Drawing at the End…

Hey. Wednesday. You never feel like far enough into the week to be a relief. Sorry. I know it’s not your fault. It’s the 5-day workweek thing. Lots of people think of you as hump day, and maybe that’s it…once I get over the hump that is you, it will feel like a slide (it’s never really a slide if you’re a teacher…unless it’s a slide like those cheese wheel races down huge hills where you’re just rolling head over heels trying to beat the wheel down the hill) into the weekend. This weekend is the Vision opening…so member opening Friday night, artist talks Saturday at 1 PM, then artist dinner at night. Lots of art things. Hopefully cool. We’ll see.

Not a lot of art happening…at least it looks that way. Monday night, I had to label and pack two quilts for a show up in Glendora that’s coming up. I won’t make it to that opening (it’s midday on a Wednesday? or something like that). I still need to pack up the Quilt National quilt…I was going to do that last night, but didn’t feel like it for the second day in a row. Ah well. I did do ceramics on Monday…picked up two fired pieces…

They look pretty good, yeah? Well there’s this…

It ran like crazy, stuck to the biscuit. It’s OK. I’m going to glue it back together and then put it outside. Maybe bury it in the ground even, just a bit. The boot turned out fine! All ceramics is a guess sometimes. I even wiped this up a good bit…but not enough. You learn some; you lose some.

Still doing this…

A peaceful couple of hours working on this…the orange ran like crazy, so I had to fix some stuff…not sure how to make the underglazes less runny once they are.

I’ll be here for another couple of hours before she’s done. And I bought more clay finally…gonna try a new one. I have ideas. I always have ideas.

Last night, I was supposed to go to the gym, but I ended up running late finishing stuff at school, then doing more work at home to try to catch up and maybe get ahead, and then I bathed the old lady cat. She’d gone to the vet because we thought she might have a UTI (accidentes), but it doesn’t look like she does. She hasn’t been cleaning herself well for a while, and I worry about stressing out old ladies with baths, but she needed it. She’s so much cleaner now. I even combed her a bit, which she likes…until she doesn’t. She’s still cranky as shit…and probably was the source of random poops all down the hallway last night (sigh)…but she’s still kicking. When I had finished making dinner (and next week’s lunches coincidentally), I just wanted to draw. I love drawing. I miss drawing more. I just can’t fit it in. Either I draw or I read and even that is a fight…always work is calling. And the house. So much stuff. Ugh.

So I drew.

There’s a rough pencil drawing of the body, just because it’s hard to get everything on there and semi-proportioned right…for some definition of right. Then I stare at it and decide what I want to add. I know what this piece is focused on (everything?), so I think about how that can be portrayed…you can’t see all the hands on her thigh from here. It’s still in pencil. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be communing with this most nights for the next week or so, trying to wiggle an image out of a tired brain. It’s where I love to be. And though there are other things that need to be worked on, for now, this is it.

Is 9 the average women’s shoe size? I do always feel like I am huge-footed. Maybe not? Seems wrong.

OK. School. I’m doing a lab that I’ve only done once and it was two years ago. I don’t remember HOW to do it. I’m sure it will be fine. Pretty sure I made a video. I have pilates after school. I’m tired already. I don’t have to cook tonight. I do probably have to grade things…or prep things. Last night, I recorded things, so there’s dogs barking, cats meowing, men coughing, and timers going off. Like normal. Then more drawing hopefully. Plus reading. I’ve been reading at lunch instead of hanging out with my team. They are stressing me out, I guess. Probably I need to check in up there. Plus I had to set up a lab yesterday during lunch. So that took time. Whatever. Drawing at the end.

A Me Thing

Hello? I’m sorry…95 degrees today? 97 on Monday? It’s freakin’ October? Some people are wearing sweaters this week in other parts of the country. No thank you. Too hot. Not a fan. NEED a fan.

Speaking of weather, the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene to the southeast…distinctly awful. I’ve seen too many art studios that flood waters kamikazed through, and that’s not even dealing with lost lives and homes. We have a friend who was supposed to be moving to Johnson City this fall, but they had delayed the decisionmaking. I’m not sure what you do. I mean, I remember when I was living abroad, people would always shake their heads at living in California, with “all the earthquakes”…that was before we were Wildfire Central. There’s certainly no escaping the crazy weather patterns caused by climate change at this point…there’s just mitigation, remediation, and plain old survival…if you’re lucky. I’m going to donate to somewhere…just haven’t decided where yet.

