had it read through a set of stations we did in the past and consolidate it into 3 stations, instead of 6. It produced a ‘worksheet’, for some loose definition of such, and I spent over an hour turning it into something usable. I’m not saying it wasn’t helpful; it was definitely a shortcut, but don’t tell me it produces stuff I can use right away. Because it doesn’t. It probably saved us an hour of trying to decide which ones to do and what to cut, and then formatting it slightly differently so it all fits on four pages instead of 20. Still needs a ton of work and planning brain.
OK. It’s Monday. Another full week. Trying to fit exercise and ceramics in…not sure how that’s gonna go, honestly. Today? I’m teaching forms of energy. Mostly notes…a couple of demos. We built in some independent time this week (we’ll see how independent they really are), so we could NOT be direct teaching (which is exhausting for us and the kids) all week. Also maybe we could grade some stuff at school instead of bringing it all home. We have a two-hour (torture) literacy meeting after school today, ugh, with lesson and all. Not fun. Hopefully useful. They haven’t been, really…just been performative, which is annoying. They did let us plan our own learning this year, individually (although me and my co-teacher are doing the same lessons). For once, we get to decide what our kids need. What a concept. Then home to deal with a broken blind and the guy fixing it, with two dogs in the house. Then book club. And some stuff in and around all that. I think I read the book. I don’t remember. Oh yes! I did. It was nice. Not amazing, but nice. Then more stitchdown! Which is where I really want to be.
Oof. Well we got rain. Good thing, because that fire is still out there south of us. Definitely more in control with the rain and humidity coming up a bit. And we needed rain. Hoping it wasn’t so much that there were mudslides in fire zones. Just enough to give the plants some water and help put fires out. That would be good.
I wanted to be done with stitchdown last night, but I spent a bunch of time on school stuff yesterday instead of art. It needed to be done. This week is a little chaotic and it’s easier for me to do some of the grading with a clear mind, not muddied by exhaustion or kids talking. So I started it Friday night after finishing the ironing down to the background…here’s the whole thing…
Then the stitchdown start…
I did about three hours on Saturday and another hour last night…
I just have the head, that visual disturbance stuff, and the space cat. Not much…not even an hour’s worth, I think. Tonight though. Then sandwich and pinbaste and quilt.
In other quilt news, there’s my piece on the far left at Form, Not Function, where it won Honorable Mention.
And here’s one of mine on the banner of a show that opens next Saturday…
Now that’s cool. A boob out in public.
I’ve been glazing some little animals I’m going to try to make into pincushions…
This is going into the glaze fire with a clear satin coat.
I still have one that’s going into the bisque fire; its tail may not last. We’ll see.
The reddish one is the girlchild’s trinket dish. Hopefully the glaze doesn’t run too badly.
It’s actually supposed to turn out a blue green with a hint of brown. Glaze colors are weird that way.
And I’m just stitching wool down for another Sue Spargo quilt. Neverending.
My fault. I enjoy making them so I keep getting more. This tree one looks fun though.
This was Friday’s sun through the fire’s smoke cloud as it floated over us.
I drove a little bit west and I was out of it. But it smelled like smoke, like fire too. Like I said, that one is under control and I’m sure they’ll get it out in the next few days. More rain is headed in today, although not a lot.
OK. Today the kids will need to take notes on their own (ha! That’s funny) while I grade stuff. We’ll see how that goes. I’m tired still. Ugh. Not sleeping well again. Meetings after school, although I’m supposed to have a team meeting and all of my team except me are in another meeting. So yeah, IDK how that’s supposed to work. I will meet by myself? Probably. Then home to finish stitchdown. Oh yeah! The bees have mostly left the owl box; we moved it away from the post yesterday. Hopefully sometime this week we can put the new owl box up and invite owls to stay there (owl airbnb?). I’ve heard barn owls recently. I hope they didn’t already pick somewhere else. I hope they’re lurking around and waiting for this one.
Also, I’m back on FB and Insta…not ready to let the fascist tech overlords take over everything. I’m still on Bluesky though…I’ve got people on there too, so I’ll stay there unless it seems like a no go. We’ve had a bunch of different apps pop up and disappear over the years. You never know what will stick.
