17 Towels Stuffed in a Hamper

It’s official. I’m living all by myself for the first time in 26 years. You know how I know? I had popcorn for dinner. Ok, now just to clarify, I got home from Boston at like 10:30 at night San Diego time, which was really 1:30 AM Boston time, and I ate “dinner” at Logan Airport before I left but that was at 3:30 PM Boston time and then a fruit and cheese plate on the plane at 7:15 PM Boston time, and then I got home and I was hungry but because my body has no clue what time zone it’s in or when I should eat. Plus I kept forgetting to eat in Boston. So there’s that. This morning, I am eating breakfast like a good girl and I have prepared a lunch of whatever was left in the fridge that had not grown mold or gone bad in some other stomach-twisting way. So yeah. That’s cheese, crackers, and kiwi. It’s a fruit and cheese plate!

The cats missed me. Maybe the dog did. The ex and I are still sharing custody of her. Yeah. Whatever. I’m home more during the week and they would miss each other if they didn’t hang out. So she lives here and goes to Daddy on weekends. You can be sure I will inherit all vet appointments, but he will clean her ears out and bathe her and take her for walks. It’s on my list to take her for walks.

I managed to keep it together when I said goodbye to the girlchild. It was OK. I had already cried all over eastern Boston area, from Home Depot to Target, to Bed Bath and Holy Hell What Don’t They Sell Here (one BBB had a mini Cost Plus inside it?!). She hugged hard and I held onto the tears until I got about 2 minutes down the road. It’s really unsafe to drive while crying by the way, but I’ve perfected it over the years. I cry more in the car than anywhere else.

Certainly the whole thing makes you re-evaluate your entire life. I really don’t need that much pressure right now, though, because it’s the 4th day of school and I’m only semi-prepared for the week.

I do have college dorm pictures. Oh so exciting, right? When you look around at your own personal space and realize how far away from that you are, then yes…yes it is. Girlchild is in a triple…should be interesting. So those will have to come later, when I have time to deal with them.

By the way, I have no idea what’s going on with the first picture on the last post. I’ll have to try to fix that later too. They both came from the phone camera app in exactly the same way…no idea why WordPress had an issue. I did draw on the plane both ways and in the room on the last night there. I wasn’t thinking too hard about drawing…just wanted to get pen on paper. I don’t think I’d drawn all summer, except finishing up the cats (what cats? I haven’t done any cats. Shhh. Maybe no one will notice that they are still piles of Wonder Under that have been cut out.) and the drawing for the big quilt I’m ironing now. So it was kind of a relief to fill up a few pages. Very meditative. In fact, my meditation app prompted me in the middle of the plane flight, and I thought, this is the perfect place to meditate, but then I drew instead. Ah, priorities.

So mom, you’ll have to wait another day (or so) to see dorm pictures (yes, she’s stalking me, but for a reason), but here’s what I drew on the plane…

In keeping with the Mother Earth where the plants are covering her. I like it. I could make this into a smaller quilt. In my spare time.

Speaking of quilts, Mammogram got into the Interpretations: Celebrating 30 Years exhibit that will be at the Visions Art Museum opening in October.

They have been good to me. No censorship there (that I’ve seen). Impressive. I should be at the opening; stop by and see my giant boob.

Really, it’s hard to miss the kids. I just found 17 towels stuffed in the bathroom hamper and a bunch of the girlchild’s socks. I wonder if she wants them.

Where Am I?

Well. I am in a Starbucks in Temecula waiting for the third game in National Cup, which doesn’t even matter, because they lost the last two, so we’re out, meaning freedom for next weekend, but I’m still trapped out here in tract-home central, super dry air, smells weird (that was Pechanga, the casino)…so I persuaded my ex to drop me, my computer, my book, my sketchbook, my gradebook, and my sewing all in a Starbucks parking lot, and I’ve been charging my electricity and brain (had a whopping 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night…my own fault, of course, trying to have a life AND be a mom and all that sheeit). Caffeine. Thank you. More. Please.

Art? Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. I have two small sketchbooks with me (apparently one is not enough). I have pens. I could draw.

