OK. So my butt is wet. The cat did something on my chair. This is not a nice way to start Monday. Actually, I started with randomly low blood sugar. Always fun. The cat is old. I’m hoping it’s not…fuck…I’m pretty sure it’s pee. Sigh. She’s looking pretty irritated right now. Maybe because I’m accusing her of peeing herself. I guess I need to call the vet. Sigh. She’s old, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for her to be gone. She has been getting worse…unfortunately.
So artwise, I finished all the bugs. Except I need to repaint one for like the fourth time. I delivered 4 to Visions Museum on Saturday. The rest will hold for a bit (maybe?) and go on Etsy (maybe?). I took official photos of them; I’ll put them on the website later too. Here’s the last one though…
With the one that needs repainting in the background.
I finally started drawing the next big one…it’s been in my head for well over a month.
Not that you can see much, and the boobs might need redrawing based on this. I just get the general shapes with the pencil on something this big. I don’t usually use pencil on the smaller drawings. Here’s a pre-drawing for it…done in two restaurants before dinner came…
Not quite all there. But a vague idea of it. I drew this too, with no purpose…
On Friday, I did some underglazing…
This stuff takes forever…
But it’s relaxing…
Apparently two of my pieces came out of the glaze fire, but I couldn’t find them on Friday. Ugh. Maybe today.
I also finished the center panel of Homegrown…
So now I can piece all the houses around it and spend another year making the borders. It’s also relaxing, but in a different way.
My piece Stop the Murder Madness made it to Miami for the opening…
A fellow artist took a picture of it for me…
Her name is Eden Quispe and you should go look at her work because it’s amazing. And I appreciate her recommending this show to me in the first place and sending me photos as well.
I managed NOT to work most of the weekend (on school stuff), which I think is pretty healthy. We walked the dog on Saturday.
I also blew leaves off half the roof, terrified of being up there, trimmed a bunch of stuff, dumped plant matter in greenery trashcans, finally rehung the art in the hallway…
Drove to a sketch location and bought a recliner for my kid, who may or may not actually want it because he was in Pinnacles with no cell service. Long weekend. I finished a book! That was good. Wait, I actually finished two. So even better.
For some reason, all the animals were giving me judgy looks this weekend. Here’s Nova.
Bowie…
You already saw Kitten up at the top…and Simba…
Luna avoided me mostly, so I guess I didn’t wrong her too badly.
I’ll finish up with two new skull finds…
The one on the right is a new type…I don’t think I’ve seen it before? I’ll wait for nature to clean it up a bit. We get a lot of rats and mice…this is not the right shape for that. Wait and see.
OK, today is teaching speed and velocity…pretty easy stuff. Then a 2-hour staff meeting about literacy. I’ve been prewarned that the scientific content is factually incorrect (oh good), so I’m prepared to be irritated. Then to clay, to hopefully underglaze some more and find my two glazed pieces. Then back here to pack up three quilts for shipping. Fun times. And more drawing, hopefully…get those boobs under control. On the drawing. Those are the only ones I can control.
Well hey. I wish I had slept more last night, but the little dog made me get up once to check for zombies and there were definitely other barky moments when I was like, “it wasn’t zombies LAST time, so no, I’m not getting out of bed”. He’s definitely in need of something these days. A long walk…a cuddle with his boy (who still has 10 days of training to go). He is a grumpy old man (the dog, to clarify…although there are other grumpy old men in my vicinity, for sure). What it means is that my brain is a little fuzzy (when is it not?) and my eyes a little crusty, and maybe I’m drinking this whole cup of tea quickly so I can get another one down? Ugh. When my doctor tells me to improve my sleep, for health reasons, I want to explain to her that I’ve always been a bad sleeper and that has not improved with age and there are many factors affecting my sleep, most of which (zombies) are out of my control. Oh well. Doing my best. Mostly. Nah, I could do better. If I had more sleep. Maybe.
So I’m still slogging along on bugs. I stitched the edges of the last two on Monday night…
And last night, I painted all five canvases…
Last time, some of them needed a second coat, but hopefully there’ll be a couple ready to stitch down tonight. I also need to make labels for the back.