That same weather has delayed one of my quilts from arriving, which is not a huge deal compared to what actual people are dealing with…I see it made it to Jacksonville…if I’d known a hurricane was arriving…who am I kidding? I shipped it the first day I could, based on grades being due etc. It’ll get there when it gets there. The gallery probably has a bunch of pieces they’re waiting on. We’ll all survive the delay.

Meanwhile, my art here is all bugs, all the time. I have things in my head, but I need to get the bugs done by next weekend for delivery. And sanity. So I got two sewn down to the canvases on Monday night…

The third was fussy. The paint needed to be redone (they all actually needed it…sloppy painting the night before). This one, there was a flake of something shiny in exactly the wrong spot. I think it was the paint off the paintbrush handle. My paintbrushes are all ancient. So I picked that off…should have painted it Monday night, but ran out of time. Painted it last night, and then ironed the ladybug together…

I did two of each bug: one normal bug colors (for that bug) and one NOT normal…tending toward rainbows. I also trimmed the Wonder Under for the last bug. I had bugs in different stages of the project so people could see what it looked like in the demo. So now I have four ready for stitchdown, and hopefully the fifth tonight.

I also went to ceramics on Monday. I had this thing that was supposed to be another mug (ha!), but was way too big (I will never learn), so now it will be a planter. I had painted it with all the leftover underglazes and started carving it.

Or here’s the picture…there were so many people in the studio on Monday. It was too many people for me, really. I prefer a quiet Friday afternoon.

I need to make a decision about buying more clay. I did some touchup on the boot vase and reduced glaze on the paper bag vase…need to touch that one up a bit. I’m worried the glaze is going to run everywhere.

This is the opening between my kitchen and the living area. It’s usually not blocked by a baby gate, but we have an inquisitive kitten who has decided this is where he will climb into the kitchen 17 times a night. So baby gate.

Don’t judge the mess there. I can’t seem to get it under control. It’s totally a me thing. Not a priority. Why would it be when I have bugs to iron?

OK. Wednesday. The last two days, kids have been sleeping in class. Today is a lab. Hopefully that will help. I can’t be amazingly entertaining all the time. It’s exhausting. I couldn’t get into pilates this week (ugh scheduling), so I went to the gym last night (and finished my book! yay!). Tonight is book club. I read the book and three more in the series. It’s light, but enjoyable. Ghosts and dead people light. Not traumatizing. Then hopefully more bug things. I’d like to be done with bugs soon, finish the clay pieces, and then start the next big quilt. I like working on big quilts. I like reading big books. I like coming home to things that I’m already immersed in and can continue to be immersed in, instead of trying to start new things. Also a me thing.

Gotta Go

I’m already running late. I’m not sure how. I filled out an art agreement, made sure lunch was ready to go, did the normal shower, feed dog/cat routine. I’m dressed and ready for school, minus shoes and socks and meds. And more tea. Could NOT sleep last night. SHUT UP BRAIN. Part of it was the hour before bed when I was prepping a quilt to ship and realized I hadn’t sent all the info to the people who were supposed to get it (I sent it to one out of four…not a great percentage) and I’d missed a form (note to art groups…just send ONE email with all the things…not two or three), so I panicked and filled that out at 11 PM. Whoops. A day late. The Man is shipping it for me, so that’s nice. OK, he’s dropping it off. Still nice. I should have shipped yesterday. Whoops again. Sigh. School really fucks you over. There’s no time for anything else sometimes (like when grades are due and you’re massively behind) and you keep seeing things that need doing and thinking, keep walking, you don’t have time for that right now. So yeah. Still not in a rhythm. Had a weird thought yesterday…maybe there is no rhythm any more. Maybe this is it. Chaotic event followed by overwhelming tasks followed by another chaotic event. Trauma after trauma. It’s not a great lifestyle…workstyle. Work is not my life. Even though it feels that way. I worked the whole weekend. I don’t want to work this weekend. How will I avoid that? Yesterday, the kids were taking a test and normally, I’d walk around and eyeball them, but come back to my desk and grade things. I couldn’t find the mindset for that. My brain was just tired of it. So I didn’t. Might have been a mistake, because I’m totally not going to have time in class today or tomorrow for it. Ah well. That sucks.

