were you looking at my knickers?
January 19, 2010
You totally were. I SAW you.
From this etsy seller. All of a sudden, in the middle of all of this winter-love, I’m eager for summer.
Posted by jodi on January 19, 2010 at 1.03pm
lazy Saturday, big ideas
January 16, 2010
So here’s the thing. Since I finished grad school I’ve had difficulty readjusting to my normal life in general, and profound difficulty in particular in finding the creative means to move forward in my life as a professional artist. It has been like pulling teeth trying to force myself into any sort of working routine, and I’ve mostly been failing at that. My months-long near silence on this weblog is evidence to the deep chasm of creative vacuum in which I’ve been floundering. Then I got this new job, a limited term (5 month contract) assistant professor position at Nipissing University, filling in for two courses for someone who’s on maternity leave and one course for someone who’s on sabbatical. And, just as I’d hoped would happen, being around art students again and talking to them about their work is pulling me, emotionally, out of that slough of non-production, firing up my desire to make art again.
So then I make a flippant remark (about buffet restaurants having something to do with Manifest Destiny) and y’all call me out on it. Which you should, and please continue to do so, because I say a lot of bullshit things without really thinking and need to be called out on that and forced to explain myself. But thinking and writing are some of the things I’ve let myself get out of the habit of doing during my long wallow in self pity and creative blockage, and right at the moment all of those reawakening muscles are being used up in my teaching.
Also, I really don’t have much more than flippant things to say on the subject. In thinking a bit about what I meant by my remark and how best to clarify it, I realized that the whole thing could easily come across as something else, something repugnant that is in no way what I mean by my flippant remark. So I actually need to write something that’s not really about buffet and Manifest Destiny at all, but about some other things only slightly related (and much more important to me). But, quite frankly, today is not a day on which I am willing to spend the effort on it. I’ve got lessons to plan and slideshows to assemble for this week’s classes. I’ve got drawings of my own to work on. And I’ve got a strong desire to stay in my underwear all day,
kick back on the surprisingly comfortable pleather couch in my new accommodations (note obligatory student housing Van Gogh poster), and finish this obnoxious yellow-green shawl:
It’s going to take me a bit of time to get back into the habit of writing, just as it will to get into the habit of making work. It’ll happen.
In other news: I’ve been thinking a lot about the physical spaces in which I’ve been working (or trying to work), about how I’d ultimately like to arrange my working life, and what exactly I’m hoping to achieve with my printmaking. I currently rent studio space at the local artist-run print studio and have a supplementary work space (mostly for the sewing part of my work) in the front room of our house. Working at the Printmakers Forum is good in terms of having access to printing equipment I can’t afford, but the truth is I don’t like working in a shared space, and I especially don’t like my studio work being in any way connected to my community service (I’m also on the Board of Directors for the studio). I need to set up my own print studio. I need to put pressure on my dad to finish the etching press he started building for me almost ten years ago (the hard part, the rollers, is already done), and I need to start piecing together a working letterpress setup. I need to find a space to house both the print studio and everything from my front room space, and get my studio work the hell out of what should be a common living space in our home. And I need to find a way to make it all pay for itself.
What I would most like to do is establish a small press-slash-bindery from which I could provide small run high end printing and bookbinding services and teach courses, and in which I could comfortably set myself up to spend the rest of my time (non-space-paying-for-itself time) pursuing my own studio work. All in a space that isn’t subject to the decisions of other people, and that isn’t in my house. But, despite my time spent in the purgatory of retail management, I feel completely unprepared to embark on something like this with my current lack of business acumen and planning skills.
And while I was wishing aloud for some sort of course in how to do market research and write a business plan and build myself a job and a business out of essentially nothing, Peter suggested that perhaps I should go back to school and pursue a Masters of Business Administration. It would be intensive (13 months of two classes a day, 5 days a week), likely a little more than what I really need, and a journey into a whole world of thinking that’s completely foreign to everything I’ve ever done before, but it would sure as hell kick me back into the habit of constantly working (even if the working wouldn’t be in the studio), and if I did it in Windsor then the tuition would be free. I’ll admit that I’ve always been the sort of person who makes major life decisions seemingly at the drop of a hat, but that has mostly worked out well for me thus far. I’m seriously considering it, and am planning to contact the school on Monday to see if I can meet with someone there to determine whether the programme would be a good fit for me.
Hm. Up until now I’d been toying with the idea of applying to teachers’ college, even though I really don’t have much desire to teach anything but art, or at any level other than university (which I’m already qualified to do, obviously). Is it possible I’m just addicted to school?
Posted by jodi on January 16, 2010 at 2.49pm
teaching uniform, January 11
January 11, 2010
I really need to take these earlier in the day, before I teach, instead of later when I’m worn out and rumpled and all the light is gone. Today was a rough day, as I woke up so sick I almost thought I wouldn’t make it to class. But, with only one class per week, we only have ten classes after today so I swallowed an insane amount of ibuprofen and took a 20 minute nap. It did the trick, but now I feel like I could keel over from exhaustion.