I did some carving on Monday as well…
Just for fun planter…
In video…
I’m just gonna work on this here for a while. I need to buy more clay for the next batch of projects. Not there yet.
After dinner, I’ve been working on the centerpiece for Homegrown.
I think I just have that last flower on top to do and then I can piece the whole quilt together and start the borders. I’m ahead of schedule! I thought I wouldn’t finish the center until next year. I figured 5 flowers, 5 months? But I’ve been faster than that for once. Mostly because I’m trying to get work done before I leave school and then leave it there. Much as I can. I did last night, anyway.
This is the face of a cat spying a gecko on the window.
I was reading a book the other day and they used the term ‘sanguivore’ for vampires, and turns out, it’s a real word (I love learning new words) for things like vampire bats and mosquitos (bloodsuckers), so my co-teacher and I thought it would be cool to add this word learning to our 7th-grade curriculum when we do trophic levels (carnivores, herbivores, etc), adding this one to the mix and then having kids make some up…I came up with ‘cerebrevore’ for zombies…
Makes sense? Right? We are supposed to be teaching literacy.
This is relevant as I get closer to the Quilt Visions opening, where I will have to explain my work in front of people…
Sometimes it’s a challenge. This quilt is actually easy to explain and way too relevant these days.
This is another word I like.
Unfortunately, I think if I do that today, kids aren’t going to try to learn…they’re just going to copy each other and then Friday’s test will be painful. So I will have to interact with them. And I have a union meeting after school, so that’s more people and talking. When I just want to read my book in silence. Not happening. Tonight, I’ll be sewing little bug quilts on canvases and/or repainting some of them. All good. I will read my book at some point though. It’s required.
Whoo! Finally made it to Friday. And the tea is cold. Back in a minute. OK, so lots going on. Trying to finish some small bug quilts I started back in July. I originally made these for the Oceanside Museum of Art street thing, where I demoed for an hour or so. I had one premade, some in different states of existence, and some I could do in front of people. And then they languished, as things do when they have no priority in the to-do list. They’ve been in the bullet journal list since then, but always at like number 4 or 5. So now there’s a place that wants to sell them for me (always a plus), so I need to finish them…but the original hand-sewn binding takes too long and makes it too expensive (yes, I actually charge for my time. I think it’s important that artists consider their time when pricing things). So I’ve done a satin-stitch binding in the past. I’ve also done some canvas wraps…so I thought I’d do a combo of that. Actually, the combo part came to me at around 10:45 PM last night. There’s a heft to putting these on a canvas that is helpful for people NOT thinking they are coasters. Which they’re not.
So process…find all the things I made back in July…figure out what step they’re at. I embroidered some legs Tuesday night and some more legs and antennae Wednesday night…
More legs…
These were quilted in July…just waiting on the embroidery and finishing.
I have some that are still pieces in bags. Not dealing with those right now. Also I have some that I ironed down at the event…
They need to be stitched down, sandwiched, quilted, embroidered, and finished. Probably not starting with those three.
And this is the one I finished that will be too expensive for this venue.
So last night, I did the satin stitch on one of the other ones…
Much less time. And I ordered canvases that are just a little bigger than these. They come Saturday. I’ll paint them and then attach these.
I’ve been keeping track of the time on the original drawings, but also a spreadsheet, because one side of the brain likes chaotic lists of things jotted on paper in whatever pen color I could find, and the other side likes rainbow-highlighted, organized columns of data. I’ll try to get the other three trimmed and satin stitched tonight with all the animals here and the Man at a wedding (I’m not crashing that party). Or I’ll grade things tonight…we’ll see. I should be allowed to do some art stuff though, although there will be an extra dog and you know how that goes.
I stitched on Zoom with friends yesterday…got this flower done (dog in background, fast asleep)…
And did a goodly chunk of this one (only because it is very simple).
Saw this online…
I agree. Just trying not to fuck up too much of my own shit.
This is from the book I just finished reading.
