There’s Still Time to Change the Road You’re on*

So I spent a couple hours last night worrying about the girlchild, who was on lockdown in a dorm where a robbery took place at gunpoint. Because we need guns for protection, right? Because if anyone else in that dorm had possessed a gun, a whole lot of people would be injured or dead right now. As it is, everyone was fine, although I think both girlchild and I (and quite a few other parents and students) had the shakes for a while. But please don’t ever say to me that you have a right to carry a gun. Nope. You don’t. Not unless you’re a cop…and even then, I have misgivings because so many of our cops are racist and/or reactionary.

Anyway. That’s done.

I did some lazy daisies on the right that look like bull heads.

And then I ironed all those inner bits and pieces…here’s the layout for the heart and arteries…

And the pile of fabrics I went through last night…another 3 hours or so yesterday.

I’m up to 13 hours in the ironing…with about 400 pieces to go, I figure. It’s not been quick, that’s for sure. Here’s just one of the reds in the heart/arteries section…

Lots of pieces ready to be cut out.

And all the fabrics I’ve used so far…

I’ve been working to 1 AM and then falling into bed exhausted. The nighttime hours are better for this, I find. I did copyedit during the day yesterday…more of that today. I haven’t graded any assignments since Sunday, and I need to do some of that too. So I’m probably not going to finish the ironing today…can’t really blow off the moneymaking part of my week yet. I need to get significantly further along. I do have most of today (I’m hiking tonight), all of tomorrow, a few hours on Thanksgiving (mostly nighttime probably), and all of Friday. But I’m realizing it’s never enough. This quilt has to be done and photographed in less than 40 days. I can do that…but the copyediting has to be done in less time than that, and I have to deal with school. I can’t just push that off. Where do the hours go? Staring at fabric, I think. Mostly. And dealing with dogs. Stupid stuff like eating and peeing. I made lasagne from scratch yesterday…but that’s 3 more dinners on top of last night’s. So that was a good thing.

Sitting here watching a hummingbird on the flowers outside my office window…supposed to be in the 90s today. November, my ass.

OK, so shower, eat, copyedit. Consider venturing out for the chicken broth I should’ve bought on Sunday for the turkey I’m making for myself. Gotta make some rolls too. Should do that tomorrow…

Now get up and go.

*Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven

Now That We’re Here, It’s So Far Away

Today I have to work for real. I did grade yesterday, but today I need to start the copyediting project I took on. But first? Chiropractor and Costco. I might need assistance getting out of the latter. Shitty timing for that, after seeing the grocery store yesterday. I always forget about the crazy food shopping that happens before Thanksgiving, now that the girlchild isn’t here for the day. She’s the amazing cook, where we had to drive to like 4 different stores finding all the stuff she needed, plus some desperate Thursday morning shopping trips. Can’t say I miss that, but I do miss having her around and cooking.

So when I get done with that, I’ll come home and read and correct until my eyes blur. Maybe I’ll stop before that. We’ll see. I’d like it done before I go back to school. But I also want to get done with the ironing…so balance. Speaking of balance, I took an art workshop yesterday…I did a lot of printmaking in college and soon after, but then I leaned into the fabric and fell in. But this was nice…I had an idea going in, so I did a rough sketch on paper, remembering to flip the word and letters…

Drew it on the rubber eraser stuff…this is way easier to carve than linoleum…

Carved and ready to ink…

Not bad…probably haven’t done this for 20 years…

Maybe these are my Xmas cards this year (although I need more)…

Then two nights’ worth on here, mostly doing more feather stitches on the right around the eye.

And finally in to the ironing. I had to find all the little-head pieces and iron them to the same flesh run as before…

Here’s all the pieces that were NOT flesh-colored but shoved in there…eyeballs, hearts, arteries, lungs, etc. I had to go up to piece 948 to get all the heads and arms picked.

But I don’t have 950 pieces ironed down…I gotta do all those inner pieces…

Here’s just the pile of arteries and heart parts.

