Art Weekend

I wish it were MORE of an art weekend, like a retreat somewhere with a hot tub and a great natural outlook and lovely meals cooked by someone else and lots of creative time away from my house, which cries out to be cleaned. Because I know those exist. I also know I can’t afford them. So I take what I can get: SAQA opening Friday night. A friend’s husband said my piece at the SAQA show was the tamest thing he’d ever seen out of me. His wife said someone was looking at my quilt and mentioning mental illness, which is amusing, because HER quilt in the show IS about mental illness (it was juried into the show I created called I’m Not Crazy), and Eyeball Tree is about harvesting organs…yeah, it’s weird, but there’s no nudity and them’s the rules. And it’s NOT about mental illness.

Last night was the opening for Quilt Visions (whatever the name of the new version is), and I’ll write about that later…I’m a gonna REVIEW that sucker. Because I’m not in it. And there’s a good reason why. And then it was the second opening (my SIL says I’m not allowed to call it a Soft Opening, because that’s gross) for the Fence/Barda show with a slide show from one of the Mexican artists. So it was a busy night. Weekend. I talked to lots of people about art. Generally that’s a good thing, but my head does it’s weird-ass thing and turns it into sad. I did my best to ignore it. Came home, persuaded myself to start ironing, despite exhaustion. Seriously, I think I’m fighting off a virus. Been exhausted all week, sinuses are clogged up but not like a cold really…maybe it’s just allergies, except I don’t have those! Yeah right. It’s something. I slept a lot Friday night and then woke up and went to the gym, came home, ate and showered, and fell asleep again. That’s telling. Of course, I didn’t sleep WELL Friday night. Or last night. Can’t tell if that’s hormones or stress (can you really separate those two?). Either way, same effect. Napping…when you have time? Might as well nap. I didn’t really have time. I never do. I’m buried in papers that need grading, so I made a concerted effort yesterday and will again today. I need to get caught up before Houston, because the week after I come back, grades are due again. FUCK! And I have another unit finishing up with a test and a journal unit to be graded, which is not a small number of hours. Sigh. What life?

So it makes sense that I just scheduled a hike for next weekend. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve hiked. I’m getting the nonhiking jitters. I need to get out in my boots and pee behind a bush in the middle of nowhere (OK, you’re right…I could do that in my backyard, but it’s not the same). So this balance of sanity and crazy workaholic, school crap and art crap…it’s feeling like a rush, not a good rush, the rush of someone chasing you into a dark alley. I need it to stop. To slow down. I need some relaxation time. I need to learn to do that on my own and not depend on someone else to be the calming influence. To be the relaxation for me. Because I don’t have that and I don’t see having it in the near future…so it has to be me. I have to be able to walk into the house with all my crap and sit down and relax all on my own.

I probably didn’t fall asleep well on my own when I was a kid either (I didn’t. I actually remember that. Hours of tossing and turning and reading books under the blankets.).

So. It would help if I wasn’t chastising myself for not ironing Thursday and Friday nights. I did finally iron last night, because that voice was in my head screaming at me about blowing stuff off (see, I do it to myself…on the other hand, I get stuff DONE.). So I ironed for a couple of hours…

Still on the female figure. I’m going to do more tonight. I swear. Despite all the work crap hanging over me. Despite a really messy house. I asked the girlchild for 30 minutes of cleaning help today, and I swear she spent 30 minutes telling me why she couldn’t give me 30 minutes. Next time I should just hand her the vacuum and set a timer. No words. Let her scream at me. Maybe she’ll move the vacuum around while she’s screaming. I could push it into her hands, plug it in, and turn it on, and then run away. If I were fast enough and planned my path well enough, I could get her to vacuum the living room.

It would probably be easier to go out on the street and wave a $20 around to get someone to help. And I don’t have it this month…after I pay the Visa bill from hell, we will not be able to buy groceries for the rest of the month. Fun stuff!

I did finish the female figure last night…

Well, except for the fingers of the left hand, but that’s because they wrap around the hand of the male, and I need to iron him together before I can do that. So he’s next on the list…I’ve been ironing for a little over 7 hours and I’m around piece 570, so about halfway on pieces and halfway on my predicted time. The male will be easier. Female holding baby? That’s a lot of overlapping pieces. The male body is less complicated.

So I’m sticking to my Friday night goal of having it all ironed down. I picked Friday, because I figured I could get it sandwiched and pinbasted over the weekend, but I just realized that I have to stitch it all down first, and I don’t think I figured that into the calculations. Fuck! Seriously running out of time. Maybe if I get it all stitched down by Friday the 24th and sandwiched and pinbasted over that weekend. Then starting to quilt the week I go to Houston. Might work. Tight, though.

One of the annoying things last night is that I kept losing pieces. So I’d cut another one out, because I couldn’t find it (I think exhaustion was part of this), and then I’d find the damn piece in the wrong pile. Gaarg…

So annoying when I do that. Yes, I get annoyed by wasting that tiny piece of fabric and the tiny amount of time it took me to retrace, recut, reiron, retrim. They add up, though. It’s time I don’t have to waste.