I have been stitching on the field and in the car…

More birds, embroidery now. These are July’s blocks (from 2013…do not judge me). They are sitting on my work computer, which I brought with me, so I could finish grading replication stories before I died. I did mostly finish, except for randomly damaged files and kids who thought they submitted the files but didn’t actually ATTACH them. Sigh. But that’s done. Although there is another assignment on there that I have to grade that will be much easier…but I haven’t started it. UGH. I have about 30 more minutes before my ex will APPARENTLY pick me up. I think I am his amulet against the girlchild on the trip back, so he probably will pick me up…plus I have custody tonight, so it’s in his best interest to NOT leave me in Temecula, because it will take me a long time to walk the 64.2 miles or so home. Wow, you so can’t be vague about mileage any more. Too many apps in our world for that.

The music in here is kinda driving me nuts. That and the sound of that machine that makes coffee things. I don’t buy anything but tea, so I don’t know what any of that fancy machinery does, nor do I care. It’s a multibillion dollar industry that I don’t fucking care about except that it is currently giving me wifi and electricity for the cost of a cup of tea. I even gots free milk! And a relatively clean bathroom. Probably cleaner than mine is at the moment, scarily enough.

So yeah, lots of grading in the last few days…

Laptop in front of computer playing Netflix (Friday night)…because you can never have too many electronic inputs at once. I had my phone out there too. But just to keep track of texts. And Clash of Clans. Because that’s important. (No, it’s not. I do know that.)

Last night, I went to the opening of the new exhibit 3° of Abstraction at Visions Art Museum, featuring Shelley Brenner Baird, Karen Rips, and Pat Kroth, all with very different takes on fiber abstraction. I had a great time talking to Shelley and Karen, who have been in other exhibits with me. Their work is so different from each other’s AND from mine, but I love looking at the texture in Rips’ work and the simplicity, but the incredible depth of color in the discharged areas. And Brenner Baird’s work is so free-looking, with dye drips and serendipitous color all over the place, but with a real sense of peace at times.

The back gallery has Dual Perspectives, featuring Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby C. Smith, a husband and wife artistic team who work very differently, some abstracted and some not. Lura’s work includes drawings, photographs, and abstracted areas. Kerby’s are printed from iPhone 5S photographs onto canvas and then stitched in smaller squares and tied together. Kerby doesn’t seem to have his own website, but the couple has a site about digital printing, which they both use in their process. A small area of the gallery has work by Rosemary Hoffenberg, titled Active Configurations, definitely in the abstract category.

The three exhibitions have a wide variety of abstract treatments, which although I am completely incapable of MAKING that type of work, I do appreciate looking at it when it’s made well.

So my ride should be here soon, and hopefully I will get some chance to do something artistic tonight, despite the fact that I’m not ready for school (minor issue) and we won’t get home until dinner time, and no one has done laundry or gone grocery shopping for the week (somewhat less minor issue). Whatever. At least I won’t be in Temecula any more. No offense to those who live here. You probably have more comfortable chairs than this Starbucks does. And people aren’t always staring over your shoulder, yes YOU, stop fucking reading what I’m writing, you FREAK.

OK. I’m done now.

Expressions in Equality Exhibit

So the Expressions in Equality exhibit opened Saturday night, and it has some amazing art in it…Hollis Chatelain’s Girls Are Strong being one of them…

Visions Art Museum does a nice job of allowing the artists to preview the show and take pictures, so here are Pam RuBert and Susan Shie’s pieces…

RuBert’s wonderfully colorful Green Lady Liberty, spaceships and all…

And Shie’s ER: Page of Potholders (Coins) in the Kitchen Tarot…

which I did not have the presence of mind to read, so I will have to go back (I don’t deal well with openings).

Compared to the last exhibit at VAM, this was much less abstract, although Freedom of Speech by Susan Wessels is an abstract piece I like, with Deborah Grayson’s Breaths to the right of it.

Pauline Karasch Salzman’s Lessons Learned is another one to come back and read, with Ife Felix’s Reverend Dr. King’s Dream Unrealized to the right.

Jerry Granata’s With Liberty and Justice for All definitely caught my eye…

And Shin-Hee Chin’s Equality: Expanding Circle of Liberty shows the continuing expansion of her techniques…

I wish I had gone back and taken more photos here…from left to right is Dawn Williams Boyd’s graphic Sisters in the Eyes of Men, Sandra Lauterbach’s Story of the Wall, Chin’s piece, Judy Zoelzer Levine’s Together on the Field of Play, Alice Beasley’s No Vote No Voice, and returning to Chatelaine’s piece.

In the back, they hung my Work in Progress with Randall Cook’s piece…

Here is Cook’s “Gay” Marriage…

Laura Gadson’s B-R-O-A-D-E-N-I-N-G Beautiful, an amazing piece made mostly of words and the eye staring back at you.