At the parentals’ for dinner, I finished sewing down the wonky sun and started to do eyeballs and nostrils.

The wool stitchdown on this set of blocks seems to be taking forever. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I did the last one? I don’t remember.

These two slept on the back of the couch last night for quite a while together.

I did iron a ton of pieces last night…you can see the pile on the left…and the pile of fabrics on the right.

I still have all these innards to deal with…

I did some of the teeth and eyeballs and tongues, but not much else…just the hair on the little heads. So there are fewer piles than there were before.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far.

Calli this morning…glad to be in the house with a HooMan.

And her little brother, who wants to play…

I did actually start this post this morning, but then went to the chiropractor visit and a hell trip to Costco (should never go there near a holiday)…and then I started the sauce for the lasagne, ate lunch, and started copyediting before I remembered I’d never posted this. Whoops. Oh well. I’ll work for a while and then assemble lasagne and then maybe iron tonight. I love the ironing. The delving into color boxes to the deep back where there might be a fabric that hasn’t seen the light of day in a year, just to toss it into this quilt. Fun stuff.

*Staind, So Far Away

I Went in Seeking Clarity*

I did pretty well yesterday practicing being a normal human being who isn’t holding down three jobs on a random basis…I haven’t started copyediting yet. I think I’ll do that tomorrow. I have been working on the quilt that has to be done and photographed by January 1. But even spending 3 1/2 hours ironing yesterday, which puts me at 6 hours total, and about a third done. That’s it. (Laughing hysterically in my head). And schoolwork? Didn’t fucking touch any of it yesterday.

Good job, Kathy. No really. We have to live a life that’s worth it. And the art is always part of that, although venturing out of the house occasionally is also a plus.

So I had some Christmas shopping I needed to do, which made driving to an arts and craft sale (a really nice one) a good plan. And it worked. Because I got a good chunk of the shopping done. And then I was rewarded with this…a flight of awesome ciders…drunk while watching the guy prep pomegranate seeds for a future batch. Amazing place, Serpentine Cider up in the Miramar area.

This art on the wall…also awesome…

Wood burned and painted…totally amazing.

Then we came home and I spent about an hour and a half piling up flesh pieces…which I then had to cover up so we could go to an art opening…because I couldn’t get it all done. It’s not even done now…I just picked a place to stop (everything but the little heads on top).

So I have loved Bhavna Mehta’s paper-cutting work for years. You’ve seen her work here before. She did some community work, helping people make wearable paper art, and last night was the (very crowded) opening at Art Produce Gallery. Bhavna had her floral/leaf strips hanging from the ceiling, and then the women who had created works were walking around…

And there were pictures of them with their creations on the walls…

It was very hard to get photos of anything.

But I tried…

Some dinner found its way into our gullets and then I came back to iron all that flesh down…

I still have to do the little heads, but I couldn’t handle the giant piles any more.

And these are all the other pieces of the body that aren’t flesh-colored…so lungs and heart and tattoos and I don’t even know what else. That will be today maybe? After I finish the heads. We’ll see. I was going to do some schoolwork today too. Plus I’m doing a holiday card workshop. Why? Because I felt like it. Yeah, I already know how to carve a lino block and print it, but this is easier than trying to do it here. And I can walk away from the cleanup! Yeah, I know…whatever.

It’s a week off, but it always goes quickly. There’s so many errands and tasks associated with the holidays, so it makes it a lot harder to feel like you got a lot done this week. But I’m gonna try to be efficient as hell.

*Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

I Wanna Be Your Left Hand Man*

I’m up! It’s morning! It’s a beautiful day! Can you tell that I have the next NINE days off work! I mean, as OFF work as you can be with 5 assignments to grade, a worksheet or two to finish creating, 140 pages of copyediting to do, and 1200 pieces to iron (OK, the last is a joy). So yeah, if you’re thinking, AWWW LUCKY, then you don’t really get that I bring home work almost every night and do these stupid 12-hour days sometimes and work every Sunday and sometimes Saturday as well. Honestly, you give teachers vacations so they don’t all quit their jobs and/or duct tape a particularly annoying child to a chair. Permanently. There’s a reason 50% of teachers quit by their 5-year anniversary.