Anyway. So I’m still trying to figure out how to pull off a REAL art weekend…not any time soon, for sure. Too many other things impinging on my time. At least there’s some progress…

Spending Time with Ink

So first of all, as I wrote in the previous post, I really didn’t expect to get into Quilt National or Visions or any of the others that regularly reject my work, but I’ve entered a LOT of shows in the last 9 months, and I do get into a few (SAQA’s regional exhibit Shades of Passion opens tonight with one of my pieces…with NO nudity), but they’re not challenging shows. Some have suggested other shows to enter, and I appreciate that. I do always have a run of show-entering after another rejection. Those pieces are now free to go exhibit elsewhere, and I try to get right on that. So yes, more entries in the next few weeks. As far as the art world is concerned, I do enter art (not quilt) shows…but I find that there is a massive prejudice against fiber art in the other art world, especially if you’re not being innovative with technique…and my technique is born from the quilt world. It’s my imagery that messes with their heads. But being involved with local female artists, I can tell you that just doing female nudes in certain parts of the country will cause an issue. So there are many reasons why my work doesn’t fit into some neat category. And I’m OK with that most of the time. It just gets old to continue to make work that you know is good, that you know is different and challenging and creative…and to have nowhere to show it. I don’t need a tribe to belong to…but I do need a place to exhibit.

Anyway. Moving on. As part of my attempt to remake my life, I sign up for weird shit sometimes…so last night found me in the basement of some downtown building, in a comic shop, sitting at a table drinking Stack wine (have you seen it? It’s very cute.), drawing, while surrounded by nerds. And geeks. And artists. And you could tell most of us were artists (some were attached to artists), because at some point, the room went dead silent…because we were all drawing. A strange social event indeed, but relaxing.

I did really have a plan for drawing. I have another show coming up that needs a new piece, but I haven’t really fleshed it out in my head, so I just drew kinda like Faulkner writes, without ending my sentences for days…

That’s how my brain works. How can I fit more things on this page? This drawing is like a Faulkner sentence. I even went back and added more at one point when I was contemplating what to do for the last drawing.

And a few people came up and commented and were appreciative, which is fine. It’s not why I went there. And ostensibly, I failed at the part I meant to do, which was socializing, but there were reasons for that.

This one actually is prep for the new piece I need to do. Although I’m going to lose the cape. The rest might work, though…but bigger? Maybe. I don’t think I’m allowed to go bigger. We’ll see. Did you know when you Google “hands on hips pose woman,” you get a million images of Wonder Woman? Like that’s the key phrase for her. Like people can’t remember her name. “You know, that superhero woman with her hands on her hips?” Sigh.

I did draw though. So no, I didn’t iron anything last night, because after two days of science professional development and getting up early for that and not getting enough sleep, I was dead tired. I came home, ate some sugar (hello depression!), made a cup of tea, and read myself to sleep.

Oh, yeah, so this drawing. I started drawing this guy across the room because he had an interesting face, and I actually did a pretty good job of capturing his face and expression…like I think he would have liked to have seen this…but THEN…

Some guy showed up who was friends with the two guys sitting next to me, and started talking about all the women he was fucking and how this one had sort of propositioned him, but she admitted to having sex with 30 guys so far this year, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to, because she wasn’t the right body type for him, but “if she had big tits,” he would. Sigh. So I had to write it. I actually sat there for a couple of minutes and asked myself if I was going to defile the drawing of the nice guy (I don’t actually know if he’s nice) across the way with the crap coming out of this little boy’s mouth, and it’s funny, because I think the other guy at the table, who had been sitting there near me for over 2 hours, I think he was embarrassed, because he realized there were women listening to this guy run on about girls and tits and all this crap, and hell, I would have been embarrassed if he were my friend. So after I wrote it, I decided to pack it in. It was after 10 and I had school in the morning and I was tired and I didn’t want to pay more for parking and little boys. So I left. I said thank you to my host, though. And Batton Lash drew me.

There are worse ways to end the day. This drawing is actually from Wednesday’s union meeting…yes, after 7 hours in a training, I had to hang around at school for 45 minutes and then go back to the district office for a 2-hour union meeting. UGH. Brain dead much? Rough week.

I did iron Wednesday night, though.

Legs. Female legs. They look remarkably like male legs (in my drawing at least). I had hoped to get the whole female figure ironed Wednesday night, but I graded stuff and spaced out a little (left most of my brain at the DO), and got yelled at by the girlchild, and made dinner (a damn good dinner too, so there). So I didn’t start ironing until after 10 PM, which is late for a 2+ hour session. And I was exhausted. But still stayed up way too late. I’m not very smart sometimes.

Or my brain just messes with me.

Uterus in color.

Ball of cat.

Lizard on ceiling.

Too high up to get him down. He’s still there this morning.

I think I just ran out of words. Or energy. Or brain power. Whatever. I drew. Remember I said I would draw once a week? Well, I did.

