Change the Calendar…

Straight up, I started this yesterday (well I downloaded a bunch of photos and cropped and resized them) and then totally forgot about it in the overwhelm of doing things. I thought I had written it…or at least part of it…nope. None of it. And I need to leave in like 10 minutes to go work on ceramics until my doctor’s appointment. And there is no way I’m finishing this before I go. I still need to finish the closet (that damn closet!)…we got the doors shortened (thanks to my ex) yesterday and back in…I was going to paint them outside, but installing them was enough of a pain in the ass that I will be painting them in place. Let’s not discuss the hallway, or the fact that I will be at school twice next week before I have to be back for real, and I have to be back in 7 days. And I am (as always) so incredibly not ready. I got 17 emails about required videos I have to watch (again. for the 22nd time…oh I guess sometimes they change over the years.) and who the new hires are districtwide (APs and principals). My principal’s email will probably come later today…or not. I’m not sure it matters. It only matters in how many meetings I’m going to have to attend. So far, one hour, plus a morning of professional development, plus another day of who the fuck knows what. And prep time. Although I didn’t have to take my room apart this year, so prep will be pretty easy, I think. Maybe. Y’all know the copier will be broken no matter what.

Anyway, I got home from San Francisco late Tuesday night and spent yesterday trying to be functional…kind of like all summer. Here’s some of the San Francisco stuff…back to PIQF…a few more things I didn’t post before…this by Carmay Knowles.

This bug is a detail on a piece by Ann Horton…

OK, I guess I’ll show you the whole thing (although the bugs were my favorite part).

There was a whole series of older pieces by Marilyn Bedford, created from paintings she had done.

And I know I posted some of the Social Justice Sewing Academy quilts earlier, but here is one of my blocks…I only did the embroidery…

There was another one but I didn’t notice it until someone else posted the quilt. I think I’d seen it before.

My fabric haul before Britex…mostly African textiles and aboriginal prints.

I was hyperfocused on owls and feathers apparently. Plus some kantha samples. Not sure why. Don’t question the artistic brain. The boychild sends us fire photos sometimes…although there’s no actual fire here.

He’s still at the Park Fire today…33 days? I’m not sure. By the way, I did start this in the morning, went to ceramics, was manhandling the top part of the piece to make sure it would fit in the bottom part, did fine, until it slipped and the damn left arm broke again…in a different place. Fixed that, painted more of it, set it to dry slowly, and went to the neurologist. Interesting that. No, he doesn’t know what the visual disturbance is (but he’s calling it a hallucination, so I am crazy, right?), so I’m getting more tests. One of them requires me to sleep only 4 hours the night before and we are starting school and there are only appointments Monday-Thursday AM. So I do the thing and then go teach on 4 hours of sleep? Ah shit. OK. Fuck me. ANYWAY.

The girlchild had made me a dog water bowl (the cats are enjoying it) in her ceramics class…

She didn’t want to ship it–afraid it would break–so I took it back in carryon. It’s cute!

More street art.

I love all the murals.

Saturday, we went to MOMA…I posted a bunch of stuff on Instagram, but really enjoyed the Kara E-Walker installation, even though two parts weren’t working.

The Zanele Muholi exhibit was also amazing…great photographs, but I did really love the bronze piece.

I had never seen any Yayoi Kusama in person and there were two, so that was cool.

Also, I was really bad at taking pictures of people, so if you know the girlchild (or her SO), there they are.

The tunnel was by Olafur Eliasson…

Definitely prettier on the way back. An interesting version of a flag…by Marlon Mullen.

I really enjoyed the 15-20 minutes we had in this…

I almost went back on Monday, but got kind of stuck in Golden Gate Park (mentally stuck really). It was very cool. Plus here’s a video of a Bruce Nauman neon piece…

Monday, I had some plans. Girlchild was back to work, so I was on my own. Headed out to see some contemporary quilts in an office building in the Financial District…I do love Margaret Fabrizio’s work…

Fun to look at.

