Any Human Heart

I read most novels slowly, disciplining myself to no more than 20 pages a day. I treat that time with the characters in the novel as a visit to another, separate place. I learn from novels and consider what I've read as how it relates to my life. Days that include a novel get close to being perfect. I just finished Any Human Heart by William Boyd, written as a journal kept by an English writer through every decade of the 20th century. He moved within cultural circles and over the course of the book drops names of acquaintances, (Virginia Woolf, Pablo Picasso, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Frank O'Hara) casually, and with a ring of truth. Throughout, he ponders the meaning of life.

from page 203
"Thank Christ, I didn't plant an oak. Is that a good definition of marking the aging watershed? That moment when you realize - quite rationally, quite unemotionally- that the world in the not-so-far-distant future will not contain you: that the trees you planted will continue growing but you will not be there to see them."

from page 401
"Those were the years when I was truly happy. Knowing that is both a blessing and a curse. It's good to acknowledge that you found true happiness in your life - in that sense your life has not been wasted."

Pictured are just some of the perfect days from the millennium journal I kept from November 1998 - February 2001.

Editing Out

Textile artwork in a mainstream art show is very problematic. Textiles are too 'material' and quilting is REALLY problematic. If you show five textile pieces, the one that you'll have the most problems with in a fine art context is the quilt. People are sniffy about cloth art because it is so immediate and familiar.

Quotes from my tutorial with Catherine Dormor this morning. We were discussing textile practice within a fine art context and the difficulties that all of us who work with cloth and fibers face.

These are real issues and have no bearing on the quality, craftsmanship and conceptual underpinnings of one's work. They are issues that we need to be aware of even if we choose to work as we feel driven to work. Not to do so would be naive.

I'll miss discussions like this.

The artists who have managed to get textiles into the main stream of fine art have been established as fine artists first. Even an artist such as Magdalena Abakanowicz now mutes her textile past.

representation

When children begin to paint representationaly, they draw a line near the bottom of their paper to represent the ground, and another near the top, to represent the sky.

south wind

grid with horizon red sky with moon eternity luck intuition

turning it into a story

I've been looking at the cloth work I made last fall very intently.

Ironing it.

Pinning it to my wall and standing back.

Folding and rolling it.

Writing about it.

Photographing it.

Getting to really know it.

What is it communicating?

How can I show it so that what I want to say is clear?
studio view of the north channel of Lake Huron

balance

need to balance my life

need to contact my immediate family more,
need to lose weight and get fit,
need to keep my professional side in front,
need to do my schoolwork,
need to finish the circle project,
need to be a good wife,
need to travel more and see real art,
need to do my work.
what is my five year plan?
I haven't thought about one for ten years.

the last knit

Note that this video was made in Finland by Laura Neuvonen.

Also, to see Canadian artist Germaine Koh's knit project click here. Thanks Henrietta!

be calm

the lower half

I was invited to make another presentation about the Manitoulin Circle Project yesterday. This time the presentation was for the regional United Church clergy who were meeting in Espanola, about an hour's drive from my home. I had seven minutes, as other people were also presenting.

Very briefly then, the circle project is the creation of four large meditation panels using hand stitch. They are designed to hang in the sanctuary of the Little Current United Church. They are liturgical pieces and use the gentle colours of Christian faith. White and gold for celebration and holiness. Green for ordinary days.

A circle of women come together to stitch on these panels every Thursday. The four large panels each have a large circle within a large square. They measure between 90 and 100 inches across.
The archetype of the circle is an old and important symbol for all of us. It’s one of the first shapes that Carl Jung believes is in our unconscious. The circle symbolizes perfection.
It symbolizes eternity and completion.
There is no beginning or end with a circle. In my research I learned that when a horizontal line divides a circle, the lower half is like the ark and represents water, while the upper half is like the rainbow or heaven or sometimes called the upper water. I found this idea of representing water very inspiring.
Pictured is the third panel of the project, "Precious Water".

Finnish Aesthetic

Simplicity is an ethical attitude
An ideal of noble poverty
An aesthetic of restraint

Textiles are slow
They give a sense of time
Everyday life is a powerful influence
Simplicity
Simplicity is appreciated
Arrived at in complex ways

Simplicity is an element of the Finnish aesthetic
Modesty and simplicity
Combined with craftsmanship

reverential

witnesses, women's clothing wrapped and stitched shut, 2011 Untitled (Uccello) by Joseph Cornell, 1952

like a mother

Sandra Reford is taking an exhibition of Canadian quilts to Alsace, France in September of this year. I spoke with her on the phone last night, and she has selected about twenty artists or groups of artists from across this huge country, from Whitehorse to Fogo Island. That's incredible. Canada is one of the guest countries this year at the Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork. One of the pieces I'm sending is Twenty Four Hour Care, pictured here. In 2009, it was awarded the best traditional wall quilt in the Canadian Quilting Associations juried show. Sandra has to mail the information to France today, and so we all had to get our act together. This quilt took me seven years to make, as I kept putting it aside for life's tumult. During that period of time my family experienced a marriage, a birth, three deaths, a job loss, and our emptied nest. Each time that I returned to work on it after brief periods away, it was like coming home to mother.

the cloud in me

The universe is our refuge, as is the certainty that we are two. Each remote from the other, we are kept alive by means of this insuperable gap.

Nothing can ever fill it. Is it because I do not know you that I know that you are? How do I protect without restraining? You remain a mystery to me. Our alliance will always involve a mystery.
Such is the union between woman and man. I want to live in harmony with you and still remain other.
I want to draw nearer to you while protecting myself for you. In which part of myself do I preserve you?
In which breath? How do I remain without suffocating?
How do I make earth out of air, and protect the cloud in me?

Neither mine nor yours but each living and breathing with the other. What makes me one, and perhaps unique, is the fact that you are,

and I am not you.


All text is from the Prologue of To Be Two by Luce Irigaray (abbreviated )