Needy Dogs and Late-Night Drawings

I didn’t write yesterday because I had to be at school really early. And the night before, I went to bed about 2 hours early because I was so exhausted, and I got nothing done, and I was sitting there staring at the computer and thinking, DAMN. I got nothing to write about. So I didn’t. It happens.

Yesterday was eyeball dissection day at school…only one injury (only had 3 in 14 years). But it was a long day that was followed by chiropractor and picking up the girlchild’s dog from the vet because this was up her nose…

And then she was all drugged out and wobbly. This is what Calli looks like high.

And I had to watch her constantly, because she likes to swim in the pool and I was fairly sure she’d drown if she went in. Besides, when I got home, there was a dead male possum in the pool already (I hate when that happens). Huge beast. So I dealt with the body and then she whined at me all night and spent a lot of time staring at me like this…

So I would pet her and hug her but mostly I got this reproachful look, like I had done something very very wrong. Let’s clarify. I did not take you to the vet. I’m the one who RESCUED you from the vet. Nope. Still mad at me.

She’s fine this morning.

I drew after that. Well, after dinner and grading, which took forever because of the needy dog, so really late.

I started by adding paper above the head so I could draw the sun out…

Which I did, but didn’t photograph. Of course.

I had penciled in an arm, hand, and a snake, but was debating what else should be in there. Apparently I figured that out…

See, sometimes I use pencil.

Then I filled a boob with a cat. Like you do. There’s a lung in there as well, although pretty damn simple, and a flower nipple. Of course.

I stared a lot at the space between the snake and the boob, and googled a lot of different things, but still didn’t make a decision.

Must let the brain ruminate some more…

So I adjusted the arm to the appropriate angle and did some snakey details. You can sort of see the sun in this one.

This thing is gonna be huge. But I’m trying to keep the tiny little pieces to a minimum. We’ll see how that goes. (Laughs maniacally to herself)

So those things, the sun, the arm, the snake, the cat boob, took about 2 hours. There’s a lot of staring time in there honestly. I tried to visualize what could fit there. I made a tentative list of things I think should be somewhere on her…a bat, an octopus, a giraffe. Something else. Bees. I’ve done a bee before. Anyway. This isn’t for a show. It isn’t for anything. I just wanted to do an Earth Mother that didn’t have the no-nudity constraints from last year. I like the idea of filling the body with living organisms. So I am.

In art news, Lisa Kijak (who makes very cool quilts of neon signs) was nice enough to send me photos of my piece in the Art Quilt Elements exhibit that is at the Wayne Art Center right now. In all the photos I saw posted, I only saw mine in one. I like to see what’s around it, so I really appreciate her doing that…

They look pretty happy there in the corner…

Hope they’re having a nice time.

I would like to thank the Goddess of Science Teachers and Divorced Moms for helping me to survive until Friday. Any assistance on today would be mightily appreciated, because I’m gonna make those kids read and figure stuff out and write again. Because I’m mean that way. I was supposed to write a study guide last night, but that didn’t even come close to happening. So there we are. I have homework for tonight. Or maybe I can do it during prep, if everyone leaves me alone. We’ll see.

More drawing tonight? I hope.

So Many Choices

My brain is a little garbled this morning. I’m hoping that’s not a problem. I was so bloody efficient yesterday, enlarging the drawing last night…I started with 200%, but the head was huge, so I backed it down to 150%. That looked reasonable. I didn’t have time to tape it together, but that’s OK. I’m supposed to be working on 17 other quilts before that one anyway. I made it to my stitching meeting, where mostly I read an article in New Yorker and chatted. I sewed a few stitches. I made it home with dinner…always a plus. I’m tired of eating the same thing this week. Brain freeze on the same food every day. Sometimes I don’t care at all and some days it just drives me crazy. Suppose it depends on what I’m eating…more of the quinoa chicken bowls. They’re good. Takes a ton of time to make those though. That’s the problem. Not sure I have the time this weekend.