ANYWAY. How’s the art going, Kathy? Chaos. Good chaos? Maybe. I got into Quilt National! I’m going to try to go to the opening weekend this year. I didn’t go in 21 because COVID was still pretty rampant. In 23, we had no subs, and it’s a really shitty weekend to try to go anywhere for a lot of reasons. I think I’d like to go in 25. So I got into Visions and QN in the same year…nice. I feel good about that.

I finished quilting the second little quilt…

Need to figure out how I’m going to finish and hang these in the ceramic pieces. I need a drill bit.

Then I got an email about possibly selling stuff at Visions…and I had those bugs from the OMA Street Scene thing that I never finished…so I did some legs last night…

I like them.

Gotta figure out how to finish them quicker, and then I can figure out if VMOTA will even want them. I also glazed this yesterday…

The final is not going to be that red. Which is weird. But then I came home and read about this glaze and it runs a lot, so I’m going to go lighten the layers at the bottom and above the flowers to see if I can keep it from running in those areas. No, I don’t know what I’m doing. Why do you ask?

So I’m working on a bunch of little things that never looks as impressive as working on the big things, but I wanted to make space for those things to happen. The big one is in my head, percolating, waiting for me to finish all the littles. School! Holy crap, I gotta go.

School Breaks…

Rough way to start a week. No, I didn’t finish grading. I’m not even sure I can finish tonight. Two-hour staff meeting plus book club. I have about 20 more of the academic assignment to grade and a pile of redoes on homework. Not a ton, but I have to process it as well. And there’s book club tonight; have I finished the book? Nope. Oh well. I’ll go. I need a break from school. This weekend was not a break from school. My tiny breaks this weekend consisted of allowing myself a chapter here or there of the book, washing the dog’s butt after he pooped on himself, washing the boychild’s bathtub after I realized where the old lady cat had been pooping (I had wondered where she was hiding it), and watering most of the yard. Oh yeah, I had to pick up and reposition a trellis that fell over. I also delivered a quilt and got my blood labs done for the doc; she’s been harassing me, but with a 12-hour fast, I needed to do it on a weekend. That’s about all I got done. I did allow myself most of an hour each night for the little quilts…

Friday night, I cut out all the pieces for both of them.

Saturday, I ironed them together…

They’re super small.

Last night, I did stitchdown…

One…

And then the other…

And then sandwiched and pinbasted them…

I quilted the little one before I needed to go to bed…

I had to be up early this morning to deal with school meetings. I’m exhausted again. Not enough sleep.

I did go to ceramics after school on Friday, spending about 2 hours doing this and that. I did more on the mug…

It might be done now? Not sure…

I had this bowl I made out of leftover clay and it’s been sitting around, underglaze just waiting for a plan. I had one on Friday.

Some more underglazing and a little carving. Although now I’m realizing I didn’t do the inside of that one heart. OK. Need to do that. I can’t go today though…it’ll have to be tomorrow.

The paper bag vase came out of the bisque fire. I was texting girlchild pictures of it and she reminded me of the plan we had for it. But I had wanted to try some underglazing with a wax resist and then glaze over. So I painted a little thing…

I had some leftover underglazes. I hate to waste that stuff. It’s expensive. So I made an underglaze coat on this pot/mug/whatever the fuck it is.

I also picked up the glazed base for the winged woman piece…

I love how the oil spills turned out. I also love how it fits with the rest of the piece…

Next up? Wings and headpiece thingie. Bowie is not so sure about it.

Have to hide the ceramic stuff in bathrooms and the girlchild’s room so he doesn’t knock them over. He’s still a kamikaze parkour cat, despite the neutering. Nova doesn’t necessarily appreciate him.

She’s mostly just shocked at his existence…unless she’s playing with him.

This did actually start out as play. But sometimes she goes places just because he can’t go there with her, like the hammock.

The Man’s band plays a wedding this Friday. The singer made a poster with a GoGos’ image, adding in the guys’ photos…here’s the Man himself…

So goofy.

