twig knots

The Manitoulin Community Circle Project had a successful first day yesterday. Several women came to make grids of knots on squares of silk. A bonus was this bountiful collection of vintage handkerchiefs donated to the project by Linda Strain. Thanks so much, Linda. I stayed home today to think. Went for a walk in the rain and was blown open by these fragile yellow leaves hanging on amongst gray branches.

Quilt Poetics

We read from Radka Donnell's book, A Quilt Poetics today and tonight during art quilting class. I am much nourished by her philosophy and have read this book twice since it came out in 1990.

A Quilt Poetics – Radka Donnell

Quilting is a primal women’s art form related to the intimacy of the bed and to the home.

Cloth is the body’s intimate covering. The bed is the charged site of birth, death and sex. The quilt is tactile and sensual and is itself a charged site.

Now, quilts risk being depersonalized and divorced from their domestic roots. They are so popular they have become trivialized and are just hobby art. We must reclaim the quilt and restore to quilts their original emotional power.

For generations of American women quilts were:
Artistic creation
Therapeutic release
Expression of nurturing
Device for bonding (gifts)
Ritual and sacred markers of major life-cycle events

Reproduction (women’s work) is the magic Mystery.

Accomplishing a ‘carry over’ of emotion into a quilt is a major task, as is creating the space in one’s life to accomplish the work of a quilt.

self assessment

One of the things required for my UK degree is self assessment. There's a form to fill out with questions like
"How well have you responded to the assignments?" and
"What has been the most difficult aspect of the assignments?" and
"Have you developed all aspects of each assignment as fully as you would have liked to? If not describe where your ideas could be developed further." etc etc. In the liturgical module that I sent off in September, the most difficult thing was to stop working. I just wanted to keep drawing circles, or keep making stitch samples, and not go ahead to the next unknown. There wasn't enough time to explore as much as I wanted to. I would have liked to have made more samples of techniques. I would have liked to have learned more techniques. I could spend the rest of my life just working on the ideas that have risen out of this body of work. Over the next year I will be working with the local community on the designs I made this summer. Jim Moodie, editor of the local Manitoulin Expositor, phoned me when I was in Alaska to interview me about this community project. When I arrived home late last night and finally got to read his excellent article I was pleased with it and have reprinted it here.

What's Really Important? (remembered)

In 1990 I was invited by a commercial gallery in Winnipeg to have a solo exhibition. We lived in Kenora at the time, and because the gallery also did custom framing I'd drive into the city often with at least two of our four kids with me to have my watercolours framed.

My paintings were of my own children. I was concerned about composition and about how the sunlight on the figures caused interesting shadows. I used a loose technique of primary colours mixed right on the paper and I used mixed media. When he saw my newest paintings done for the exhibition, the young owner (male) took me aside and advised me to change my subject. He told me that while my technique was unique my subject matter would limit me. He showed me his own work. Dark large abstract oil paintings. I know that he was trying to help me.

It irked however and I thought about what he said for a long time.

I ended up calling that exhibition "What Is Really Important?" .

What's really important?

I have extended my time in Anchorage by one week. This extended visit means that I have had to postpone my teaching commitments. I emailed the women in my Tuesday art quilting class, and every single one of them agreed that what I am doing here is very important. My Wednesday piano students' parents concurred. I also had to postpone the Thursday start of the Manitoulin Circle Project until October 29. (see Judy's Updates) I do have a wince of guilt about this because it had been promoted in the Manitoulin Expositor.
This three year old mountain climber is one of the reasons I am staying a little longer. reverse applique

How to write poetry

"You have to give yourself up, and then recover yourself. The third moment is having something to say before you have wholly forgotten both the surrender and the recovery." T.S. Eliot

extreme beauty

I took some photos from the book Extreme Beauty, The Body Transformed a month ago. I'm studying fine art embroidery this fall. My assignment is to look at clothing and consider gender issues. The above is a design by Alexander McQueen. A month ago I thought I was interested in how women's clothing through the centuries and across continents restricted movement. Now, after three weeks in the real world of maternity and family my interests have become more personal. I'm interested in what happens to young women when they begin their families. I'm interested in the unwritten expectations our society has for older women.

Littles

little wonders newborn 100% cotton made in China just one year NB made in China Gerber onesies 0-3 months 100% cotton made in India BABY small 100% cotton made in China

Books I haven't read

Fragile as a Leaf in Autumn (detail) 2004


The more I read, the more I find to read.

The Poetics of Gender by Nancy K Miller

Writing Selves: Contemporary Feminist Autography by Jeanne Perreault

Authorship, Autobiography and Love - a book about Helene Cixous by Susan Sellers

Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature by Julia Kristeva

arrival

A healthy boy, one day old.

my small quilting hoop

I've been staying up quite late in the evenings here in Anchorage so that I can get my (necessary) meditative stitching done once everyone else goes to bed. I'm using a small circular quilting hoop that fits in a suitcase.

baby quilt

What is the correct size for a baby quilt? The one I made for Everett three years ago is 32 inches by 49 inches, perhaps a little narrow, perhaps a little long. I checked the internet and learned that there is no expected size - it depends on how you plan to use it. Everett dances on his quilt







and later Mr Moose slowly walked by the backyard.

gender

We wait for a baby to be born. Our daughter and her husband have elected NOT to know whether it is a boy or a girl. There is nothing pink in the house yet but I think that there might be if the baby is a girl. Today I completed these white sleeping pads for the baby's bassinet as we are in the prenatal 'neutral' space of yellow, green, and especially white.

I find this interesting because in contemporary society the two genders dress very similarly in jeans with hoodies or short jackets. In a way we are like the Greek and Roman men and women who both had to wrap huge amounts of fabric gracefully around their bodies or those upper class northern Europeans of both genders during the Renaissance who suffered through lace neck ruffles. Why then, do the racks in the baby departments line up so severely on the side of boy or girl, blue or pink? Perhaps its because newborn babies all look to be the same gender and those colours are clues. They are identity signifiers. Here's a boy.

still

I used my daughter's serger and made these things for the baby.

about patience
about gentleness
about craft
about something new
about enchantment
about understanding


about a kind of reverence to be handed down as a tradition

waiting, walking

We went for a walk this morning, yellow leaves still falling like rain. We met a moose, which apparently is no big deal in Anchorage. Advice? Just be quiet for a while.

waiting

Our luggage took an extra day to arrive in Anchorage. The first thing I unpacked was this quilt that I brought to work on while Ned and I are here. I spread it out on the bed and petted it.


One of the things we've done while waiting for the new babe is visit nearby Goose Lake.

In Alaska

We're in Alaska.