A Few Hundred Needles

We’re closer to some version of sanity I think. The two quilts that need photography got packed up last night…it took about an hour to get all the cat and dog hair off the big one. To be honest, I found a cat sleeping on it more than once, so there’s that. I’m delivering them right after school…

Pretty exciting stuff. First two finishes of the year finally getting their pix taken. On to the next one! Sometimes deadlines are really annoying. But then they hopefully turn into shows, so there’s that. I have an opening tonight at Mesa College for Subterranean…two of my pieces are in that. I’ll be at the opening after I drop my quilts.

None of those details are mine. One of mine made the press release. I’m good with that. Hopefully I’ll have some show photos later today. The opening is from 5-7 PM.

I’m a little spacey this morning. Blood sugar was really low. I have no idea why. Well, I exercised after dinner. Not sure what else. I’m eating. I’m getting better about carrying food everywhere. I ate circus animal cookies yesterday (one of those cute little bags that only has like 5 cookies in it). That’s probably not it. I had a union meeting. It was a weak moment.

OK, so two more days of managing the exploding squirrels who are my students. They have work to do, but you know how that goes. It’s not just me being driven nuts by their inability to function…all of us are. Spring Break is late and we are all cranky. The different is that I’m still working. Ah well. Progress reports go home today. That should help. Maybe? There’s a fire drill this morning. Because they hate us? Who picks these days? People who don’t work in the classroom, that’s who. Idiotic.

OK. Well, I didn’t get much art-related stuff done last night. I paid my property taxes and my daughter’s college payment and I graded a bunch of stuff and exercised and meditated like a good girl and packed up those quilts and thought about the next quilt. I even looked at the drawing I had already started. I thought about cutting paper the right size. I even thought about what the right size would be. But I didn’t do anything. It’s OK. I’ll get there. Not particularly quickly. I have too much to grade to get anywhere quickly.

This guy. Asleep on my foot.

He’s a sweetheart, although we’ve been pulling these curly sticks from some bush out of his fur for days and he hates that, because they stick. On certain parts of his body, I just cut them out. It’s easier.

OK, go to school, live through fire drill and kids not working, get some grading done, hopefully don’t have to yell at anyone or lose my mind. Then deliver quilts and go to exhibit and wonder at the art. Come home and eat and do some stuff. Hopefully draw. That’s where I want to be. I might even embroider. It could happen. The only thing that’s stopped me so far is finding the appropriate needle. Ironically, because there’s probably a few hundred needles all over this house. Hopefully not in the carpet. Should I worry that my left eye is twitching? No. I should be glad that I got this late in the school year before it started up! Yaaasss!

When I Pick Up the Pen

The opening last night was nice…the show itself looks really cool, some really interesting work. Although all these local shows can be a pain in the butt for delivery and pick up of work and trying to get to all the openings, I like the opportunity to put my work in with other people’s work that I’m not usually hanging with. There were a few FIG members in this exhibit, but there were a lot of other people whose names I didn’t know. It’s cool to see my work hanging out with theirs.

The show is Art That Cuts, and it’s only at Mesa College through next Friday. Definitely worth a visit, though. Bhavna Mehta was the juror and the class on campus designed the exhibit and all the stuff that went with it. I often say I would have loved to have taken a gallery class like that when I was in school. I even occasionally think about it now (and then slap myself a lot because I don’t need to take that on right now).

Helen Redman is still rocking the art world in her 70s (I wanna be 70 and still making art)…this is her piece To Become Her.

And Bhavna’s two pieces Beat and Wade…combining paper cutting and embroidery.

My piece, Some Like It Hot, is hanging on the wall with their work, which I loved…

This piece was fascinating…lots of sewing paraphernalia, but then there are rattles…from rattlesnakes…and they’re wired to rattle…

So there’s this constant low-level rattling going on that is just so dangerous sounding…

The piece is Now Is Not a Good Time by Margaret Noble.

It’s a fascinating piece…here’s a link to a video of it from her website.

This is one of three by artist Kirsten Francis, Sounding OFF…

I was looking at her work and I liked it, and then I read her name and thought, hey. I know that name. Why do I know that name? There was a printmaker about a million years ago whose work I just loved, but never had the money to actually buy any of it. But I saw her at Artwalk or something. Well this is her. Obviously, she’s moved away from the printmaking, but I was so glad to see that her work still speaks to me. Weird, huh?

These were fascinating. One of the materials used in making this? Fire. A beautiful piece, Colour Bunny, by Vincent Wray.

A detail…

This is a tiny piece, but so detailed. Little Hands, Little Feet by Nicole Waszak.

And this piece…Resistance through Existence II by Martha Gil…her Instagram is @gildednopal. Definitely worth a look at her nopal-influenced uterus stickers on Etsy.

Home after all that, picked up dinner for me and the sick guy, who was getting all the sad looks from Calli.

I was pretty exhausted. I did some sewing of wool circles and eventually made it to a standing position to work on this…it’s slow. But it’s coming.