OK. Two meetings this morning, before school. Both student-related. Then teaching balanced and unbalanced forces again. I tell you, I’m not sure what’s happening the rest of the week. Prep period is definitely grading. And screenshotting kids’ grades for the new 8th-grade team that goes together on Wednesday. Plus? I lose 10 kids. Con? The work to get them out. I feel for the combo teacher. I’m glad I’m not them, for sure. And none of them know what’s about to happen. I’m losing one kid I really like. Maybe two. The others I can live without. Three I’m quite happy to see leave, maybe four. Then a 2-hour staff meeting about poverty. Hoping it’s useful instead of just “your students and their families are poor”. No duh. I have duty before that, so normally I need to pee, make tea, and find food before coming over…I’ll be late and it’s in the gym, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do the eating part. I’m going to need to. Blood sugar was low this morning. I’m feeling it. Then finish grades. For real. And book club. On the book I haven’t finished. Can I have a nap in there too? Not sure. Might be a contentious parent meeting with me as a rep (not one of my parents). Fun times. I’ll just be glad to be done with the first round of grades. The second round is due the weekend we’re going camping. I think. Ugh. OK. Going. More tea.

The Power

Hokay. Wednesday. I’m a little tired, I must say. Not sure why. Rejiggering my lesson plan for today, I think. Some catchup, some kids finishing stuff up, instead of starting the next thing. I may do a piece of the next thing, but I have two classes that need to finish yesterday’s thing still. It’s OK. It’s fast. But I hate having classes on different things. It’s just easier when they’re all in the same range of stuff. It’s Back-to-School Night tonight…set for 5 PM, which makes more sense for parents, but it means I have 90 minutes after school where I’m just there. I have grading to do and will do it, so I don’t have to bring it home (the first batch of progress reports are due next week, which seems really early). I have a lot of work to get through. I really just want to finish my book though. And finish another one by Monday for book club. I had to finally buy that one, because it was still 5 weeks out at the library.

Artmaking is going slowly. I am not giving myself enough time because of grading, unfortunately. It sucks. I hate it. I guess I lose Sunday afternoons? I don’t know any other way to do this. I feel like I lose half the Saturdays too. UGH. So I traced the two little pieces onto Wonder Under, which took almost no time at all…

And last night, I cut them out…

Superfast. Hopefully I’ll have the energy tonight to iron them to fabric. I’m not holding out much hope, but some.

Monday, I worked on glazing the mug still…

Anybody who’s thinking, oh, Nida will make a bunch of these and sell them…HA! My god, they take so long. Which is fine. I’ve always been more about the process than having a product to sell…obviously.

This already has 10 hours into it.

Consider time, materials, firing fees…

Completely unaffordable. Sorry y’all. This is not going to be a second (third? fourth?) income generator for me. And I’m OK with that.

Enjoy the video in the round.

That long thin quilt is going to this show…

In Miami, Florida. As soon as it’s back from the photographer. It still needs a name, but I think I had one somewhere. I just need to figure out where.

OK. School. Ugh. Redo plan for the day. Get the kids working independently for at least half of class time. Grade things. Prep for next week. Try to figure out how to efficiently grade the thing the other teacher fucked up. Sigh. Spend more of my prep time not prepping. Yesterday started badly with a last-minute switch of two resource kids who need support into a class with no support, literally 2 minutes before they were supposed to show up to my class. They needed seats, they needed to be added to my Google Classroom, they needed to be told not to delete themselves out of the other classroom until I graded things. FUCK. And no support? So that put me over 20% resource kids in that class, so after my complaints and reminders of how shit should work, I have support in there today. But the long string of emails leading up to that last one? I could have been included. So I would’ve known. But no. Not important. So my mindset during prep was to put on loud music with lots of swear words and grade all the makeup work so it was off my plate. Pro? That last bit.

Anyway. Today will be better. I command it. And I don’t have to try to cook after pilates, like last night, cooking after 7:30 PM. Tonight the Man cooks and I collapse. With my book, hopefully.

