My Authentic Space…

I have a couple of shows opening this week…one is an artist book show with a group I’m in, Feminist Image Group (aka FIG).

The opening is this Saturday.

This was kind of a weird thing for me…but I like a challenge. I actually made three pages and rejected one. This is called Ominous Nature…

Each page is a box. I’m not sure why I wanted to do that, but I did. Anyway, the opening is this Saturday from 12-2. The exhibition is on the ground floor in the Dickinson Popular Library, but the reception is on the 9th floor in the Art Gallery’s Valerias Sculptural Garden. I haven’t been to the downtown library ever, so this should be interesting. I have to kamikaze down there after school to deliver the piece…should also be interesting.

The other show is Contingent Upon at Southwestern College, with the group Allied Craftsmen…

It opens tomorrow and includes Portrait of the Artist As a Young Woman…and And Then There Was One…

So that’s cool. Meanwhile, I’m making the next piece…it’s coming together slowly. I have the first 300 pieces (mostly) ironed together…including all these tiny little cars…

And these tumbling birds, which started showing up in drawings in December, I think.

They’re in that artist book above too. I do seem to repeat images for a while…sometimes a Long While. And then I did the swathe of space behind them and the Earth.

I do the Earth next, I think. I can’t remember when I drew this, but if I drew it today, there’d be coronavirus added to it. Certainly there’s war and pollution and fires and climate change already there. I haven’t been drawing much lately, but my brain certainly has been talking to me about drawing. It’s the one thing I wanted to do over the weekend and didn’t do. There’s never enough time for everything I want to do.

Yesterday was exhausting too. I taught a difficult (not really, but the kids made it that way) lesson…kids just not engaged in a fairly simple task. Not processing information. Hopefully today will be better (sigh. It’s unlikely.). I went to tutoring. Then to a school board meeting as a union rep. I got home around 6:30 PM, totally exhausted, made dinner, and read my book for a while. It’s due Friday and I don’t think I can finish in time, unfortunately. I’d like to, and I can re-request it, but there are already two people waiting for it. It’s good too…I just needed to input some grades and then I wanted to iron things together. Art drive. It’s loud.

The #marchmeetthemaker prompt yesterday was my authentic space. Here’s where I do a lot of my work…the studio/office.

It’s about 10 x 10′, which is a little small for everything I have in there…

especially when the ironing board is set up in the middle for me to iron…but I’m grateful to have had it all these years. MY ROOM.

There’s a lot of fabric in this room, yes. Never enough. Here was the setup while I was ironing, to give you a good idea of how little room there really is in there.

It works well though. I would love to remodel this room, pull out the old, holey floor, redo the wallpaper, put in real storage, put in a bigger window and maybe a room air conditioner, replace or fix the sliding glass door so I can open it more easily, get rid of the popcorn ceiling. All that is a healthy chunk of money though, and that’s not in the budget yet…I think the bathrooms and kitchen are higher up on the list.

I don’t just work in there though. I have a large light table in the living room, and a few stages of making involve sitting on the couch and cutting shit out. So this is also part of my maker space.

Where I often have helpers…

Yeah. Not helping.

Anyway. Today. Get through assessment, hope it’s at least quiet and productive. Go to union meeting after school. Hope it’s quick and productive. Go to grocery store for tomorrow morning’s breakfast items…hope that’s quick (yes, and productive). Then cook dinner, maybe grade some stuff (ugh), and then iron some more. If I’m still awake. Daylight Savings is kicking my tired ass. Maybe skip the grading and iron instead. Seems like a plan.

Bunny Incursion

These post-Daylight Savings mornings are painful. My brain is still asleep. My eyes too. I feel like I’m constantly trying to go to bed early these days to get more rest, and it’s not working. Although I did a better job last night of falling asleep, so that’s a plus. The little dog is currently losing his mind over a bunny in the front yard. Although honestly, if there was a mountain lion in the front yard, he’d sound the same. I just know the last time I looked, it was a bunny. The same bunny Kitten wants to kill. She whacks the blinds when she sees it. Like she’s gonna whack IT if she ever gets to it. The bunny incursions on our property are much more serious than I consider them. To both of these guys.

