Mosquito

G is in Orlando and I am on dog duty. Riley woke me at 7 am this morning with flappy-ing ears. I dressed and we went outside to do "morning business" along with about a million or so hungry mosquitoes. I mean, literally, about a million. Clouds of them.

It started to rain yesterday at about 6 pm and rained all night. When Riley and I walked at 11:30 last night (just around the garden) there was a misty, foggy rain falling and the bugs were so excited to have some "blood". Well, this morning they are hungry for BLOOD. They are all over both of us. Ugh! G has this stuff he buys and sprays around the house with the an attachment to the garden hose. Wish I knew how and what to do because the stuff really cuts down on the bugs. The sun also cuts down on bugs, but we won't be seeing the sun until Saturday.

Art Club is trying to participate in some kind of local venue art evening (slides of 2 pieces of work plus a 2 minute verbal by each artist) and I am getting repeat invites to "participate". Which has lead to me having to admit to everyone that I don't do "participate" very well or at all. Art Club members are all working on a small 3D collage assemblage for a coffee house show in September. Guess who isn't. I mean, I will make a collage, but the chances of it going into a show are very slim.

I am usually surprised that I post the bimonthly Friends of Twelve by Twelve piece. I missed the June first reveal (identity) and am not even working on the reveal for August first (passion). The wheels on this project have stopped rolling for me and once stopped, it is difficult to get the wheels in motion again.

I tried explaining that just thinking about a project and working on it (and sometimes almost finishing it) are enough for me. There are fabric artists who submit queries to a host of magazines in hopes of being published. And burn CD's and fill out applications and write artist statements to enter quilt shows and competitions. And pack and ship the quilts. Not me. I did it once. It was a rush to have been juried into a show, pack and ship. But not enough to continue doing it, keeping track of deadlines, and worst of all, making stuff to suit. There is NOTHING I detest more than working on something I have no interest in doing.

In order to see my work, you actually have to arrive at my house and demand to see stuff. Or appeal to my softer side by begging for work because you have no one else to ask. That's how I got into a two month, one artist, show last year.

When I worked at the library, I would hang my recent pieces up behind the CIRC desk to screen, from view, the CIRC workroom. Then patrons started asking about the work, started asking for new work, started requesting old favorites etc. They even began buying the work, literally off the wall. It was fun at first and then became another "job". I did enjoy helping new quilters with their projects, solving problems and teaching beginners. But, at the core, I was always happiest when it was over.

Right now I have about a dozen or so very promising pieces in various stages of progress. Some have been this way for years (about 8 years for one large 16 block applique). All the interesting problem solving/learning/experimenting is in the past. Now I only have the hard repetitious hours of work to do to finish. And why? Yes, that's the question I ask. Why finish them?

A friend, who long arm quilts my work, has been asking about that 16 block folkart Baltimore every year for 8 years. I have been saying that I am still hand appliquing the sawtooth strips that go around each block and haven't even begun to work on the borders. The quilt will be too big. I was making it king sized and not the twin size of the pattern which I stopped using after 5 blocks. I designed my own blocks. And the sawtooth strips (I've made 40 so far) are taking forever. So, in order to finish, I have to eliminate blocks and actually make the appliqued borders using elements from the original and newly designed blocks. I might have close to the number of strips if I only use 12 blocks. Or I can make two smaller wall quilts of 9 blocks each, meaning I will need to make 2 more designs and applique two more 18 inch square blocks. And we are talking about 10 year (or more) old fabric that needs to match and cover borders and new blocks and sawtooth strips. And the background fabric was an off beat choice and was damned difficult to find. Not many quilters applique on a polka dot background. Trust me on that point. I've shown these blocks and watched quilters wrinkle their foreheads in confusion. Why did she use that brown dotted fabric with the reds, blues and yellows? Because it looks nice. To me. And that's all that matters in the end.

What's this got to do with mosquitoes? I usually do have a roundabout point in these posts, eventually. Well. All these unfinished pieces are starting to "bite" me. Hound me. Why else am I thinking about these applique blocks after so long. And the piece on the design wall and the winter garden quilt. And the Twelve by Twelve "passion" piece. And the little applique circle blocks for the French quilt. Sucking the blood out of my creative self. Hard to do NEW work when the OLD work is in the studio screaming and stamping it's feet, louder with each passing year, month, day, hour.

Well, I am only working two days a week at the greenhouse. And I'd have to be a fool to actually go out into the garden, in the rain, to pull weeds. And I can muffle the screaming and stamping with the sound of the vacuum for only so long. Time to just "pull the work through" as a workshop instructor said. David Walker, I think.

I'll be here, pulling work through, and will post and photograph which ever thing I settle down to "pull through". And I'll walk the dog. And there will be mosquitoes.