Never Enough Sleep for It…

It’s pajama day today. On a Monday. That might be a first…usually it’s later in the week. It kinda makes me feel like I’m not going to work…is that a pro or a con? It’s good to go to work in pajamas because it doesn’t feel like work? Oh, it will feel like it when I get there. I think I mostly prepped on Friday; I just didn’t put the inertia stuff on their desks yet. No biggie. Anyway. I’m in pajamas. I’m going to the ceramics studio later; debating whether to bring real pants. Or just go in pajamas. They probably won’t care. Tomorrow is wear your favorite band shirt. What a coincidence? I just went and saw one of my favorite bands, Radio Thieves (the Man plays keyboards and sings) on Saturday night downtown. The Music Box did a street fair thing.

Nice location…too many people with captain’s hats (Yachtley Crew was the main band)…

Radio Thieves was awesome…

Although I still don’t understand the cowboy wear because they played no country.

Whatever. They always wear weird shit. Except pajamas. Never seen them in pajamas.

Ceramics-wise, I went Friday night. Two of my things were out of the bisque fire. One was the top of this so I could finally put them together…

Turned out pretty cool.

Don’t think I’m going to glaze fire? Not sure. It will get super dark if I do and it doesn’t need to be foodsafe, so why deal with that? I do think I will epoxy them together though. They fit but there’s a wobble.

Then the base for the other piece came out…

Looked good. I put an iron wash over it and then glazed the two oil spills with a glaze I picked up on sale called um I think it’s called oil spill! So it should be perfect.

We’ll see how it goes. I put a clear satin on the fishies (not the bones) and the windows of the car. Then the winged woman gets epoxied on that and the fabric added.

Speaking of added fabric, I finally had enough mental space to draw two fabric things for clay things I made back in February/March. I had papers measured to size to help me draw…like since July? I drew in pencil first…

And then in ink…this one will hang in a woman-shaped frame I slab built when I was in the handbuilding class…

And this one was a coil-built thing that I put two holes in for hanging a little quilt…

The holes might have filled in with glaze. I might need to drill them. Not sure how to do that. Will ask at the studio today. I also worked on my mug but totally forgot to take any pictures. Of course. Maybe today.

I graded a lot this weekend. I’m really trying to make time for the art, finish fixing up the house from the summer whirlwind (I pulled off most of the blue tape from the moldings and installed two switchplates, one old, one new because the other one was disgusting.). I need to hang the art up and get everything in the living room put away. I also need to do some textured paint in one area. I have the stuff…just haven’t had the time. AND I watered things. I haven’t had enough time for that either and plants are suffering. UGH. This week is a clusterfuck. So I don’t expect getting control of it this week.

Teachers need a 4th day to deal with school. Because there isn’t enough time at school to deal with it. Here’s Bowie helping me grade.

I finished the homework from the week before, all the warmups, and two classes of the Unit 1 packets. I have three more of those, last week’s homework, and an academic assignment. Fun times.

Speaking of school, we borrowed tennis balls from PE and they (1) smelled exactly like you’d think they’d smell and (2) came packaged like a scrotum, tied up like this with two balls in each bag.

I can’t decide if PE was just messing with us or there’s some reason to pack them this way.

Finishing with this…

I’m not a fan of war. I’m not a fan of supporting war, although the Ukraine/Russia thing seems a worthy cause. World War II was a worthy cause. Just wish there were no more kids dying anywhere from anything, but that’s too much to hope for in a country where guns are more important than schools.

Anyway. Monday musings. I’ll be making those two little quilts and finishing two big ones that are not art quilts but need doing. Hopefully I’ll also start that next big quilt in the next week or so. We’ll see how that goes. I’m giving myself grace (I hate that phrase) this week…back-to-school night, physical therapy on the neck, late pilates because of that back-to-school night. Lots going on. Never enough sleep for it.

Dead Fan…

It’s finally cooling off…a week of ugh. And our bedroom ceiling fan died yesterday. So that was fun. I kamikazed over to Home Depot after school and bought a new one, but the Man will be installing it today, so we found one of those tower fans in the house (there’s like three of them) and put it on a dresser to keep the bedroom cool last night. The house does not release heat easily after a heat wave. My office here is still 88 degrees; it’s much cooler outside. But soon…it will cool off. At least the fan made it through the worst of the heat.

