circles do not end

Another update on the Manitoulin Community Circle project. Yes, it continues on every Thursday in the Little Current United Church hall. We are finishing the first of four 90 inch square panels that will eventually hang in the sanctuary.I've given nick-names to each of the components. When I was researching circle imagery I read that when a circle is divided in half horizontally, the lower half represents water, the upper half sky.


The green dotted area is in the water, kind of an earth ark - maybe even Manitoulin Island itself. I've stitched a piping around the curved edges, partly to strengthen them a bit, partly to define them.





We are now working on the 'sky' area.

This is made from strips of vintage linen tablecloths, foundation pieced in sections.
Some of the dilligent participants want to keep the project going while Ned and I are away for two weeks.
There is a pattern to follow and experienced sewers will start newcomers on a section of sky, so please consider joining the project. Neither knowledge of sewing skills or attendance at the United Church are required. You'll love it. I'll be back myself on March 18. To read more about this undertaking, click on the tag manitoulin circle project.

listen to your body

Too much this past week.

This is me, curled up under
'protection
blanket'.

ceremony for innocence

I made this piece last summer when I was experimenting with wax, ink, paper. It has hung since them by a clip in my studio and I have never grown tired of it. I wasn't sure what to do next, and finally decided to do nothing but add some stitch. Last night I took it and five other new pieces to Gloria to have them framed up for the two exhibitions in April. More on those later.

3 moons with note to myself

is memory an art?

image transfer

heat transfer on cotton, framed with antique cotton and indigo dyed silk, the image is from a vintage post card, heat transfer on tin foil, (vintage post card)

It's been a while since I've done photo transfers, but just last week I taught the heat transfer method in my art quilting class. The papers have become more accessible since the 90's and they are user friendly for anyone with basic photo shop skills and an ink jet printer. heat transfer on cotton, the photograph cropped, enlarged, inverted, flipped, colour enhanced etc




The above samples were made before or during the class. I wonder if I can use this method in some real work.

using indigo?

What if?

thread in, thread out

Time.


Hours of stitching to create the log cabin piecework. More hours required to take out the stitching in the dyed silk.

Poesis

“I am thinking about what poetry can do. It can evoke something difficult to talk about without scaring it from the room. It can render something present without stating it. It can leave something unsaid while making it present. I am relieved when I turn to the dictionary and find the root of poesis is “to make”.

Ann Hamilton

spirals

spiral, wax resist, procion dye, recycled cotton bed sheet, cotton perle threads. spirals, back stitch, ladder stitch, silk and linen thread, silk fabric. I pinned up some works in progress. It's good to be able to stand back and get a long view of them, compare them to each other for visual impact

valentine for family

It's family day here in Ontario tomorrow, and still Valentine's day as I write this. An excuse to send out love to my far flung children. To Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A.
To Toronto, Ontario Canada
To Manchester, United Kingdom
To Montreal, Province of Quebec, Canada.
Chocolates, Roses, Heart Shaped Rocks for you all.

do what you love

I stitched this backing to my felted embroidery this morning and now I'm dyeing this stitch resisted fabric in indigo. Earlier, I pasted titles/mantras on my current journals.

work harder, get better

show only your best work

never give up

do what you love

indigo threads

Continuing with the indigo work, I've dyed a skein of tencel to stitch into the dyed cloth.




















Highly reccomended: sri threads

backwoods poet

The backwoods poet who is to make anything worth while out of his restricted material does so by facing it squarely and looking at it not with the sentimental glance of the local colourist but with the strict and penetrating vision of the realist.


from my 1996 journal
advice I found in a book about Canadian poetry.

site specific

The Halcrow House on Highway 6 Manitoulin Island, on the hill above our house.

The degree work I am doing this winter has to do with creating site specific installations. We are asked to choose two sites, and ensure that the body of work we make fits well into both of them. That it does not impose on, but rather exposes the site. I've chosen the Sudbury art gallery and the Halcrow House as my two sites. Why? They are both pioneer houses built on hills looking over water is one reason maybe. That I'm interested in the house as metaphor is another, maybe. The Bell Mansion, Art Gallery of Sudbury

I think about the women who have lived in these houses and what they saw as they looked out over the water, how they managed their days. You can see a painting I made of the Halcrow house by clicking here.

circle project update

We have finished the earth-ark, squares of silk with grids of knots. Completely hand stitched.
Most of the knots are French knots but there are also Manitoulin knots and beads.


Not finished with the 'water' yet, but almost. This sheet of triangles is a mix of machine and hand piecing.
We are couching bamboo yarn in a rainbow arc onto the handkerchief 'heaven' and I am auditioning this gold silk to finish the curved edge. This coming Thursday, the project takes place in my studio above the post office in Little Current instead of the church hall. All welcome, noon to 8 pm.

charmeuse morning

I'm laying a spool of polyester thread into a 19 x 45 inch piece of silk charmeuse in preparation for indigo.

ancient faces, ordinary thoughts

weathered saint, from Rouen cathedral, photographed last spring

I live on an island, blessed with splendid isolation from urban life. When I drive to town I see wide expanses of water and sky. When I walk the dead end road we live on, I meet with deer as often as humans. I do thank the instant communication that the internet provides me. However, while what I write here is always true and relates to something real that has happened to me recently, so much is left out. another weathered saint, Rouen

Today I will spend the day stitching, it is my community circle day, yesterday I taught piano from 8 am to 6 pm , the day before I struggled with balancing skill development with encouraging personal imagery in the painting class I'm teaching. I'm so busy and involved with real people on very personal levels and I like it, but my inner place is losing focus. The nativity set is still up, the amarylis and the poinsetta just caved, and baskets of clean laundry stack up in the bedroom.

Just thought I'd write that down.