So. Midweek. Full school week. Not heavy on the meetings, unlike the next two weeks. I should enjoy that while it lasts. Not a lot of normal quilt art happening, for a variety of reasons. Grades are due in less than a week. I might actually have them done with a margin for once. If kids stop trying to turn everything in late. I had to rush to grade an academic assignment so I would be able to give them two days to fix it. Of course, you give them a deadline and they ignore it and try to resubmit for days afterwards. And then they tell you it’s HAARRDD and you show them that they didn’t even read what you gave them. It’s hard because of that. Not because, like they say, I didn’t teach it to them. They literally didn’t look at the information provided. That shit is always frustrating. I refuse to dumb down all the assignments for the post-COVID laze. It’s been a rough trimester. For all of us. I’m certainly looking at being 2/3s done with the year and feeling like I just can’t do another one. Another 12 weeks? Can’t. Uh uh. I’m so tired of the planning and the adult incursions on my time. The kids don’t really bug me this year. The adults? Ugh. Too much. Admin: Here do this. And this. And you have time for this, right? I took on one thing my team asked me to do (of the many) and they didn’t tell me it involved this Portrait of a Graduate thing the district is pushing, that I really don’t get, you don’t have buy-in from me, but all of a sudden I need to write an elevator pitch for it? I don’t have a pitch. Y’all haven’t inspired me INTO a pitch. Sigh. I have homework. I get paid for it, sure, but what I’d like is time to fix my house and make art and read my book. Ugh.
Yeah. So. Good times. Make shit up. Google it! Hey, I’m just like my students sometimes. I understand it. I don’t have the bandwidth at night, when I get home, to do homework. And I do so much of it as it is. Why did I agree to add more? Sigh.
OK, so in the art stuff, I’ve traced nothing in the last two days because I need to get grades done and that baby quilt done by Saturday. So the last two nights, after grading, I quilted.
Nothing fancy, although it’s for a baby girl, so I quilted a little woman power in there.
Both the woman power that’s gonna bring her into this world, care of my good friend…
And the power that’s been sheltering her for the last 8 months or so…
On the back…
I quilted her parents’ names into it too. Going for all the good juju. Anyway, I stayed up too late last night to finish the borders, so I could start binding it tonight. I should be able to get it done in time. Baby shower is Saturday.
It’s gonna feel good to have all these have-to things done so I can do my own thing, to be honest.
I went to my second ceramics handbuilding class last night…coiling. I love coiling. Although I did not use the extruder…I think I’ll try that in two weeks, when we get to do whatever we want.
I did ceramics in college quite a bit. But honestly, I don’t really think of what I do in ceramics as art? It’s more like what I do with embroidery. It’s a creative outlet and I enjoy it, but it’s more meditative relaxing process than creating something that evokes something for me.
I’m considering a membership at the studio. It’s reasonably priced and I can go in whenever. Sounds nice.
Then I think about my time and what little of it I have at the moment. I’m sacrificing artmaking and gym time for this. And it’s totally worth it and fun and I’m loving it…
But I’m not sure what to do with it long term. I might get a membership in the summer, if there are any available…
Or…I don’t know. I’d like to think I could carve out some time, but this school year has been so bad and I don’t think it’s getting better. Certainly not if I have to fit surgery in before the end of the school year. No call yet. Damn health carrier is getting a new scheduling system, so they’ve basically shut down scheduling completely until it switches over this Friday. Sigh.
Anyway. So there’s that. That pot is gonna slump some more. One of the issues of trying to build so fast in a short period of time. Normally I’d work for an hour and then let it harden a bit. Didn’t really have that option. Ah well. Not sure what I’m doing in there anyway, except playing. Which is fine. I’ll have a lot of pot shapes at the end probably. I’m not very good at the practicality of it.
Monday night, I stitched during book club. Kitten did not help.
Just stitching things down is about my head space at the moment.
OK, so today, my kids are making pedigrees about a genetic disorder using a genealogical history we reviewed yesterday. They got to choose their groups. I’m wondering if I should have done groups of two instead of four. I’m seeing some loser behavior going on. As usual. Sigh. Well hopefully they’ll do the things today and tomorrow and I won’t have to work too hard at getting them on task. Yesterday, all I did was talk really. I need a break from that. I’m trying to plan the next unit, but I need about three hours of blank headspace to do it. Not sure when I’m gonna get that. I really did spend most of yesterday explaining inbreeding and intermarriage. Fun times.