The curator, Sheila Frampton Cooper’s piece, Marie Magdelaine de la Saint Baume…

The quilting on that piece…I should have taken details!

Mary Pal’s The Other 1% hung next to Patricia Kennedy-Zafred’s Tagged, with actual tags hanging from it.

Blake Chamberlain’s Harriet Tubman was fascinating to look at up close…

And here’s me with my piece, finished! Hallelujah…

The back room has the amazing Margaret Fabrizio’s work…

Margaret is every bit as amazing and colorful as her work…

She traveled to India to learn how to make these. I love talking to her; she is interesting and funny and always has an opinion on the topic at hand. Plus she has great clothes.

I did not take photos of every quilt, unfortunately (distracted by people), but this is a strong show, well worth visiting for, although I would have liked shorter statements about each quilt hanging with them and in the gallery guide, which should be available this week. I missed Sherry Davis Kleinman and Marion Coleman’s pieces (there were always people standing in front of them). They did have us write longer statements for the docents; presumably if you were in the gallery, someone could produce a book of those for you to read. There is a hope that this show will travel, but perhaps you will have to travel to it…it’s at VAM through April 4.

Gender Equality

Saturday is the opening of the Expressions in Equality exhibit at Visions Art Museum. Sheila Frampton-Cooper is the curator. This is a short version of her curatorial statement…

What drives people to undermine whole populations that they deem different and therefore unacceptable? From racial, gender and sexual inequality to ageism and classism, progress has been made, yet discrimination still abounds. This show begs the questions: What are the issues we’re challenged with, and what would a perfect society look like that’s sustained by pure, unconditional love?

Sheila came to me in Fall of 2013 and asked if I could participate in this exhibit. We talked about how my obvious take would be gender equality, though with teaching a variety of students and life in general, I could certainly do a host of other equality issues. It was gender equality that spoke to me, though. There’s that whole Nature v Nuture thing about male and female that both intrigues and irritates the crap out of me. Don’t assume because I’m female that I can’t do things. Don’t assume that I’m supposed to do things. Obviously, there are things that only a woman can do, like give birth. Imagine being a woman raised knowing that and then not being able to actually have a child.

But what the hell does gender equality mean? There are things that it is physically impossible for a man to do, such as give birth, so that falls squarely in the female arena. Certainly we haven’t figured out how a man can nurse a baby either, although if you’re pro-bottle (my kids never were), there are options to involve both genders in that process. Biologically, men do tend to be larger and stronger, but that is not always the case. We can certainly go back to the caveman stereotype (because stereotypes are so useful) and say Man Hunter, Woman Gatherer, but I have some female friends who would kick ass on the Hunter part and some male friends who would fall woefully short. And all that is OK. Society does throw a wide variety of gender roles and expectations at us that don’t seem at all related to DNA. I know when I was first married, although my husband had gladly cooked for me prior to marriage (sort of a way of attracting the female, right?), after the actual wedding, he made an assumption that the cooking portion of our relationship was my problem. I fought that and won (well, and I’m divorced now, so take that as you will, but he cooks now). I probably continue some of those stereotypes by being a teacher (but I teach science) and a quilter (but my quilts are art). And do I nurture more as a mom because I’m female? Because society expects it of me? Because my DNA tells me to? Or because that’s just the person I am? Hard to say.

When you toss in issues of homosexuality and transgender existences, the whole story turns into a muddle. It’s hard for me to look at how society works now and think that we will ever be capable of gender equality…and it’s not that everything needs to be equal, because it can’t. But certainly in a specific relationship, there should be this idea of people choosing activities and responsibilities based on their inherent passions and abilities, whether they carry a uterus or a penis.

So all those things were in my head all year as the piece grew in my head. Here’s a detail.