And then too many choices. I wanted to start picking fabrics, but I was just too tired to make that happen. I thought about taping the drawing and starting to draw the rest, but that tired thing again. So I came in here and quilted…

All the outlining is done and I’m quilting orange in the background. Or red. Maybe it’s red-orange thread. See the backing fabric? Green robots? Leftovers from a baby quilt from a few years back. I count my years at this school in history teachers, because we can’t keep them more than a year, it seems. My old history teacher’s wife and my new history teacher’s wife were each having a baby, within about 2 weeks of each other. So they each got one. I never met either wife, I think. Weird, huh? Whatever. I pass on the quilty goodness.

I don’t actually make that many baby quilts. I’ve made like 6 of them. And then for a while, I made these little landscapes for wedding and Christmas presents. I’ve probably made about 20 of those. I actually have one of them back from my ex-MIL after her death. And then I’ve made about 90 art quilts. Which is crazy. Seriously crazy. Assuming I have another 30+ good quilting years left in me? I could fill the damn house. Maybe it’s better if I make fewer big quilts rather than lots of smaller quilts. Huh.

And I should probably give up on the Etsy site. It’s not like I’m regularly gonna make more little safe quilts for that…or even unsafe ones. And there’s no sales. So shut that down I guess. Or go look at the timing and calendar when to shut it down.

So I didn’t get much done, but I did get some. It’s all I can do some days. Some. A little. A bit. OK, I think I actually quilted for an hour and a half. It was like meditation at the end of the day, and I actually fell asleep at a reasonable time last night (mostly because I think I’m about to hit a wall of mental and physical exhaustion after this week). I’m feeling good about all of it. Finish these two quilts and start picking fabrics for the next one. Relax a bit with the art. Stop trying to make a deadline where one doesn’t exist. You have enough choices…you can handle fabric or draw or quilt…so many choices.

So many choices. Meditating with art.

Minor Flail

Don’t you hate waking up in the morning and struggling to remember what day it is? Yeah. It’s Friday at least. That’s a plus.

I can’t say I got much done last night. I did a lot before I considered not getting much done. Like counseling and the chiropractor (yes!) and the gym and dinner and then it was really late. So I finished the last of these three birds…

I have two months left to finish (6 birds). Yeah, it’s taking forever. Here’s why I do this stuff though, because people always ask why I’m not working on my own stuff. My stuff requires brain power a goodly percentage of the time. Sometimes I don’t have brain power, but I want to stitch or handle fabric or whatever it is that lowers my blood pressure (actually, mine’s always low) and makes me less likely to yell at inanimate objects (it could be argued some of my students are inanimate objects, but usually I mean computers or the fridge or a couch). Last night I just wanted to veg out and so I watched one show and stitched on wooly birds.

Yesterday my principal said something about our classrooms being reflective of us, but the words he used were “you get what you put into it”. And wow. Did that bug me. Because I still have a massive number of Fs. And I had to walk away from how that felt, because as a teacher, you do assume that if kids are failing, it is entirely your fault. And then you try to fix it. And the trying to fix it was driving me crazy. So I stopped working so hard at the fixing it part, because then I’d meet with the parent(s) and I’d think, wow. They raised him. I can’t fix that. I can offer a variety of assists, but at some point, I can’t do a thing if the kid doesn’t want to do the work and the parent isn’t going to do anything.

I’m in the middle of a big project in class, and I’ve chunked it into smaller progress checks so the kids who flail when given big things don’t just stop working. I’m monitoring them regularly, which means I’m walking the entire room in circles. I’m physically exhausted from walking the room by the end of the day (hence the not-getting-shit-done last night). The hardest part is the kids who just sit there and try to fake working all period. Are they gonna keep doing that for four more days? Yes. Yes they are. So I get what I put into it? Yeah. Fuck you. Not even.

Another parent meeting this morning. Hopefully this one will actually show up. I’m really tired. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning (hear that cats?) and Spring Break in a week, even though it will be altogether too quiet and lonely. I do have a quilt to finish, and if I keep flailing at night, I’ll need a chunk of that time to get it done. Last night? Minor flail. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some stuff done tomorrow so I’ll feel better about this thing being due in 2 1/2 weeks.

