materials

wrapped wild clover that was covered with leaves and snow over a period of two years.

Materials are a language.
They speak about complex things, most beneath the surface.
Process is more important than the end result.

montreal

The plan was to finish this piece on the bus to Montreal. I did work on it for most of the twelve hour trip.

Stitching was interupted however, by a celebratory event and a nourishing visit with our new McGill graduate.

gathering myself

It's late when I write this. I'm not packed yet for a weekend visit with family in Eastern Canada and we leave in five hours. I keep finding other things to do.

art quilting class

Lucie's block prints. Dorothy's bleach experiments, reverse applique, and block prints.
Linda's block print and embroidery, Rachel's collection
Rachel's 'Queen with necklace' made from ties

This is just some of the evening class's so-called "homework". I wish I had thought to photograph what the morning class had brought in. Next time.

Touching

Why do I use my hand as a symbol?
I think its about touching. My hand says 'touch' as well as 'think'.
It says 'feel' as well as 'analyze'.
This piece is saying DO BOTH.
The viewer AND the maker - do both. Hand stitching helps to connect the mind and the body. Touching is the act that crosses the gap between the object and the mind. Hand stitching is the act that allows the maker to think.

Instructions for the faint of heart

Turn the turtle over.
Test its white stomach.
Find your island.
Find the treasure.

Take short naps through the heat of the day.
Drink clean water only,if you can find it.
Build a wall - or not at all.

Lead your pretty shadow by the pretty hand.

by Phylis Webb

These are from my November 1993 journal.

every Thursday

Once we get one of the panels into a quilting frame, the circle project should be able to go on even if I have to be away for some reason. This coming Thursday it will have to be cancelled because I'll be traveling to Montreal.
A schedule for the next six weeks will be updated regularly in the side bar of this blog - a note also appears every week in coming events in the Expositor.

Metaphor and Moi

I'm giving a talk tonight in Mindemoya here on Manitoulin Island. We quilters call it a trunk show, I've filled 4 laundry baskets. All the pieces (about 30) date since 2003 except for one (1996). Some of the pieces are still in progress - but the women I'm speaking to understand UFO's. All my work is about what I care about the most and feel the need to say so while I am able. I want to communicate to my children and their children what it was like to be living in this time period in our history. No matter how arty quilts get, they never lose their connection to the bed and all the things that happen there, and they never lose the idea that they protect those who lie underneath them. These unwritten metaphors go along with the work of all women who make quilts as art. Other metaphors that I use are the ones that have to do with recycling, remembering tradition and repairing things that have been ruined. These connect my work to my worries about our world.

You can't just want it

You can't just want to have a beautiful garden,
you have to get out there and weed.
You can't just want to be an artist,
you have to make the work.

I discovered this truth again, as if for the first time.

reminds me

Because I'm preparing for the trunk show on Thursday I rummaged through my piles of recent work. When I unfolded three of the millennium journals I came across "Trees in Winter", the panel that I worked on in early 2007 during the difficult time when my mother was dying. She would ask me "Where's your stitching?" when I came in to sit with her and I'd take it out. I stitched and we breathed together. Reading these snippets of couched text brings back that intense time in my life. It's revealing to me that there are spelling mistakes in many of the words. Several i's are not dotted, t's not crossed.

the dress again

I've been working with the motif of my black dress for the last few weeks. The experiment pictured here uses one of my favourite combinations of materials, hot wax and ink. It's not finished yet but I'm putting this image up anyway because I'm excited about what happens with wax. Wax ages things with a fragrent transparent layer. It removes the artist's control of the image and replaces it with chance and intuition.

Its about the inner self in contrast to the presented self.
Its about invisible emotions and the visible control of those emotions.
Its about being here. It's also about being elsewhere.

Margaret Atwood

inside out dress, ink on paper

"It is dangerous to believe that success will make your measure. Success can always be taken away from you.
There are only two things that are important: The writing for its own sake and a central private life." When asked in 1972 what she wanted, it wasn't fame. Rather , Margaret Atwood said

"Just more of the same. I have it now."

this from Rosemary Sullivan's biography of Margaret Atwood, The Red Shoes.

Community circle project update

The 'Heaven' is being created from repurposed vintage handkerchiefs.

Yesterday was the third Thursday in the lengthy project that I am leading at the Little Current United Church. I am enjoying working in the church hall as the wood floors and high ceilings are spacious and have a good vibe. I'm especially enjoying the community of women who are coming together to stitch and am in absolute awe of those that also belong to the UCW. (United Church Women). Every time I have set up my project there is something else happening. (Rummage Sale prep, Luncheon for the Dairy men's association, decorations ready for the Christmas tea/bazaar on Saturday). I made a pattern for the 'sky' part of the hanging I've nicknamed Twig Cross so that I could make good use of the many damask tablecloths that have been donated to the project. This is a slight change from my original design, but I think it will work well. Most of the women who come have been stitching these 4" squares full of "Mantioulin Knots". Each square usually takes about 40 minutes to stitch.

Thinking Too Much

I've treated my art making very very seriously for decades. I've continually attempted to have it all - a big family, community involvment, closeness to nature every day and ALSO make art. The art making has not allowed me to have a garden, be a good cook, travel, read for pleasure or live in a clean house.

I'm bothered that my chosen art medium of cloth and stitch combines now with my own maturity to trivialize what I do. When I go into a (northern)art gallery to speak I'm no longer the mom artist with a babe on her hip - I'm an older, grayer, gentle voiced, spectacle wearing quilter lady. I speak to quilt guilds consisting of other older women, I teach other older women, I study with other older women. It's a ghetto.

dot grids

Just about all my newer work has the motif of the dot grid. Yesterday I was asked why am I so attracted to this gentle rhythm? Dots fill a space with pattern, but it's subtle. In grid formation they resemble nets. They look contemporary. They are small individuals that line up to make transparent yet solid shapes. However, sometimes they are just decorative and do not add anything valuable to the work.

mountain lace

Much of the past weekend was spent hauling and stacking wood with my husband. The weather was gorgeous and we both enjoyed the exercise and fresh air. Yesterday, Wayne Orr loaned us his all terrain vehicle so that we could drive up his mountain to enjoy the views of Manitowaning Bay.
I was entranced by the open areas of golden queen anne's lace. This is my thousandth post!

drawing and painting with thread

I'm using two stitches and three weights of cotton thread to render this image of my black dress on a large piece of wool fabric.

With these threads I make evident some of the complex relations between myself and my world that are incommunicable with words. Textile art is process but it is also stuff and this method of mark making is deliberately low tech.
I am a moving thread that is becoming.
I am not who I already think I am.

Carl Beam

In 2004, I was very lucky to be part of a tiny group (4 or 5) who took a 'workshop' here on Manitoulin Island with Carl Beam. It wasn't a technique workshop. It was more about developing a personal voice. Here is some of what he said.

Ask why am I drawn to this subject? Should I work smaller? Should I choose a different medium?

If you achieve competency, you become complacent. But if you want to reach a different level, more pleasurable – more imaginative, you need to go beyond what other people think about your work.

Other art is boring.

What is art? If you are happy with what you are doing, you can still empower your art. Become obsessed. Allow yourself to be possessed.

If you have something to say, you can say it with a minimum of colour, shape.

If you have nothing to say, it’s pretty hard to fool everybody all the time.

I can’t be responsible for what people read into my work.

Carl Beam