I tagged certain parts of the bodies with male and female symbols. I can’t post the whole thing until after the opening Saturday night, but here is my artist’s statement for the piece:

This concept of gender equality, there are some days when it seems like a dream, like something I woke up with in my head, foggy-edged, but possible. Then I go out into the real world and the expectations others have of me because I am female, daughter, mother, sister, wife, girlfriend…it clashes so incredibly with that dream I see in my head, where there are no assumptions of who or what I will be, or what my son or daughter will be…that there isn’t anything I HAVE to do because I was born with two X chromosomes and you were born with one. There is no government entity or group who is limiting me because of the uterus I have inside me and my ability to give birth, which somehow makes me less of a person to some. Even when people say they don’t believe in those divisions, there ARE some things that only one gender can do (give birth), at least for now, and when your child is small and the comfort they get is from the one who provides food, you wonder how many of these gender differences are nature and how many are nurture. Whatever the answer, and I don’t think we have it now, I would hope that a new relationship would start from a place of relative equality and then move from there. I call it a work in progress because I don’t believe we are doing it particularly well now, even myself, and it can only get better. If I keep the dream in the front of my mind and refer to it as I interact, as I do, as I live, as I love, then perhaps I will get closer to what feels like equality…teamwork…standing together to get where we need to go.

So yeah. The piece is called Work in Progress. When Sheila first asked me to participate, I had a hard time coming up with any hope that this was possible, that gender equality would ever be attainable. Society seems to flip flop on women’s rights and equality, and the current mood is certainly not pro-equality. When 20-year-old women tell me they’re not feminists, because they don’t know why they SHOULD be, I wonder how we will ever enact significant change. When 40-year-old men tell me I’m imagining the conspiracy against my uterine rights, I wonder how we can make it more equal when we can’t even acknowledge there’s an issue.

But maybe that’s it. Maybe we don’t do it as a whole society. Maybe we do it one relationship at a time. Hope to see you Saturday night at the opening, 5-7.

Quilt Visions 2014: The Sky’s the Limit

So I went to the Quilt Visions opening a few weeks back and this is what I thought: Wow. This is ABSTRACT. In fact, if you didn’t have squares or abstraction in your piece, you probably weren’t in this show. I can think of about 3 pieces that weren’t abstract, and two of them were abstracted. And another two were so close to the subject, that they read as generally abstract. It reminded me of the Visions of old, back up at the Oceanside Museum of Art, where I’d walk through and say, well, I don’t do squares and I don’t do abstract, so I will never get in.

Now in reality, it’s different jurors every year, so that does have an effect on the show. The three jurors are Patty Hawkins, Sue Benner, and Bruce Hoffman, two art quilters and one director/curator. The jurors stated that they wished for the exhibit to show that art quilting is fine art, and it shows a universality of artistic expression. They were directed to “assess the entries in the broader contemporary art context.” Benner admitted that “as a panel we tended towards abstraction.” I’m glad they admitted that. Hawkins claims they were “seeking outstanding artistry within the broad range of voices.” Hoffman mentions that “all art should be judged with the highest of criteria and should be true to great design, understanding of color relationship, secure in strong draftsmanship and the nuances of fine craftsmanship.”

I am glad that they said nothing about the show being innovative or the cutting edge of the art quilt world, because those things would be untrue. Let me be clear, there is some beautiful work in this show. There is some amazing work in this show. There are also pieces that are derivative and that I can walk right past without feeling a need to explore. Yes, that’s always the case, but I would hope it would be less so in one of the bigger art quilt shows. Much as I love having the Visions Art Museum in my town, it’s small…I wish it were a bigger space and that the Quilt Visions exhibit could also be bigger. Then again, I wish a lot of things that haven’t happened yet. And the theme? I saw a few quilts that hit the theme, but I don’t know that the theme is the point.

I would suggest you get a copy of the catalog if art quilting is your thang…you don’t have to MAKE them. You can just like looking at them. Here’s some that I thought were intriguing.

Melody Randol’s piece Still Waters is quietly beautiful. OK, maybe not so quietly with all those marks, but a stunning piece, really deep with wonderful mark-making. What’s interesting in looking at her website is that she has a lot of beautiful landscapes on there, but none that look like this piece.

Rachel Brumer’s 88 Constellations is another intriguing abstract, with marks and stitching representing an “abstracted vision of a turbulent sky,” interesting because it is mostly white. This doesn’t look like much in print, but is wonderful in person.

Diane Siebels‘ Head 3 was a piece I really loved. A flashback to crazy quilts, but without all the pieces, the stitching is full of movement and color. I have to say, this piece doesn’t fit into the show, but I’m glad it’s there (and to be honest, I wish there were more pieces that didn’t FIT into this show…it would be more interesting). Siebels has some interesting tree constructions on her website as well. I will tell you that I couldn’t see the heads on there on Chrome; I had to switch to Firefox. YMMV.