I didn’t bring any work home last night…a birthday present to myself. Also the staff meeting kinda got canceled because of cake. Long story…but worth it. I had a good exercise class and sewed a little, and then came in here and started ironing the newest quilt…

I only got the first 100 pieces done. I didn’t even lay out the next 100, because the current state of the kittens is that they get into everything and it’s not good to leave a lot of pieces lying around without supervision. But it’s progress. I have a lot of meetings and stuff to do at night this week, so I’m not expecting to get a lot done this week, but a chunk would be good.

#igquiltfest’s topic for yesterday was your favorite pattern, which is funny, because I only have one commercial pattern I’ve ever done, and it’s only for baby quilts, and I don’t even remember the name of it…it’s been so long since I’ve done one. I draw my own stuff…dontcha know?

#marchmeetthemaker was rough/mock up. So I guess these are those too…although I probably have more rough drawings than these, before I enlarge stuff…all the fuckups I have before I get here. Sometimes more than others.

Hell all you have to do is watch this space. I show them all.

Birthday socks from the parents. Appropriate.

I wore them yesterday. A birthday at a middle school is kinda sweet…lots of bad singing and kids who normally hate you (not really, but you know how 12 is) telling you happy birthday and wanting to know why you didn’t take the day off and what you’re doing tonight (avoiding people?) and what you’re getting. Is your mom getting you a new phone? I’m like, um, pretty much my mom doesn’t buy my phone for me any more. The 12-year-old brain…it’s an interesting beast. They also were all excited that school might get canceled for coronavirus, until I started explaining how it would really work. Sigh.

Calli gets it. And she wants you to rub her belly.

Today will be rough…starting an assessment, plus tutoring, plus school board meeting (apparently with media present), plus tired. TIRED. Yeah. Well. I’ll iron some more tonight. That’s something I can look forward to. The 100 tiny car pieces that need ironing. That was another reason why I quit last night…tiny little car pieces. Who designed this thing? Oh yeah. Me.

OK, parent meeting this morning. I wish parents could look online and see, “oh, my kid has this grade because they don’t turn their shit in” and then I wouldn’t have to be the one who tells them that. They could just get on their case and leave me out of it. But no. So in I go.

This Will Be the One…

Late start to writing. I got up late, slept pretty well, despite kitten shenanigans in the morning. Moved slowly in the AM, went to pilates in the middle of the president explaining how we’re all fine and we had the best response (OMG, that was not the best response…but continue on in your dream world bless your heart). I came back and showered and ate stuff, and am now waiting to go to REI to look at, perhaps buy new hiking boots. My traction is going and I’ve been hiking in them for a good 3 years now, maybe more…it’s time to replace them. If you figure an average of 3 miles a week for three years, that’s 468 miles. Need new boots. Hopefully the new pair will not take a year to break in like the last pair. That was frustrating. I did it wrong? Who knows.

I have art to do this weekend. I have errands to run. I need to finish grades. All those things.

Last night, I managed to iron down the last of the pieces, a few bugs I think and an oil well rig. This is the pile, minus a few that were cut out the previous week.

It was only about another 45 minutes of picking fabrics…nothing major. Then I sorted by color. I like to document what I used in each quilt, although honestly, they all sort of have this rainbow run to them. Some have more grays or whites than others. Some have lots of brown or green.

This one…this one is…I don’t know what it is. Not heavy on anything really. Seems a normal amount of everything.

That’s 126 different fabrics. That’s kind of a lot for a quilt this size. When I was sorting them into boxes, I realized I could have reused some in the later choosing from the earlier, but because I had the flu in between, I’d kind of forgotten about them, even though they were in the boxes right in front of me. Awkward. Sorry guys. Didn’t mean to forget you.

After all that, I sat and cut stuff out…like this. One box of stuff that needs cutting. One box of those that are cut out. And a lid for the trash.

Sometimes I move a box for a puppy to sit next to me…

Sometimes I move it for a cat…

I’m very furry friendly.