Prioritize the Many…

I’m debating Nanowrimo this year. Since school started, I’ve been finding it harder to find the time and mental space to write…shockingly, since I’m working full time as a teacher and trying to be a regularly working artist as well. But I wrote 1300 words last night. Just like that…Boom! In the book, it’s still Saturday. The book starts on Thursday. I’ve been writing about Saturday for 19 pages. A lot happened on Saturday. At the rate I’m going, the whole book will take maybe a week to take place. Most of it seems to be happening on Saturday…which must be like 46 hours long. Huh. Might need to deal with that issue.

I really enjoy the writing. Strange. It would be nice to make the attempt to write 50,000 words next month. I’d be almost done. Not sure I can do it, but I can make it a goal anyway.

Because I don’t have enough things I’m trying to do? I was really good today, though, despite crashing blood sugar after school (damn Minimum Day schedule fucks with me). I came home and ate (important) and did one household chore on my list and prepped for the sub I have in my classroom for two days so I can do professional development, and I dealt a little bit with grades…I’ll have to finish in the morning. Then I cooked and dealt with girlchild and animals and kitchen cleaning, and finally ironed for a while. I achieved things. I prioritized, but got most of it done. I need to finish my book…it’s way overdue (can’t renew it…there’s holds on it). It really should be a priority. But only so many things can hit the top of the list…

Last night, I started sorting fabrics out…

It took about an hour and 10 minutes to get through all of them. There were a lot of really small pieces…

Some of which I’ve already misplaced. I started ironing late last night…

I tried to number things for logical ironing. Turns out it made sense for picking fabrics, but not for ironing them together. There are arms on either side of the bases of the scales…arm one…

Holds the Earth…arm 2 holds the heart…

I’m about 200 pieces and 2 hours in. That means I can estimate about 11 hours total ironing pieces together and maybe two hours to iron it to the background. At the rate I’m going, an hour a night (not so impressive, eh?), I’ll be done on time…still aiming for the 17th, sandwiching and pinbasting that weekend. We’ll see. Ironing is difficult when you’re tired…requires too high a level of concentration for super-tired.

On Sunday, I was at a science discussion for a while, and decided to stitch on birds…

Still working on these. They take a while to do when you only work on them at night soccer games. But I find it relaxing…to sit in the park listening to people argue scientific theory and ethics and critical thinking while pulling purple sparkly thread through wool fabric. It’s not a bad place to be.

Absolutely exhausted right now. Going to take it all to bed with me. More ironing tomorrow night…because it’s still one of my top priorities…

Maintain, Dammit. Maintain.

Deep breaths. Keep thinking of the positives. I finished ironing last night (it was 2 in the morning). It took 14 hours and 14 minutes to pick all those fabrics, about 3 hours more than I had predicted. At one point, all I had left were these…

and I considered stopping, because it was freakin’ late and I was tired and I’ve been fighting a hormone/weather headache on and off for 4 days and it was back (it’s back now too…making me think stress is the third arm of it, the part whacking at my brain right now). But I thought…fuck. I’m ALMOST FUCKING DONE. Just do it. If that doesn’t tell you more about who and how I am, I don’t know what will.

Cutting out tree parts is a pain in the ass, because they take a huge piece of fabric and don’t fit together well. It’s time-consuming…

and hard to find big enough pieces of fabric in my stash. But I did it. Ninety-four fabrics later…

There they all are. Heavy on the grays, strangely. So I sort of met my deadline on that and now need to cut them all out by Tuesday. Ha! I might need to revise that.

I’ve started, sure, but I am so freakin’ buried in schoolwork right now. Trying to tread water, keep head up and breathing. Deep breaths. Meditating every day at the moment, which yes, I should be doing anyway, but the fabric choosing was taking care of that mindset until Friday. Friday things started to implode in my head. I’m overwhelmed. I need to step back and make my lists and deal with one day at a time. I can’t lump it all together and try to deal with it all at once. I can’t even go Big Picture at the moment.

I’m 37 hours into this quilt. Cutting out should take a while. Apparently on a similarly sized quilt, it took 13 hours to iron and 15 to trim the fabrics. If that’s realistic and I have 13 hours to go, I’m not going to get anywhere near finished until next weekend. Then I’ll start ironing. Maybe that’s my goal: to be ready to iron sometime next weekend. (Kathryn: no hiking, reduce social events as much as possible? Fuck.) I’m really busting my butt on this and at work and it’s starting to show. I’m really incredibly tense (chiropractor this week!) and I have no mental release really. I’m so deep into the have-to list that I cannot get focus. This week is ugly too. They all are. Who am I kidding?