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner’s Red and White Quilt with Racist Embroidery is more interesting because of the thought behind it than the actual construction. Rozycki Hiltner added rescued racist embroideries from old textiles to a rescued red and white quilt, bringing up all those stereotypes of African Americans in our past, definitely a conversation piece. She has some very interesting and political (and some just amusing) pieces on her website, all echoing or appropriating the embroideries of the past, those dish towels and potholders and tablecloths.

Jean Herman’s Katherine a la Picasso caught my eye because it was one of the few figurative pieces in the show, yet highly abstracted. I’m still not sure I like it, but if I stand and stare at a piece for a long time, I would call it successful. The black line unifies it greatly.

Helen Geglio’s The Lost Art of Mending 3: Constellation is a quirky little piece that needs to be stared at. It has the look of the top of someone’s bed, but it’s the mending marks and hand-stitching that makes this an interesting piece. This is an abstract I can get behind. I would love to see more of her work, but she seems to not have a website.

Emily Richardson’s piece Swiftly is a subtle piece, but so beautiful, with the depth of the silk and the color shifts across the piece, plus the hand-stitching. Richardson doesn’t seem to have her own website, but here is one gallery that represents her.

Vicki Carlson’s Points in Time is another piece where the hand-stitching has made it interesting. The color movement in the repeated circular shapes where they overlap creates a lot of interest. I do think this one also reads better in person.

There were other pieces that were executed well or looked nice, but they just reminded me of other pieces I’d seen about a million times. And there were some, like Shin-hee Chin’s piece Ryu, Gwan-Sun where I was intrigued by how the piece stays together…it’s interesting to look at in terms of construction, and I do love how she is experimenting with making faces in different ways.

And then there were a few that I thought, why is this in here? This is not what I would consider fine art, to quote the jurors. And yet, I know that looking at a million pictures of things that look better in real life and trying to make decisions for a coherent show must be difficult. I also wish that if the jurors were only going to focus on abstracts that they admitted that beforehand, so the figurative people could decide if they wanted to make a donation to the museum, because that’s what it is when the jurors go that way. I guess they could have realized their tendencies after that fact, but it’s amusing to me that there’s never been a show that hasn’t been heavily abstract…and even if I were the juror, it is the way with art quilts that the entries would probably be mostly abstract…but can you imagine picking a Visions or Quilt National exhibit one year that is almost all figurative work? That might be interesting…in a whole ‘nother way. Hey, I think I suggested a show like that to SAQA, and they told me I needed to find a gallery that would do that (ahem. hello.).

Anyway, the show’s worth seeing. Most of the bigger-name shows are…even if it’s just for the 3 or 4 that rock your socks off. Seeing fiber art in person is always better than on a screen or a printed page. You’ll see a lot of abstracts, things that you feel like you’ve seen before. There was a lot of hand stitching this year. The food at the opening was great and so were the people. I love meeting artists. Someone told me this was “the best Visions show they’d ever seen.” Um. Not for me. I’ve seen more exciting and interesting shows…I’m thinking of I think it was the last one at the Oceanside Museum of Art, with the huge pieces they could hang there. It had a wide variety of work from abstracts to calm landscapes to bright and vibrating florals. It rocked my world. This one? Eh. Go for the few pieces that make you happy.

Hopefully

I’m having a hard time focusing this morning. I know I have this huge to-do list that encompasses the house, the yard, school stuff, sending boychild to college stuff, and art stuff. It’s a stuff tsunami swirling around in my head. So I just sat here staring at the computer for a while, because I did a lot of stuff yesterday, but some of it was just soul-fixing stuff that needed to happen and some of it was family stuff that needed to happen (girlchild turned 17 yesterday), and my head was still whirling around last night, even though I did finally get to that magical place…I finished quilting that damn beast of a quilt…

Aug 9 14 042 small

It took 18 hours and 36 minutes. I had estimated 20 hours, so that wasn’t a bad estimate. The quilting became a pain in the butt on Friday, which is partially why I didn’t write Friday night (that and being totally exhausted from lack of sleep). The thread kept breaking over and over again and I was doing all the things you’re supposed to do (saying prayers to the Goddess of Thread, wafting burning sage throughout the house, dancing the Dance of the Strong Thread) and nothing was working. I finally gave up around midnight, because I knew I had to be up super early on Saturday morning to hike (yes! I hiked! I’ll post that later) and I was just getting frustrated.

