My voice is still shot. I think it’s allergies…super dry here and I keep doing that dry tickle cough. Which sucks because I have to talk a lot at school today. Also I talked a lot this weekend. Some weekends I don’t talk hardly at all…this was not one of them.
Quilt Visions opened this weekend. I don’t have much time to write right now, but in general, it was fun, it was good, it was inspiring. Makes you wanna come home and make more art, yeah? I might need to put some of the pictures in the next post, just because I always try to link the artist’s website if I post their work, and I don’t have much time for that today.
Anyway, here’s me with mine at the opening…
And the artist talk on Saturday…thanks to whomever I stole this from.
And here’s all the artists…
Like I said, I’ll post some art with links probably Wednesday. But you can see the whole show here. Not that it makes up for seeing it in person, but I get it. Who would want to visit San Diego? Crazy. That guy in the pink shirt in the background of the photo? He’s the musician.
OK, got 4 minutes left. I drew a lot this weekend too…
Finished an arm, added to the head area, did the speech cloud.
Then added the visual disturbances and some barbed wire. Like you do. Someone said ‘omg the tiny pieces!’. Well fuck yeah! That’s why I’m here.
Anyway, I still need to deal with the tree (started drawing it yesterday) and the ground and the sky. But less of the tiny pieces and more of the bigger sweeping pieces. I think. What do I know? Monday night artist might feel differently. I do want this thing to span the next three months, so I think I’ve got that down.
Yes to that.
The brain scan (my actual brain) I used for the top part of the head.
And reading with Bowie.
He’s not very good at it.
More Visions stuff Wednesday. Right now I need to find my lunch, take meds (headache), and get to school to teach…something. I’m sure it’ll be obvious when I get there. Friday self is good at prepping for Monday morning self. She knows. Then ceramics after school and more drawing. Good times.
Yes Friday. Yes. My voice is giving out (oh wait, I have to talk at two artist events this weekend), I’m tired (this is nothing new…by Friday, I sleep through the Man coming to bed late and the multiple urges to pee and just SLEEP through the night. But because of exhaustion.). The boychild comes back today from 6 weeks of training. Simba will be so excited. I’ll probably miss seeing that, because I’ll be gone most of the day, but it makes me smile to think about it. Also because the barky dog will be off my bed for three whole nights before he leaves again. Not for 6 weeks this time…just like 10 days. My voice might get a rest today; we’ll see. Yesterday was a lot of notes and finishing a lab and a couple of kids who like to blame adults for their actions. Fun times. Some things about middle school never change. There’s always kids who drop papers on the floor and just leave them there, and those who yell out in class while you’re in the middle of instructions, and those who fall asleep multiple times a day in class. And I often wonder how they turn out in the end. The two boys I had to deal with are on the immature side of middle school, which still happens in 8th grade, unfortunately. Next year, I go back to 7th grade and it will be all over the place again. Might be a relief to be back in 7th. We’ll see. It’ll be different anyway. All the stuff I’ve spent time learning and preparing will have to go into mental storage for two years while I just teach 7th grade. Weird.
The drawing is going well. It feels good to draw. Something big. It’s been a while. OK, a few months. And someone just proposed a new show for one of my groups where I’d have to have a piece made by January…a relatively small one, but still, WTF, y’all need to plan ahead. Sigh.
ANYWAY, back to the positive emotions from drawing…
Wednesday night, I did the vine and the hands…and maybe the snake? Can’t remember. Last night, I drew for 2 hours because I had a Zoom call with friends…so I worked on the torso a bit…
I’d like to say that Bowie was helpful, but you know he wasn’t really. He wasn’t as bad as Luna used to be…she’d try to dive under the paper while I was drawing. Kitten would just lie on top of the whole thing and whack you if you tried to move her.
It’s hard to see in this photo, but I drew the brain scan (one of two) they did to try to find the source of my visual disturbance, which has been there since March. Annoying. I guess I’m more used to it than I was, but it still freaks me out when I’m trying to sleep. So it’ll be in this drawing too. Along with LGTBQIA rights, banned books, medical and reproductive rights, missiles piling down upon us, and who knows what else. Angel cat. Everyone should have an angel cat.
Tonight is the member opening at Visions. It’ll be crowded and overwhelming, which will be awesome after a long day at school…actually seeing the show and the artists is usually pretty cool. Tomorrow are the artist talks at 1 PM…those are my favorite. I get to hear what other people have to say about their work. Last year, I showed up late and didn’t realize I would have to talk about my work. Luckily I’m a teacher and that’s all we do…talk without a plan half the time. Luckily the stuff lives in my head for free. My piece, Nowhere Else to Go, is about climate change and climate migration…
This picture is missing all the little people running for their lives in the lower section.
A tornado in this one.
Not a hurricane. Plus fires. I live in California…wildfire country. Although lot of other places are becoming wildfire country that weren’t previously.
Lots of people displaced by our need for oil and drilling and coal and big SUVs.
We need to work on being proactive and not just reactive. Two hurricanes in the last month, so much destruction. I don’t have solutions…I just know what we’re doing, denying climate change, not trusting scientists, not thinking critically about how we live in the world and what it does the futures for our kids and their kids…that shit isn’t working.
