Find the Balance

Serious hermit behavior results in…well…results. Certainly not my original plan for yesterday, but I guess it turned out OK. Although I’m running a little crazy from the quiet. I finished watching The Killing finally and decided for a change of pace to watch Call of the Midwife…I’m not sure it’s a whole lot different, despite the era change and the content change. Maybe that’s just my brain. The next steps on this quilt will be performed to music instead, so that will be a change.

I did get my taxes almost done yesterday too AND walked the dog, so I did OK. But I also ironed for 6 hours…which is kind of pitiful maybe. Or not. That’s 6 hours of talking to no one. Well…briefly to my SIL. Texting daughter. Ex about daughter and taxes. That was about it. Next week…sigh. I will need to do some things besides art next week, although it will probably hurt my brain. I do need to have this to an almost-finished state by the 31st though. Yikes. It’s sounds impossible when I write it out.

I didn’t start ironing until after 3 PM, after I’d done all the stuff I needed to do.

I ironed the third figure apart first…it was easier than trying to fit the wings around the existing arm.

Then I put it where it belonged and ironed the other wing under her head.

I ironed the vine separately as well and then fit it around his head and hair.

Then all that was left was this bird…whose wings gave me fits. I misplaced two feathers and recut one and fit the others so the last one didn’t matter, but I don’t know what was going through my brain because I found the missing pieces as I finished up ironing. They were just in the wrong section, but I could have sworn I’d already checked there. Brain fade.

Then I ironed everything down to the background.

It’s supposed to finish down to 16 x 24″. The image is about 15 x 23″ I think. I didn’t want to leave a large border.

The next step is to stitch it down, hopefully today. I am going to the gym. Need to strengthen the body and clear the mind. It feels like cobwebs in there.

Then sandwich it Sunday and start quilting. It’s taken as long as a large quilt to iron down because of all the tiny pieces, but hopefully the next two steps will be quicker…although there is a lot of detail, so maybe I’m dreaming on that hope. And it needs a name.

Next up…financial aid, finish the silly taxes (the last form is giving me fits), yardwork, housework (still), and grading shit. Aargh. I can’t. I just can’t. There’s definitely a war going on in my brain at the moment. Trying to process stuff and weed out the crap so I can face the rest of the school year. Calmly. Mindfully. And keep the balance. What I’m doing now is not really balance…but I need to swing back to let the work stuff in so it doesn’t bury me later. So probably FIND a balance first. Like I haven’t been working on that for the last 20 years…

Keep Calm and Hermit On

I often go into hermit mode on breaks from school. I’ll go days barely leaving the house. Yesterday I left twice, both for things that were already on my calendar. I don’t actually have anything for today, but I’m going to walk the dog. Next week is a swathe of unscheduled days. I know I need to grade stuff, clean stuff, trim stuff, but I also need to clear my head, make it possible to go back to school in a little over a week and survive the rest of the school year without totally losing it. I need some calm and patience. My counselor says I need to fill myself back up, and she’s right. More importantly, I need to do a better job of that on the weekends through the end of the school year. Problem is there are so many to-do’s and other things that get in the way of the filling-up.

Anyway, yesterday was hermit mode. I worked on art-related things for over 6 hours, about 4 of those hours on the small quilt I’m putting together, which just so you know is supposed to be 16 x 24″ finished. That’s way smaller than I usually work, and it’s been difficult ironing it together, because tiny pieces are fussy. But it’s a good place for my brain to be at the moment. Clearing shit out inside the head, even though I can’t seem to get it together on the outside the head part.

I had these ironed the other day, but they were in the bin, because a couple of them aren’t attached to anything, and I was waiting on the cloud until I got the legs in.

There were some other free-floating pieces I did yesterday…

And then I started on the legs of the central figure, so the clouds went back in. That damn tree is a pain in the butt…

It’s always in the way.

This is a tiny uterus with an even tinier eyeball in it.

The torso came together. The girl’s knife is because she cooks…not because she wants to hurt things, although at the moment, that’s probably a toss up.