There were two other artists, Joe Cunningham and Adia Millett; I posted pictures on Instagram of those too. From there, I shopped at Britex and then headed to Golden Gate Park…I wanted to see bison in the city.

They were pretty far away and very much not mobile at the time. The girlchild had recommended the Japanese Tea Garden, and I knew the DeYoung Museum was in the same area, so I headed in that direction…this is part of how I hit 9 miles of walking that day. Yes, I did figure out the bus system, but there isn’t always a bus. The park has a golden mile that is longer than a mile and has bits and pieces of art along it. A series about California climate decisions…this is the bad choices direction; the good choices had that sequoia living to 250 years old.

Meanwhile, the Park Fire is raging.

This piece was part of a series…I never saw the artist info, but this was my favorite…

Also the favorite of small children and teenage boys. When I got to the garden, I decided to buy the gardens ticket and go see all of them…I thought the botanical garden would be the best, but it ended up being the one I got lost in (should have gone back for the map); the Japanese garden fed me lunch at 2:30 PM…

Damn good tea…also, yes, I did read my book for a while.

And the conservatory was the most interesting, with all the carnivorous plants, mostly Nepenthes…

And like I said, botanical garden…take the map…

I realized my phone was dying and I needed to meet the kids for a soccer game (I wasn’t playing; they were)…

So I mapped things and there were locked gates where the map told me to go…

So I mapped again and got some chai with a plug in the wall…

Got the phone back up to 50% (yes, I have a charger brick thing, but I couldn’t find it…read back to the post about moving everything out of the bedrooms into the living room and there’s a bunch of stuff I still haven’t found)…then ran (not really) for the bus…if it had been on time, I would have been 30 minutes late to the game, but it was early, so I ended up in a Lyft.

I do still love watching her play.

I do not miss 4 games a weekend though.

It was a long, exhausting day. I packed up all my crap and stitched for a bit…

This is Sue Spargo’s Rooted block-of-the-month…I had appliqued everything down last year (it was easy to do that), but hadn’t done any of the embroidery. My stitching friend said I should take 6 blocks with me; I took 3 and barely worked on this one. I’m still appliqueing stuff onto the center block borders for Homegrown, so it wasn’t ready for embroidery.

I was up early the next morning so the girlchild could drop me at the train station…I went south to visit a friend who happens to own some of my quilts…I had never seen them hung in her house, so that was cool.

Very colorful hallway…

Nice to see them again…

We hung out all day and ate and talked and walked…and then I flew home. And it’s taken me all day to get this post done. Yikes!

Bowie in the tent, playing…

And this…yes this…

I did quilt for a while during a Zoom this afternoon. I am going to go patch the holes on the closet doors so I can either prime them later tonight or tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, there is nothing…oh no, I lied. Pilates in the AM (not my favorite day or time, but the only time I could get) and dentist in the afternoon…I think one of my crowns was loosened during surgery (breathing mask instead of tube). Eye doctor on Monday. Then school stuff Tuesday and Thursday, in for real on Friday. So I need to finish quilting this weekend and figure out what binding is going to work. I also need to do a couple of school-related things (ugh). And yardwork and painting…because the hallway still isn’t painted dammit. Ugh. UGH.

But this evening, I have a lovely artichoke for dinner, plus I’m going to quilt some more and read a bit and maybe paint. I don’t know. Painting in the dark is difficult for me.

I have appreciated this summer…although we didn’t really go anywhere and camp, and I did have to deal with a lot of house stuff, but I did lots of ceramics and fabric and reading. I got to hang out with the girlchild, which was cool. I didn’t work. I was so burnt out after the last school year. I can’t say I’m ready to go back (I’m not; I never am), but I am hoping this year will be less of the bullshit and more doing what I know and am good at…we’ll see if that’s how it rolls. Also I need to change the damn calendar to August.

More Than One Coffee Shop

A blackberry/pistachio croissant…but no chai. Ah well…only so much sugar at once, right? Not sure how long it will take to write this. Maybe in more than one coffee shop today. Pro of traveling: I can sleep in because no dog/kitten in the AM. Also I’m trying not to fill every moment, which tends to be how I roll…mostly out of necessity, although maybe choice.