Yesterday I gave a lecture on what evidence actually is and also asked kids, after taking a test where people are in a moving car, where exactly the things were at rest…because they all were telling me that ‘objects at rest stay at rest’. So to have this show up in a book, and then the mitochondria thing, because that is the only thing everyone remembers…although mitochondria is plural, so it should be ‘are’. Pedantic, right? I know. Ask the history teacher how she feels about my correcting her spelling of ‘longitude’. Yeah.
TODAY! Is Friday. I’m giving another test. Sigh. It’s easy. Then they can read quietly (ha!). It’s been a weird week. We lost 11 students, transferred to a new section on another team. Which is good in the long run but was very traumatic for them and us in the short term. We’re still only planned a week ahead, if that. It’s fine; there’s stuff in there. It just needs tweaking. I’m too tired some nights to work at home…yesterday, I meant to grade things, but I left them at school (is that Freudian? Maybe?). Actually, there was something I could have graded, but I just remembered it, so too late. I have yet another early meeting today. I hate these. But tomorrow is no school. I’m going to go to ceramics in the morning, I think. And we’ll need to grocery shop later because of family stuff on Sunday. And next week is a short week due to a random school-board-mandated, 3-day weekend. Not gonna complain.
OK. So this week has gone from 109 degrees to a delightful 77 or so. The Man replaced the ceiling fan. School has been…interesting. It’s fine. Lots of chaos. Like give us a bunch of kids and have us get to know them and then keep adding new ones and taking away some of them as all their school attendances adjust, and then about 4 weeks in, upend the whole mess and create a new section, which unbalances every single classload in that grade level, and then, probably, y’all will do it again with the Newcomer kids who are coming into general education classes because they have graduated out of that program…but wait another two weeks before you do that, so we have chaos all over again.
Every year. So you figure your classes out and how they work and then they all change. And you’ve done rules and expectations and how things work in this class and then it all changes again. It’s frustrating. It makes the first 6 weeks difficult. But do grades! And independent study contracts! And do them now and fast. Because the kids won’t actually do the work, and they’ll lie about it, because they’re kids. Fun times.
I have not figured out the balance yet.
That said, I finished the little quilt, which will get photographed and get a name. I had it on a post-it note somewhere, and probably a cat ate it. Or a dog. We have both.
I just had a tiny binding and tiny sleeves to sew on.
Simba is entirely unhelpful. So were Nova and Bowie, who tried to climb either on the quilt or on my lap or both last night.
Until Simba won the position.
Cute little thing. About war. So many not so cute. And possibly already maybe sold? I don’t have a price yet and I can’t remember if it has to be for sale for the show I’m sending it to (I don’t think so…I think that’s the other show I shipped to recently). So photographer tomorrow, just in time.
What’s next? A giant drawing of my own choice plus finishing up quilting on two other quilts, one for me, one for a friend, and then some clay stuff that needs fabric. Coolio.
I got to stitch with friends last night…this is the second flower of five…
And no, I’m still not done with it. It takes forever. It’s cool when it’s done. And I like the process. But forever.
Bowie in low-energy mode.
Unlike at 6 AM this morning. Woke up everyone except the Man.
OK. Gotta go to school. It’s Friday the 13th. Can’t be worse than last Friday with its multitude of fights? Right? It probably can. But it’s cooler, so maybe it won’t be. Clay this afternoon. Shit ton of grading to do. Art thing tonight. The Man has a show tomorrow night at the Music Box (sort of; it’s on the street outside). I need a ride to the trolley station in the afternoon, because I’m not trying to park down there. I am tired. I want to read my book. Instead, I will go teach football with regard to Newton’s Laws. Or Newton’s Laws with regard to football? Not sure. One of those.
Feels like Hades here…and yes, I know Arizona is hotter and so are parts of the Middle East, but I choose not to live there. And yes, this happens every freakin’ September, sometimes August, sometimes October, but it never feels good when it happens. I am glad to be working because there is A/C at work, so at least I get a little respite from the heat, but then it’s crazy there, so there’s that. Actually, mostly the labs and kids have been doing OK…there’s just been some outbursts (like literally sound coming out of mouths in ways I did not need to deal with)…although my co-teacher had broken glass. Oh wait, I had that too. We’re down a radiometer. Again. Every year. I need a plastic one. Or a sturdy childproof one. Yes, these are 13-year-olds. No, they are not gentle with things. Or people. Plus it’s hot. Did I mention that? I haven’t been able to get a lot of schoolwork done at home with the heat. I suspect I will need to just take my computer somewhere airconditioned tomorrow to grade. The library? Somewhere that serves caffeine…good caffeine. Will have to think that through.