I think that’s when I went to counseling…then the store, came back and went to my quilt class. More on that below. After class and cooking food, I started on the upper torso, which was a little fussy.

Overlapping shit…then on to the head and hair, which I did separate from the torso at first.

Then once I had all the main pieces in, I ironed it to the torso.

There’s a few more things to go on there, like the face for instance, and the missing hand. I was too tired to deal with them last night though. Faces are complicated and they hold the strength of the figure…the expression is important. And on something this small, I didn’t want to fuck it up. So I went to bed with my book instead. Today I’ll get the rest done, I’m hoping. I should be doing other things, but I can’t get my head there. Maybe tomorrow.

On Wednesday night, I was in a bar at a music thing, so I drew. Desert plants were definitely on my mind. Not sure about the rest.

Those big heads are still in my brain, percolating. And a new Earth Mother drew part of itself in my head last night. I guess I should put it on paper. I feel a need to just make some stuff for a while without a deadline attached to it. I didn’t have anything portable on the current quilt to take to class, but I had three drawings I’d copied, one of which I wanted to do next, so I numbered all three of them.

They each came out at about 400 pieces…

They’re all about 17 x 21″ inches, so smaller than what I normally do. I’m in the mood to just bang out some smaller pieces (not as complicated as the one I’m doing right now). So maybe that’s my pre-summer project. And I can draw another Earth Mother in between and aim to do her over the summer.

Although there are shows that are talking to me, and I should consider them. Their deadlines are later in the year, though, and right now my brain hurts. So I’ll deal with these, I think. At least the first one. I’ll see where I’m at once I finish it.

That one reminds me of one I gave away. Unfortunately.

OK, so I’m going to walk the dog this morning, even though it’s a later start than I wanted, because I need to clear my head. Cobwebs. Shitty crap in there. Then I’m going to come back and spend at least an hour on taxes. The taxes I should have done a month ago, maybe more. Then I can do art. Or maybe I should set a yard or house goal as well. Sheesh. Too much in one day. I really just want to iron the damn quilt down. And continue to Keep Calm and Hermit On.

Ironing It Out…

Back to avoiding all the shit I’m supposed to do over break (yardwork, housework, financial aid)…I’m in art brain mode. Why? Because I started ironing and an image started to appear and now that’s all I want to do is stare at it and make it come together. For hours. Fuck the rest of it. Seriously don’t want to deal with anything else. Bad. Bad Kathy.

So the one thing with this quilt is that normally I would have enlarged it 250%. But it can’t be enlarged for this show. It has to be fucking tiny. So it’s taking longer to iron because I’m dealing with these utterly teensy weensy pieces.

The tree is upside down because in real life it’s upside down. I have two right-side-up figures and one upside-down figure. I’m sure at some point the girlchild will complain that she is upside down in this piece and I will explain to her that she was the second child and she came out backwards and that’s why. Then she’ll complain about being naked in the quilt, but that’s what happens when your mom is a quilt artist and does nudes. So there.

See…the pieces are mostly tiny. In fact, some are so tiny that I’m not cutting them out until it’s time to iron them down, because I would just lose them.

This is about 180 pieces ironed. I still need to do the rest of her arm. The moon to her left with the clouds, it’s done. So are the things below the tree. They’re in the bin, waiting to be ironed down to the background.

That’s about three hours of work. Not a small amount. So it took 3 hours to iron less than 200 pieces. I’m figuring 12 hours total. She doesn’t really have a yin/yang tattoo, but she does have a scar from back surgery.

Girlchild got out of her increasingly nasty dorm situation yesterday, finally…a relief to all of us. Still trying to clean up loose ends on that, but hopefully it will be done and behind us soon. And hopefully I can force my brain to do some work soon too…besides ironing. Right now though? Right now I’m going to iron for a while. It’s my meditation. Clears my mind. Lets it process. Sometimes that’s what I need, more than I need a clean house and a weeded front yard. I know some people don’t understand that, but honestly, I’m at an age where I just really don’t care about that. Cronedom, here I come!

