please excuse the silence

a little overwhelmed here at casa lisa. 2 classes, a 2 year old, and oh yeah - my show in italy.... that has to be packed and ready to go in weeks [yikes. my heart pounds as i type that]... i am really really enjoying my classes, but i forget how much time it takes to grade and how tired i get at the end of a teaching day. it's a different kind of tired than other types of work creates. sometimes i feel like my head is just spinning - spinning from trying to relate to the students, from thinking non-stop about what sort of information they should have - and how to dole it out - each one needs a different approach - say one thing to one and the doors bust down - say the same thing to their neighbor and their drawings will stiffen up and they'll be set back for weeks. it's this dance. and i love that it makes me think. and it's SO exciting to see their wheels turning and watch their drawings improve, but after driving through crappy traffic all i want to do is [really want to do] is get in a bath and watch a movie - and that just isn't possible.

yes - play your tiny violin for me now. i'm not complaining. i'm really not. i'm damn lucky in every possible way. and thank you chickens for hatching. but i'd be lying if i didn't say that i sometimes wish for an itty bitty tiny amount of down time....

above is our little bird friend. he [and his twins] come and eat peanut butter and bird seed from a feeder my parents gave us every day. we now have to replenish the feeder every couple of days. the little helps. she stands on a chair next to me and gets to eat spoonfuls of peanut butter while i replenish. [i ignore the fact that she also munches on bird seed. eew. and whatever. not fighting that battle]



hubby supplied me AND the little with flowers on valentines. aaaawwwwweee. it was sweet. he made us valentines too. the little kept asking "what's that say", "what's that say" trying to figure out which was HERS and which was mine.... then came "VA-len-tine" over and over and over....



wenders also sent the cutest bunting flags ever. don't you want to make them for every holiday in every color? i do. i really do. [have i said lately that i miss crafting? - i miss crafting].

Source: purlbee.com via Lisa on Pinterest

speaking of crafting.... found these on the purl bee . i have meant to figure out how to crochet a pair of fingerless arm warmer things for like EVER... and now i don't have to count and figure it out - because the numbers are all there - pattern supplied. thank you molly and your sketchbook . i want to make plain ones, striped ones, two tone ones... yeah. when i find that crafting time. [where did i put it? under the bed? at the bottom of my purse w/ all the smushed crackers? it's somewhere. i swear].

and oh ! i did another post on poppytalk - this time on louise bourgeois . [could my job be finding art for people. seriously. anyone want to start an art collection? have a million dollars you want to invest?].

so... you'll have to forgive me if i'm not around here - or internet land in general - very much the next few weeks. i might have to just put my head down and plow ahead to make sure everything gets done as it's supposed to. it doesn't help that i just finally had a brilliant idea that i'm super excited about for the show. thankfully i don't have to pack it up and send it - i can take it with me on the plane [which means i have a few more weeks to make it, but that isn't a heck of a lot of time to execute it. i'm not 22 anymore. i don't like working until the VERY LAST MINUTE [that leaves very little room for error. which makes me so nervous].

anyway - that's my exit cue.
see you all soon. [i hope].

layering

i fear that from now on my posts are simply going to be lists of things that have been knocking around my head since my last post. perhaps long gone are the days of unified posts on single subjects.

and so it goes....

a-- [see above] i'm trying to figure out a new way to overlap the stitching in my work. it feels like it's the next step in a natural progression, but it also feels strange. sometimes i want to go back to the way i know and used to do things. sometimes i think it's only artists that can get so obsessed with these sort of very minute milestones.

b-- i posted part two in my make believe collection on poppytalk . this time on the work of jen starkweather .



c-- i'm a bit obsessed with this ring i have. i can't honestly remember where it came from. but i keep wearing it over and over. and i want to make my own. i found this tutorial on how to do it. now i just need the TIME. curse you time. i also want to make a stuffed toy out of an old pair of the little's pj's. but that isn't going to happen either.



d-- i can't make any softies for fun b/c we were busy stuffing and closing the above stuffies for MODify/d . i think they look funny in a box together. what color would you choose?



e-- our weather is in a complete freak out. it was like summer on sunday. and today it is bright and sunny and windy cold. the plum trees everywhere are blooming like mad. it's beautiful. but the timing is so off. they shouldn't be flowering for a few more weeks... [not that i'm really complaining, just confused]

f-- i'm such a dork. while teaching i told my students that blind contour is like vegetables in art. they are good for you.... i've also said other completely silly things lately in class. am i turning into that totally ridiculous cliche of an eccentric art teacher? sigh. on a more serious note: i'm always surprised at how strongly students grab onto "rules" and wanting to do things "right". in my experience it is the drawings that don't look "right" that are the best. i love being able to see how they improve over the span of 3 hours.



g-- 3 bodies of work- targets, pigmentary portraits, domestic scenes - oh! and a few vinyl doilies on windows for good measure are on view at the clayman institute for gender research [how much do i like that?!?] on the stanford campus. there's a very sweet article on the show in their paper . i love shows on campuses because the academic nature and inquisitiveness of everyone involved is just so refreshing. i know we can live in a bubble where we can over analyze and theorize, but it's nice to have small ideas appreciated...

h-- the little is frantically trying to string multiple sentences together. sometimes they end up making very little sense, but it's so cute to see her trying so hard [and anytime she sees two adults talking she asks: what's xxx and yyy talking about?]. the other night she asked: where dada go tomorrow? i said: to work. dada said: yeah. work. who wants to go to work? poor dada. i said: poor dada. this morning she said: where'd dada go? i said: to work. she said: poor dada! [i'm keeping track daily of some little snippets she says - it's amazing to watch her process how language works. it really is]