Anyway. College stuff is paid. Boychild still doesn’t have a job. Girlchild is currently waiting for me to come help her paint her parking spot (she’s a senior), but I have to go grocery shopping first. I remembered to buy dog food yesterday, but forgot the cat food. Midnight broke into the food cupboard in protest and ripped open the other cat food bag, the one she doesn’t like. I regularly have to duct tape holes in cat food bags because of her. I still have one class of tests to grade and I have 5 kids who don’t really read or write English who honestly need a curriculum at about a kindergarten level, but with 7th grade content. I haven’t fully planned this week’s lesson yet, and I’m about to blow off any connection to technology, just to save my sanity.

But I finished the God-Damned Fucking Ironing.

I am the crazy-haired woman all in black who is standing in the middle of the produce section at the grocery store in meditation pose, eyes closed, deep breathing. You should just walk around me. Maybe give me a hug while you do it.

The Vast Alone Space

I was going to post last night. I was doing OK. I went to the high school back-to-school night. I came home and exercised and ate and then I ironed. I cut stuff out when I hit the wall…the wall where I have no creativity left but I’m not tired enough to go to bed yet. I’m tired enough right now, but right now, I’m leaning up against the wall, waiting for the doors to open at House of Blues with the two teenagers I’m chaperoning to see The Kooks. I might fall asleep standing up at the rate I’m going.

So I had myself in the right brain space last night and then in a matter of seconds, I lost it, realized it was late at night and I was in this vast alone space where the cats were all asleep and would chirp listlessly at me if I petted them, and the girlchild and dog were gone, and what I really needed at 1 in the morning was a hug. A real hug. Not a side hug. But a full-on, hey, I’m here and I’m not leaving hug. Eh. Not happening. So bed and sleep ended up being miles away. Which made today even harder to survive.

Middle school on 3.5 troubled hours of sleep. Better…3.5 hours and I gave a test today and they were supposed to turn in a completed unit packet. In order. Which we’d gone over the day before. But I guess I was either speaking a foreign tongue or all those kids were absent, because yeah. Most frustrating day I’ve had this year. But I survived. And right now, I’m listening to loud music with beer in hand, debating where to try to grade papers. There’s a well-lit section of stairs with some interesting Kahlo-esque paintings. And I can still hear (and feel) the music. It’s mostly teens and 20s here, with a smattering of parent chaperones and old people who don’t seem to be with kids. My counselor says I should cut loose and dance. She might be right. I’m really tired though. And the bass was reverberating really uncomfortably in my chest downstairs, so I’m upstairs now.

Music does feel good though. I should remember that.

Last night, I couldn’t seem to remember anything but sad. hate that.

I think I have two more hours of ironing. Will try to do that tomorrow. With three acts tonight, I don’t think I’m getting home until after midnight.

Later…I did actually get home by 11:15. Good show. I danced a lot. Because I could. Because it felt good. AND I graded papers on the stairs. Because the second band was eh.

Anyway. I’m borderline exhausted and should just go to bed…but have pics from last night…here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far…

I’m 11 hours in and in the middle of the 800s. I’m up in the tree soon…just have to pick fabrics for the baby first.

Really, that’s about another 2 hours. I can do that. Here’s everything ready to be cut out…

I’m almost 2 hours into the cutting…

Doesn’t look like much. Never does until you iron it.

My most-common ironing companion these days…

Cup of tea plus cat. Babygirl is glad that Katie is gone…

She can relax now. Me too. Going to bed.

Hiking for Peace

Nope. Not what you think. Sure, I want world peace, but I don’t think we can make it happen with a hike. Personal peace though? Damn straight it works. Unfortunately, it takes giant bites out of my time to get art made or papers graded or apparently even sleeping well. We hiked Iron Mountain last night and had to put the headlights (ha ha headlamps) on before we even got to the top. It’s getting darker so much earlier now. And then we had homemade ice cream, smoothies, fruit, and champagne up at the top (it was someone’s one-year anniversary with the group). It was very cool.

Actually, it was hot when we started, but the cooler air coming back was really nice.

Great views from the top, but it was dark. I actually didn’t take many photos. This was at the table with the ice-cream setup etc. It was good to get outside and move around though, even though I’m feeling it this morning. I thought I would sleep better, but no!

By the way, this is what the fridge of a hiker looks like…

I needed my water to be cold, at least to start. I had packed the whole bag up and realized I wasn’t leaving for 30 minutes, so I shoved the whole thing back in there, poles and all (you should always chill your poles). What I love is that nobody in my house says a word about finding this in the fridge. Not a freakin’ word.

Anyway. The hiking does clear my mind, but it also fucks me for the rest of the night. I couldn’t eat when I got home and thought I could just skip dinner, but then I started feeling it later, too late really. But I had to eat. Diabetes Grrr. So easy to mess with your blood sugar by not following your routine. But the hike! Oh well.

So in the end, I ironed for about 30 minutes last night.

I could have gone longer, but I was SO tired. So I went to bed instead (smart choice, eh?). And then couldn’t fall asleep. And then was awakened by stalking cats and peeing dogs and who knows what else on the roof. So this morning I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. Not good. Oh well. More tonight hopefully (after the high-school back-to-school night?). I’m getting close, but I’m not close enough yet. I wanted to be fully ironed by Friday night, and now I’m chaperoning girls at a concert that night, so I won’t be home until really late and you know I’m not going to be fully awake then. Oh well. There’s always Saturday night. The night that chases me around the room trying to rip flesh out. Sigh.