I finished ironing the piece down to the background…a light one for once.
I do like me a dark background, but there were enough dark things in this that I didn’t think it would work. Last night, I stitched the whole thing down…
Yes, I stayed up a little too late to do it.
Now she’s ready to sandwich, pinbaste, and quilt. Which I could also probably do in a night, except I need to do some embroidery too. I might do that before I sandwich it. I don’t know. I’ll decide sometime today.
The plan is to (1) survive labs today (no outbursts or demands to be reseated or to go to the bathroom when you haven’t done any work). (2) Set up classroom for next week. (3) Go to ceramics. It’s OK…it was supposed to be 105 degrees and now it will only be 102. It’ll probably be 90-something in the studio, but if no one else is there (and why the fuck would they be on such a hot day), I can find all the fans and point them at me. Then the Man and I are going out to dinner, because he has a wedding to play at tomorrow (no fucking way am I going to a wedding), so he’ll be gone from 10:30 AM to probably 1 in the morning, maybe later. I, however, have to pick up some art from Liberty Station, get my brain and neck scanned (2nd brain scan in 6 months…fun times), and go to two art openings…that part is cool except they are miles away. It’ll be fine. It will ALL be fine. I’m hoping to have an hour or two between the MRIs and the art openings to grade stuff. Because I didn’t do it yesterday or today or the day before because it was too hot and I mentally couldn’t. But realistically, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull that off. I’m also keeping an eyeball on my old kitty and this heat. She’s not a fan. She also HAS a fan…in my office, that I am keeping on at this point to try to cool this room off. She’s cranky as shit, keeps trying to bite me, but doesn’t have it in her. Because old. And hot. Poor thing. So we’ll see.
Wednesday night’s book club, I did a little stitching.
Still doing the inner borders of Homegrown. It’s not difficult, but it’s not fast. And I haven’t been doing a lot of it because school. Sucks up time.
OK. So yeah. Hot today but mostly gonna be inside. With kids who wear sweatshirts and sweatpants when it’s over 100 degrees out. Some of these kids are funny and kind and amusing and a little weird. As always. I feel like we have more of those this year, and I appreciate that. Some of them are not those things. And some suck up a lot of my energy. That was yesterday. So hopefully today is better. One can only hope. And then be pleased or disappointed. Or accepting. Because it’s like this every year, right? I also have to do some fluency/literacy thing. I recorded the kids reading, but I’m supposed to mark this form in some weird archaic way that makes sense if you were trained to teach kids to read, which I wasn’t. So it’s just more work for me. And kind of silly, really. But whatever. Looking forward to some art time and reading time (I wish I could read during an MRI…I wonder if they can put in my audiobook?). And just not being at school for a few days…although it is airconditioned. Hmmm.
OK. NOW it’s Friday. Yesterday was NOT Friday, despite my brain repeatedly trying to make it so. It’s fine. I’m tired. We’re all tired. We’re all already behind on school stuff. Very little that is supposed to be done by today is actually done. I stayed an hour at work yesterday to finally type my rosters up. Sure, I could use the school ones, but they drive me bonkers, and I add stuff like nicknames and tutorial teachers for the special ed kids so I know who to bug about missing work. Makes MY life easier. Once it’s done. I have to start grading things today. Fun times. I also need to find the demo stuff for today when I get to school, plus lock everything up because the district is doing this mock Williams Act thing where they inspect our classrooms and make sure every kid is assigned a book, except science doesn’t have books, so we have to show them digitally, but not every kid had a computer until yesterday afternoon (and some STILL don’t), so there was no point in going through the process until everyone had one. So they come today and we are explaining today. PLUS, we get a school board member touring today…stay the fuck out of my classroom. Yay!
