Tag: SAQA Summit

Three Days of Art…

I had a great three days of art, although I hit some line on Saturday and had to come home a few hours early and take a nap to beat a migraine that was starting. I’m still tired, but that’s normal for me, unfortunately. Certainly, this is not the week that will fix that. I’m glad I signed up for the conference. Most class situations I need to travel, so there are travel costs, plus hotel etc, and then it’s too expensive for me. This was perfect…in town, no travel/hotel costs. Kept my food costs down by bringing lunch one day. Wish I had had more energy for hanging out after, but that was my body telling me I was doing too much. I know the next SAQA conference is in Florida, so that’s not happening, but I’d keep my eyes open for another one (although they don’t do workshops usually, and I really enjoyed that).

The best part about workshops is getting to know/hear how another artist’s brain works. Betty Busby has a very interesting and creative brain, and it was very cool to listen/see her process. We did lots of fabric painting, which was cool, but also the nonwoven stuff in the cutting machine was very cool too.

But first the painting…sun prints…

Plants under the silk…

Metallic paints…

This needs ironing…

I didn’t make as many as some…

I had more silk…just never know what to do with those pieces…

Although I have more ideas now than I did. The coolest part for me was the nonwoven stuff in the cutting machine. I did a few diatoms the day before…

And then went home Friday night, did schoolwork for 2 hours (ugh), then took one of my drawings, thickened the lines and simplified it…

Until it looked like this…

Then texted it to Betty, who put it on her computer, and then we made a cutting file of it…

Tossed my other piece of nonwoven into the machine…

And got this!

Fiddly as shit. The plan is to iron it to silk, then paint from behind, cut the silk away from the design, and then put that on a background for quilting etc.

The leftovers are pretty fascinating too…

I was not organized enough to save them for a backwards version. Not really backwards. Opposite? Notan? IDK. But certainly I have some ideas…she showed us how she has all these parts (if I divided a drawing into parts) and you can compose with the parts.

Hmmm. More ideas. Also finally found my Inktense pencils and played around with them a little bit before my brain shut down.

It really did shut down. I drove home and went straight to bed for an hour. In the afternoon. Took meds. Woke up and felt better. I did not get enough sleep last week and my brain was in overdrive. Plus Saturday night, we went to the Man’s dad’s 85th birthday party. So I needed to be awake for that.

Sunday was all work. Simba on guard dog mode…

Until about 9:30 PM, when I started searching out all the quilts that need to be shipped or delivered in the next few weeks. A big one needs to go out ASAP. I have one more roll of quilts to pull down for two of them that are going later, but I found a chunk of them.

Some of them have never been in shows, so that’s cool. And now the studio is a disaster area! I’ll get the exhibits on the page where I tell you what shows I’m in…as soon as I get progress report grades done and survive this week. It’s hot again. What are the odds that my class A/C is working? Three work orders, no change. I’m gonna be irritated if today is still no change. Probably gonna be irritated anyway, honestly, because I was gone for two days and a bunch of kids did absolutely nothing. Ah well. It is what it is. You reap what you sow. Or something. Off to the day job. Hopefully I will get back to ironing soon…probably not tonight, but soon.

Just Some Part…

My school district sends out this “motivational” email every Wednesday and most of us groan and immediately delete. Today’s is about high achievers and how they push themselves. But then it tells us to be humble enough to embrace the power of small things to make a difference. I’m not sure how those are connected? I know I am a high achiever…it’s a pain in the ass sometimes and I wish I could let more things go or suck (well besides cleaning house and maintaining the yard). But that doesn’t mean I don’t know about the small things. I came home from staying late at work yesterday, and spent 20 minutes drinking a fresh cup of tea while reading my book. Then I did more work. Unfortunately, any time I want (or need) to take a day off, the school prep work going up to it is heinous. Plus knowing I won’t get any school work done for three days, so that puts me even further behind. This is why I don’t take time off during school. But for this? Making art stuff? Listening to artists? I know my art self needs it and wants it, so it’s telling high-achieving work self to fuck off, and so work self has been dominating in the evenings. The stress of taking time off to make things better! Sigh.

Monday night, I did treat the art self to an in-person talk at my quilt guild by Valerie Goodwin.

I missed book club for it. I did grade homework during the main part of the meeting; got through a week’s worth, so I’m almost caught up on those (almost meaning I just have last week’s to do). I did full on listen to Valerie though. She’s fascinating and so is her work. I took a Zoom class from her last year and really enjoyed her mind, so needed to hear the talk, even though I was exhausted. On a Monday! Yeah, I know. Came home and worked some more and didn’t manage any of my own art at all. Ah well. It was for a good cause.

Last night, I stayed late at work, trying to get sub plans written. Then came home and graded all of the Unit 1s that had been lying around for the last two weeks, not getting done. Put all that in the gradebook and then realized I had never finished one of the assignments that needs to be pushed out while I am gone. Huh. OK. Did that. Then it was 10 PM. No way in hell am I not doing art for two nights in a row. So I hustled (slowly and exhaustedly) in here, found the background fabric, ironed it, cut it, and got it ready to sew together. At that point, it was 10:30 and I needed to go to bed. But it’s ready for the next step…

Tonight I need to prep my Visions quilt for delivery this weekend (if someone ever answers their email), and then maybe get started on ironing this together. Realistically, it might not be tonight. But I will try.

And then I’m taking two days off to nourish Art Brain and escape the crazy 7th graders…the 8th graders are fine, it’s just the curriculum that’s driving me nuts. The 7th graders though…whoever decided those 60 kids should all be together on the same team must have been doing crack. There’s some wonderful, super high-level kids, some OK kids, and some brats from outer space. We always have that, but I think it’s usually spread out over 5 classes? I don’t know what the problem is; I just know my whole team is over them and it’s not even the end of the first progress report period. Although that is coming soon.

My parents’ dog visited Monday to Tuesday. It’s a practice run for when they are on their trip to the UK and she’s here all month, which might kill all of us. OR…we’ll all adjust over the first week and get on with our lives (cats, I’m talking to you. Also, Katie, chillax.).

She needs a good brushing (she sheds horrendously) and maybe some CBD oil. Same with the cats and maybe the Man. Even Simba gets jealous…

Although this is his chill self.

OK. I’m tired. What’s new? I have sub plans; just need to set up and clean up my room a bit so it’s easier for the guest teacher to find and manage shit. I need to contact admin and tell them to police my 7th-grade classes. I need to plan and grade like a crazy woman (crazier than usual). I have pilates (hallelujah…because I didn’t make it to the gym yesterday, no thanks to the day job), I have to cook dinner and the chicken is not defrosting fast enough (give it time…and perhaps a hot-water soak later). Then prep a quilt and hopefully iron stuff. We’ll see. AND pack up supplies for my workshop, some of which haven’t arrived yet, and Amazon sent one of those “it’s late but you could reorder it” emails (dammit…no time for that), so who knows how that will roll. Probably not well. Whatever. I’ve got some part of this. Not all of it. Not “I got this.” Just some part.