Well, unless they get in the way of my actually cutting stuff out, which this one sometimes does.

Here’s where I ended the evening…with most of the flesh cut out and the rest of it to go.

More hours. Relaxing ones though.

Ah. Sisters.

OK, off to the hiking boots and other errands. Art too. Need a quiet weekend when I’m not totally passed out on the couch from the flu. This will be the one.

A Wall of Tired…

Well I’ve almost made it through a full week of school in recovery from this cold/flu thing. Actually, I went and looked this shit up. It was definitely a flu.

Yes, I had a flu shot. Yes, I am an intelligent person who realizes how the flu shot works, so I am not ranting about how it made me sick and it doesn’t even work. I also know I work in a virus factory, so the mutations run wild, and I’m just glad I wasn’t one of the puking flu variety. I’ve been trying to go to bed early and get enough rest so I feel recovered, although today is a little iffy. I think I’m just tired. I’m a little better every day, but I’m not well. Yet. Working on it.

Yesterday I took it easy after work, trying to finish my book, and napping on the couch for a bit. Naps are a sign of strength! And old age. But whatever. Finally got back to the grading. I’m actually almost done with the Trimester 2 grades. Early. Luna was very helpful…

She stayed there through the grades and my cooking and eating dinner. Then she woke up and went into destructo mode. That’s the Luna we know and love, the one who earned the Lunatic designation.

After a while of listening to boxes being slammed around by kittens, I dragged my tired self into the studio, hoping I would finish ironing last night. Here’s part of the arteries…

I really am very near the end…this is all I have left to do. If I’d had more energy last night, I could have done this…but I didn’t. This is like four bugs and an oil well. That’s it.

Tonight. Easily. These are very small pieces by the way.

I didn’t even try to pick up and organize all the fabrics last night. I hit a wall of tired and had to put myself to bed.

It happens. Here’s what’s waiting to be cut out…

I started last week, but haven’t gotten much done. Looks like a job for the weekend! Hopefully I’ll be ironing this thing together next week. Hopefully I’ll be even better healthwise than I am today. Hopefully grades will be done and we’ll be thinking about the last trimester with the roughest, neediest group of kids we’ve had in a long time. Plus Spring Break is coming. And COVID-19. Hmmm. Well. There’s a drawing in my head about that too.

Mostly.

I’m slowly getting back to my normal life. I had to get up early today for a meeting. I actually exercised (albeit lightly) yesterday. And didn’t die! Although I forgot a hairband, so that was supremely annoying. I even went to bed after midnight last night, although my brain was racing and it was hard to calm it down, even then. Wait. That’s normal too. That’s really what keeps me up at night. I know they say to do all these non-involved things late at night, so you can fall asleep, but then I’d never make art. My day job would be all there was. And that’s not gonna fly.

I graded another assignment last night. I’ve got dribs and drabs of stuff now, mostly makeup work, and then I’m done. No worries. And then I can do my taxes maybe. That would be good. I finished my Patreon video last night too…the second one of the month. Tonight I’ll do the drawing, maybe finish grading stuff. We’ll see.

I’m almost done with the ironing too…it’s slow at this point, because it’s all the little things. I know I ironed some leaves, the sun, an eyeball last night. I have more stuff to do…bugs, a lightbulb, some clouds. I’m almost done. Tonight if I have the energy, I’ll be done. I didn’t have it last night. Although I did a lot of little pieces last night, I was tired and slow…

More fabrics, more pieces. I should be ready to cut stuff out soon. Tonight or tomorrow night. Definitely.

At school, we started a new unit, so I drew a cover page…I like to try to use all the vocab words (the kids only need to use 4 this time). I think I missed one, maybe two…

Plus I got to color all day. OK, I finished by lunchtime for once. It’s amazing how calm and on task they are on these days. Maybe we should draw and color every day. Or at least once a week. Math is doing financial literacy once a week. Maybe we should do meditative coloring in science. Self care.

These guys were waiting for me at home…a collection of calicoes.

And this one came and sat with me while I graded…

She’s also sitting on my sweatshirt. Which I needed. And wasn’t allowed to have.