Weekends are…

Well. Yeah. Weekends…are made…not for Michelob. But for relaxing. I hear. I apparently don’t practice relaxation well. And I wanted to draw, but that didn’t happen. Long story on that one, but just so you know, if you’re out in a bar or restaurant with me, I don’t usually draw unless I know you pretty well…because you’re gonna want to watch, and then I can’t draw because you’re watching. So yeah. I didn’t draw. I wanted to. In fact, last night, I wanted to dump all the hours of work that needed doing and draw then too. But I didn’t. I feel really buried by work at the moment, and the only way to deal with that is to get some of it done in some sort of power rush of grading and organization. And then I can relax a bit again until I have to do it all over again.

So Saturday was full of work, freelance and school. I guess I am now a semi-expert at converting doc to epub…semi-expert because there are always new problems that will pop up. It’s the one thing I learned from working in publishing…no matter what you think you know how to do, the next project will bring you something you don’t know how to do. Anyway, so there was that. And then grading papers and assignments…lots of that. But sometime in the late afternoon, I finally got the binding on the baby quilt…which I’ll post below (baby hasn’t been born as of yesterday afternoon, so I’m still good…although I’m still hand-sewing the binding on).

I didn’t do any art stuff until Sunday though, when I finally pulled this out…

I’m in the endless stage of cutting stuff out. I have a lot done, but everything I pull out is a huge piece of flesh with a million pieces on it, so it feels endless. I did get a lot done last night, but there’s at least two more hours in there. I’m days behind now. Gotta catch up. Fours weeks left. Iron it together this week, stitch it down, sandwich? I do have a 3-day weekend coming up. But a shitload of grading this week and a meeting or event every night but tonight. Crazy week after last week, where I felt all this empty alone stuff weighing me down. And snot weighing me down as well. I didn’t get really sick, but I definitely have snot going on. Gotta watch it, because I ended up with pneumonia this time last year.

Here’s the baby quilt…hidden below the fold so she won’t see it…Facebook just posts the first picture on the blog.

It was a good choice to go get another binding. This one finishes the edge nicely. Ties it all together. The others didn’t. I’m fussy about my bindings.

My opening is tomorrow night…

Looking forward to seeing the whole show…it wasn’t fully installed when I left (my stuff was)…hoping people show up. There’s some new work, some old work, some never-been-shown work (well in person…everything’s on the web…well, most everything).

OK, taking my sick self to work to infect the minions who infected me. Not really. I was probably most contagious on Friday…and that kinda crept up on me during the day, so I obviously didn’t infect them on purpose. Might wanna watch who I sneeze on today though. Could be retribution of sorts…

All the Things…

Aaargh. Grades are (almost) done. They will be done after I go to school, deal with a parent meeting, go on duty (I should get a pass…I’m the only teacher who showed up in my section yesterday morning), deal with a fire drill in my homeroom, take attendance, and prep for the rest of the day. THEN I can finish grades. And maybe pee. Fuck you, world.

Boychild apparently made it to school, although he forgot to tell his mom he’d actually arrived, so of course, in true momma fashion, I worried. Woke up at 5 AM and texted him again. Doofus.

I’m in a mood. Hopefully I’ll fall out of it. I barely ironed anything last night…like maybe 20 pieces…

I was tired. It was 11:30 by then and I was just doing it because I wanted to say I’d done some of it. Tonight I can do more. I wrote two tests last night and I finished grades and I don’t even remember…oh yeah I do! The dog. So the dog has been on her normal travel schedule with the kids home, but yesterday, my ex had said he didn’t think she could escape where he did all the work, so I should leave her in the yard. And I worried about her getting out all day, which was legit, because I got home, and a muddy, tangled, matted Golden Retriever was lying in front of the garage, waiting for me.

So I bathed her last night. The water was dark brown the first run through. It was loads of fun. I don’t recommend it. So then I had to partially clean the bathroom. And do laundry. Like 6 towels.

I also finished quilting this and trimmed it. She goes out on leave today and I wanted it done so she could take it, but then I looked at the binding fabric I’d picked…

And it doesn’t work. I then went searching through my stash, and I didn’t have enough of anything that would work, so I need binding fabric. I don’t suppose I could persuade her to stay one more day? Yeah. I didn’t think so. It’s OK. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.