Anyway, we’ll get to a routine. The kids are starting to test the boundaries with gum, food, games, phones, airpods, and dress code…fun times. Oh yeah, and throwing things. I might need to stay after school more than an hour today to get seating charts done.
So I’ve been short on art time most nights. I cooked late Wednesday because of pilates and getting all the trash ready for pickup and IDK what else I did. So I finished cleaning up the studio finally and picked the fabric for the background of this one, and laid out the first 100 pieces.
Not much…cleaning took a long time…a few hours. I swept the floor even…didn’t mop though.
Last night, I started late because I ate late because I had my stitching Zoom…but I got a few pieces ironed.
Honestly this piece isn’t very big…hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few days.
At my stitching Zoom (during the Zoom? At the couch?), I worked on embellishing the flowers around the edges.
Not quick. But I finished one…that I started during dinner TV hour sometime this week…
They’re not hard, unless you’re tired, and then reading instructions is hard. Stitching is not hard. Progress.
Nova has taken to hiding in the hammock because the kitten can’t reach her.
His neutering is maybe scheduled. He was sleeping with me last night, and then he wasn’t (he bit my knee at some point), and then he was again, and then he wasn’t. I get it, Nova. I’d sleep in a hammock too if I could.
Bowie trying to figure out how to attack Luna from below. Luna contemplating landing on Bowie.
I don’t think I fell asleep until 1 AM because of the cats and dog moving around and making noise (barking at whatever was on the roof…nice, Simba). Not a lot of sleep all week.
Apparently the Man’s car resembles enough of a naturescape that this praying mantis was hanging out.
OK. Go to school, lock up all the cabinets so they think we don’t have chemicals in a science classroom, then find the demo stuff. Wait. Find the demo stuff, THEN lock everything up. Teach kids how to access a digital curriculum we never wanted and will probably never use, then teach about energy…while we have none…ironically. Get through the whole day, work some more after school, and then go to ceramics and try to figure out what I’m doing next. All good. It’s Friday.
Yo Ho Yo Ho, a pirate’s life for me. I wake up in the morning sometimes and wonder what my brain has been doing while I slept. Apparently piratey things, because that’s the song I’m hearing in my head. There was a quick rehash of some stupidity from last year (I know what triggered that). Love that. Thanks brain. Also, it’s hard to sleep well on Sunday nights during school…my brain is figuring the whole week out (and often worrying about it). I really pushed this weekend to NOT open the school computer. I did make a list for today (and the next three days). I cleaned out my notebook…I love that my notebooks last for years now instead of dying after one (heavy duty notebooks…what good are notebooks? OK, there’s the Talking Heads…that’s a better song than the pirate one). I didn’t have to buy folders this summer…there was extra money last year and I spent it on that. Hopefully I got enough…I should figure that out quickly, because I think they need them Friday.
So I finished the big quilt last night…I spent the last three nights (or more?) sewing binding and sleeves. Friday night…
Saturday night…I actually sewed for almost three hours (Saturday was very braindead)…got all the binding done and part of one sleeve.
And Sunday night…
Bowie assist…
We’re trying to get him to sleep at night instead of only during the day, so after this, I woke him up and played with him for a while. Didn’t work. He was up and down all night. Like me!
I stitched some on this on Friday at the back-to-school event. They had us go to the local mall and fed us breakfast (it was SO loud…so loud), then put us in the movie theaters by school and we watched videos and played games. It was shorter than usual, so that was a plus. It was also dark a lot.
Made it harder to stitch. Pros and cons. Then we went back to our schools and did the district-mandated meetings where we write on big poster paper and then never see this stuff again.
There’s my science team! Yes, we are dorks. Well, most of us anyway. You probably don’t wanna know why the science department is pointing at a math rubric. We had to send this to the principal who will send it to the district. Sigh. Anyway, at some point, the district will make something of all this and push it back to us in some format. Proving something. Yes, I’m cynical about all that.