Eventually she followed me into the office and hung out there. OK, well, today will be a little high maintenance in class, but hopefully it’s sort of review. We’ll see how that goes. My first science class is like teaching wild animals sometimes. It’s hard to get a read on what they really know because they’re so interested in roaring and posturing at each other. Third period is the same way. I don’t really get a handle on what kids get until I get through 4th period.

Then I can come home and decide what to do with my time. Mostly. There will be ironing anyway.

This Is Getting Done…

Well I must be getting better. I stood up all day yesterday…well, I had one dizzy spell in one class, but they might have been the cause of that. That unit is now done; so is the assessment. I’m ready to move on. I did finally finish grading the current assessment, just in time to do the next one. (cries into her cereal) Ah school. You hurt sometimes.

I have grades due Tuesday. I’m actually pretty caught up, although not done. Never done. I probably should have done more last night, but I didn’t feel like it. Also, I had to keep my office door closed all day yesterday so the kittens couldn’t mess up the piles I had. Apparently my cat complained about that…or maybe she was just out and about more because she couldn’t hide in here. Hard to say. Either way, I wanted to get them ironed last night. So once I was done with that assignment, I went in the office…the studio…that room that’s my hideaway. And Kitten’s.

I found all the last bits of fleshy pieces and laid them out, and then started ironing out each fabric…

Most of them didn’t have a lot of pieces…

The lightest two fabrics, I didn’t think I’d have enough fabric to cut them all out…as you can see, I used a good chunk of fabric 2…

But there was some left…everything fit…although there wasn’t much left…

Fabric 1 had a little more left…

So that was a positive thing. Although I would have just found a second fabric with the same value and used both of them. That’s an interesting challenge in itself.

Here’s where I’m at right now…all the fabrics used so far plus the pile of stuff that needs to be cut out.

I’ve finished ironing all the flesh pieces down and all I have left are all the funny little bits in the body…the lungs and heart and stuff. I did iron the bones and the uterus…at which point, I was pretty tired, so I went to bed. I probably could finish tonight. Then cut them all out…then start ironing together. It’s progress.

I’m tired. I’m still recovering. I’m getting better. This is getting done.

In-Between Stages

Remember that quilt that got stolen and returned? I’m still salty about that. Makes me want to punch someone in the face. Well, that quilt got into another show, and in packing it up, I found some minor damage, proof that it went through some trauma. I have to admit to not looking very closely at it when I got it back…the stress of having sort of lost it was too much for me to process a lot of info. I pulled it out last night to prep it, and realized that when they yanked it off the wall, off the slat that was bolted to the wall, they put stress on the binding where the sleeve was attached…so a hole there needed to be resewn…

And on the other side as well…

I had to resew the bottom of the sleeve on one corner as well. Not a lot. Just a little. It would be nice to know what happened, but I guess I never will.

There was also some dirt on it, probably from being in the trash, so I had to spot clean some areas…

I think it’s OK. I’d just like the perpetrator to at least pay me back the angel money I gave to the wonderful woman who fished it out of the trash and called me. That seems fair. But life is rarely fair. I’m glad to have it back…it means it gets to go on to another show.

Back to the title of this post…the current quilt is in a real in-between stage at the moment. The plus is that I finished ironing all the Earth parts and everything around it. That means last night it was time to start ironing the fleshy bits…and there are a lot of them. I picked a run of 7 fabrics, but I don’t think I have enough of the lightest and second lightest, which could be interesting. I haven’t really dealt with that yet, because the flesh fabrics start in the 400s and go all the way to the 800s.

You can see there are some large pieces in the two lightest fabrics right there. But this isn’t even all of them. It’s the body and the head, but only one of the arms, because it was almost midnight and I still had 100 pieces to sort through and I still wouldn’t have had time to iron them all without staying up for at least another hour and a half, and that’s not a good plan when you’re still recovering from being sick. I managed school yesterday by sitting down and rolling around the room a LOT, and today will be even higher maintenance…so much so that I was dreaming about how to manage it (ugh, why do I have to DREAM about school as well as live it?), so I don’t need to overdo it at this point. I actually used the sentence, “This is your Come-to-Jesus Moment” in class yesterday. Multiple times. Yeah. I know. Apparently you don’t have to work when the teacher is gone.