Mood is rough besides the hiking peace. I made it home almost OK and then had to deal with some stuff and go back out in the car and the mood tanked. I’m trying to hold on to the mental state brought on by the hike, but the 17 texts from work don’t help and stupid emails don’t help and having to clean up after everybody else’s stuff doesn’t help. But that’s what it’s always like and maybe I just don’t have the right personality for holding on to the peace. Or maybe it’s that I’ve spent the last 12 years plus trying to manage everything without a ton of help and I just suck at it. I know I was better at it for a while, but then the support disappeared and I got worse. It’s hard to know that there’s something that helps but that you don’t have it and you can’t just go get it and it kinda feels stupid that you should need it, but you do. And it’s not like I don’t have friends and family who are giving support, but it’s not the same. I don’t know why. Something stupid in my head.

Anyway. I have another drawing in my head for a piece that needs to be done by January 1 (oh yeah, baby), but should be smaller (I’m really thinking about how to do that and still have all the details I love). And I’ve almost survived September, one of the worst months of the year for school and life and soccer, and I’m not sure I was even paying attention. My to-do list is growing exponentially, but I’m still getting it done. And hopefully this quilt will turn out well. It’s all still colored in my head and I think it’s turning out OK, but I won’t know until it’s ironed, and then I can’t really show it to you until the opening. Oh well. I’ll show you details. And I’m still working on my brain. I take it on hikes and give it pen and paper and fabric and books, and it’s coming around, really awfully slowly with sometimes what feels like massive steps backwards, but it’s coming. It’s reluctant. It’s having a hard time getting out of bed. It needs lots of encouragement and mental stimulus and I try to provide, but I also know it was badly broken and damaged, so I keep glue on hand. Some of that glue is climbing up a mountain, even when it seems like you’ve got better things to do.

I Stand Unrelieved…

I want to be Captain Picard, so I can relinquish the bridge to Number 1. In fact, make it so. I stand relieved…and not the kind of relieved where you take a deep breath or empty your bladder. It’s been a week of wanting to relinquish duties to others…and I have friends who were full on willing to walk away from other people’s crap and just deal with their own crap, and I get that. I wish I could do that. I did it last year. This year didn’t seem to present the same opportunities. It was more like, which annoying thing would annoy me less? Needless to say, school is an interesting maelstrom of crap, and most of it this year is coming from adults. The kids are honestly kinda easy. Not any different than other years probably…there’s the core group of lazy kids and another group of language-learners who might have disabilities, and another group of class clowns, and some kids who just don’t know how to turn things in or listen, and some amazing goofballs, and some who are just amazing. But no one is setting off alarms. Will there be a few who drive me nuts by the end of the year? Sure. Whatever. Same again.

I got home late after a school board meeting where the union reps were supposed to show up in red. I was grading papers on my iPad, which is kinda cool, although one of the apps doesn’t work right, so that’s annoying. But I was being semi-efficient. And then I went to the gym, even though it was already late, because I wanted to read my book. Books rock. So by the time I got dinner into me and was ready to iron stuff, it was 10 PM. Maybe I should just accept that it will be late when I start! Reality is much different than desire.

I started with all the bits that go in the humans but aren’t flesh. I thought I might finish those. Here are some bones…

I did those first. Actually, I think I did nipples and lips first, because they were the colors that were in front. Then I went on to tattoos and arrows and then to hearts…

Oh wait, I think I did a muscle in there first. I did. Because it needed to be different reds than the heart.

My faithful iron companion, Babygirl…

Yes, she always looks that affronted by my existence. And then purrs. Psychotic beast.

And watching her carefully, making sure she does nothing untoward, Katie…

Who has an issue with this cat, because she talks back. The other two just ignore her or run away. Katie’s funny because she doesn’t understand the words “move” or “out”. She just stands there staring at me, and I have to grab the collar and try to budge She Who Does Not Want to Budge. Plus she can’t figure out how to go out my back door without headbutting the door or wedging her shoulders in the doorway. I start to open the door and she runs at it, full bore, like a battering ram, so I’ve taken to standing in front of the opening as I’m opening it, just to get it wide enough for her to fit out. She does stop before she rams into me. Usually.

Anyway, I ironed parts for about an hour and a half, and then my brain gave up on the creative part…

but it needs to come down after that, so I started cutting parts out…

Which is when I heard Picard relinquish the bridge and thought, “Yeah. I want to do that. I want to relinquish the bridge right now.” This after I spent all day chasing Expedia down on the phone, trying to fix boychild’s return flight in December. Well, he will have to hang out in Newark for a while. Hopefully not more than a day. I’m sure he’ll be fine. He has technology.

I did that for about 45 minutes, and yes, I was up too late, and I can feel it this morning, but I’m feeling good about the progress.