Today, we have four hours of all-staff meetings, then about 30 minutes with our partner team-in-crime (which is finally wholly back with us), then who-knows-how-long with the core team. Then making a list of what to copy tomorrow AM, because I have to be up at 4 AM to make sure I am tired enough for the EEG at noon. Don’t ask. I’m not looking forward to it.
In between all this, I’m halfheartedly trying to finish painting the hallway.
It’s hot, I’m tired, my wrist starts to hurt after a while. All of the cutting in is done with one coat, about a third has two coats. Obviously need to roll two coats as well. I’m not highly motivated, but maybe I will be this week. It would be nice if it were done.
I also finally got everything appliqued down to this. I finally watched the video about the hexie papers and how to make that damn flower in the bottom left…
And then I made it Saturday and sewed it down, and sewed down the last velvet circle (those things are a pain in the ass) last night. So now I can do embellishment.
Little man plays with his tail a lot.
OK. School. Need to leave in about 5 minutes with more tea and my meds in me. Pack a lunch! Fuck. I forgot how to do all this. I’ll be exhausted later. It might not even be that long from now. Then hopefully starting something new.
Hey, officially summer is over for me…school starts this morning, 30 minutes earlier than usual, because they hate us or something…or because we’re an elementary district and those littles don’t mind getting up early. I need to leave in 22 minutes with a fresh cup of tea, all my meds in me (ugh, too early), the official school shirt on, my computer in my bag, my stitching in hand (speechifying…need to stay alert), my water, and some realization that I need to get my brain in gear. It’s OK…it started yesterday when I finished one of the six documents I was gonna edit this summer. I feel like I did the summer right…art every day, ceramics every other day, 27 books read. My goal for the new year? No 5-hour work sessions on Sundays. No working on Saturdays at all. It might take a miracle, but I’m going for it.
I did trim up the big quilt on Wednesday night and cut all the binding…
And last night, after my stitching meeting, I got all the bindings and sleeves sewed on by machine…
That is some bright green…and now there’s some handstitching to do. I also mended the pants I’m wearing today. The second mend on these, but they’re really comfy and I won’t give them up yet.
Yesterday, I got my second tattoo, which I’d been thinking about for a long time, by the artist Gloria Muriel. It’s not quite a barn owl because of the ears, but that’s OK.
I wanted the barn owl face in there…I need this year to go well, so here’s to manifesting that.
I had my stitching meeting last night…I’ve been working a little bit on Sue Spargo’s Rooted block of the month while I try to get everything appliqued on the Homegrown central panel.
These are easy enough, but relaxing. I like relaxing. I’m taking this with me today to the speechifying.
This is really my thing for this school year.
That might be my mantra across the board.
Cool mural in North Park on the way to tattooing. Not Tattooine. Probably spelled that wrong. Ah yes, no double tt’s. Tatooine.
These two have been coming to bed with me the last couple of nights…
The baby is ‘sleeping through the night’…midnight to 5:18 AM this morning. Woohoo!
OK. Go find my stuff, take my morning meds, make more tea. Sit through speeches and rah rah, then professional development of some type, interrupted (thank goodness) by a taco truck lunch, then more of the stuff. Then ceramics, because the studio’s closed all weekend for a class. Then probably a fucking nap. If I haven’t already taken one by then. Wish us all luck. It’s a new school year, my 22nd…and we’re all gonna need a little luck to get through it.
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.
Oh hey. It’s some day. In the week. During summer break. Most summer breaks, I take on extra paid work, mostly copyediting, but nothing came up this summer (thank goodness) except the house stuff, which is like another whiny job that never goes away. I stared at the closet for a long time before finally deciding I really should just paint it. And then I stared at it even longer before starting the process. NO, I haven’t painted yet. But it’s cleaned out and washed, and yesterday, I finally made it to Home Depot (procrastinated for a week, y’all) to get what I needed. Today is prime the unprimed/bad paint sections. Maybe paint. Maybe. I hate painting. Really. I do. But I want the closet done so I can put stuff away in it. The house is still a freaking disaster. I put 5 pillows away yesterday. Why are there 5 more pillows? I really don’t know.
I didn’t make it to ceramics on Monday because we puppysat, so I ironed a big chunk instead and managed to finish.