I hiked in the morning on Saturday, and some time in the afternoon, after napping (because that’s what lack of sleep and a strenuous hike does to your body), I sat down to finish quilting…except I had to be somewhere later…

But the damn thread was still being cranky. Its’ so irritating to deal with thread sometimes. I mean, you’re already changing bobbins way too often because they’re not very big and don’t hold much thread, but then every time it breaks, you have to tie off and start over again, and it just wears on you. But at that point, I could see the end. I had gotten about 2/3 of the way around the outside edge. I was almost there.

And then I had to stop! It was OK. I went to the Visions Art Museum opening. They currently have Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry’s 30 Quilts for 30 Years, which yes, was at Houston, but is still nice to see again. That’s not why I went. I went because of Deidre Adams’ Tracings, six pieces that she made just for the exhibit, but also because I was hoping to meet her after only knowing her online via her blog and comments she made when I sent photos in for SAQA shows. So that was really nice, not only to see her work up close…this combines paper and her fabric technique of layering color and marks on the piece…but also to see her face to face. You should go read her blogposts about making these pieces if you go…interesting insights into how we sometimes have to work even if our brains aren’t ready for it (I don’t know ANYTHING about that state, right?). I also wanted to see Arline Fisch’s Hanging Garden of California, which was a treat with the artist standing in the middle dressed to match. I’m a bit annoyed that no photos are allowed at all…I can see the point when the pieces are in a book that you can buy, but I think a picture of the art with artist standing by is really cool, and we weren’t allowed to do that. I guess they might find it easier to have the same no-photo policy for all shows, but I think it would be good advertising to let people take photos at shows where publications aren’t available.

So after that, it was the girlchild’s birthday dinner, which was nice, good food and she seemed happy with her gifts (we are supporting her dream of a trip to Paris next summer…scary stuff to think of sending her off, but she’ll be 18 in a year and then off to college).

When I got home, it wasn’t that late, and yes, I was tired again, but the quilt told me that it only needed another hour or so. And it was right. And this time, it didn’t break thread a million times, so I stitched like the wind…

And finished 44 minutes later. Yes, I use an app to keep track of time. My brain isn’t capable.

It was early, so I thought about trying to trim it, but I think this one might be difficult to trim…it’s not particularly straight (my fault…being lazy, stubborn, stupid, I don’t know what) and I’m debating making it not a rectangle. So I thought it would be better to make that decision when I’m fully awake (whenever that might be, because I have half a cup of tea in me and it’s most definitely morning and I actually had almost 9 hours of sleep last night for the first time in like a month, and I am nowhere near fully awake). Soon. Get the rest of the tea in me, finish this post, clear the floor, lay it out, let the brain wander in to a decision.

Shut the negative crap up. Because that voice is going ballistic in there…it’s referencing past failures, berating me for not being more careful when I ironed this together (there’s only so much I can do about my own mental state), it’s listing all the things I need to get done and yelling at me for sleeping too long, for hiking because it took up valuable time, but then also for not going to the gym this morning. So make up your fucking mind…either you want me to exercise and be healthy or you don’t. Seriously. I have to weigh every decision. I went to bed early without meditating because I was exhausted. I would have fallen asleep in meditation, so I just skipped that step and went to bed. Somewhere in my head, I know it was the right decision, but that stupid judgy part of the brain is questioning every single thing I do, every thing I say, every thing that I’ve done in the last 10 years, maybe more.

Shut the fuck up. We all have those voices. They’re just damn annoying. So I need it to get further away before I lay this thing on the floor and decide the damage. The next step. Then I can work my way through the shit on the post-it note in front of my computer, where I tried to corral all the crap that needs to happen today. I can feel inspired by seeing the art last night and the successful hike and the girlchild’s existence and even the fact that my ex and son cleaned the kitchen yesterday before I got home (apparently the girlchild had left a larger disaster than usual, which is what I had been expecting to come home to, so that was a truly wonderful surprise). I want to be invited to do a solo show at Visions, dammit. Don’t know if that will ever happen. My work is a bit more in-your-face than the work of those to whom they usually offer such opportunities. That nasty part of my brain is now telling me to make pretty landscapes. It’s telling me I’ll never get a solo show anywhere. It’s reminding me of all the rejections I’ve gotten in the last 8 months and asking me why I made art at all. Sigh. Making pretty landscapes wouldn’t work either. I need an exorcism. That part of the brain needs to wander off and get hit by a train.