Shitty day. Shitty mood. More art tonight. Less work. Less bullshit. Less worry. Less moodiness. All the things.

An Anthropological Dig…

So I had about 45 minutes free after school yesterday, and by free, I mean I had 78 things to do and I picked one of them, notably cleaning out the boychild’s room because as of 8:30 PM tonight, he’s home in 2 weeks (holy shit, time flies). So I panicked a bit and got some stuff moved out that I had organized before but just hadn’t found a home for, and then started going through the immensely scary pile on the bed. It’s scary because I’m not quite sure what to do with it. There’s a quilt in there that I finished years ago but don’t like and think I need to paint over, although after looking at it last night, I’m not even sure it’s worth the time. I spent hours on it, but I just don’t like it. Strange for me, but it was an early quilt. I think I was still married when I made it. Divorced in 2002, by the way (well officially later than that, but 2002 in my head).

So here’s some of the fun stuff I found…this quilt…

So I am in a quilt guild that I hardly ever go to, just because it’s Monday nights and honestly, they used to have interesting speakers, because whoever was in charge had a contemporary leaning, but now it’s mostly traditional stuff, so I don’t go more than about once a year. Anyway, they would give out a pattern in the newsletter and if you brought in a block (or 10 blocks) in that pattern, you could donate them and one person would win all of them and take them home. So I thought the pattern was interesting and made a block. But then I didn’t go to the meeting. But I made more blocks. And I suck at piecing. Do not look close up at this thing. And it’s really not big enough for a lap quilt…it works for me because I have a small lap, but I think I made it to cover the back of the couch I no longer own. Anyway, I found it in the pile, and I’m like, why is this here? It looks done? There were about 15 inches of the binding that were not sewn. You know what I did last night? I sewed those inches and then put the blanket over my feet. As I turned the thermostat down again.

I do know HOW to make traditional quilts. I just don’t. Usually. Baby quilts. I don’t know how old it is…if it predates the divorce, and I think it does, it won’t be on the blog. So let’s say before 2002.

Then I found this…which I really like. And I know where it’s supposed to go.

My quilt teacher and friend Susan had this quilt she made off a drawing she did from some textile her parents gave her? She’ll tell me if I’m totally off with this. Anyway, I always liked it and so I got the pattern from her and then did it in entirely inappropriate colors (hers is all nice earth tones. Or maybe the original is. It would make sense if hers were all in purples). See, I know how to applique (I found all the blocks to two applique quilts that need to be sewn together). All this needs is a good border and to be quilted, and it’s not that big. And then I could hang it where it belongs. I also can’t date this one, although I think it’s post divorce…so it might be on the blog way back when. I started blogging in 2004, but had to migrate and not all the pictures came with the migration. Based on what I just found in my picture files, it looks like 2006. Maybe.

Then I found this…and this has been floating around the studio for years.

When I first started making art quilts, I did a lot of hand applique. Now I’m good at it and fast, but it takes FOREVER to make an art quilt with hand applique. A few of the early ones are just that and they are small and took me months. So that’s why I started taking all these classes, trying to figure out how I could do bigger faster. So this one never got done…here’s the drawing, which I was looking for…

No date on it, but I can guess early 2000s, probably pre-divorce, because I know in late 2000-2001, I finished one small hand-applique art quilt and then started fusing them. So I suspect I started it in 2000 and then didn’t finish. Honestly, it’s almost done. Sure, it’s weird. But all my quilts are kinda weird. It feels like she deserves finishing. And it’s small…ish.

I feel like going through these piles that I want to finish those two above. One just because it’s nice and brightly colored and will be easy enough to finish and then I can brighten the house with it. The other, just because she’s waited so long and it’s a bit different from what I’ve been doing. Not that I’m advocating going back to hand-appliqueing art quilts, because that’s just fucking crazy. Yeah.

So that’s where I’m at. I didn’t make art last night, but I did make a dent in the pile of stuff in here that needs to shift so I CAN make art. That’s all I can apparently handle at the moment, which is too bad, because I’ve got some major deadlines piling up here and I need to get my act together. Ha. This is not the time of year for me to apparently do that. Sigh. I will keep going through the memory pile on the boychild’s bed though…it’s like an anthropological dig through Kathy’s art existence. Plus I suspect someone will want to sleep there soon enough.