With that said, I’m not copyediting or grading shit today…maybe tomorrow I’ll start. But I try to keep Saturdays free of that stuff.

This cat and people food…he’s got an issue…”I will stalk the plate crumbs.”

Two nights’ worth…chain stitch on the left top and then cross stitches. Maybe something else…can’t remember. I’m mostly just filling space.

Finally made it in to iron around 9 something. I did both sides…the landscape in the background. Although I have a little left to do on the right side. I’ve done about 150 pieces, that’s it. Not fast.

But I do love doing it…

I also love mornings where I can just sit here and text the kids back and forth while drinking my tea in my pajamas. It was nice.

This cat…she’s a bit psycho. I’ve been trying to persuade her to come back out into the living room and my office, where she used to hang out, but she’s nervous about the other cat…

She does love bathmats though.

Anyway, work, the good kind, is on my mind. Gonna do some art stuff today for sure. There’s a balance. I’m working on it.

*Vance Joy, Riptide

If I Kiss You Where It’s Sore*

Oh hallelujah dear Friday before Thanksgiving Break. Although today will be like managing wild and hungry chimpanzees while holding a chocolate birthday cake, I can see a big fat light at the end of the tunnel…at about 3:30 PM this afternoon, to be specific. Of course, I have 5 assignments to grade (not bad, actually), my author contacted me this morning and his manuscript is ready for copyediting (it’s OK…I asked for it over break…I need the money), and I just made a to-do list for all the shit around the house that needs doing, but hell…I just don’t care at the moment. I want to SLEEP…and most importantly…MAKE ART. Yes. That. With gay abandon. Throw confetti all over me. I wanna art myself into the ground.

Yes, I’m a little punchy and a lot exhausted.

Exhausted after doing this cool rock cycle lab all day, which started with teaching kids how to grate cheese (well, crayons) with a knife, in case they don’t have a cheese grater. Well, no, we were making sediment from a crayon rock.

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And then I missed photographing all the other steps in between because brain fart. Totally. But here it is after we compacted it and then melted it and then blended it and let it cool off.

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So lab days are always exhausting. But it was cool. I have no voice today, but that’s OK.

Then I went to the opening of California Fibers: Points of View at the Rose Gallery, Francis Parker School…there are my three pieces: Feeding Time, BirdWatch, and You Pollute Me. I look like I have a lot more energy than I really did.

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The show is really nice. I’ll post the whole thing sometime in the next few days. Not right now.

I came home after grabbing dinner and sat for a moment, trying to find the energy to do ANYTHING. I had Simba on one side of me and Satchemo on the other. My arms aren’t long enough to show both. No, I don’t need a selfie stick. It’s OK.

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And then, miracle of miracles, I came in the studio and put all the fabric away, cleaned up, and started ironing the new quilt. This thing is gonna be SO FUN.

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OK. Yeah. It’s huge. I get that. But I’m so excited about working on this. Really.

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I have my Nida Powers sign in here now. Although I really wanted it to be one word. I need to put it up on the wall, but I decided doing that on a rolling chair while tired would be a big fucking mistake.

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So I’ll wait. I will fully enjoy the 9 days off I have, even with all the shit I gotta do. It’s OK. I get to make lots of art in the middle of all that. Yay.

Regina Spektor, Better

At Night the Crickets Creepy*

Well. After a 10-hour day at work (ugh), I realize that although I wrote this well before I left for school, I never hit the final publish button. I do that now. Tired. Yup. But still gonna aim to draw. Even badly. Bad drawing is better than no drawing.