Welcome to my TedTalk. Also donate money somewhere. I chose CERF+ to help the artists who have needs because of the hurricane damage.
OK. School. Assessment today. On friction. Hopefully they are focused and on task. Ha! It’s Friday. When is the full moon? It was last night (laughs hysterically). Figures. That explains a lot from this week. After school, coming home…no ceramics this weekend, I think. Ah well. The greater good of art, right? Although two things were supposed to come out of the kiln. I always assumed they blew up if I don’t see video on Instagram right away. Lots of Visions activities this weekend. Probably a little school stuff, although I’m sort of caught up…but Trimester 1 grades are due soon, so there’s that. My dad’s birthday is Sunday…he’ll be 84…so there’s that happening too. Busy. But with good stuff. Hopefully I’ll get to read my book a little bit? The things that sustain me…and draw! Eventually. That too.
OK, yeah, I know, yesterday was Friday. I think. Let me look at the calendar. Fuck, it’s still on July. Stand up, change calendar to August (it’s OK, the one in the classroom is still on June)…cool, pictures of orphaned baby elephants being reintegrated into a Kenyan national park. Seems inspirational…and maybe too real as I start school officially in less than a week. Whatever. Not ready. Never am. Really just trying to finish all the things on the to-do list (ha! oh wait, hysterical laughter because nuh uh…not happening). Really trying to Just Finish Painting the Closet…but this thing…
This sweet little asleep kitten, when he is awake, he is a terror and it is impossible to paint, so I wait until he’s asleep, and then suddenly, he is awake. So I finally got most of the closet done last night, but the doors need a second coat. I would have done it this morning, because I was up early because of that cute little sleeping (not sleeping) thing in the picture and then no, because he was awake. So hopefully later today (after two meetings), I will finish painting and then I can start putting things back in there and to consider what day I am painting the hallway, which will probably also need two coats dammit. Sigh.
So many things to do. Strangely, he does not mess with the quilting process…he’s scared of the old lady kitty because she bops him and hisses quite loudly and he’s unsure of that. And her territory is the quilting room. So that’s a plus.
She has no tolerance for kitten pouncing. The other two do, so he does better with them.
So I have almost exactly 7 hours in the quilting so far, and I am still outlining.
Last night, I got the second figure done and about half of the third figure, maybe, plus all the stuff to the left of her…wait, not all of it, just most of it.
So I’m probably more than halfway done with the outlining, but not halfway on all the quilting because there is a lot of background. I need to be able to buy binding next week…no way do I have enough of anything to bind it in-house. But I’m only getting in 2-3 hours of quilting a day. I need to do more. But now I have a dental appointment next week (crown being replaced), an eye doctor appointment (for glasses, not the hallucination stuff, which created a whole host of new appointments, woo hoo!), and some other stuff I don’t even remember.
Claywise, I finally got this one to fit into the top one, but one hand was kind of in the wrong place, so all of a sudden, the top slipped down and broke again.
I’m going to redo it with a slight rotation of the elbow. It will be fine.
Actually, I already did fix it (two days in a row in the studio!), plus fixed the damn fingers and painted some more.
There’s some cracking going on, and one hand is a different color than the other, but I don’t care about that.
The bottom is dry and ready to fire, but there was no room on the shelf, so I’ll fit her butt in next week. Or maybe I’ll fire them together? Not sure.
And then I started a base for the winged woman piece.
She’s not entirely stable, so she could sit in that space in the middle and be glued in, I think.
I’m in the process of drawing her wings and deciding what goes on them.
Anyway. I obviously like the endless MAKING of the clay (I started the winged woman the end of March?) and the never-finishing of the clay. Process over product. Always.
More announcing stuffs.
They have Jan Soules on there twice…
I’m sure they’ll figure that out. From a design perspective, I can see how it happened. From a copyediting perspective, I can see they need one. But I’m grateful to be in the show. Also what was the logic for the order? Random? I’m sure that makes sense. Sigh. So critical. I am.
Heart-Shaped Box also got into the SAQA special exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show.
Strange piece. But I like that it got in…it definitely tells a story.
OK. Today is Saturday. I have dueling meetings, so I picked the one I knew about first, my quilt guild meeting. I will stitch there. I think. I could actually Zoom into one AND attend the other one. No. Nope. Then I will head over to an open house for the art show at Liberty Station, mostly because a muralist I like, Panca (I guess I like her work; I’ve never met her) is doing a group painting session at the same time and place. Also it might be cooler toward the beach and then I have shown up for the other group, even though I didn’t do the now monthly meeting that I can’t do. And I’m trying to not be irritated by people who don’t read emails or listen or understand how email groups work, because I am always saying the same things and the same people aren’t listening. As always. Then there will be some painting and quilting and a date night with the Man who had the same or less sleep than me (see note about kitten above), so we are both tired and cranky. Plus it’s supposed to be 97 degrees today and that’s not a good thing. But art will happen and so will reading my book. Hope your Saturday goes well and you get some good sleep and reading in. At least my calendar is on the right month now.
Kathy Nida 