Just the Wings…

Some days it feels like I am just getting by until I can go back to whatever art project I am working on. I get through school and errands and exercise, except I really enjoy exercise, and then I get through cooking and eating and paperwork (is it paperwork if it’s on the computer?) or the technological equivalent, and then I look at the clock and calculate how much time there is left in the day for artmaking. I really wish it didn’t always start after 10 PM. Especially when daylight savings is already kicking my butt. The night owl self wants to stay up an hour later, but the morning self reminds me I have to teach 155 7th graders tomorrow and patience is one of those things that wears thin with little sleep. It already wears thin on project weeks. Gone are the days of scantrons and multiple-choice tests (well, they’re SUPPOSED to be gone…some teachers still use them), which means more work on both sides. Kids want me to give them all the answers. Then they get mad when they calculate their BMI as part of this project (yup. I brought in a scale) and realize they are classified as obese. Or that they have a higher risk for heart disease because of their gender or their race. Or that the parent who smokes around them is increasing their risk as well. Yeah. Well. Welcome to critical thinking.

So what little patience I have gets fully used up by 3:30 and then I’m supposed to do tutorial after school…unpaid tutorial, I might add, and I’m doing it today because of that project that’s due, but what I really want to do is come home and finish ironing. Well, that’s not all I want to do. Tonight is a little different, but it’s OK. It will get done.

This is a messy pile. I don’t like messy piles, but even if I straighten it all up before I start, this is what it ends up looking like…

I had a lot of little fussy things to iron last night: a cat, some hair, a uterus, lungs, a jellyfish.

I actually had myself convinced at some point that I would have no problem finishing the ironing last night, but then it was after midnight and I stood there staring at this pile…

Totally exhausted and still completely undecided as to what color(s) the wings should be. And that’s all that’s left. The damn wings. Hard to make decisions at that hour. So I packed everything up, turned off the iron, peed the dog, and walked down the hallway toward the sweet comfy bed, and the solution popped into my head.

Yeah. That’s how it works. If you make art every day, even on the days when there is no inspiration and nothing strikes your fancy, and all you’re doing is picking up fabric and moving it around or drawing godawful things in your sketchbook, or even just stitching something down because it needs to be stitched and you don’t feel like being more creative than that…if you do all that, then your brain gets in the habit of solving those creative problems while you’re too tired to even consider them. My brain figures shit out while I’m doing the dishes, while I’m driving to work or on errands, while I’m standing in a line. I let it wander and it does. It wanders until the answer is just there.

This is not an instantaneous thing. You have to work at it. I make so much work because I work at it. It seems so easy now, but there’s almost thirty years of practice in there, some years better than others. More intensely now than ten years ago. In fact, that might be my greatest fear about getting old is that I’ll lose that. I won’t have art every day. So when I talk about getting old, there’s a few things I want: I don’t want to be that old lady with the cane or the walker. I want to be the one who’s still hiking the mountains. She may have poles and she may go slowly, but she’s still moving. I want to make art every day. In fact, I will have worked my butt off for years and I deserve to retire and make art every day. No, I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t even know if I’ll ever be able to afford to retire, but whatever. Those aren’t the only things I want, but they are two of the most important.

With that, I guess at least I know what color I’ll be ironing tonight…just the wings…and then I’ll be ready for the next step on this project. Time to cut out all those little tiny pieces. Way better than stressing out about school.

Sustenance

Deep breaths. It’s only 5 days, 1 major project, 1 unit of study, 2 parent meetings, and 1 field trip away from Spring Break. You Can Do This. Seriously, though, Friday was a bitch. So was Friday night and most of Saturday. I didn’t get anything done at all except art, because that was all I could handle. So that’s what I did. Friday night I drew…

I have a few ideas rolling around in my head, so I messed with one of them…

The cats kept me company…they don’t really like each other, so this is as close as they get.

No, that heating pad is not on. I guess it’s possible it had residual heat on Friday night, because my neck was still a mess. It’s better now.