Yes, I’m still in San Francisco…and if you’re a friend of mine and I haven’t contacted you, know that I am trying to be present with my kid…she’s been here for over a year and it’s my first visit. That said, I did go to PIQF on Friday for a few hours…and promptly ran into 3 San Diego folks. There were a few quilts that caught my eye…

Jan Soules’ Finding Neverland #7: Fanfare…I had just read an article about her Neverland quilts, so it was cool to see one in person.

All the Social Justice Sewing Academy quilts…two of the blocks I embroidered were there, which is always cool to see (2nd row from left, 3rd down).

I actually didn’t see the other block until someone else posted it. Not sure I photographed it. This blogpost is just gonna get written in pieces all day. I’ve finished my croissant and tea and am moving on to an exhibit of quilts in a random building. So I need to figure out how to get there. My kid and her SO were good about bus training me (so much easier than San Diego’s public transport)…so I’ll head there and write more later. Or I’ll write on the bus!

I found a few good vendors for fabrics I find difficult to locate at home, so that might have been the best part. I did see a few more quilts I liked, but my iPad is ancient and doesn’t like to load photos, so this is all you get.

Friday night I met up with my daughter and her boyfriend, and we had dinner and drinks out, with a giant hike up Divisadero in between (Uber and Waymo were too expensive…totally got a workout there). None of us woke up early on Saturday, but eventually we made it to a farmers’ market and then MOMA, which was really great. More pictures on Instagram, but here’s me with the girlchild and some of Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkins…

We only had about 2 1/2 hours…I’m considering going back today to listen to the whole Ragnar musical thing, but probably won’t. It was beautiful though. The girlchild cooked Saturday night, fresh from the market, so good. I’m staying at an Airbnb that’s about a 10-minute walk from her, and they are nice enough to walk me home at night (something about not sending me off alone into the dark).

Sunday we hiked up in the Tennessee Valley, drove across the iconic bridge and hiked out to the ocean.

Hopefully I’ll get a better picture of the bridge today…although it’s cloudy and delightfully cool again. Can’t complain about cool weather in July.

I needed a nap after that (and really good pizza…pizza, then hike, then nap). We had great Indian food for dinner and then I drew and read and watched some show.

Can’t explain the drawing, sorry. There’s a headless cat in there. Hoping to do some drawing today as well. I did a little embroidery Saturday, lots of reading. I’ll see them tonight for soccer and dinner, then hanging out with an old friend tomorrow and home tomorrow night. I love hanging out with my kid and getting to know her SO better. I also love not having a work/home to-do list at the moment. Getting off at the next stop…saving the draft!

I managed to see this exhibit in the Mills Building in the Financial district….first…no second stop of the day

I love Margaret’s work, especially how she incorporates existing items into the pieces, such as the umbrella in this one.

Joe Cunningham’s work has really interesting lines throughout, whether quilted, painted, part of the actual fabric, or as a thin strip of meandering fabric…

And I was introduced to the work of Adia Millett here too…

I love that a local business building is celebrating quilt art. OK, I’m going to post this now from the Financial District. Got more tea, planning on Britex Fabrics (0.2 miles), maybe some bison, maybe a boat ride. Not sure what else. I would like to finish my book….with lunch? And maybe draw somewhere. We’ll see.

See All the People and Do All the Things…

Good morning on the day after fireworks. For those of you with dogs who don’t like fireworks, you are maybe a little exhausted like me, as I listened to the old lady dog pant and breathe way too fast most of the night. Her breathing is back to normal this morning, but it was a long night. She was doing OK until more fireworks at about 1 AM. I also was doing OK until then. I am way too light of a sleeper for this stuff.

Hope your 4th was enjoyable at least, although I spent a good portion of the day thinking about Native American issues (I’m reading The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich) and those who don’t feel like the flag and the pledge of allegiance are for them (I am one of those people and I’m pretty damn entitled). But I did step outside to see a few sets of fireworks…I think only half were legal, which is scary in these dry firelike conditions. You’ll appreciate my photo from the bedroom window.