There were a bunch of pieces that were loose on this piece, couldn’t be ironed down until I got to the background.
Then Monday night, I ironed everything down…
There were 5 pieces I never found, so I made new ones.
Usually with a piece this big, I’ll iron it down on the entryway floor so I can see and place the whole thing. There were two major pieces and then a lot of smaller things. But the entryway floor is a fucking disaster (see closet discussion above), so it wasn’t an option. So the pro is I did it on the ironing board. The con is that it’s not straight on the bottom, but I’ll fix that when I sandwich and pinbaste it. Here’s the whole thing, late at night, in the dark…
And then yesterday, I started stitching it down. I looked at how long it took to do the Supreme Court stitchdown (8 1/2 hours about). This is a similar size…it’s about 54″ wide and 80″ high.
My goal is to be finished with stitchdown before I go to San Francisco Friday, so I figured I needed to do at least 3 hours of stitchdown a day. I managed more than that yesterday and got the entire base and I think two whole figures done? I think I’m more than halfway, but I could be wrong. I think the Supremes had more pieces by quite a bit, and that’s kind of what decides how long stitchdown and outline quilting will take.
If I finish today, I’ll try to sandwich and pinbaste tomorrow, although that means clearing space on that damn entryway floor. Ugh.
I also finally finished the handstitching on this one…
So that’s two ready to go to the photographer. There’s Bowie too. He likes quilts. All cats do.
Not going to ceramics on Monday meant my phone told me I needed to go on Tuesday. OK. I’ll go with that.
I finished the glaze on this and put it on the shelf to dry.
It’s all underglaze. And then I went to unwrap the top part of the figure I’ve been working on. I hadn’t been in for a long time, due to my schedule and the classes in over the weekend, and it had dried too fast. Two parts cracked, so I wrapped them while I was finishing up the other piece and then reattached. I’ll go in today and/or tomorrow to check on it and start underglazing it to match the base. There were a ton of people in the last two times I’ve been there. I prefer quiet. Honestly.
This one is kind of refusing to come out to eat. Poor kitty.
There’s her half-toothless face. I try to bribe her with treats. She must be eating something, though, because she’s not super skinny at the moment. It’s warm and she doesn’t like that. I worry about her lots. Leaving her for 5 days…ugh. She won’t take her meds if I’m not here. But she’s fighting taking them now. So there’s that.
In other quilt news, I’m on this poster, as my quilt is in this exhibition, opening this weekend.
Nice to be invited.
Ah yes…
Sharknado? I’m good with it…although I don’t think he can run that fast.
Anyway. Today. I need to think about packing for the trip. I already found a few books and downloaded them, and decided what stitching I’m taking with me. The piece I’ve been traveling with is not in a good stage for that at the moment. And I’m unlikely to have the time to get it into a good stage. However, I had a series of 9 small blocks that are appliqued but not embellished (another Sue Spargo, shockingly), so I grabbed a few of those. It’s unfortunate that the place I’m staying does not have a comfy chair in the room (this type of Airbnb never does…annoyingly), but I’m not really expecting to spend much time in the room. If there’s down time, I’ll go to a coffee shop or something. There’s only about 20 within a short walking distance. Tea, snack, stitching, while watching some videos. Need to remember my headphones. Girlchild is working some of the time I’m there, so I do have some options for down time. Maybe some fabric, maybe some art, maybe a boat ride. Who knows? We might go visit the boychild if he gets stationed far enough south. Right now, he’s about 3 hours north of San Francisco, and that’s without traffic. That would be a long day. ANYWAY. Also today, at least 3 hours of stitchdown. Priming a closet (ooh exciting. not.). Plus maybe ceramics. If not today, tomorrow definitely. Yardwork! I’ve filled 1.5 trashcans and need to fill 1.5 more. Fun times. Bush from hell around the pool. It just takes forever to trim this bush. I would totally pay someone to take this bush down to 6 feet all the way across. OK, IDK how much I would pay them, because yeah, this summer has not been cheap. OK. Eat breakfast, more tea, change into painting clothes and do the first step of getting this closet put back together. That’s a plan.
Kathy Nida 