The pool pump died yesterday. Expensive replacement. How am I supposed to pay to fix the house when shit like that keeps happening? The fridge will go next. I’m surprised it hasn’t already. It’s been going for a good long time and appliances don’t do that any more.
Pilates after school, grading again, then making dinner. Hopefully getting that binding on that quilt. Dreaming of art stuff. I’ll get there…soon. My art drive is strong, always has been. 18 school days until Spring Break…not that we have anything planned. Sigh. Except stuff here. No money except to fix shit.
The internet is molasses today. Man, this week sucks for after school. Meeting after meeting after meeting. I hate Friday meetings. And we haven’t even gotten to the parents we need to meet with (on the 6th day of school, we already have two concerns, academic, not behavior). I got 5 new kids yesterday with no warning…those emails warning me came after two kids I didn’t recognize showed up in my class, ready to learn (really?), even though I wasn’t prepared. I actually gave an assessment yesterday, a quiz. And yes, I made 3 of them do it (the other kids came too late). Well, one didn’t have a computer, so not him. Two of them. Some were already at our school in the Newcomer program we have for kids who are new to the country. So we expect them to be unclear on science concepts and sometimes in need of lots of help. The first month is such a juggling act, too much shit; it’s a relief (usually) to get to the end of September and some sort of normal routine. But right now, science is a lot, union is a lot, literacy is a lot, sex ed is a lot. Today is the first of two 2-hour meetings this week with parents and school-board members about creating a sex ed curriculum that is specific to our kids. I think this is idiotic. Programs already exist. Why reinvent the wheel? You can’t NOT teach the stuff this group doesn’t like…it’s required by the state. My boss. Opt your kids out. Please. And yes, I am getting paid for these meetings, but I’m not sure you could pay me enough to make this worth it.
Anyway. So I come home and cook dinner or eat it or whatever, and read my book for a little bit, because I NEED that, and after all that, I iron. I don’t clean or dust or vacuum (oh man, the one thing the hurricane did was mess up the floors I had just cleaned. Fucker). I have my priorities. Monday night…I ironed a lot of money. I tend to iron in numeric order, but I took this picture…
Because I was going in numerical order, and then I’m like, there’s about 75 pieces that are money and I should just iron them all at the same time, so I rummaged through the 500s through 1000s and found them all, and then did all of them. It’s more efficient that way, and it adds to continuity in the piece to have all the money be the same color. I’ll do the same with the justice’s robes. Probably. I’m debating on that. I have some black fabrics with bits of color and I may use those for the justices who are more for ALL the people than some of them. We’ll see.
Anyway, so these pieces are tiny and even if I iron 100 of them, it doesn’t look like I did much of anything.
But I did. Maybe the closeups are more useful…
You can see the money and the fish I ironed. Plus a fishing pole. Yeah.
Then last night, I wanted more than an hour…and yes, I’m still staying up too late at night. Not good. But I did a whole bunch of people parts, little people. So I think it was almost all fleshy bits, except for a slippery hill.
Many versions of flesh and a big green piece. I still have some of the 500s left (the clothes and apparati of the fleshy bits, some signs, a recycling bin, a wheelchair), but you’ll notice some of the flesh was in the 600s. Nowhere near halfway. The goddess’ legs weren’t next. I thought they were. I think they are next after I do these people. There might be an umbrella before that. It’s slow, people, so slow, and coming home the next two nights after 6 PM is not going to help.
Doesn’t look very colorful here. I like color. You may have noticed. There will be lots of black, gray, and fleshtones in this one. I think the goddess will be more dirt and sky. That’s the plan anyway. Something has to be tied to the earth.
My anti-anti-abortionists quilt, My Body. My Choice., is still at the Virginia Quilt Museum. They sent photos of it in situ, which was nice, because I hadn’t seen any.
There’s a fall artists reception on September 23, from 4-6 PM. I won’t be there, but the exhibit looks cool. Check it out. There’s my piece on the left. I don’t know whose the other pieces are.
I’m intrigued by the tools to the right of mine.
Simba was not pleased by my perusal of his fur for knotted bits…
It’s a constant struggle.
I’m sewing things down brainlessly after dinner for a bit. It’s satisfying.
