assessment time

I have been slaving away for the last two weeks trying to get the paper work done for the liturgical embroidery course I'm taking through the Julia Caprara School of Textile Art in the UK.Seriously, I have been truly slogging it. One of the things I was asked to do was to make a technical handbook. This has been such a hurdle that I've procrastinated until the very end. I just had no idea how to go about it (and why) but I'm pleased enough by my invention of sewing four sheets of loose leaf together and using a binder to hold it all. Half the difficulty of studying by distance is figuring out what to do just from phone conversations and written directions. There are no visual clues (I mean seeing what others are doing and such). I'm still not done this part of the assessment and had better get back to it because the plan is to put everything into the mail tomorrow on our way to Alaska.

earth sky connection

Rose came to my studio yesterday to pick up this stitched waxed piece that she purchased during the art tour last July. I'd been meaning to photograph it all summer but because it's so large (22 x 45 inches)it's a hassle to remove the glass. I'd been waiting until I had more free time. Ha.

Anyway, I wanted a document of how it looks finished. I'm sure if I need a better photo, I'll be able to get one.

Drawing with cloth

I am drawing blue circles with cloth.

blue circle lines

About vulnerability.
About shaping cloth until it breathes.
About intimacy.
About containment.
About time.

Each Stitch is a Prayer

I made this quilt in 2002. It's a traditional and minimalist diamond in a square. I made it while worrying. It's large, 80" x 80" and I let it hold me while I repeatedly pierced it with a needle and then caressed it with my hands during the tension of that time in our history. I look at it now and think about mortality. The finality of sure things like fragile old age and/or sudden death inspire me to love and work right now. Flat out.

reverse applique

I'ts a relief to take a wee break from preparing all the technical hand books and design board samples that need to be shipped to England for assessment. Yesterday I cleaned the studio, today I prepare for tomorrow's art quilting classes.

Both the day and the evening sessions have attracted women with a wide range of sewing abilities (and ages). I hope that everyone becomes as inspired as I am with the open ended technique of reverse applique. It's so much fun to draw with cloth that I have to force myself to stop making samples.

"Quiltmaking gives us a connection with other women, both horizontally and vertically." Jean Ray Laury

Common Thread 2009

The World of Threads Festival grand opening happens tomorrow in Oakville, Ontario. I had planned to attend, but can't manage any more 'away' time this month.

According to the organizers there were so many good pieces that three venues were needed for the Common Thread exhibition. My piece, Memory of Wikwemikong, will be showing at the Towne Square Gallery from now until October 4.

The website gives web links for some of the artists and I visited these three.

Caitlin Erskine-Smith
Valerie Knapp
Stefanie Koelbel

craft theory

Working with craft media is a viable alternative for artists. Craft is an alternative creativity, resistant to the modernist notion of the heroic genius. Craft workers make objects and those objects give us ways to know ourselves. They gather their meaning through use and act as vehicles for identity and memory. Wearing objects such as jewellery and textiles shows who we are.

This new definition does not require ‘art’ to change, but it does allow craft to enter the art world. Craft theory realises that craft practice is as reflective as fine art practice and that craft is so interconnected with global human activity that it can transform existing culture.

I don't know what I'm doing

In order to arrive at what you are not,
you must go through the way in which you are not,
and what you do not know
is the only thing you know. T.S. Eliot

It took me three hours yesterday to size up one drawing onto a piece of quilt backing cotton. Crawling around on the floor was easier and gave better results than going up and down the step ladder to use the pin wall. Maybe it was the black diesel exhaust from the cruise ship docked just outside my window all day that muddled my thinking and my ability. It finally left around 5 p.m.

Perivale closed for the season

The half light
wax and ink with collage 2009

The Perivale Gallery has now shut its doors for the winter and this is one of the pieces I picked up yesterday. I still seek a good commercial gallery that is not so seasonal. Until then, I'll store the stuff.

David Reid and Ivan Wheale (with his wife Jean) were also picking up their paintings and it was nice to accept Sheila McMullan's offer of a glass of wine and share some stories with everyone for a bit. Ivan Wheale is the Perivale's main 'seller' and is being honoured with a large retrospective this coming January at the Art Gallery of Sudbury. He also has gallery representation in Toronto at the Odon Wagner gallery.

More information than you need

I've been writing this blog since March 2006 - that's three and a half years. My first entry has a photo of me speaking at the opening of the millennium journal exhibition in Haliburton. So much has happened in my art since that time, I've enrolled for a second fine art degree by distance, I've acquired an outside studio with large walls and good light, and I've had four solo exhibitions. All of those things and others have been listed here.

Yesterday, I made a presentation about a community project and it went very well. There was a lot of enthusiasm at the United church in Little Current about the circle quilts that we will make in the church hall on Thursdays. In the afternoon, I started going over what I need to do for my Fine Art Embroidery course that started last week. I'm going to Alaska in two weeks to try my best to be a good grandma for Everett and a brand new baby.

I know I'm very lucky to be able to be an artist, live on an island, have a full family life. I thank my readers for listening to me brag and whine alternately , as I pour out my intimate thoughts here. I don't know what I'm trying to say in this post, but I think it might have something to do with not wanting to do those Tuesday art quilting classes I promised.

presentation

These are four images from the short digital presentation I'm scheduled to give TOMORROW, September 13, to the congregation during the Sunday church service of the United Church in Little Current.

These forms (circles within squares) look both ages old and brand new. They communicate celebration and affirmation. They are inspired by nature and ecology.

The materials will be recycled white and cream coloured damask tablecloths, recycled wool blankets, new silk, and new white linen.

The pieces will address ideas of re-use, repair, and celebration. Cutting up the existing tablecloths ruins them, yet the reconstruction of the fabric into beautiful and reverent wall pieces acts like a metaphor for reparation of the earth.

The project is slow cloth, with the artist and the wider community meeting to do the hand work over a period of one, perhaps two years in order to complete it. The result will be contemporary life affirming objects for meditation.

Art Quilting

What is it about September? This time of year promises so much for learners. Yes, I am going to teach Art Quilting locally this fall and look forward to doing so. Classes will be held once a month in my studio in Little Current, more information is in my updates.

We will spend four hours together, once a month.
We will produce our own painted and dyed fabrics.
We will study contemporary quilt artists.
We will use journals and sketchbooks to find our personal voice.
We will bring our work to the group and receive feedback.
We will do hand work.

It was interesting to read Elizabeth Barton's recent post "a perfect workshop" (and the comments that go with it). I agree with her.

September piecework

Woman as sacred life giver. We have solar power at the cottage and I used my sewing machine last week. The weather was amazing for September, and perhaps I should have stayed out doors, but I really enjoyed putting these damask and velvet and silk triangles together to create a new fabric.

damask fabrics

about ritual.
about disturbance.
about patience.
about the fact that we are all different, but connected.
about things that change shape but don't disappear.
about relentlessness.
about sky and weather.
Last week I dreamt that one of my large circle pieced tops was finished and I pinned it to the wall and I stood in front of it and made a presentation about it and it absolutely glowed with the damask fabrics catching the light.

Side note: Modern Materials is showing in Oklahoma and PaMdora shared this link to an article about the show. Why, after forty years, are we still reading about art lovers and quilt clubs being challenged by art quilts?

the house with the golden windows

Incredible weather, full moon, gentle sunsets, time with april and her andy, five quilts in progress and a wonderful novel half way through.

"I was trying to make meaning all the time. Then I realized that meaning is elusive and it doesn't reside in the image, the object or the material. I won't try to make any meaning. I'll make something about itself." Liz Magor (summer 2009 Canadian Art magazine)