Yes, in 45 minutes, the pieces on the top are all I got done. Whoo! Yeah baby. You are fucking nuts. It’s official.

I meant to finish this post this morning. Not sure what happened. Parent meeting or something. Heading out for a hike now…but fabric later.

Ironed Flesh

A typical afternoon after school during the Fall soccer season: Our heroine lounges on the couch, freshly made hot cup of tea at hand, grading in a pile next to her, studiously at work. The phone rings and hysterical screeching emanates, so loud that the nearby windows vibrate with the sound. Girlchild is at her soccer practice after coaching little girls at the wonders of the game, and her father has brought her the bag with all her equipment, but the giant hole in the side means one of her shoes has fallen out…somewhere between the couch and the driveway…of her father’s house. Sigh. Our heroine stands up, considers whether to re-engage the bra-strapping structure that she was quite relieved to have removed, and gets into the car, figuring no one is looking at her boobs anyway. What the fuck. Whoops. Lost character there. She drives to her ex’s house, raids it for the shoe (it took a while; it was wedged between two cushions) and drives to the soccer field, where she slowly drives past the field, waving the shoe in the air until one of the parents runs over and fetches it, delivering it to the girlchild.

You think I jest. This is unfortunately how it goes sometimes. That was after my second cup of tea and 3 Motrin, trying to banish the giant headache brought on by minimum day schedule, blood sugar affected by minimum day schedule, and a hellish back-and-forth with adults that should not be allowed in a work environment. As teachers, we seem to have fewer protections against stupid adults (including the ones we work with) than in other businesses. I am now department chair, not by choice, but because it was the best thing to do for the survival of the department (and my sanity). Next year, there will be more options and I should not have to be in charge. For now…it sucks, but it is. I also finally went off on the tech lady who keeps telling me No Duh stuff, like “did you check their email and password?’ Um. No. I assumed that if a 12-year-old can’t log in, that they did it right and I don’t need to test it myself. And I wasn’t smart enough to check my OWN password list, instead of relying on them to provide that information. Because I’m not smart or anything. Granted, many teachers aren’t tech savvy, but some of us are, and it’s not in your best interest to piss off those who have a clue what they’re doing. Don’t assume we’re all idiots and talk to us like that. Fucking condescending tech people.

So yeah. It was a meditation day. In class. My kids were really the least of my troubles. Today they were the easiest part of my job, which is saying something.

I just took on another art entry too…due by January 1. I think I took it on. I might be clinically insane on that one. Because there’s one I want to do for February as well. There is no rest for the crazed.

I really need to go to bed, instead of trying to write this tonight. Suffice it to say that I will continue tomorrow morning, after more caffeine has crossed my non-ruby lips, and hopefully I will have something pithy to say about the million fleshy pieces I ironed tonight (and the million I did NOT).

It’s morning. I wish I felt rested, but it is not my way. I did finally start ironing last night around 10…because I graded papers and cooked dinner and dealt with girlchild’s breakdown over a variety of crazy things, not the least of which was that the ACT test that she took a little over a week ago? They lost the test booklets somewhere, so they all have to retake the test. She’s livid (her word). I’m kind of amazed. How does one lose such a thing? And what is their home address? Because I know a few hundred high-school kids who want that.

Anyway, part of the issue was solved last night, but we still have to deal with the ACT…in her crazy schedule, she doesn’t have a spare 5 hours lying around to retake a test. So we’ll have to jiggle some things.

Anyway, I finished sorting all the fleshy bits and ironing them down…

It’s kind of like a crazy jigsaw puzzle. That will never fit together right. That’s one of 7 in the run…plus fingernails and toenails. I haven’t dealt with all the other stuff yet…it’s piled up at the back of the table…

It includes eyeballs, hair, hearts, arteries, lungs, nipples, lips…anything that’s not the standard flesh colors. I’ll start those tonight…so although I’m in the 800 box, I haven’t finished stuff from the 300s yet…so I have no idea how much I have left. I did iron for almost 2 hours last night (I was in the zone), which is why I’m so tired this morning. Because I can’t just stop ironing and go straight to bed. My brain’s moving a bit too fast. I have to let it ramp down, read for a bit, space out a little. It takes almost an hour…sigh.

Katie and Babygirl are not currently friends…this standoff was while I was trying to iron, with Katie standing right where I need to be. She won’t move when you tell her, or at least, she won’t if there’s a cat involved…so I have to physically pull her out of there.

Babygirl likes the iron because it’s warm.

I would think she would back off a bit when I’m actually ironing, but she doesn’t. She looking pissed off…well, she always looks pissed off…but we did comb her fur, because boychild said we had to, and she quite happily whacked away at the both of us with her claws while we were doing it. Amazingly, we are both scratch free, so she didn’t really mean it.

So 7 1/2 hours into the ironing. Still progressing. Yesterday was very successful. Grading a whole assignment got done, ironing got done. I wish I could guarantee the same each day this week, but…yeah.