Not Thinking Too Hard…

I brought home 119 science packets last night, the last unit we completed. I had already graded 21 of them at school, one small class’ worth, but I really need to finish the rest over the weekend. Funny, this is the smallest number of students I have ever had (maxed out at 190 one year), but I still can’t balance the grading. You take a weekend off or you schedule it so everything is due at once, and all of a sudden, there’s an avalanche. I just started my 14th year of teaching, and I still can’t find a best practice on that part of the job.

So I sat there for about three hours…and I got through 68 of them. The pile on the right is done…

The pile on the left is still staring at me…balefully. I watched a bunch of TV to drag me through it, and I got faster and faster (which is why sometimes it’s better to just bully through and do ALL of it at once, because once you’re on a roll, you DO get faster and faster). I stopped and made dinner in the middle (girlchild blew me off for yet another Friday night…whatever), and at around 10 PM, I quit. I have my smallest class and my largest class left. It’s easier to grade the good students, because everything is there, complete, and in order. The ones that kill me are the kids who don’t put anything in order and put random stuff in there (one kid stapled a field trip permission slip in there…guess it made it look more full). Sigh. Worst part of my job…well, besides navigating politics and administrators.

Anyway. I was exhausted by then, but in true Kathy fashion, I don’t ever let that stop me from making art. OK. Sometimes I do. But not last night. Just grading all night and not doing something for me makes me cranky. So I dragged myself into the office and looked at what was next to be ironed. And remembered I needed to do a label for the quilt that sold, so I did that first. By the way, the second Catching Cancer is available, if anyone’s interested…

It’s 10 1/2″ w x 12 3/4″ h, $140. Let me know.

And then I started looking at elephant pieces. Teensy weensy wrinkles and eyeballs and lots of gray gray gray, which can be blue-ish or yellow-ish or brown-ish. Grays annoy me. I use them all the time. I love gray. But it drives me nuts. If I were really anal-retentive obsessive compulsive, all my grays would be sorted by their base color and I wouldn’t have to search all through a million bins trying to find the RIGHT gray (I never have the RIGHT gray. I am always buying more gray). So I needed a run of 7 fabrics for the elephants, because they are standing in front of each other, so you have to think about that.

Well, YOU don’t. I do.

There’s only three elephants, but they take up about 100 pieces of Wonder Under…

And I had to add fabrics for eyes and tusks. Here they are all laid out. The old Wonder Under is releasing like crazy. The new stuff is fucking awesome. It doesn’t release and the paper comes off like a dream. The only issue I’m having is that my iron is getting stuff stuck to it from the old Wonder Under, and I can’t get it clean enough, and that is having an issue with the paper of the new Wonder Under, which is really plasticky. I didn’t read the instructions (ha! never do…), so maybe I need to reduce the heat. Or clean my iron better.

It took about an hour to iron all the elephant pieces down…

The next thing on the ironing list is an apple tree with the tiniest pieces ever…because some crazy woman thought that was a good idea. Then I move onto HUGE pieces of body parts and bird wings. I might need to go gray/white shopping. Seriously. There’s a huge heron wing in there, so I have to figure out what color that is. Blue gray? Maybe?

Underneath my feet while I iron…

She was very tired. So was I at the end of it…girlchild came home way too late (apparently clocks are so passé). By then, I was sitting again (so tired yesterday…couldn’t stand to stand and iron for long), working on the binding, which has to get done today, so I can get it photographed tomorrow. Boom! Then I need to start the other recycled piece.

It’s good to be finishing these and moving on. I’m not enjoying the Have-To’s on the quilt front as much as I enjoy the Want-To’s, but those Have-To’s get into shows, and right now, with my rejection rate on the stuff I LIKE to make, if I’m going to be in shows, I have to cater a bit to whatever the hell it is they think they want. I can’t try to figure out why the stuff I really want to make, the stuff I enjoy, why it’s not getting into shows…unless it’s an invitational, so they don’t see it beforehand. I just have to move on and try to balance the stuff I really like with the stuff I need to make for whatever reason…paying the bills, participating in a group show. It is what it is. And I do actually think this Ventura quilt will be cool in the end…even though I really had to fight my own inclinations to get it drawn.