The quilting on this little piece took forever. I ripped out so much…I think because it’s small and any mistake is much more obvious? Or I was tired at the end of the day and didn’t stitch as well? I don’t know. I got all the outlining done Tuesday night and barely started the background…

I had the right color of thread. Miraculous really. And last night, I finished quilting…

And I trimmed it up, ready for binding. Which I’ll need to do quickly if I want it photographed before the deadline and shipping. It jumped up on me! Deadlines do that. I have a bunch of bits and pieces I want to do after that, while I draw the new big quilt. Which I drew in my head during the MRI on Saturday. Results came back fine, nothing that explains the visual disturbance. So good news, still no brain tumor or infarcty thing or blockage they can see. Bad news, they still don’t know what it is and they’ve run out of tests to do. So. There we are. It’s there, it’s not going anywhere for now, and I will be living with it. I realized as I was driving last night that nighttime is where it annoys me the most. I was trying to see where to turn into a road and the little swirly thing was right in the way. Frustrating. But in the larger scheme of things, better than cancer or MS or a seizure disorder or any of the other crap they kept throwing at me. A migraine that doesn’t hurt and will never go away. Except it’s not a migraine. Whatever. Moving on. Well, first make a quilt about it and everything else.

I’ve noticed people like quilts about one discrete issue, not many issues. Ah well. ‘Tis not how my brain works.

One of the shows I went to on Saturday was at the R.B. Stevenson Gallery in La Jolla for my friend Jeanne Dunn’s solo show Forest Bathing.

That’s her in the middle and the infamous Anna Stump on the right. I realized later that her new work kind of reminds me of Dr. Suess and the Lorax (I guess the trees?). But it’s very bright, colorful, and fun. Apparently this piece has a fourth panel…

My favorite part is the DNA tree there in the yellow. Jeanne works hard at her art and is a sweet person…glad to see her getting shows and selling stuff!

More pieces from the Techne Art Center show…

By Gail Wagner…

Interesting cyanotypes by Annalise Neil…

Rhonda Anderson…

These intriguing sculptures by Reginald Green…

They are listed as ceramics and mixed media…

Very colorful.

Ellen Dieter’s work is there too…

I’ll post some more next time. It’s a nice show…lots to look at. I strongly suggest you check it out.

Kitten is moving uber slow these days, but this piqued her interest…

She’s moved down onto the floor with the heat. It might be that she can’t get up on the table any more. She’s pretty stiff moving. Much like me after sitting too long.

This shit.

My school board may flip this way soon. It’s certainly trying to. Assholes.

Yesterday’s weird really red morning sun. Pretty sure there are fires out there causing this…

The smoke from the Line Fire in Riverside maybe? Scary fires in LA right now.

Oh, I did work on ceramics, on my mug, on Monday. I was tired and forgot half my materials, so I just carved for an hour.

Sometimes that’s all I have in me. I’m going to add more underglaze colors to it. If I remember to take the glaze box with me on Friday.

I found this interesting feather yesterday…

So polkadotty.

The last of the science lab apples…this was was truly trashed by Period 1, who didn’t realize I needed it to last all day and poked way too many holes in it (it’s used as a battery for one of the energy stations).

I went through 6 apples…and composted all of them afterwards. Poor things. Glad those stations are done; although they are cool…they are a pain in the ass for the teacher.

OK. Today. Test for the kids. Ha! Fun times. Finishing our first unit. Tons of grading to do, but glad to move onto the next one. I need to make 5 seating charts today, grade a bunch of homework, finish an academic assignment, finish vocab slides (I got next week’s done at least), and survive a union meeting. Ugh. Plus hopefully get a new fan in the bedroom (it’s still warm in there, really warm), take the trash out, and read my book. And put binding on this quilt! Because now I’m committed to delivering it to the photographer. So that’s a thing. It’s cool. I don’t know why it feels like the first two days of school is a week’s worth, but it does. How is it only Wednesday? Yeah. Well. OK. Off I go.

It Just Looks Easy

Hey. Short school week. But let’s shove a bunch of meetings and trainings in there and do labs every day and put kids outside for one station when it’s 95+ degrees outside. Fun times. Still don’t have a routine here. I’ll get there. By the end of September…that’s how long it usually takes.