I’m sitting here trying to get enough tea in me to be functional (let’s be real…semi-functional)…the cold/viral thing is starting to wane, although I mostly collapsed after work yesterday for about an hour. And I’m texting my kids back and forth until they start having a discussion of how to write about torture (ah college…the things you have to write about)…and then I’m really out, because I don’t know that I could ever be pro torture. And honestly I don’t know much about it. Sure, there’s torturing pedophiles and crazy dictators and maybe even the current president (although you know he wouldn’t last long, the big baby)…and since the kids are obviously having this discussion because someone has an assignment due, I’m OK just watching them converse 3000 miles away. I miss them. Lots sometimes. Although I have nothing to add to this discussion but that torture is mean and we shouldn’t do it.

So where am I today? I finished ironing all the fabrics down for the little quilt last night. It’s really not THAT little, but compared to the last one…it’s small. I’m not going to keep going on it right now. I really really really need to start drawing the next one tonight. Somewhere I need to find the brain power for it. So expect a lot of bad starts and flailings on paper with Sharpie tonight. Woo! It’ll be great. Seriously. Maybe it will just spill out of me. Sometimes it does.

More stuff on the right, filling in spaces…

The parental dog is nervous about the new cat…

Satchemo is not scared of Katie.

I started ironing late…had paperwork, school stuff, other crap to deal with…but I didn’t have much left to iron, so I was pretty sure I could finish.

Here’s all the fabrics I used. I really did think it was gonna all be bright colors. It’s hard to know what it will actually look like from this though, because it doesn’t show the mix…there’s a lot of blue in this. The purples take up a lot of space. The browns are all in one section. Same with the yellows really.

There’s the pile…let’s see how long before I actually cut them out.

I did pick up my most recent quilt from the photographer…first one ever with a gun in it? I think? First one on a beige background, that’s for sure. If that’s important…

I’m glad she’s done.

It was difficult to draw it, to make it, to quilt it. Sigh.

Probably not picking this one for my profile picture any time soon.

Although those are my kids, my students. Even the annoying ones. We’d protect all of them.

Still gotta write a coherent statement on that one. Tonight. I’ll do that tonight. After teaching all day, meeting with admin, duty before and after school in 103-degree temperatures, tutorial, and protesting at a school board meeting. Yeah. It’ll be fine. Really. It will.

I guess it’s good I had another project that was at a good place for occupying my brain for a week or so. It didn’t seem ready to move on right away.

So this was my crew last night.

I told them it was bedtime. Some were more ready for it than others. I get it. I was ready. I’m ready again right now, but it’s morning again, so I can’t really go back to bed. Yet. (growth mindset…that’s a teacher joke.)

Art. Tonight we draw. We draw even if we don’t feel like it. We draw to get to the drawing we need to draw.

*Squeeze, Pulling Mussels from the Shell

I Recognize the Walls Inside*

Still sick…although functional. We’ll see how functional after I have to talk all day, right? And stand up for hours. Sick days are a joke. We had 3 teachers out on Friday and only one sub showed up. That’s our reality…and teaching science means even less of a chance they’ll show. I can let it be chaos in the classroom and have the kids get nothing done, or I can push on through. I think I’m better anyway…not well, just better. That’s a plus.

More stitching on the right side…realizing in two months, it will be done, so what shape do I want? I don’t think it will be square, filling the whole thing. That’s a consideration.

Sleepy tired puppy.

I made it into the studio for a little while yesterday, just over an hour. My parents’ dog Katie was in there too. Or is it Katey? I’m never sure. With dog names, you can never tell…my daughter’s dog is Calli, not Cali, because it’s short for Calliope, not California.

Too much information. Here’s the fabrics I’ve used so far…

Not as colorful as I originally planned…it will be lots of blue in the end. Blue on blue with a hint of blue.

Here’s the pile so far.

I’m actually almost done…could easily finish tonight…so I probably will, depending on how I feel. I did get the OK to change my focus for the next quilt, so drawing that is on my list for the week…gotta get going on that one. I have a fairly free week coming up, although grading is a priority. I did a lot of that over the weekend too, although never enough. Gotta get my focus on. It helps to be well, doesn’t it? I think it might. I think I’ll try that later this week…

*Natalie Merchant, I May Know the Word

It’s Too Late to Say You’re Sorry*

Ugh. Well I’m sick again. This school year is kicking my butt. Too much work, can’t stay well…I usually get sick like once a year. It’s only October and it’s my second viral incursion. Damn immune system needs to get in gear. Makes it hard to stay caught up. Or whatever that means.