Then I went into the studio and tried to iron a bit…

Exhaustion took over at some point. I got up the next morning, made my post-it list for the weekend (this is becoming a disturbing habit), and stared at it for a while. Then I ironed fabric instead…these are the flesh fabrics…

I needed to cross something off the post-it, so I went and picked up the dog from my ex’s house (soccer tournament) and walked her about 3 miles. She was very excited to see me. I brought her back here and she lolled around on the floor for the rest of the day. And I kept picking fabrics…

Honestly, most of this piece is the three figures, so lots of fleshy bits. At the end of Saturday, I had this stuff left to iron…

Basically everything that wasn’t flesh. Notice I still have all those loose bits of fusible web on that blue lid over there. Honestly, it hasn’t been that bad finding the missing pieces. I’ve only had to redraw a few.

At the end of Saturday’s 5-hour ironing binge (yeah, you read that right…I only got two things crossed off the damn post-it list and one was walk the dog)…this is how much I had ironed down.

I went to watch a band play. The waitress really liked this one…

The sitting at the table part is a piece of another drawing in my head. I think I’m going to try that one in a bigger sketchbook.

And this one…

Three drawings in 25 hours…not bad.

Sunday was busy. I crossed two more things off the post-it list and did a bunch of stuff for school that wasn’t even on the post-it. Plus the grocery shopping and crap around the house and cooking for the week. And I graded. Shocking. But I tried to stay away from it most of the weekend. I want to be sort of caught up for vacation…which is actually impossible, because see above…one major assignment and one unit due this week. It will take a long time to grade those. Oh well.

But later Sunday night, I got started again…slowly. This is ironing a tea set. You know. Like you do.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far in a remarkably messy pile.

And here is the dog…still lolling around at my feet. She groans if I step over her.

Here’s what’s left to iron. Two sets of wings…I don’t know what color to make them. Should they be the same? Different? Bright? Dull? Earthy? I just don’t know. There’s a set of lungs and a uterus in there too. And her hair, which involves some seawater, a jellyfish, a starfish, and some other fish.

Here’s what’s in the box as of last night.

I’ve been ironing for almost 9 hours. Almost all this weekend. Yeah. I wasn’t really in the mood to Real Life it this weekend. Art. It’s what’s for dinner. Actually, no, bacon/leek risotto was for dinner and it was quite good. But art is my late-night snack, my dessert, my sustenance.

Which Parent Will You Be?

Neck is still messed up. Call to chiropractor today. Same with the pool. Whatever. I survived yesterday with about 300 people saying or singing happy birthday to me. I think 6th period was the most melodic AND in tune. Fourth period was just screechy and although 8th period was a nice volume, they only knew three notes.

I sat through a union meeting and drew this…

I have two drawings in my head that are Big Heads (way bigger than this…the sketchbook is probably 6×9″). Need to find time for that.

Then a quiet evening with pizza, Walking Dead, and my sofa companions, some more needy and some more verbal than others. Then I did the dishes and put the dishwasher stuff away, wrote an email to my union people about what happened at the meeting, moved a bookshelf (17 other pieces of furniture had to move first), and finished putting fabric away. While I was doing that, I remembered Amanda Palmer had posted on Facebook about a new song, a serious song, not a last-minute plinking of the ukelele (not that I mind those), and I scrolled through until I found it…listening to the song, I read the story behind it, which is sad, of course. But this part got me…photo of babe in suitcase while she tries to finish writing a song all night. Being an artist AND being a mom…two of the hardest jobs to juggle at the same time.

And I like that…“you are either going to be the person who stayed up and wrote the song, or you’re going to be the person who went to bed and didn’t write the song.” I don’t care about the boring fucking parent side, but I guess I was always the one who stayed up and made the art. Who made it despite parenthood and divorce and all the other crap. I think that’s the artist’s drive, the one that woke me up around 2 AM with this vision of a drawing in my head. Anyway, the song is good…see link below for the story and the song. I read it while I listened, which I think is the best way to do it.

Amanda Palmer: Machete

So in the light of being that person, the one who stays up late to have her other artistic life, here’s what I did after 10 PM last night. First of all, the damn Wonder Under is being an asshole. Here are all the released pieces.