Artwise, I ironed more on Monday…

About 100 pieces…and then I finished last night…

Stayed up a little late. Tonight I can iron it to the background, which is not dark, for once. I made a video of the first stage…

It may or may not be easier to see. Long and skinny is never easy to photograph. All the pieces in this show are supposed to be the same size though. Anyway…I’ll iron it down tonight and start stitchdown. Hopefully.

In ceramics, I worked on the mug…here’s the video so far…

And because sometimes the video is stupid…here’s some photos…

I underglazed the background…

Trying to carve on a bumpy, curved surface is a challenge…

I watch people doing it in videos and it looks so easy.

Practice, I know. I also think their pieces are more leather hard.

So I’m just messing around because I’ve never really done this before. So no, I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m doing it. That might be the key. People always ask me “how did you get so good at…” and the answer is always practice. Keep doing it. Until it looks easy…which is usually like 20 years later. And even then, it’s still not necessarily easy…it just LOOKS easy. I’ll be good at ceramics in my late 70s. Maybe.

I underglazed this too, but I think it needs more coats on the outside.

But I ran out of time.

I’m going to carve it too. Somehow. My plans erupt when I sit down at the end of the day with the clay. Luckily Monday, I had off, so it was the middle of the afternoon…but my brain doesn’t always have a plan until I start working on the piece. Which is fine. These aren’t high art. They’re fucking around.

I just finished reading a difficult book, Know My Name, by Chanel Miller. It wasn’t difficult because of the writing…it’s very well written. It’s the topic. Miller is the woman Brock Turner sexually assaulted…the entitled Stanford swimmer…and the judge let go on a less-than minimal sentence. A friend asked, why are you reading it if it’s hard? Because her story deserves to be read. I knew so much about him and how it ruined his life (um…read the last bit here)…

She talks about Stanford’s lack of appropriate response, the court’s lack of care for the victim, society’s blame of victims, and how it all affects the victim. It’s her personal story of getting through the aftermath, as much as anyone ever gets through it. It also has her victim statement, which is difficult to read, but the book ends like this…

She deserves to be heard. Some nonfiction is a chore to read…and this was not. It was difficult because of the topic, and at times, I would close the book and go water some plants instead, but I’m glad I read it. We shouldn’t be hiding the victim’s experience…it should be known, respected, and heard.

Anyway, on that light note, I have a meeting in 39 minutes, I need to move my lab stations before that, I have labs all day…need to have a discussion about appropriate and kind behavior in lab groups apparently…then pilates (I was waitlisted, but got in!) and book club! for a book I just finished yesterday. Didn’t like that one as much. Oh well. It’s a long day. And it’s supposed to be close to 100 degrees…not liking that bit, but it is Southern California summer…it had to get hot sometime.

One Way or Another

Still trying to find a balance. It’s way too easy to fall into the habits of previous years, where work follows you home. I did work last night…and the night before…and the day before that. I’m not getting enough done at school; we’re setting up labs during prep and trying to figure out what we’re teaching next. There’s adjustments…plus not everyone has computers, so we still need stuff on paper, and then our building’s copier is broken (again), so we have to compete for a copier. And I’m trying to grade one academic thing because I know there’s another one coming today. It’s not hard; it’s all just time-consuming. Plus we had to meet yesterday to explain (justify?) the way we grade in science. And the teacher making the complaint didn’t even show up to the meeting. Love that. Well it’s done. And realistically, we never really hit a balance until the end of September. It’s not even the end of August. Yikes!

Art is slow too. Just getting the time and energy at the end of the day is hard. I’m almost done with this one…Monday night…ironed the main figure…

Last night, ironed a bunch of bits and pieces…

The two side heads, the eyeballs, etc. This is all I have left to do…

Some buildings, a bird, some hair, lips. I’ll be done tonight finally. Then cutting them out.

I did make it to clay yesterday…checked the boot…

I could underglaze it Friday…if I remember to bring the underglazes. I didn’t yesterday. The bag is also drying…but it will have glaze after bisque. Need to buy that glaze.

I worked on the mug…

Apparently I’m trying to make it as lumpy/bumpy and bulky as possible.

Seems that way…

It keeps me occupied at least.