The gun quilt is at the photographer’s…will be picked up later this week. I was trying to get fabrics ironed for a small climate change quilt I started in June, just for fun…

I’m not done. I did a little bit yesterday afternoon after grading shit, running errands, and trying to get other stuff done.

Friday night at gaming, I finished Block 15 (bottom right) on Folk Tales (I always call it Folk Tails because of all the animals).

Block 15 is part of May, but I haven’t done April yet…so I started on that.

There are three blocks for April, and I have a lot of embroidery to do on them. Expect to see them rolling around for a while.

Then I realized I hadn’t touched this in days. I did 4 day’s worth around the eyeball…a bunch of filler stitches.

However interesting and challenging it’s been to work on this, and whatever bullheadedness it takes to keep working on it every day for a year, I probably won’t sustain it beyond December 31. It was an interesting experiment. No idea what I’ll do with it…maybe make it the center of a small crazy quilt in all black backgrounds. Who knows? Because I need more projects.

I emailed the woman in charge of the project I’m supposed to be working on next to see if I could change my focus. Much as climate change worries me and however many ideas about it are clamoring for my artistic attention, women’s rights are weighing much more heavily on me right now…and a new drawing for this project popped into my head last night on the way back from the Visions Art Museum opening for Interpretations. It had absolutely nothing to do with the art I saw there…but it’s in my head now. I wanted to start drawing last night, but after about 9:30, I felt like absolute crap and was in bed before 10:30. See, that’s how you know I’m sick. I can’t do anything.

Today is a fiber-related meeting…long drive and interactions with humans. I’m not always up for that. Right now I’m tired and not feeling at my best, stressed about the grading that needs to get done, worried about getting this quilt started so I can get going on it. Probably need to go take more meds. Drink more tea. Maybe nap. Who knows. No time for napping. Shit needs to get done.

*Malcolm McLaren, About Her

It’s Not a Miracle We Needed*

Better. A little more focus. I appreciate that. My brain allowing some space for artmaking, even if it isn’t the most challenging part of the process.

First I made time to hang out with friends…I took this to keep sewing down wool for the next month…

My parents’ dog is visiting, so when I got home, I hadn’t seen one of the cats for a while. They don’t like the dog, because she’s a little too interested in them. I finally found her in a cubbyhole in my office…

I didn’t get far on the wool piece…but the hyena(?) just needs eyeballs. I think I might need to sew something together to do the sun…

It’s not a priority at the moment.

The next part of the quilt I was ironing down, after some fish and stuff, was the tree that makes up the majority of her lower torso. It’s intertwining roots, and it was fun to draw, but not as fun to trace, and pretty mind-boggling to pick fabrics for…

But I did it. That puts me at about piece 175. Super slow on this…but just trying to give myself the space to draw sometime soon. I will finish picking fabrics…but I could draw at the same time. If I had the mental space. It really is too much school stress weighing on me.

I’ll get there. Here’s everything ironed so far…lots of tree parts…

Funny, I really think of this quilt as bright, but brown is never really bright.

Anyway. It’s progress. It’s something.

*Phoenix, 1901

I Can Do No More

Well. So. Some days you just write off. I did get some of this…

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And honestly, that’s a good thing. I tried grading (almost fell asleep doing it), I tried reading the book I’m supposed to be reading for school (more almost falling asleep), I hung out, I went to book club, but mostly just to hang out. I’m tired and stressed and cranky and overwhelmed and worried about getting the next drawing done and a whole bunch of other shit.

So today is going to be better. I’m going to hang out and do some hobby sewing and then come back and maybe grade a little and then work on the ironing of this small quilt to fabric so I can start drawing on Saturday or Sunday. Don’t look at the calendar for the next week, because it’s ugly. I’m gonna do what I can do. I can do no more.