Anyway. Hopefully by tonight, I’ll have it trimmed and the binding machine-stitched on so I can do the handwork. Hopefully I’ll have a bunch of things crossed off this post-it. Hopefully that negative brain piece will have duct tape wrapped tightly around its mouth. I do spend a lot of time hoping.

Expressions in Equality Exhibit

Sheila Frampton-Cooper is curating an exhibit titled Expressions in Equality, to open at the Visions Art Museum in San Diego, California, January 17, 2015, in honor of Martin Luther King Day. The idea for the exhibit comes from Sheila’s statement below:

For those that know Sheila, it makes complete sense that this is the show she wanted to create, and I’m glad to be a part of it. Here are the participating artists she’s invited to make a piece specifically for this exhibit:

Alice Beasley

Carol Beck

Jenny Bowker

Dawn Williams Boyd

Blake Chamberlain

Hollis Chatelain

Shin-Hee Chin

Marion Coleman

Randall Cook

Ife Felix

Sheila Frampton-Cooper

Laura Gadson

Valerie Goodwin

Jerry Granata

Deborah Grayson

Sandra Hankins

Pam Holland

Sherry Davis Kleinman

Pauline Karasch Salzman

Patricia Kennedy-Zafred

Judy Levine

Kathy Nida

Mary Pal

Pam RuBert

Susan Shie

Susan Wessels

So this will be my summer project (or at least one of them), although what I show on the web will be limited, per instructions, so if you want to see the whole thing, you’ll have to either come to VAM in January/February next year, or apparently this show will be traveling for a year after that, so you may have another opportunity to see it. My plan is to start drawing over Spring Break. It is always nice to be asked to be part of an exhibit; with my subject matter, it is not often the case. I will be doing gender equality (no shocker to those who know me), and have been letting ideas percolate since I knew about this months ago…it should be good.

A Plethora of Shows

I keep forgetting to post about all the shows I’m in that have just opened or are about to open…I’m too busy writing blogposts for that group to post them on my own page (sad but true). In January, the California Fibers exhibit at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, California, opened. I have two pieces in that show, Earth Mother…

And Untied…

The exhibit runs through May 8. It’s only open Monday through Friday from 9-5. I haven’t even seen this exhibit, except in photos…it does have 66 pieces in it, so it’s a fairly large exhibit.

Then just opened this last weekend is the California Fibers show in Ojai, California, at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, a much smaller space. The juror for Soka liked our work so much that he invited us to put a second exhibit on in a space he works for at the same time. Here is in Ojai at the moment.

NidaHere

The Ojai exhibit runs through March 30 and will include an artists’ panel on the closing day. I don’t think I’ll be at that…it’s a long drive and girlchild’s back surgery is only about a week before that. I can’t really commit to anything right now.

Then opening this Saturday at the Visions Art Museum is Coast to Coast, a joint juried exhibit between California Fibers and a group back east, New Image Artists…my quilt Buried Under is in this exhibit…

I will be at this opening, Saturday from 5-7 PM. This exhibit runs through April 19.

Then I also have two quilts at the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, Texas, as part of the People and Portraits exhibit. Both I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket…

and Fully Medicated will be there through March 30.

I haven’t seen photos of this exhibit in situ yet…and I’m unlikely to make it to Texas in the next 6 weeks unfortunately…so will have to imagine what it looks like in a museum setting.

Anyway, if I seem a little off my head sometimes, more than usual, it might be because I’m trying to manage a lot of shipping of quilts and posting about shows for my groups, since I seemed to end up on publicity for both. It’s been a bit much the last month or so. But being in exhibits is a good thing, so you deal with the other stuff by telling yourself that. Some people say, well isn’t that why you make the art? So you can get it into exhibits? Actually, no. I make it because I have to…because I’d go truly crazy otherwise. The exhibits are just the thing you’re supposed to do when you’re an artist. Plus sometimes it actually makes me feel good to know my work’s out there.

So there we are.

Hard

Today’s blog post is brought to you by R.E.M.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijZRCIrTgQc

Every time I watch this video, listen to this song, it just kills me. Even if I’m in the best mood in the world, this song makes me cry. For some reason, I’m listening to R.E.M. today. Mood music. Maybe not the best choice…but it’s my choice.

Yeah, I know I’m getting better. It doesn’t feel better really, but I can feel shifting in something. Whatever that something is. That said, today was a throwback. I had an hour or so intermission in the evening with art and food and wine with a good friend, but it was sandwiched by Crying Act I And Crying Acts II and III. I don’t even know why. It’s not like I can pinpoint an event or a thought that warranted all those tears…they just happened.

