Priorities

I have problems with a society where such large numbers of our minority teenagers struggle to graduate from high school, and then get denied their diploma ceremony because people in the audience cheer at the students' success.

As a former high school teacher, I know the value of supportive families - that principal should seriously think twice about his/her stand on this issue.

* * *

My husband and I are getting involved in the SCA again, as you may have noticed, and I find that I am spending a lot of time working on projects around it. We have a disaster of a house and a serious need to either move or renovate (pop up our second floor into a full second storey). I would also like to actually contribute to society in some meaningful way.

We ARE working on the mess, and we ARE packing up, throwing out or recylcing miscellaneous stuff that we won't be needing again for a while. I AM teaching folks to understand where the products they use came from, and hopefully that is making them have a greater appreciation of how folks in less materialistic cultures live and get by. And, if culture really goes to heck, maybe I'm giving folks some skills and understanding that will tide them over; my own little contribution to making the new Dark Ages a little shorter (or at least brighter) for some.

Which is all nice and all, but people are still starving, being bombed, raped, burned out, and generally suffering. It makes me feel pretty silly to be getting all dressed up in garb based on archaeological finds and going off (guzzling gas along the way - carseats do a number on one's ability to carpool) to play at a santized version of the life so many still lead every day.

I know there are numerous ways artists raise money and awareness about these issues, but how do others, well, *justify* - to themselves - making art when others are making war? I know that my way of psychologically dealing with 9/11 was to go out the next day and buy a guitar; I needed joy and self-expression in so much sadness and insanity.

Is it ok to create/play to get by and stay healthy enough to THEN go do something important? I ask this rhetorically, since I know that we each need our own ways to recharge, express ourselves (and our frustration) and generally stay mentally healthy enough for the other parts of our lives.

I guess I am missing my teaching high school, and not being in a place yet where I can get started on my MSW. Raising my girls is obviously worthwhile, and very rewarding. Giving them the best life, and clearest understanding possible, is a responsibility I take on gladly.

I still feel funny caring about the varied reconstructions of Viking Age apron-dresses...

Busy, busy, busy

We took the girls camping for the first time this last weekend, and they loved it! We were all at an SCA event, and I spent the whole weekend before making them baby-size medieval garb and reworking my handout for my tapestry class.

This week, I've been flat out preparing the handout for new class I'm teaching this weekend (but I'm leaving Kevin and the girls home for this one) on pre-1300 weave structures. Oi. Author permissions, weaving drafts galore, and many structures worked up on cheapo looms to show folks.

I can't wait for Sunday, and the chance to VEG!

BTW - my bathroom got spotless on my quest to get out of CHAOS, but my current sewing/teaching/camping frenzy has everything pulled out of everywhere. Maybe not so much vegging next week after all...

C.H.A.O.S.

That is FlyLady's acronym for "can't have anyone over syndrome," and BOY-O do I have it. I'm having sort of a psychological kafluey right now (did YOU know that Seasonal Affective Disorder does wacky stuff to you in the summer too? Crazy, racing thoughts, energy to burn, but somehow never productively, and irritability/weepiness like crazy, in my case. Fun, eh?), and the house is just making me INSANE.

I have SO fallen off the Partners in Clean wagon that it just ain't funny. I actually just sat here and read all of FlyLady's wisdom, and, while I really like some of her ideas, others just won't stick to me (her FLY paper ain't that good), so I'm not going to set myself up for failure by trying to fit myself and mylife into her mold (moisturizer every day? Polishing? Great if that is your life, but it is NOT mine.)

I AM taking her up on somethings though, and crafting them to fit my own style, so I am more likely to work them out. I don't do my surface a day/15 minutes a day because I haven't set myself any systems or routines for actually doing them. Heck, I often don't even manage to pump breast milk until lunchtime, and my little kaflooeys don't help any.

Biggest thing I am noticing though? I don't have a waste basket by my desk. Time to comandeer one...

Also, I can do my 15 minutes (more time delinated than my one surface rule) during morning Sesame Street time, when my girls are fed, clean and not likely to be fighting over anything (don't get me started on the wonders of twins....) Then, if I am *reallly* organized, I can pump during Mr Rogers. (Yes, I am still pumping. Yes, they are almost 13 months old. Yes, they eat 'real' food too. They have had a total of three sniffles between them in their entire lives to date. 'Nuff said.)