Yeah. Toldja you’d appreciate it. Best fireworks photo ever. Not sure why I try to take these every year, but I do. EVERY YEAR. I’m rolling my eyes at myself.

Also, this quote…

For those who doubt my patriotism. Exactly.

So much art progress has been made. Well. Has it? I don’t know. Things are getting done. That’s a good thing.

So first of all, official photos of the Quilt National exhibit are here. I will hopefully be there in person in September for the closing ceremony. In all the videos I saw posted, I couldn’t see my quilt, which made me sad, but that’s OK. Because here it is in all its glory, thanks to the QN photographer.

I don’t have the catalog yet, so I can’t tell you who else’s pieces are in this picture…

Looking forward to seeing her in person…for the last time, probably, because she sold. But this show does travel, so maybe she will pop up near me somewhere. Hard to say. Again, you can hear me talk about her here.

So meanwhile, I have one piece on a deadline here, so it makes sense that I worked on anything BUT that piece. I finished the quilting on this 20-year-old piece last week, and Saturday, I put a binding on her.

It’s the first time in a year and a half that I could go to that quilt store without an appointment. They still have really short hours, so during the school year, Saturday would be the only day I could go, but hopefully that will change by the time it’s an issue. Yes, I often am buying backgrounds and bindings at the totally last minute.

I spent time Saturday night (with Kitten) sewing bindings on…

And finished those and the sleeves on Sunday night.

She’s about 30″ wide by 43″ high, and I started her in 2000 or 2001. It’s all hand applique. She’ll get her official photographs when I have the one with a deadline completed.

Then (because still…procrastinating the deadline project) I stitched down Desert Bunny, which has been sitting around waiting since March.

(I’m still working on a name for the other one…there are some in the running, but no decisions yet).

She’s small, so she didn’t take long.

And then I sandwiched and pinbasted her, so now she’s ready for quilting…

Which ALSO wouldn’t take long, but I’m trying to be good and work on the one with a deadline. I was supposed to be in Los Angeles for 2 1/2 days this week, but my niece is coming down this week instead of next week, so we juggled our flexible plans into LA next week….thus juggling my art plans as well…I can’t do certain parts of my art process on the road. Odds are, I won’t be working on the next quilt on the road no matter what, but I’m using that trip to motivate me to iron. Why is ironing an issue? This quilt has a lot of small pieces and it’s sometimes tedious to iron tiny pieces (you’d think I’d learn), but also ironing is hot and the light in here is hot and it’s not THAT hot here (no heat dome…yet), but my hot flashes plus fairly reasonable summer temperatures just add up to ugh. That said, here’s an hour or so of ironing done…

Tiny pieces, relatively small quilt. Crazy amount of work in this one. Ah well…the brain knows what it wants. So I’ll be working on this all week, and hopefully be done for the weekend. We’ll see.

I’ve gone back to drawing before dinner…here is Saturday night, in between starter (we hardly ever get a starter) and dinner.

Keep it simple! These are small. It’s the sketchbook that fits in my purse. I got a new purse, a smaller one, but the sketchbook doesn’t fit. Dammit.

Also, I can’t remember if I posted this…it’s Margaret Fabrizio’s Hello Kitty Meats the Dragon.

I spelled it like she did…it’s not hung up yet because I wanted to put a sleeve on it, and last night, I finally did that. I met Margaret some years back (when she was still 80-something) and we liked each other’s work. She contacted me earlier this year about trading a piece of art, and I agreed, so I sent one off to her of her choice, and I got these wonderful eyeballs (I did pick it for Hello Kitty too) back…so now she can hang on my wall.

I also was cleaning up my blogroll this weekend (like you do…once every 5 years, whether it needs it or not), and noticed that an artist I really enjoyed, Olga Norris, had passed away in 2019. I obviously have not been doing a great job of reading blogs. Every year, at the SAQA auction, I would note the Olga Norris piece and get outbid at a much higher rate than I could afford, sadly. Well, her husband is still supporting his wife’s work and posted photos of her last pieces, and offers them up for postage and donations to a charity of Olga’s choice, which is just amazing, so I will finally be proudly displaying one of her pieces here as well. It does make you think about what will happen to all your work when you die, though. I’m sure my children would love for me to have a plan.