The art was good, by the way…the new exhibit at Visions Art Museum is recent purchases by Del Thomas, a big collector in the art quilt world, and it is definitely worth seeing. There was a good variety of quilts, some truly beautiful works of art. It’s there through January 19. You can see some of the work on Del’s blog (link above in her name). I enjoyed seeing Charlotte Bird and Cathy Denton’s works about words that start with C as well. The intermission was appreciated.

Mr. Meditation tells me today to step away from the feeling as I identify with it. I step away from some pretty fucking overwhelming sadness and fall into the hole behind me of deep dark weeping. Nice. You could have warned me, man. Seriously. What am I aware of? Did you just ask me that? I’m aware of feeling like shit right now, Mr. Meditation. I’m sure there will be a positive outcome from the meditation in the long run, but today? Not so much. Today it is just sad.

I had goals today…I wanted to get grades done (it’s the end of the Trimester), so I would have the rest of the weekend free. I had to be up at 4:40 AM to take the girlchild somewhere, and when I got home, I went back to sleep. I was going to be all gung ho and go to the gym, but when I realized they weren’t even open, I was much more cavalier about the day. It’s not like I really had to BE anywhere. No one was waiting on me to be done with my stuff and be free. So I went back to sleep and Kitten tried to head butt me awake, but I put the pillow over my head, and then Calli (the dog) was whining, but I didn’t get up until she started farting…because that’s never a good sign.

It took me about 4 hours to get through all the grades, but I did it. Then I finally packed up the two quilts that are going to Poway…which should have been shipped already, but whatever…they’re not late yet.

Dehair, label on one of them, cut a dowel and put in eyescrews, pack it all up, print labels, tape it up. Shipped it before I went to the gym. Then home and showered (the cold-water faucet is stripped…makes showers very exciting at the moment…plumber can’t come until Monday)…and off to VAM. I cried all the way there. Don’t know why. Really don’t. It just happened. I got it under control about 4 times, the last time while walking across the street to go in to the museum. Good thing…I know a lot of people in there.

Babygirl witnessed the grading…

by sitting on the gradebook. It’s either there or she sits behind my neck on the chair, like an overly heavy scarf…with claws. That’s where she is now. It explains the crick in my neck.

When I got home from food and drink, which was a pleasant experience…it was nice…I ironed for a while. I really want this thing stitched down by the end of the weekend.

I don’t know if that’s really possible, but I can try. I don’t have anything else important to do, well, except shopping and lesson planning and dealing with plumbing and pet food and kids and helping the boychild with college apps and probably saving the world if I get around to it. Did I mention housecleaning? No I did not. Someone still owes me a year of housecleaning. This would be a good time to have that. In the above picture, I’m ironing the eye and the face separate from the rest of the body. I actually lost the eyelid. It’s a big piece. Usually I lose small pieces. Who knows where it disappeared to.

Once I had all the pieces ready, I ironed the head onto the body.

This piece is holding together pretty well as a single, large ironed piece, which means I keep having to move it around on the ironing sheets…they’re not big enough for the whole quilt. I finally pulled off the whole body so I could do the top part with the tree and the hair…

Here’s the already-ironed bits (from the back).

They look a bit different. And there it is with the body ironed to the hair and the tree…

With the body hanging off the edge of the ironing board. The roots that belong on the neck are sitting to the left, waiting to be ironed on.

All I have left is everything in the tree…which is about 130 pieces…not too bad, but not getting done tonight. Too tired. I’m almost 5 hours into the ironing. At least a couple of hours to go, if you count ironing down to the background.

It was after the ironing that I hit Crying Part III. That was meditation’s fault. Sigh. Obviously there’s a reason for all of it…I’m just not allowed to know what it is right now, except if you watch this TED video…

TED Talk Ash Beckham

There is no competition for who has it harder. There is just HARD. Coming out of any closet. I guess I’m out of the depression/grief closet. Sort of…because I do close the door again sometimes when I can’t deal any more, keep hiding in the closet. It’s easier to be on here and write about it than to talk about it in person. It’s easier to draw how I feel than to talk about it. I don’t know what that means in the long run, whether it will take me longer to get through the grief than it would someone who shares more than I do in person. I can’t really do anything but what I am doing, though, so it will take as long as it takes…and while it’s taking its time, it will be hard.

Tag: Visions Art Museum

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