One thing that I am being very organized about is getting ready for our first SCA camping event as a four-some. This weekend (K is off!) is our TRY IT OUT weekend - get the back 'lawn' under control enough to pitch our tent on it, and try sleeping out there with the girls, just to get all of us used to it, and our bedtime routines (one place where I actually have some!) down, so, hopefully, we will actually get to camp for all three nights over Memorial Day weekend. I also have to sew (K does the laundry) and pack about a billion little outfits for the girls (K and I have some, obviously) between now and then, and get ready for the classes I am teaching (one on tapestry weaving - don't ask about the mini-warp weighted loom I made this week when I have so much else to do - one on my new A&S challenge, and one on pregancy, nursing, and baby garb).

Good thing I have energy to burn. Now if only I can learn to channel it!

NOT on my butt

Lest you think I am slacking, gentle reader, I can assure you that I am NOT. I've just gone back in time...

I took the girls to their first SCA (medieval reenactment) event the other day, and had to make them both shifts and tunics last week. (They loved it, btw.) I taught a scribal arts (calligraphy and illumination) roundtable while there, and have been doing more of this kind myself lately.

Here's Dana in her new little shift and tunic, all done up with armpit gores and embroidered reverse facing at the neck. Ain't she sweet? :)

I have also given myself a big, new, SCA style challenge (50 new projects + 50 new pieces of medieval clothing/garb + teaching 50 classes, all in the next eight years as we gear up for the SCA turning 50 in 2015) and started a blog to record that process. Anyone interested can check it out here.

I AM still working on Swoops too, but embroidering tunics took precedence last week.... Cute kids will be my undoing!

Anyone remember this piece? This is Swoops, aka The Magic Schoolbus. It has been languishing on my design wall (in its intended vertical orientation) since the summer of 2005. Pa The Tic.

Anyway, I have, with the help of Eric Maisel, art coach, come to a major conclusion: Not finishing my crap is *2* strikes against it. If I just finish the ratzenfratzen stuff, I might find that not everyone thinks it is the crap that I think it is. Better yet? Even if it turns out that my stuff really IS headed for tertiary treatment at the local sewage plant, at least it will be DONE AND OFF MY WALL. That, all by itself, would be a huge blessing.

Therefore, my art project of the week: I actually took Swoops down and worked on it, and PLAN to have it FINISHED (or at least ready for backing) by Wednesday noontime (so I can show it to someone that afternoon). My daughter, Dana, happened to be in the studio with me when swoops came off the design wall, and, much to my chagrin, she almost died of shock; I don't think she knew that things weren't up there permanently and COULD come down. This piece hasn't budged since before she was conceived, and here we just bought her first pair of Big Girl shoes for her playdate at the park today. Sigh.

No need to beat myself up for what I haven't gotten done before now though - I have learned those lessons, and punishing myself for not having learned them sooner is pointless. I am NOW working on getting this piece finished, and that feels great.

BTW - I opened Picassa to gather together my photos of finished work for my gallery page. It (depressingly) didn't take long. Some of the pictures are lousy, some pieces I just don't have pictures of, and, well, I just haven't finished that much work, obviously. So - I need to take some new pictures, juggle computers for lack of a connecting cable, and then I'll get back to you.

One year later

My girls just turned one year old. What a year! They are such big girls now; not really babies anymore. Waah! I am so proud of them though - Dana has become outright generous (even giving her favorite lovey to her sister when Rowyn was sad), and Rowyn has taken to talking on a pretend phone whenever I talk on the real one. Guess I spend too much time on the phone, eh? Sigh... Time to get them into the studio with me so they can see what I REALLY spend my time doing when I am not in the superyard with them!

Check back to this post later, to give me time to unpack the camera and post pics of our birthday trip to the New England Aquarium!

Body of Work

Funny that this title includes the word 'work,' eh? No one calls it their body of play.

Anyway - I *am* actually working on a gallery site for my work. I'm not sure what I will PUT there yet (lol), but folks *will* actually get to see my work.