Sigh. I sigh a lot for school. Anyway. Tonight I can iron. I can finish finding all the flesh pieces, figure out what other fabrics can work for the level 1 and 2 in the flesh, and then iron them all down. All that after finishing grading yet another assignment tonight. Yeah. Yes. OK.

When I’m sorting through and finding all the actual flesh pieces, there’s all these left over for later…hearts and lungs and hair and whatever isn’t flesh.

There’s a lot of that at the moment. All that will need choosing at some point. Probably not tonight.

So I had to cover all this last night because kittens…

Would destroy this in an instant. I don’t like leaving it at this stage, but hopefully it will be OK. Hopefully I will be too. Meanwhile, I have a parent meeting this morning and a tiring day ahead. Lots of sitting? I don’t know how I will do that. But maybe I will. Based on yesterday, at some point, my body will make me whether I want to or not.

It’s Still OK (or Is It?)…

Signs of recovering delirium…the number of blog titles in a row that have the word ‘ok’ in them. The fact that I don’t know what day it is. Or the date. It’s still February, right? At one point, I duplicated a week in February for our science planning calendar. There was a good reason for it at the time, but I’m wondering if it’s still duplicated and now I will have to repeat a week in February because of that. I had to take a nap after the grocery shopping yesterday. Granted, I had already driven to Encinitas or Carlsbad or somewhere up north to pick up two quilts from a show, so I was already physically doing way more than I had in days, so the nap doesn’t seem so bad, right? Except today I have to go to school, and physically and mentally, that’s a lot more than the grocery shopping.

It’s OK. Really. I have a rolling chair. I can sit in it and maneuver all over the room. I’m sure it will be fine. I might need a nap at lunch. Also fine.

I really was better yesterday, despite the nap.

Saturday night, I finally got all these stitched down…

Now I can start doing random embroidery everywhere on it.

Really, it’s just a plan to use up all the thread in the house. Which will never happen of course. There’s just too much of it. But you can’t say I don’t have a plan.

Yesterday, I even ironed, although that was problematic at some point and I had to sit down.

Somehow in all that, I managed to record an hourlong video of who-knows-what. Don’t worry, Patreon followers…I know how to edit. I’m in the 400s at this point. Not halfway yet, because I got dizzy…and gave up…and went to bed early…but close to halfway. Progress anyway.

I finished the artist book and submitted it.

Can’t say this is my thing.

However, one of the reasons I’m in this group is because they make me do things that aren’t my thing. It’s called Ominous Nature. We’ll see if she thinks it’s too disturbing for the library. Since I have I think THREE more possible library exhibits in the future? It would be good to know what she thinks is disturbing. Sigh. Or I should just become a nature artist. Funny, I think of myself as a nature artist a lot of the time.

Oh yeah. All the fabrics I’ve used on the quilt so far. My brain is still on bouncy mode.

Wish me luck today. Wish my students luck too. And someone save me from a 2-hour staff meeting.

She’s cute, but this is after an hour of early morning rampaging, being kicked out of the bedroom, then let back in an hour later due to crying baby noises, then this is my laundry basket…

before she knocked it over. Uh huh. Evil. And yet, when asleep, adorable.

One of them was on my feet last night. Not sure which one. I can tell them apart by feel…their fur is different.

This one. This one got a water bottle sprayed in his face about four times last night for petulant barking.

Barking at coyotes is understood. It does not need to continue for 20 minutes past the coyote incursion into our sound space. He still likes me this morning apparently…

It’s questionable on my end.

OK, well seems like systems are mostly back to normal. I’ll need naps, I’m still in recovery mode, but there is progress toward normal function. Which means progress toward more art function.

For now? Progress to school. Where that rolling chair is. OK? OK. No more titles with OK.