So when I’m ironing, if a piece doesn’t have the web on it, I do this kindergarten-level pattern matching. It has a pointy bit here, it’s long and skinny there, and I try to match them up. If I can’t, I trace a new one. It is a rancid pain in the ass. It’s like an online intelligence test.

Here’s the first 100 laid out.

I honestly didn’t get far, through the 50s and into the 60s I believe. Tiny little pieces and a tired little brain. But I started and that’s what matters. Now I have a plan for the next few nights. This is one of my favorite parts of the quiltmaking process, picking out the fabrics. The piece isn’t even colored in my brain. I just stare at the drawing and imagine it in a variety of colors as I’m picking stuff.

It’s a little crazy actually. The background is on the left. The stuff I’ve used so far is on the right. This drawing is small enough that right now I have it just sitting on the ironing board. Easier to see what’s what, cuz that’s some tiny-ass pieces.

I got to a stopping point and was trying to straighten other stuff up in the studio, when I realized I had a piece of dowel that would work for the SAQA auction piece I bought last year and hadn’t hung yet. I cut the dowel, stuck eyebolts in, and then realized it was REALLY tight. The sleeve was tight against the piece…making the dowel bulge out…

It’s hard to see in this picture, but look on the left, where you can see the bulge of the dowel. I hate that. I always leave room in my sleeves so that won’t happen.

So I ripped the bottom edge of the sleeve and repinned it.

And then I’ll sew it down where it belongs. So I can hang it up with all the other art that needs to get hung up.

Wow. Tired. Sore. But looking forward to that late night tonight when I can hang with the fabric again.

Up All Night…

So I stayed up too late. Not all night, but even this morning was just troubled sleep and I couldn’t fall asleep last night, despite the late hour. My brain’s in overtime. Overload. Overwhelmed. Just over. But I wanted to finish the ironing…I started with the eyeball tree growing out of her head…

And then the other two faces got done. That was it, really. A hundred pieces or so in that space.

Then I ironed her legs onto the torso…I’d kept them separate. At this point, I started pulling the arms and heads up off the teflon sheet.

Then I looked at the clock. It was that in-between time…in between when I might go to bed and when I should go to bed, and my brain just wanted to be done. So I grabbed one of the two fabrics I’d picked for this quilt and ironed her down…

That was fast. Well. 12 hours and 45 minutes total. Not uber fast really. I’m hoping to start stitching down tonight, but I have two meetings tonight, so that might be too much hoping. Finish stitch down tomorrow night, sandwich and pinbaste Friday night and start quilting. I think I might actually make this deadline. Which is good, because there’s another one right behind it. Aack. I did have something I wanted to do next, but it won’t work for this next exhibit. Luckily, it only needs to be mostly done by the end of March and there’s a Spring Break in there. I might go into overload schoolwise before I get there though. Speaking of. Need to go there and do stuff.

Ironing Arms…

I so wanted to be done with the ironing yesterday. I ironed pieces quite happily for 4 hours until I realized I needed to go to bed, although honestly, with the amount of sleep I got, it would have made more sense to stay up another hour or so. I’m 10 hours in, but I’m not done. I did have a 3-day weekend, but it doesn’t feel like I got a day’s more of work in. I’m not sure where it all went, but it did. Errands. Stupid little stuff. I only crossed two things off the post-it note weekend list. That doesn’t feel good.

So keep making art. That feels good. And another tight deadline just popped up after this one, so I need to get moving.

On Saturday, after finishing a bunch of errands and other crap, I started on the torso.

That was easy, so I started torturing myself with hands and arms.

The arms all were drawn basically the same, so I got into a rhythm of ironing them down, knowing what piece came next. They were tiny pieces though.

Each arm/hand has something about it…sometimes two things. One thing near or in the hand, like the needle and thread, and one thing on the arm…although some don’t have both.

I think that’s where I stopped on Saturday. Not sure…wait, I only had two arms on Saturday.

Then Sunday, I kept doing arms, but I didn’t start until almost 10 PM. Dealt with grades and school stuff. Not sure where most of the day went. I think I even took a nap. Crazy, huh? Things I would never do on Sunday during the school year without Monday as a holiday for catching up.

