The Right Month…

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.

Buy Art…

Someone asked me to post the pieces that got into Quilt National and Visions over the years.

2013 Quilt National: Spread Out on the Pavement

2017 Quilt National: Beyond the Concrete

2021 Quilt National (yes, it appears to be every four years…creepy, huh?): Fire and Water

And Visions 2012: Sediment

I enter both shows every time, if that helps you at all. Lots of rejections over the years. One year, the Visions reject made it into Quilt National; another year, vice versa. It’s all OK.

So today’s topic is Top 5 Gift Ideas. Y’all…go buy art. Small business art. They don’t have to be quilters…they can be printers or ceramicists or painters. Buy small if you have to. Commit to one piece of art a year, if you can. I buy one SAQA auction piece a year. It’s my donation, plus I’ve gotten small art by artists I really enjoy, some I knew of before the auction and some I didn’t. Buy prints if you can’t afford the art, or even cards. Send them to everyone you know. So many small businesses, especially in the arts, are struggling right now. I wish I could do more, but I try to buy some every year. This year, two of my family members are getting original art from people I know. It can be a knitted sweater or an embroidered landscape, or a drawing, a bowl, a mug, jewelry, whatever. Just buy art. This pandemic has been devastating to so many people. I know as an artist that so many depend on classes and conferences and show venues, and so much of that has dried up. Sign up for a class, if you don’t want to buy art. Find ways to put your money, even if it’s a small amount, in the hands of an artist.

I worked with my co-teacher today for four hours, masked, in a room, away from each other, with the door open.

We got January planned, although then I came home and spent like 3 hours making digital versions of stuff so my kids could do the same stuff as the kids in a physical classroom. I’m still ahead, though…further ahead than I’ve been all year. I’ve always been starting to plan on Thursday for the following week, usually finishing Sunday night. I need that to chill out a bit. I need to be a little ahead of the game. Tomorrow, we’re doing it again, trying to get February planned. At least the pieces will be in place. Details to follow. I need to make a bunch of videos.

Last night, I stayed up too late, but I finished trimming all the pieces.

That’s almost 16 hours of cutting in the last week. Tonight, I sorted them…

Took me about an hour and a half.

I can start ironing tonight. I won’t get much done; it’s already late, but I can start.

Last night, I drew…

Tonight, I did not. There’s a lot of stressful stuff going on. I’m not forcing myself to draw if I don’t have the mental space. I know there’s a place for that kind of thing; making myself draw when I’m not in the mood makes my brain be more creative, solve problems, but there’s a need for self-care at the moment. So I’m just going with it. I can draw tomorrow night if I want. There is absolutely no point in beating myself up about what I can and can’t handle at the moment.

Be like a cat.

Sleep well.

OK, well it’s already past 10 and I need to be up sort of early for lesson planning. Hopefully the rest of the day will let me get some grading done and get a walk in. Tonight, I’ll iron a bit and get my ass in bed earlier than last night. And hopefully I’ll sleep.

I Hope I Put It in My Phone

I’m never really sure what throws my brain in a hole. It’s stuff that happens all the time, but then my reactions are different for some reason. Like a switch flips up or down and that’s it. There’s the hole. I’m in it. I often blame hormones. But who knows if that’s really it. I had a really successful weekend. I got a lot done. I went to an opening where I won an award. I don’t know what the deal is. Hopefully it won’t last long. Usually being around middle-school kids all day has a tendency to banish the blues. And calling it “the blues” is kinda lame too. It’s just a bad place my brain goes, a place it’s been before, and apparently a place I’ll never forget how to fall into.

With that, here’s what I got done on Saturday. Kitten was the model for this one…

She’s cute. Another quiet one.

Then the second owl…this is pulled from one of the bathtub drawings…in fact, it might be the one I’m going to make next into a quilt.

I haven’t decided for sure yet. I tried him on multiple blues, but this one worked best.

I finished all of that before going to the Interpretations opening at Visions…where I won the Director’s Award. Which is cool. Never won an award there before…me with my giant boob. The show is open until um…January 3. Long time.

Several people asked if it was me in the story…and yeah. I dealt with about a year of excessive mammogramming and ultrasounds and twisty pokey stuff, and then they proclaimed it a normal dark spot. I did actually see it on one of the scans. It’s been there for over 7 years now and hasn’t changed. It’s the alien in my boob. Much like the aliens in my uterus. Who might all be gone now. Who knows.

So that was Saturday. Sunday was filled with errands and getting ready for school, sending emails and fixing the website and trying to organize the week and get caught up on grading (I will never be caught up).

Then I came in to iron. It was late, but I’d been fighting that mood for hours and there’s no way to make it go away, but making art helps it feel less awful. So I ironed the last of the cats. Yeah, this is the weird one.

I drew it during a staff meeting…or a union meeting. Can’t remember which. The woman next to me kept watching me and it was annoying me, so that’s where the eyeballs came from. Anyway…I’m not really expecting this one to sell (although someone bought the eyeball bird last year, and it was a weird one). I like it anyway.

The next step, hopefully tonight, is to start sandwiching all of them, getting them ready for quilting. Progress…slow but sure.

So I was getting ready to go to sleep last night and looked up at my bedroom ceiling…

Yeah, so I had to get a stepstool and a tupperware and some cardboard and then he kept running, but eventually I caught him and set him free in the front yard. My biggest freakout with this is How do they get in? Because there was the baby lizard on my pillow a few weeks ago. I feel like there’s a lizard family living in my bedroom. But Kitten lives in my bedroom. You think she’d be aware of these things.

There’s also this…

I needed a fried egg in a circle. I was actually fascinated by the patterns of the oil in the tin foil. I once painted a whole 3×4′ painting of tin foil. It’s in the garage somewhere. Ah, the things you do in college. There’s also a 4-foot green penis. And another one of a tin can. That one’s cool. It would make a great quilt. I did it as a screenprint too. I was talking to one of the artists at the Interpretations exhibit about all the stuff I want to try and how I don’t have time, and she just straight up said I needed to retire. Then I would be able to do those things.

Oh. OK. I’ll get on that (excuse me while I roll around on the floor laughing, because I won’t be able to afford to retire until I’m dead).

Meanwhile, I make art in the middle of the night. I draw in my head while I’m in the car. I compose quilts while sitting in meetings. I color them in while I’m grading papers. I get ideas while I’m teaching (I got one the other day and yelled it out, and my students were amused. I don’t remember what it was now. I hope I put it in my phone. I usually do.).

OK. With that, I need to go earn a living.