Sue Spargo’s Forest for the Trees block of the month. The trees are cute. This one has crabs and fish. Totally opposite to the crazy shit I’m doing on my own quilt. Perfect!
OK, today I’m having the kids practice writing CERs (claim, evidence, reasoning). Should be interesting. My new 8th-grade teacher, who I have barely worked with, does not know what a CER is. Sigh. That will be fun. We meet today. Hopefully we can work together. I don’t know her well enough to get a good read on it so far. Then two hours of kneejerk stupidity. I will be breathing deeply and taking notes to control my need to yell at them for their ignorance. I’m hoping it’s productive. Got 16 hours total to deal with these people.
Then home. Sweet home. Ugh. Sweet dirty floors and dogs and cats and dirty counters and stuff that needs doing and trash that needs to go out. But ironing after. People accroutrement and all.
Pros: I’m almost done with copyediting this project. Correction. I am done, I just need to do some final shit so I can send it back. It was not the easy ride I wanted. It took ALL the time and still needs a proofreader, I think, but I know I did an awesome job. Well. I’m sure I missed some things because at some point, it was too much. But hey, I get to send it back. I don’t have to proofread it. Someone should. It’s also the last full week of vacation before school starts. I have a few things planned or that I have to do, but mostly, once I send the copyediting project back, it’s my week. So lots of gravel moving and tracing will hopefully happen. We’ll see, though. I also need to sort through clothing and get organized for school, so there’s that.
Cons: See comment above about school. Not ready. Never am. It’s warm and humid here, although it rained briefly this morning. I think my yardwork days are today and Thursday, looking at the weather. The whole-wheat flour keeps getting bugs. I’m annoyed by that. Not too bad for cons.
I’ve been tracing every day. I have not been particularly good about photographing it, because it all looks the same, honestly…
I have a little over 800 pieces traced…not even halfway, y’all. Such a joke that I thought I might be able to finish this weekend. The copyediting took a healthy chunk of my days.
Not helping, Luna. Not.
I’ve got almost 11 hours into the tracing so far. So another 15 to go? Maybe? I feel like the bigger pieces take longer to trace and I’m about to do all the justices and they have lots of little fingers and eyeballs. Those trace faster. But then their robes are bigger pieces. Huh. I guess we’ll see. Not expecting much. Not gonna be done quickly.
Saturday, I made us leave the house and walk three miles…but at the beach, at Silver Strand. It started out very peoply, but got better quickly.
In fact, it got very birdy instead.
We saw dolphins too…but no photos of those.
It was good. It was cooler than home, although still not particularly cool in temperature.
It’s hard to find hikes/walks in the summer that don’t just feel like work because of the heat. The Man is planning to hike the Trans-Catalina Trail in October, so he needs to get some hikes in. So do I, although the knee does not necessarily appreciate it. Oh well. Sorry knee.
I’ve been using this cup to drink chai each evening, mostly so I can giggle when I get to the bottom.
I’m very mature for my age. I actually don’t like the word ‘tit’ for my breasts, but it makes a nice bird.
Did this drawing at dinner Saturday night…definitely weird.
Finished stitching things down on this. Easy to do the stitchdown…
Then need to find the mental space for the embroidery. Don’t have that right now. Soon? Maybe.
OK, so I have the rest of the day to move gravel…it’s cooler and raining occasionally, but just a few big drops…nothing really big. And I need to decide how to handle the rest of this copyediting project. Gonna do that first. Then I have some books to read and art to make. And it’s my summer break, so I’m gonna do that. No school stuff today…maybe later this week, but not today.
Well. I finished the drawing. And I numbered it. That in itself is a major achievement for the week. I’ve also been copyediting a teacher’s manual, which is different, but not. It’s work. I need the money to pay for the dog’s dental visit and the dryer fix, which both add up to much more than I will get paid for this, but that’s OK. It means I spend a few hours each day staring at this computer in this hot room and feeling like I’m getting nothing done. Which is fine. It’s too hot to do the other things anyway. I currently have two fans blowing almost directly on me, not on my eyeballs, because they get dry and weepy and tired if I do that. My goal is to finish the copyediting this week, around the other things I need to do, and then next week is mostly wide open, if I ignore all the appointments and meetings I tossed in there. Yeah. That. They have to happen sometime. I did get the referral to musculoskeletal for my knee…they messaged asking for days/times, and I ever so hopefully gave them all this time before school started, and then realistically gave them some guidelines for after school starting, and then said if it was more than a month out with those guidelines, to use these other guidelines. I have an appointment in October. They should have just said they were booking two months out. I’m glad I’m mobile and can get around…it just hurts. It’s workable.