Today. At least I don’t have to be at school early. Although it is unknown if the other teacher expects us to have prepped all her labs for today (I didn’t finish yesterday…we don’t start until tomorrow). I need to go fight for the copier because of the kids with no computers. I have one loaner and an iPad that I can’t figure out how to make it connect to the kids’ accounts. And more than one kid without a computer in more than one class. I have pilates after school. And I’m cooking dinner. So there are three more classes of that academic thing that need grading, and I’m not going to get to it at school today probably. Which is unfortunate. Not gonna think about that right now. Right now, I’m going to finish this cup of tea, wash my dishes, make more tea, take my meds, and head for school. The rest will figure itself out, one way or another.

There’s Always More…

OK, we’re back to feeling like nothing got done over the weekend. I remember this feeling. It’s frustrating. I crossed off some things, but more magically appeared. Or I made more just by existing. This morning, in the shower, I remembered things for school that I should have done Friday. Oops. Oh well. It’s either happening this morning once I get there or it’s possibly not happening.

I did do some art this weekend. That’s the plus, I guess, is that I push and shove to make time for that. I ironed all three nights, although not more than an hour each night, really. Friday night (with exhaustion)…

I had labeled the original pencil drawing with the flag colors and country names, and then photographed it, because I erased all of it to do the final drawing. I printed those photos Friday night to help me remember what I’d drawn in June.

Here’s ironing all the flesh of the minor characters…the warring factions.

Russia and the Ukraine, the US (embarrassed), Palestine, Israel, and Hamas. I’d like my country to stop providing weapons to wars…it’s complicated, though, because the Ukraine needed it to protect their country from Russia taking over. It made sense to help them. But Israel? Not so much. But not Hamas either. That whole conflagration…we should just be providing medicine and food and persuasion to knock it off and be peaceful. Not helping Israel kick Palestinians out of their homes…and killing innocent people. It’s a fine line, maybe. Anyway. This piece is about war…and how to stop it. Read Lysistrata.

What I finished Saturday night…

More than an hour. It was nice. Last night? Not even an hour…but a lot of little things got ironed down…

And I picked the fabrics for the central main figure…I just didn’t iron them down. I’ve done all the 0-100s and the 300s and some of the rest. I don’t think I have a lot left. On a small piece like this, it’s easy to bounce around and do all the missiles and bombs, then all the fires, etc. I suspect I’ll be done tonight or tomorrow night.

I wanted to do ceramics Friday after school, but I staying 90 minutes to set up for today and also to do seating charts. And then I was way too tired, so I went to the studio on Saturday instead.

I cleaned up the girlchild’s boot vase and forgot to take a picture of it again. It’s basically drying slowly. I then cleaned up the not-paper bag…

It had a cracking issue in the base, so I fixed that, but it’s also probably ready to dry. Then I worked on my mug…

I’m going to do a combination of relief and sgraffito, I think. We’ll see.

Normally I’d go in today to work in there, but there’s a 2-hour staff meeting and then book club at 7, so I don’t have time. No worries; I’ll go tomorrow. Maybe I’ll remember the glazes too.

I also got this one out of the bisque fire…

The top part is still drying. Color is pretty true to vision at the moment.

I haven’t decided how I’m going to handle this…whether I’m going to leave it bisque? I think so.

This one got glaze fired…some interesting things happened with the skin color.

Needed another coat? I don’t dislike it, but it wasn’t expected.

The back seems to have been glazed, even though I didn’t glaze it. It stuck a little to the ceramic cookie. Doesn’t really matter…this is meant to go on a garden stake. Interesting to try anyway.

We hiked 3 miles Saturday. It was cooler and nice.

We really have flailed on hiking this summer. Too much to do, too hot. Working on remedying that. Although the Man has so many music shows, it might just be me doing this.

This one…still up way too early in the morning, claws out.

Ugh. Sweet but psychotic. OK, I need to go to school, make more ice, figure the rest of Friday out, copy stuff, figure the rest of grading out, grade a thing, input grades, sit through that 2-hour meeting. I’m teaching energy today, ironically on a Monday when I don’t really have any. It’s OK…it’s not that kind of energy. And maybe the tea will kick in. Got some work done yesterday…finally caved and spent a few hours so this week won’t totally suck. Really trying to limit it though. Walked away with more to do. There’s always more to do though.