This is the best part of Wonder Under…

(That’s sarcasm) Yup. The fusible sometimes releases from the paper. I am really obsessive apparently and lay out the pieces of WU and try to match them up to paper pieces that are the same shape. If I can’t figure it out, I just retrace them. I have not been good about keeping my WU in plastic bags this time around, and I can tell…it’s releasing easier. But it’s still the easiest method for me to do what I do. The two pieces on the right? I didn’t number them. I will figure out what they are eventually. Something in the tree.

OK. Today I teach zombies. Or I teach ABOUT zombies. Can’t remember. Might not matter.

Fabric Meditation

Well, so now we know that the mental state in which Kathy is most content is while she is picking fabric out for her art quilts. I can live in that state and push all the stupid crap and stress and depression and did I mention stupid crap? I can push it all out the door, slam the door on its face, and keep that damn door closed as long as I’m working and for a good period of time afterward. It is unfortunate that not ALL the stages of artmaking are so effective at calming my overactive mind. It really is a form of meditation. I’ve actually blown off meditation the last two nights and it’s been fine, because I spent 3 hours meditating with fabric each night.

I’m not really sure what to do with that information now, but…

So I met my goal for once! A miracle! Let’s not consider that I expect to be done with ironing AND cutting out in 9 days. And I’m days behind in grading. Priorities! I actually did a lot of yardwork yesterday before I ever started ironing. I started on Saturday night, in the almost dark, by sweeping around the pool, trying to clean up the crap from the storm last week, and then trying to clear the path to the upper yard, because Katie (mom has recorrected my spelling…apparently my dad doesn’t know how to spell his dog’s name…I’m sure Katie doesn’t give a freak. She’s just happy. HAPPY.) is scared of my yard in the dark, and ended up peeing on the path instead of heading for the plantlife. So Sunday, I went out in actual daylight…it was a gorgeous day, not too hot, perfect fall weather here (which will disintegrate into hot again this week), and it was nice to be out there cleaning up and trimming things. Yo Dad…I filled all 6 trashcans that they’ll pick up and I have two more ready for next week! So probably 2 hours were spent checking things off the list and making it easier to look around the house and not be dismayed by how it is falling apart.

Did I grade? Fuck no, I did not grade. Hanging head in shame. Sigh. Teaching. It really is not an easy job. Certainly not if you want a life.

But the girlchild was gone to a birthday party last night, so I had dinner in the oven and I started looking at fabrics for the two birds in this quilt. I used to do simple birds, less than 20 pieces. These suckers are over 70 pieces each.

with a run of 7 colors to do it properly. So I was trying to decide for almost 20 hours…do I go for realistic bird colors or out-there? Or parrot? Or raven (not good on a dark background)? Or what? I finally decided to start with the browns, because I want the main figures to pop more, and there is brown in the tree that will echo down the side into the birds. I actually stand there and stare at the drawing and go through the color ranges visually in my head, coloring it all in my head as I stare at it.

I had out one of the smaller bins of browns that I use (this is the smallest bin by far), because it has most of my newer fabrics in it, and I laid out the range on the right…

Browns are another difficult color to get a range in…some are very gray, some very red, some have that orange/yellow tint. The last two purplish-brown colors were the tailfeathers.

Once I had all those, though, I had to decide what to do with the decorative parts of the bird, and that’s when the color forced itself in…

Ayep. This bird is not fucking demure. Anyway, I had all the Wonder Pieces laid out behind and laid out all the bird pieces for both birds before I ironed…

It took a while. And then the next part was the fleshy bits. There are two figures in the quilt and I tried really hard to keep them relatively simple, compared to some of my figures…mostly because I realize I am going to run out of time if I don’t stay realistic on this piece in terms of details.

Anyway, I spent a good hour (after 11 PM) laying out human figure pieces, focusing only on the flesh colors, pushing all the other stuff (heart, lungs, pubic hair and the like) out of the way for later. I had the flesh colors laid out and was putting all the pieces on top of them for ironing, when I realized there was no way I was going to finish last night. I might be able to lay them all out if I stayed up until 1, but that kinda kicked my ass last week, and I’m trying to be better. And then it would take me at least an hour to iron them all down. But I didn’t want the cat to be able to jump up and dislodge pieces after I’d spent so long figuring out what went where, and even an errant breeze would be an issue at the moment, so I put each color in a bin with all its pieces…

So I can finish it up tonight. I don’t know how many pieces I got done last night, because none of these are ironed and I was pulling pieces from the bins numbered 300-700 for the flesh colors, but leaving a bunch behind for later, and I still have to get the male’s neck and head out of the 800 bin. And I think some of his fingers are still on the table. So yeah. Maybe by tonight, I will have everything through the 800s ironed down, although it seems like a lot…I am on a roll, though.

I guessed about 12 hours for ironing down to fabric and I’ve hit the halfway mark. I’ll know better after tonight how close I am to my original estimate. Progress! Progress is good. And I really like the mindstate I’m in when I iron. It’s peaceful. I’m mostly content.