So finishing the drawing happened in bits and pieces at night, when it cooled down. I can’t draw in the heat and make sense of it. This was near the end…most of the last bit was penciled in when I went to bed on Sunday…
And then I finished it Monday night…
It’s about 48″ x 56″ I think. Not as big as I thought, but still big. And complicated. Kitten for scale…
I started numbering it Monday night and realized it would take forever…
So I finished last night, very late…didn’t even start until 10 something…
I thought it was 2023 pieces last night, thought that was weird because that’s this year, but it was actually 2029, which is funny, because that’s the year I’ve set for retiring from teaching. It may slip a year or two, but that’s the goal, that’s what’s keeping me going with all the clusterfucks, and yes, I’ll still have to work, copyediting or something else, but it won’t be in the classroom.
I had guessed 2000 pieces, so that was a good guess. I knew it was complicated. It took 15 hours and 38 minutes to draw it and 2 hours and 54 minutes to number it. Big time. Tonight I start tracing. It’s good going into the new school year with a big project. I appreciate the meditative time to work on it.
I did a little of this while watching TV over the last few nights.
Very basic applique. All I can handle. I say that, and I’m reading two books at a time. Not sure why. Some sort of ploy by my brain to read twice as much because I haven’t read any of that book today, even though I spent an hour reading the other one. I’m going along with it for now.
I have work in this show, opening August 11 at the downtown library in San Diego.
I’ve never had work in the library gallery, so that’s cool.
I don’t want to be tolerated. True that. I also like my tea really strong.
This guy has been licking his leg where they shaved all the hair off for his dental visit. So it is time for the floatie around his neck.
It’s hot and uncomfortable and he keeps looking at me like this, please take it off, but sir, you have licked a sore onto your leg and we will not be dealing with infected leg sores. It is not on the Bingo card for summer. So there.
OK. Today. Sorting through clothes, found a white school shirt that I will never wear because it is white, so I’m going to tie dye it…it’s a good size and fit, so that’s why I don’t just toss it or donate it or whatever. Copyediting…hopefully going to get all these silly Lesson boxes done that all have to be formatted the same but aren’t. I know I’m a copyeditor because I pay attention to this stuff; I’m just amazed at the people who don’t pay attention. I shouldn’t be. I need to pack up a quilt for delivery to a show…I probably need to pack up two quilts, but the other one isn’t due until next week, so maybe I’ll delay on that. I have yardwork…ALWAYS have yardwork. And tracing Wonder Under later. A book to go back to the physical library. Strange that these days…almost everything I read is digital unless I own it. And reading those two books…crucial part of the day. Oh wait, I have pilates too. That’s nice. I should remember to go to that. Days disappear if you aren’t watching. That’s not entirely a bad thing unless you’re like me and you like to check off the boxes of what you’ve done.
Mmmm. No class today. Well. I say that and I signed up for a different kind of pilates class, just because I wanted to try it out and that shit’s harder to do during the school year. But I like pilates and it’s actually an exercise class, which is good for me. No more literacy class this week…I did learn some things, but more remembered that we need to do more to boost reading, and that takes time, and time is something we may not have a lot of, so there’s that. But with two+ teams doing it all together, hopefully we can make some progress with the kids. Here was my setup on the last day, with everything back in the purple bag, which will go to school, plus the stitching I did to help me focus.
I put away all the highlighters and pens and post-its. Now I officially don’t have to think about school until…the next crazy email comes from that one teacher who apparently has nothing to do over break, no books to read, no relaxing beaches to lie on (I don’t really do that anyway), no giant-ass drawings to finish. Oh wait, that one’s me. I’m hoping to finish the drawing today. In between pilates, laundry, cleaning, moving gravel (got a whole ‘nother pile of it that needs moving), keeping the pup from licking his shaved foot (he had a dental cleaning on Friday and is notoriously bad about licking a sore into shaved areas)…all the things. It’s supposed to be hot all week, so that will be (not) fun. Not sure what my plan is for that. The boychild is home but going to training all day and then leaves again on Friday for his regular shift. Exhausting. I guess I work all week, but not like that. Gotta take days off…he had yesterday off. At least he has the pup in bed at night, so I have some chance of a decent night’s sleep.