Good class today, though. I wish I could have taken some photos of my students while they drew, but we had a live model so no recording devices allowed (this is one area in which my teaching philosophy is definitely not “do as I say, not as I do”). Hopefully some of the homework drawings they’ll be turning in next week will be good enough to show. Perhaps I should try out a tough love approach, looking at the work they submit and telling them it’s not bloggable quality, in the same way Daniel W. Dingler once told me that all of the lithographs I’d done during a summer independent study with him were “horseshit”. But, although I can see a lot in my teaching style that comes from Dan, I can’t quite bring myself to say things like that to them; instead I just tell them the “my professor told me all my work was horseshit” story. I am, however, going to take a cue from something Daniel once did to me and tape sticks to their hands next week. JUST WATCH ME.
In related news, I’m already well on my way in establishing myself as the crazy professor. I might have said something to my printmaking students during our very first class about how buffet restaurants are an extension of Manifest Destiny. Oddly enough, they seemed like they got what I meant. Unless they were all just nodding their heads and biding their time until they could get to a computer and drop my class.
Posted by jodi on January 11, 2010 at 6.52pm
something other than snow
January 7, 2010
My new teaching uniform is basically variations on this:
-necklace/scarf: UNIFORM natural
-short sleeved shirt with smocking, thrifted over the holidays (Value Village)
-skirt: this one’s a little more casual than most of the others, but I thought that might offset the non-casualness of teaching in high heels. Value Village.
-several layers of tights and long socks: it’s cold up here in the Great White North! And from what I’ve seen so far around here, I seem to be the only person in North Bay not wearing trousers.
-mary jane pumps: Zellers
But wait a minute! You wanted more pictures of snow, right? Everybody wants more pictures of snow. And who could blame them, really. I got your snow pictures right here:
This afternoon after class I took a chance and walked home down the winding snowy path that used to be a road (no longer a road because the hairpin turns it took to get up the big hill were too dangerous). I’d been told that the path wasn’t plowed in winter but was well-traveled enough to be good and packed down. My plan was to check it out on the weekend, when I didn’t have anywhere to be, in case I got lost and ended up walking in circles or getting a huge soaker in my boot. But tonight I didn’t feel like waiting half an hour for a bus and I sort of had to pee, so I went for it. Turns out it’s impossible to get lost, and it’s faster than the bus! Plus two dollars cheaper. And when I got to the bottom of the path where it picks up the other road, I could see my bus stop from there. This town is so much tinier than Google Maps makes it look.
I’m betting it’s not quite so quick a trip going the other way, uphill. But the extra cardio workout is going to be worth it.
Posted by jodi on January 7, 2010 at 6.13pm
hot tip for all you sewers out there people who sew*
October 2, 2009
*edited because Norma didn’t like the thought that my luscious bare thighs might somehow be associated with giant pipes of human potty waste spewing into the river a few kilometres upstream from the city’s water intake. And come to think of it, neither do I.
I’ve been meaning to try this ever since I bought my serger in the spring, and the first really cold day of fall was all the kick in the pants I needed to get to it. See, I’ve got these chubby (but lovable!) thighs, and all-a-y’all chubby-thighed girls out there know what I’m talking about when I say that pantyhose crotches, by definition, oughta sit nice and close to my CROTCH and not way down between my knees or halfway down my thighs chafing my most delicate tender skin and why can’t they give me a break already and make the pantyhose leg-part actually STRETCHY enough to fit around a real life regular sized (in other words, WITH SOME FAT ON IT) thigh? And don’t believe those weight charts on the back of the package, either. I’m a totally bog-standard average 5-foot-four, 150 pounds, I buy the biggest, tallest pantyhose I can find, and the crotches of those pieces of shite still ride ever downward.
But NO MORE!
Y’all, this was like an epiphany when I figured out I could do it. See, I have a serger now! And that means I can do anything! So on the first cold morning of fall I dug out a pair of slightly-too-small warm knit tights and brazenly chopped the legs off with scissors, right below the oh-so-shifty “crotch”. Then I set up my serger for the stretchy stitch (”appropriate for swim suits and athletic wear”), and zip zip! (okay, 45 minutes of wrangling the 3-thread threading and rethreading and rethreading the lower looper thread and why does it keep breaking? and rethreading and this one thousand dollar machine is a piece of crap! and ohhhhh, no, it’s just me being stupid and rethreading one last time and then zip zip! Hey, cut me some slack, I’m still learning this machine).
And lookey here.
Now I have a brand new pair of cozy, warm, (covered in cat hair; whoops) totally stretchy and NOT FALLING DOWN stockings! And paired with this crazy lightweight polar fleece skirt I picked up recently, they kept me perfectly warm on a chilly fall day.
Now there is a big pile of pantyhose lying next to the serger, waiting to be transformed from frustrating to fabulous. I will never wear pantyhose again. Because, y’all, stopping to hike up your tights every 30 metres when you’re walking down the street isn’t sexy OR comfortable.
Posted by jodi on October 2, 2009 at 2.17pm