In other news, Kitten is still missing some teeth and makes some funny faces while squawking at me.

And I finally got milkweed seeds to sprout! I started in April and apparently killed off a hundred or so of them, but now! Now I haz babies.

IDK how I will keep the bunnies out of the plants though…gonna have to think that bit through. They’ve even been eating the succulents.

And this…

Makes me want to go through all the birding books we have here…just for stupid things like that.

OK, I’m up to go to the gym, like a good person. I have an appointment at the Apple Store to try to figure out if my phone refusing to connect consistently to Wifi is a hardware issue. And then I’d like to do some more ironing together of tiny little pieces today. Tomorrow will probably involve some art stuff with the niece, which means I might actually see my work in a show IN PERSON. I know. Crazy. And hopefully I will also be able to reschedule all the stuff I already scheduled over in an attempt to see all the people and do all the things because yeah. That.

Expressions in Equality Exhibit

So the Expressions in Equality exhibit opened Saturday night, and it has some amazing art in it…Hollis Chatelain’s Girls Are Strong being one of them…

Visions Art Museum does a nice job of allowing the artists to preview the show and take pictures, so here are Pam RuBert and Susan Shie’s pieces…

RuBert’s wonderfully colorful Green Lady Liberty, spaceships and all…

And Shie’s ER: Page of Potholders (Coins) in the Kitchen Tarot…

which I did not have the presence of mind to read, so I will have to go back (I don’t deal well with openings).

Compared to the last exhibit at VAM, this was much less abstract, although Freedom of Speech by Susan Wessels is an abstract piece I like, with Deborah Grayson’s Breaths to the right of it.

Pauline Karasch Salzman’s Lessons Learned is another one to come back and read, with Ife Felix’s Reverend Dr. King’s Dream Unrealized to the right.

Jerry Granata’s With Liberty and Justice for All definitely caught my eye…

And Shin-Hee Chin’s Equality: Expanding Circle of Liberty shows the continuing expansion of her techniques…

I wish I had gone back and taken more photos here…from left to right is Dawn Williams Boyd’s graphic Sisters in the Eyes of Men, Sandra Lauterbach’s Story of the Wall, Chin’s piece, Judy Zoelzer Levine’s Together on the Field of Play, Alice Beasley’s No Vote No Voice, and returning to Chatelaine’s piece.

In the back, they hung my Work in Progress with Randall Cook’s piece…

Here is Cook’s “Gay” Marriage…

Laura Gadson’s B-R-O-A-D-E-N-I-N-G Beautiful, an amazing piece made mostly of words and the eye staring back at you.

The curator, Sheila Frampton Cooper’s piece, Marie Magdelaine de la Saint Baume…

The quilting on that piece…I should have taken details!

Mary Pal’s The Other 1% hung next to Patricia Kennedy-Zafred’s Tagged, with actual tags hanging from it.

Blake Chamberlain’s Harriet Tubman was fascinating to look at up close…

And here’s me with my piece, finished! Hallelujah…

The back room has the amazing Margaret Fabrizio’s work…

Margaret is every bit as amazing and colorful as her work…

She traveled to India to learn how to make these. I love talking to her; she is interesting and funny and always has an opinion on the topic at hand. Plus she has great clothes.

I did not take photos of every quilt, unfortunately (distracted by people), but this is a strong show, well worth visiting for, although I would have liked shorter statements about each quilt hanging with them and in the gallery guide, which should be available this week. I missed Sherry Davis Kleinman and Marion Coleman’s pieces (there were always people standing in front of them). They did have us write longer statements for the docents; presumably if you were in the gallery, someone could produce a book of those for you to read. There is a hope that this show will travel, but perhaps you will have to travel to it…it’s at VAM through April 4.