No one seems inclined to dust or vacuum or mop…even me, it seems. Oh! I also need to copyedit. I put my editing service back into vacation mode, declined all the other offers I’d gotten, so I’m down to the one. That’s the one I can handle. I have two weeks to do it, and it’s not very big, but I should actually start. Yeah. This afternoon. I will.
So the drawing. The drawing has progressed. My Art Brain has been engaged, now that it doesn’t have to think about Latin roots and spelling rules. And pretend teaching those. So Friday night, I drew the swamp. It was in my notes…and I’m realizing, I need to write a post that just documents all the stuff I took notes about and was thinking while I was drawing, because it may not be so so obvious from just looking at it. But here’s the swamp…
I hid a Swamp Thing in it.
Then what did I do next? Oh yeah, started working on the pedestals under the swamp justices.
Finished those last night…
So Gorsuch is all corporation instead of individual, so he is standing on individual people, who are sort of compressed by him. Alito has had some issues with a fishing trip and possibly some other money-related things, so he has the fish and the money. Roberts is a mess, with money clouding any decision he makes. He also seems to make decisions completely against his own race…he seems race-blind to me, or maybe if he does that, that’s how he gets the money. So I added a few chained slaves to his pedestal, because I’m not sure he remembers…I would like the Court to have more people of color, all colors, to make the decisions more diverse, more pro those groups who need support. I don’t think he does that. Kavanaugh likes beer. He also has some sexual issues of harassment in the past that popped up (ha!) before his confirmation, but it’s OK, because boys will be boys, right? Sigh. Let’s not use that as an excuse for bad behavior. Please. Amy. Oh Amy. Coney Barrett has People of Praise behind her. She claims she speaks for all people, that her religion doesn’t shape her decisions, but like the other swamp judges, I don’t find her trustworthy. Religion is fine unless it’s making decisions for a bunch of people who don’t subscribe to that religion…and reproductive freedom is something all five of these judges have voted against. Four of them have penises, so they have no right dealing with a uterus…and the other one thinks LGTBQ marriages are a sin. So should she be in the Court? Nah. I don’t think so…not representing the people and not interpreting the law appropriately for ALL the people.
So why is Roberts on the other side? Well, it was getting crowded on that side and occasionally he votes like a sane person. OCCASIONALLY. He’s also skating on a slippery slope. He has the key to the Court (being the Big Guy, the one in charge). I still think he’s pretty swampy, but…so I’m probably going to have to copy some of this into a Court post. I’ll do that. And go back and explain some of the other decisions I made. You may not agree. I’m OK with that. Unless you think we shouldn’t have rights, like all of us, then I’m not OK with it. Feel free to limit your own rights. Then get out of my face.
I’m still working on the left side. Literally and figuratively. But I need to go to class, so I’ll be back. You won’t even notice.
So the other thing we did on Saturday, which was a little nuts, was drive up to Los Angeles. I had an opening in Torrance (which wouldn’t have been as bad), but there was a show in LA that I wanted to see that closes in a couple of weeks, Faith Ringgold: A Survey, at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery in LA.
I know I have Faith’s Tar Beach book somewhere in the house. I loved her people flying in the sky at night. In looking at her website, I might need to buy more books.
I also love her mix of paintings with quilts. Although here is one of her prints, also very cool.
The handwritten words on this one…
Very powerful seeing her work in person.
Strangely, the same gallery had some work by one of my university painting instructors, Judy Baca. She has created some fairly awesome murals in Los Angeles over the years.