By the end of Sunday, I had 7 arms of 10.

The pieces on this quilt are tiny. That’s what happens when you draw most of it to size. Well. That’s what happens when I draw most of it to size. You might be smarter than I am.

See that iPhone? Yeah. Too small. Tiny pieces.

Hearts with wings. One thing that’s interesting about looking at them on the white teflon sheet is that they will end up on a dark background, so it will all look very different.

When I drew the flying hearts, I squished them in too tightly, so when I traced them, I made sure the one that was originally UNDER a hand had all its parts so I can move them around and make them fit better.

So Monday I started on the upper torso, which had a lot of little pieces.

And the last set of arms finally. As I was picking fabrics, I was trying to make sure I (1) used the same fabrics on each side for each set of arms (not an easy task) and (2) each set of arms was layered so the darkest fabrics were used on the arms that were furthest back. For flesh fabrics, I usually do a run of 7 fabrics…this quilt had 11 I think. Or 13. Something like that.

Oh yeah. And a rocket ship. Plus the inevitable dog I picked up on Monday.

Calli is my daughter’s dog. She travels between the two houses while her mom’s gone because I’m home more and Calli’s lonely, but she really likes her grandpa more than me. He lets her do stuff I don’t do. So she escapes my yard. During the week, I drive her to his house every day, and on the weekend, she gets to stay with him. Crazy really.

I started on the head…well one of the heads…last night. I usually iron the eyes as a separate unit so I can place them on the head and make sure they’re not crooked.

There she is! Except there’s stuff growing out of that head and there are two more heads on the side.

So that was at 11:55 PM last night and I knew I had to leave for school early (in fact, in about 5 minutes), and there were at least another 100 pieces to iron. So an hour, maybe more. I guess that’s tonight. Sigh. I wanted to be stitching down last night. It’s OK. I probably won’t get to that tonight though and tomorrow night is busy. So maybe Thursday night stitching down, Friday night pinbasting and starting to quilt. Time’s a runnin’ through my fingers here. That said, technically I still have three weeks. Barely. And it needs to be photographed. Minor issue.

OK, need to go to school. Tired, not enough sleep, still cranky. Aargh. I did fight the crank last night. Was absolutely fine for the four hours I was ironing. Keep that in mind. Grading papers makes me cranky. Making art does not. Making art does, however, make my brain wired and unable to fall asleep for hours. Whoops.

Head in a Hole

I didn’t get any art done yesterday. It happens. I’m pretty good about doing something most days, but I didn’t have the energy to stand and iron at 10 last night. Strangely. And this morning…this morning, I’ve written out the weekend post-it note and it’s a bit ugly. Why oh why. And it’s supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow. A stark contrast to the girlchild’s photos from Friday morning…

Meanwhile, I’m considering putting my pale winter legs in shorts. I haven’t been outside yet. I’m in hermit mode. My post-it note sent my brain into an overwhelmed frenzy. And I have a 3-day weekend to deal with all of it. What does it mean that the only thing I really want to do is iron the damn quilt together? Oh yeah. It means I’m an artist and an overworked teacher. Fucking A.

We did decide that it’s my fault my co-teacher hasn’t given birth yet. I haven’t finished the binding. I got side-tracked and never finished. So that’s what I did when I got home late last night…worked on that.

But did I finish? No I did not. So she still can’t give birth. Bad Kathy.

And then I walk in the studio this morning and there’s the next batch of 100 pieces laid out with the bins on top that keep the cats from lying on the pieces and messing them up and walking off with piece number 117 stuck to their tail. This has happened. Most of the weird shit I do is because of experience.