All right…I’m sewing that damn binding on now. Obviously I am Thinking Too Hard.

The Neverending Quilting

Oh my god, I just want to be done with it…the neverending quilting. That stage when you aren’t far enough along to be close to done, dammit. You can see the end of the dark tunnel, but it’s just a speck of light in the distance, not close enough to start running towards it, because you have to conserve your energy. Sigh. Even trying to get done with the outlining would have been OK, which was interesting, because when I started quilting (late, again) last night, I thought, oh no, you’re not going to finish the outlining tonight…even though the previous night you thought it was just one more night, that part of your brain was obviously delusional and just needed to go to bed. Then I started stitching, and I got about 45 minutes in, and I’m looking at it, and my brain is at war: one part is sure I can finish and the other is telling me to give up and go to bed (that’s really what the responsible, normal adult would have done, but as I have proven over and over again, although I am responsible with many things, making art and going to sleep at a reasonable hour are not my strong points). In the end, I kept going, sure, positive, convinced I could finish.

I was so close…really, maybe another hour. But no. Sigh. Went to bed. Slept the sleep of the crazy dreamer who wanted to be DONE. Which is just stupid, because I would only be done with the OUTLINING. I still have to quilt the fucking background, and it’s proving to be a bitch, bunching up all over the place, trying to make a mess of my quilting, so I’ll be swearing at it and pulling at it and stretching it flat and wondering how all those people who quilt like 1/8″ apart do it without making a monstrous mess (this is why you are NOT one of those quilters. You think they’re ~~crazy~~ amazing for quilting that close together and they think you’re the same for cutting out a million pieces and then trying not to lose them all while ironing them together. Really, you’re all nuts.).

So I’m 8 hours in and I haven’t even finished the outlining, and I suspect I’m about halfway through, but really I don’t have a freakin’ clue. I do know that at only an hour a night, I’m not going to make my deadline. AND finish grades. AND hike on Saturday.

Oh well. And I really want to clean house; my bedroom and the studio are driving me nuts and I’m barely home long enough today to do anything. So. Yeah. Dysfunctional human much?

Don’t you wonder what happens in the artist’s brain to make the expression of some image (or sound or whatever) SO important that everything else seems pointless? I mean, food isn’t pointless, especially being diabetic, but I wish I had a replicator and could just ask it to make more of that avocado tomato salad this morning so I could take it to school. I have all the ingredients, but not the time (or mental energy, apparently). OK, I might find energy for that. Maybe. But I’d really rather finish sewing or do the next drawing or anything really rather than clean house. I wonder how close to hoarder status I’m approaching. That should motivate me to take the bags of clothes out of the entryway to the thrift shop today, except I don’t actually have time to do that.

Anyway. Writing is also taking up my time these days, but it’s OK. It was my November goal, and I realized at the time that it would be a stretch. I’m writing more than 2000 words a day on the novel at the moment, killing off characters with wild abandon and then going back and giving them a video entry or a first name only, because dammit, they had kids and I need their kids for genetic testing. In the book. Not in real life. I don’t have an outline for this book. I don’t know how it ends. I don’t know how it gets to the ending. I have a general feel for the shit that might happen and for the core problem of the book, but it’s writing itself. It reveals itself to me while I write…which honestly is the way I draw as well. Although I might have a drawing in my head, it doesn’t come fully apparent until pen hits paper, and I often have no idea where it will go until it’s done. I’m tapping into some part of my brain that just makes. It doesn’t really care what you think about it; hell, it barely cares what I think about it. It does take some direction, when I have some, but mostly I’m just spilling some synaptic goo out on paper or screen and trying to make sense of it afterwards.

Seriously. The book is gonna need a massive edit. But that’s OK. I hear that’s normal. Maybe tonight I’ll finish outlining, and then the light at the end of the tunnel might feel a bit closer. Sigh.

Protected: Why the Earth Mother?

Protected: Overloading the Plate