Honestly, although her art and achievements are impressive, she was (for me) not the most present professor. The rumor was that she was working on a mural in Los Angeles the semester I had her, so the teacher’s aide ran (ha! he did nothing) the class, and then she would show up maybe once a month and berate many of us. I have some serious painting PTSD from her class. Maybe not all artists should teach art? I don’t know…your mileage may vary. Maybe it was a bad year for her. I just didn’t really paint after that class. I still don’t think I CAN paint. That said, a lot of the art classes at UCIrvine were just show up, get an assignment, and go make something that meets it. There was very little technical instruction. We were often just left to our own devices…so there’s pros and cons to that. I do appreciate the time to mess around and fuck with stuff, but sometimes, a little more technical know-how might have been useful (exploded my ceramics final in the kiln, which I don’t actually think was MY fault, but I made do…glued all the parts to a plywood board…most were whole and the ones that weren’t, I glued the pieces and then the shards and quickly rewrote my statement). Sometimes I think I’d really like to go back to art school now just with a stronger, more confident state of mind, but then my adult brain slaps my face and says NO NO NO, we are NOT getting another degree. But maybe more art classes would be fun.
Also in the Deitch gallery was Karon Davis: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, which was very powerful. I didn’t photograph the whole thing, because I couldn’t figure out an angle that showed how large and dominating the judge and flag were in the face of this figure of Bobby Seale during the Chicago 8 trial.
I had been scrolling through Instagram the day before we left (like you do when you are supposed to be listening to someone talk about teaching vocabulary) and saw an artist whose work I love post that her stuff was in a show in LA…hey, I’m going to LA…I could stop by if it’s close. It was close to the other gallery, and on the way back to the museum in Torrance, so we headed for a small gallery, the Seis Gallery. The show was called The Horror…
I took a tufting class from her before COVID, and it was fun, but crazy lots of work. I say that knowing full well my stuff is also a crazy lot of work…it’s just what do we want to do more of. Anyway, it was cool to have a chance to see more of her stuff in person.
Straight up, traffic going to LA was horrible. It was a long day. We saw good art, but were exhausted by the end of it.
I have another LA opening coming up in September. Makes you think about driving to these things. We spent over 10 hours going up, going to three shows, eating dinner, and coming back. And we were exhausted the next day too.
So the Torrance Art Museum had two shows, one of which I was in (hence the original reason for all this). Art and Med, curated by Ted Meyer…
Here’s a video of the whole thing…
I did take a few photos, but was mostly (as always) overwhelmed. Plus I forgot how to smile, so a lot of the photos of me look psychotic. A good look for the summer. But here’s my piece, Here Comes Life…
And here’s Bhavna Mehta’s beautiful piece, I Found a River in My Body #3…
With a detail of her embroidery…
The other show in the museum is Body Politics…
Which also had some beautiful work…Liz Young’s Skinning Spilling Soiling Swelling Stuffing Balls.
I did Google this one because I wanted to know more about the thoughts behind the piece. I really liked that the Art and Med show had explanations with the art, and I can see the point of having the art stand alone, but…I don’t know. There must be a fine line there.
Sherwood makes a lot of work highlighting disabilities, having had a cerebral hemorrhage and having to relearn the process of making art with her other hand. Her work was wonderful, incorporating brain scans into the paintings.
I’ll try to post more art from these two shows later this week. I know this post is already LOOOONG…all in all, though, a good art day. Though tiring. Says Nova.
Also here is my brain at the moment.
Or always. Not sure.
Friday night, we also found this in the yard.
It has flashing red lights, presumably so it can be found easily, but it made me think it might be a drone, so I left it there. Like I’m not bringing that crazy shit in the house. The Man stomped out there and then left it on the deck after talking to it, also thinking it might be a drone. But it doesn’t seem to have a motor. Just flashing lights, which can be turned off. You might think, just throw it back into the yard it came from. Well, we have kids on all three sides, so it could be any of those houses. So IDK what to do with it. I might text the houses above and below me, and if they don’t claim it, toss it over the back fence. Seems like a lot of work.
Oh yeah, forgot this psycho. Annie. Sweet pup. Has scratched the hell out of my arms. Still love her.
OK. Laundry is going (fixed dryer yay!). I need to eat lunch. I need to fold all the laundry I didn’t fold. I need a long-term solution to my clothing during the school year…not sure what that looks like, but the piles I currently have are not working. I need to finish that drawing and do some copyediting. It’s supposed to be hot all week, so honestly, the drawing part of the house is hot as hell for a goodly chunk of the day, although better after noon. The office part is cooler in the morning, as long as there’s a breeze. And honestly, I’m still on break. So there should be some reading and maybe a nap. I took a timed nap yesterday and Friday and I am pro. It’s still July. I’m still on summer time.
Kathy Nida 