Be OK…

Hmmm. It’s morning. I’m ill. I’m tired, despite more sleep than usual. I read an article about three of my former students, one sentenced yesterday for 15 years for killing the other 2 in a car accident. Geez. As teachers, we hope we only see the good news, the kids going to college and being successful, and I do see some of those. This one, it’s a shock…but maybe also not. It certainly makes me walk into some classes today with a new lens. You want them all to be OK, to realize how to be a good adult, but they don’t all do that. Sad. Very sad. We really do care about all of them, mostly, even the assholes. Although there’s some I’m glad I’ll never see again. Those are always the ones who come back and tell me they finally figured it out. I do a lot of deep breathing sometimes with a few of these kids. Today will hopefully be easy. Yesterday, they were tuned out, still asleep from their 3-day weekend, shocked when they realized I was going to make them DO something by themselves based on what I just talked about. Oh yeah baby.

Today they will be researching in groups, so some will be motivated and some won’t, as always. But I don’t have to talk all period, like I did yesterday. I might even sit down, based on how I’m feeling at the moment. It’s not a good day to be out sick. None of them ever are, but this is the intro to the assessment, so…well, hell, I have a real hard time not coming to school. I come back and they’ve done nothing and it is just frustrating. So I’ll go and hopefully the meds will kick in soon.

I came home from tutoring yesterday (I sat all through tutoring, just moved from one kid to another) and laid on the couch for at least an hour, reading a graphic novel and trying to find my brain. It eventually worked. I ate a little and talked to the girlchild, but then was able to grade one class of last week’s assessment. I really didn’t want to go to bed without making art. It just sucks. So I rallied and found about 45 minutes of ironing strength.

Enough to iron the Earth together…

It’s not much, but it’s something. I needed something. Something creative.

Right now I need a brain. Some energy. Possibly someone to drive me to school. Nah. I’m good. Am I? Fuck. It’s not the flu…just some cold. I should be able to survive that. More tea. Sitting a lot. It’ll be good. A nap during lunch. Oh wait, kids are coming to take quizzes during lunch. Damn. OK. Well. Napping during prep. When we need to write an entire unit before next Wednesday. Minor issue. Yah. It’ll be fine.

Getting Loud in Here…

I have a lot of things in my head this morning. Too many things, probably. As usual. I’m having that issue artistically as well…too many projects going on at once. I do much better with just one at a time. Drawings are fine. They’re short and don’t usually require a ton of brain power outside of the actual drawing time. Right now, I have a bunch of projects talking to me and it’s getting loud in here.

So last night, I worked on two of them. It meant I didn’t grade anything. I input grades. I tutored earlier. I graded stuff in class. I just didn’t work on the projects at home. I wanted to art instead. It was late anyway…after tutoring, I had chiropractor and pilates, so by the time I was done with dinner, it was late.

So I did some of the stitch down on this…

Then I’ll do embellishment…

This is just for fun. For something different. I like the idea of it.

I wanted to make sure I did some of the other art stuff as well…and there was no way I was finishing all the stitch down last night, so I timed it off the show I was watching. When it was done, I moved into the other room to work on the current art quilt. I’ll come back to this tonight.

This is moving pretty slowly. It doesn’t help to be gone for three nights. This coming weekend isn’t any better. But it works to iron for an hour or so each night. I think last night I managed 38 minutes before midnight…but it’s 38 minutes of progress.

I ironed an asteroid and some missiles and a volcano. That’s it. Not much. More tonight. So many yellows!

I finished the 200s and did some of the 300s. Only 600 to go! No worries. I also have an artist book I’m working on, but my brain exploded over that last night, so I’ll wait to post on it later, after I’ve made some more decisions.

I resized a bunch of pictures of art we saw in Joshua Tree, but I don’t have time to post them this morning, because I have to find the artists’ names and possible links, and that takes more time than I have. I will get to them…but I did draw while I was there…this was after hiking…the rocks inspired the woman…

This was the night we got there…full moon coming, bunnies in the yard…

None of those cactus anywhere to be seen…and this one the following night…

Inspiration comes from many places.

OK, school, then union meeting, then make Patreon video, and grade stuff? And then artmaking. Full day. As always. Looking forward to the artmaking stuff, that’s for sure.