Yeah that one boob was way too high. Although that’s more realistic. Oh well.

Tonight was to be gaming, but sick guy is too sick. So I’ll be grading. It’s OK. I need to get it done. And maybe I’ll have the energy to draw as well. I won’t be marching for science unfortunately tomorrow…I’ll be driving to LA instead for an artist talk and take down of a show. Long day.

But first to get through this one…to the fun stuff, when I pick up the pen.

I’ve Got Nostalgic Pavements*

Sometimes there’s a moment and it reminds you of a space in the past that was so incredibly different, a moment that should have been the same or similar, and you have a choice: be thankful that the current moment is not like that at all, or worry that all moments will be like that eventually. My brain is a worrier. I spend a lot of time telling that core part of it that those moments aren’t inevitable, that they are the choices of others, sure, and you have no control over those, but that there is a different person in each of those moments, and it’s better to believe (hope?) that this person is better at moments than the last one…or the one before. I think humans are great at hope…it’s what keeps most of us going.

Including that student from yesterday at tutoring who was telling me his plans to play American football and I’m thinking about his grades and, straight up, his size (sure, he’s gonna grow, but maybe not enough), but I’m not going to tell him nope, that’s not your future. I pull out my phone and show him a picture of a former student with not-great grades but an amazing drive and attitude and I tell him about his full college scholarship and his current amazing GPA and maybe just maybe plant some drive or motivation in there, because he has the hope, the hope of a 12-year-old, and I’m not getting in the way of that, and he asks, then can I come back and show you what I did? And I’m like, well hell yeah, I hope you do. I hope you all do.

My car is back. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. It’s funny though…because they want me to bring her in for an oil change every 3000 miles, and I barely remember to check the little sticky thing in the car. I don’t even know when 3000 miles might be. I mean I did 2500 miles last week (whoops, with not enough oil, although THAT light never came on)…but during the school year, I have no idea when that is. And when you’re talking to someone who lives, breathes, drinks cars on a daily basis, it’s hard to explain to them how low the car’s fluids are on your priority list. I mean, I can’t even get the floors and the bathrooms clean at the moment. I swept around the pool last night, but didn’t have time (I was grading) to scoop it all up into the composting trashcan. There’s Too Much to Do. In fact, I stopped typing this for 5 minutes to send a school-related email that I should have sent two days ago. I’m sometimes surprised that my brain can hold onto some of the threads tangled up in there.

Calli agrees.

Anyway, one more assignment is graded. One more thing to check off the list. That’s a plus. Gotta keep doing those.

I finally got done with that assignment around 9 or 9:30 last night…then spent some time trying to center myself. But almost falling asleep at the same time. Fighting that sleep instinct is the crazy part of my existence. This week I am so tired. And I’m hot-flashing constantly…although that might have been my air conditioning not working at school. OK, no, it’s hot flashes…thought they were mostly done, but apparently not.

And then it was 11 PM and normal people go to bed if they have to get up at 6-something the next morning. But I hate going to bed without some art being made, so I managed to wake up enough…because that drawing had been muttering inside my head all day. So it’s rude not to listen. Get up and grab a pen and do something.

I stared at the paper for a while. I’m not ready to draw the thighs, even though it’s weird to start at the bottom and then jump to the top. It’s weird, but I did it anyway. I’m trying to think about who I was as an artist when I was a kid, when I was in high school and college. It was harder then. I didn’t do it every day. There were many other things to do and I wasn’t always inspired. I love that the inspiration is such a deep well now.

So the head…and the cat…

And I put roots in…

Hopefully more tonight, although this evening is a clusterfuck.

I sat on the couch for a moment to finish my thoughts…Simba was happy to be with a human…

There’s some art stuff coming up in the next few days…the opening of Art That Cuts at Mesa College is Thursday night from 5-7 PM. I’m planning on being there. I have one piece in the show…

Then Saturday, I have two events…I unfortunately will only be at one. The one I won’t be at is the closing reception of Mind the Gap at Southwestern College on Saturday from 1-3 PM…I’ll finally see the show next week after school one day.

I’ll be at the artist talk for California Fibers’ Surface and Structure, at the Branch Gallery, Saturday at 2 PM. The show is coming down after the talk, so it’s your last chance to see it. I hope you come by.

See? Busy week in art. Oh yeah, and Fantastic Fibers opened last week I think? Or is it this week. It’s the 14th…right. So that’s in Paducah, KY, at the Yeiser Center, and you should go see that from 5-7 PM. It’s not just quilts, so that is also cool.

Meanwhile, all I know about the girlchild is that she had to walk to the next village (12-15 miles?) and I haven’t heard from her since…it’s possible that I won’t hear from her until she gets back next week. Hopefully all is well and she’s doing interesting things. Crap. Gotta go to work! I love when time just flips by like that.

*Kate Nash, Mouthwash

Protected: Gift Opening at Mesa College

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