I had both dogs in here, underfoot, at one point…

But mostly I just get one. This one is a little crazy.

Someone spiked her punch I think.

An article on the Fence/Barda exhibit is here…it’s nice to get some publicity up in LA for one of our shows; she surely read my blogpost on the FIG website, which is also good. Too bad they didn’t link to us.

This is a DALeast video of painting a whale on a wall.

I love how he is so nonchalant with his painted lines. They are so simple up close, but make such a complicated image from far away. I did spend a little time this weekend reading on the couch and reading art blogs for inspiration and peaceful thinking. Gotta take care of ALL the parts of the brain, best I can.

Finally Ironing Myself to Fabric…

I met my goal. I ironed for three hours. I was really tired and had to rest twice. It makes it sound like I’m running a marathon (kinda am). Brain power needed to color pictures in head and find appropriate fabric colors is apparently quite a large amount. So after soccer and the gym, not much brain power left. Plus haven’t slept much lately. Keep fucking stuff up because of that lack-of-sleep thing. I slept finally Friday and Saturday nights (well, minus middle-of-the-night freakouts), but I feel more tired right now than on school mornings, when I only have 5 hours.

Probably I should avoid ironing myself into the quilt. Hard to do when I’m tired already.

Both kids are texting me this morning. So it’s quiet, but people are talking. Weird, huh? I haven’t had enough caffeine to deal with either. Too much information crossing.

So I started by cleaning up this space yesterday…

Because that’s where I lay out the Wonder Under pieces while I’m trying to figure out what to iron them to…I was trying to get that done before the soccer game, but it never goes the way you want, does it?

I managed to get a pile of fabrics on the ironing board…

(moved from one place to another…very efficient) and then later got them into piles by color and realized I have way too much fabric at the moment. I know that doesn’t make sense. I do keep buying fabric, but I don’t buy a lot at a time, and mostly it gets used up in backgrounds and backings and bindings and sleeves, but apparently I’m still adding more than I’m subtracting…something to do with how little of a particular fabric I use at a time? Or they are breeding.

So I didn’t start actually ironing until 9 PM.

Not particularly efficient sometimes. Really. I had all day. I’m not sure what happened.

Well, this happened…

They won 3-1…and they made all 4 goals (whoops). Between drive time and having to be there 45 minutes early, I usually lose 3 1/2 hours per game.

Girlchild headed the ball into the goal, her first header goal.

She did the happy dance. The ball on the right comes over and she’s the one in red in front of the goal. Right in front of the goalie and her white-shirted teammates, who probably blocked her getting to the girlchild. Yes, I forgot my camera at home, so these are all phone pictures.

Then we came home and there was some of this…

Because Katy needed it apparently (apparently her name is not spelled the way I thought, and she used to be KatyGirl, and that was way too much)…

Or girlchild needed it. Hard to say.

Once she was gone and it was quiet again, I set up the room the way I like it…so I can see the drawing while I’m picking stuff out…

and because apparently I have to have something underfoot and Calli was at the other house, Katy stepped up and laid her chubby little body out for me to step over. She is pretty mellow, though, and will not freak out when I step over her. She will follow me out of the room 700 times though if I leave to get my tea or pee.

It’s not ironing unless I’m stepping over a dog. And piles of crap. You’d think I could solve the piles-of-crap issue.

I ironed for a while, got into some fleshy bits, not sure if I have enough of these fabrics for the larger figures…

Guess I will figure that out the hard way. Yes, I’m still watching Star Trek. It really is awful dialogue at the moment, The Next Generation. I keep almost bailing on it, but I love Picard too much to leave him.

It’s amazing. I have so many flesh-colored fabrics and I keep coming back to the same ones, time after time. I try to branch out, but trying to get tones that go in a nice range is difficult. This one’s too brown, this one’s too pink, too peach.

This is what I’ve used so far…grays, reds (there was a heart), lots of pinky colors…

I only got about 185 pieces ironed last night…actually, no, it was more than that because I was pulling from other bins for the scales…

I stopped because it was after midnight, I was tired, and the next two things were very complicated birds. And I don’t know what color I want them to be. I could go for realism or crazy. Tempted by crazy. But still trying to color it in my head. Probably going to wait a bit before I start. Maybe. Blue and orange? Purple? It’s gotta pop on the background…

Anyway. It’s progress. Three more hours of ironing is my goal today, but I need to grade things too and grocery shop and plan for the week, so that could be problematic. In fact, I just went off and emailed the parents at school, because the kids have an assignment due tomorrow at 9 AM, and I suspect by my Edmodo stats (which I can unfortunately check on my phone, my iPad, and my computer) that many have forgotten. Of course, the app keeps crashing, so who the hell knows? Ah yes. 57 out of 140 submitted. Sigh. That is unfortunate. Easy to grade if they don’t turn it in, though. Man, that’s cynical.

The transition to technology is not without its issues. OK. Moving on with my day. Might be awake enough to deal. Hard to say.