So I really just want to ignore the post-it. But I can’t. Too responsible. Maybe. Certainly some of the things on the post-it make me want to put my head in a hole. None of it is easy. It’s all a pain in the butt. I didn’t even put the standard stuff on there, like laundry or groceries. Or sleep. I did put grade stuff on there. Ugh. So tired of that. Taking a break this week from tutorial and detention at school. I’m burnt out. Funny because school admin was just talking about how my team goes above and beyond to deal with parents and support our kids, and I’m going to totally blow it off this week. Maybe the next as well. I’m going to blow it off until I can stand to do it again. Just to clarify, I don’t get paid to stay after school. And it’s not in my contract. So I’m just going to work to contract (sort of…because you know I’ll come home and work) until I can be a better teacher again.

I can’t even think straight this morning…can’t pick one of the things on the post-it and do it. Too much fluff in my head. Alphabetical order maybe. Or just crumple that bastard up and start ironing.

The Whole Nude Thing

Sometimes it’s so easy to come home and blow off school. I had my monthly stitching meeting, where I embroidered bird parts, birds I may never finish, although that part doesn’t really matter. I embroider because I like it and it’s relaxing. And not everything I do has to be art.

Then I came home and made art…even though some student emailed me about her missing assignment that she turned in last week and I haven’t graded it yet (I actually have time this weekend set aside to deal with the pile of late work, which is always a pain in my butt). I totally ignored her. She’ll get an answer today, no worries, but I might explain that if she turns work in two months late, I don’t feel any real urgency to grade it. Maybe I should take two months to grade it?

Oh yeah, I need that 3-day weekend, let me tell you. Even if I will spend a chunk of it working.

Sorting all the fabric the night before was smart, because it made it really easy to start ironing last night. I started with the rug and the stuff on it…

Here’s where I work…Kitten supervising. Looking at this makes me think I should spend some time cleaning up the desk, and that is true…because taxes and financial aid need to be done soon and I will need to get through all that paper to do that. Not really looking forward to that.

Oh yeah. The obligatory Nida crotch shot. The thing is, if you’re going to do nudes, you have to work pretty hard to never show an open crotch shot (and this one isn’t done, by the way). So many male-created female nudes have these lovely lines and fluid motion, but she’s never just sitting there…and if she’s sitting down, legs crossed, dammit. There’s a vulva. And why we’re scared of it? I don’t know. To me it refers to childbirth, to creation, to sexual pleasure, to where we all came out (except those C-section kids). The path we all traveled into existence in the free world. Why are we scared of that? Why does that offend? Why do people FREAK OUT at a crotch shot?

One of my art friends said something at the opening about where are ya gonna go to see crotches just Wide Open in front of a lot of college students? A Nida exhibit. OK. So there we are. And it’s not porn. I’ve been accused of that too. Why is the vulva porn? None of my work shows pornographic sex or even sex for that matter. Very few penises even, and certainly not used in a pornographic matter. The plain existence of the vulva is porn? Really? When we deal with it every day? It brings periods, delivers babies, gives pleasure, excretes pee? This is porn? That’s pretty utilitarian if you ask me. Nothing to fuss about.

Same with breasts. Hey! There’s gonna be breasts in this quilt too! Breasts are for babies. Yeah, they also apparently stimulate male brains and are good for a number of nerve endings and fill out bras (not a good thing in my book), but we can live without them. And they aren’t evil. Seeing a breast shouldn’t cause paroxysms of outrage. Appreciation for the human form…understanding that when the figure is nude in art, there’s fewer clues about their status, their upbringing, their culture. It’s more about all humans, all women. It’s universal. Even by choosing skin color, hair color, eye color…those already color a viewer’s perception. And you want me to add clothing? I’ve never been a fan of drawing clothing. It’s too fussy. I like bodies and their parts. Always have. Assuming the body is transparent and what’s inside is clearly visible. The systems that make us go, that also can kill us. Way more interesting than pants or a skirt.

So yeah. That’s why the whole nude thing. You’d never ask a white male painter about why he paints nudes. You wouldn’t.

So that’s what I got done yesterday, about 100 pieces. It took longer than I thought it did. Not sure why.

Torso next. Then 10 arms. Gonna take a while to get through all of those. Yes, 10 arms. Gonna ask me about that too? Well hang on. Wait until all the other stuff is on there and then you can tell me what the quilt is about. Universal theme, I think. At least to a large chunk of the population.