more beautiful than it is possible for me to say

I have kept journals since my 3rd child was born in 1985 – that’s 25 years. They saved family dialog, domestic and world events, dreams, ideas, and notes on what I read.

In the past, I've used journal pages to back fabrics for the english method of paper piecing. The papers were left in and gave those pieces an inner side. (here are three examples 1994, 1999, 2005)

This new piece is the journal from the summer I turned 40. Painted gold, stitched shut.

studio work

I am finally happy with my indigo work. I 'found' five pieces of white flannel of different sizes, pinned them up and began slowly laying down components of blue cloth. They are all similar. They are each unique.

art rental

The house is full of art because yesterday I took 8 paintings out of the Art gallery of Sudbury's art rental program. They had been in there for over a year and I wanted to refresh the work. (with two pieces) I had a conversation with Krysta Talenko, the over worked young curator, then went shopping for blouses. Dancing spider plant is being rented at present.

my long view

For the last few nights I've been waking up at 2 am and writing or working with images for a variety of deadlines. I feel that this is the only time I have that's free, but I miss sleeping.

However, spring is early this year, the ice is going out of the lake and being awake when the sun rises is awesome.

self: blue robe

I spent most of last spring and early summer stitching this piece. Even though it had a million hours in it, it was not visually successful. Yesterday I brought the back to the front by rolling it onto itself and voila, the protective red thread frame sets off the isolated domestic image. I think it looks better now.

The front used to look like this, the back like this. It's so difficult to exhibit two sided pieces.

I'm putting it into the Greenwood Quiltery and Gallery exhibition that starts April 15 in Guelph, Ontario.

Never give up.

the making process

It has taken a lifetime to put myself into my art and it is a spiritual journey. Everything is everything.
I used to see my work as conceptual because I like thinking that art is based on ideas, but now I realize that I’m more interested in ‘insight’. I love the satisfaction that comes with creation and never want to lose the pleasure of making.

The art I make is my life and I’m trying to allow the making process to take over from the thinking process.

one hundred views of wikwemikong

What endures?
life experience
meditation
memory
time passing
looking at the view
looking at the water
looking at the passage of a day and a year

empty space
inner life
making something visible inside us that we can’t name

I feel connected to women who have lived before me and looked at water

putting my self into art and then recovering myself with that art

juxtapose

framed by intellect grounded in emotion a haunting quality a knowing anxiety voice of reason voice of madness

Piles of my work are all over the house. I picked stuff from the framer for the two exhibitions in April and placed everything next to each other. I've included works still in progress in the mix and the juxtapositions delight me.

More blue work

I've been working with my indigo fabrics, experimenting with curvy methods of piecing. It's been making me physically tired, allowing amazing dreams.
I taught curvy linear piecing on Tuesday. We used hand stitching, but one could use the machine. Here I'm trying an invented method using a large drawing first.

An artist cannot fail, it is a success to be one.
Charles H. Cooley

stitching in car

Although the plane brought us to Toronto last Thursday, we took our time coming home. South Western Ontario Northern Ontario





Ned drove.

I stitched.

The Heroine's Journey

Where masculine creativity tends to move always forward, feminine creativity tends to turn round on itself, not circularly so much as spirally. It is constantly changing.

Finding out about being instead of doing is the sacred task of the feminine.

Being requires accepting oneself , staying within oneself.

A myth is a large image that gives meaning to the facts of ordinary life. Without such images, experience is chaos.

If a woman has not been initiated into a feminine mythology by her mother or grandmother, she has to develop her own relationship to her inner feminine.

(From my 1991 journal when I was reading The Heroine's Journey)

images of here

George town straw market water seen from rented boat Stocking Island pathway The Atlantic breeakthrough samples

bahama stitching

stitched outside this morning, this was the view. For these eight inch wide samples, I'm using a method of layering onto a foundation fabric that is then cut away. Leaving just the stitched line gives a very strong yet light weight result.

hermitage

Seen on Little Exuma, this poetic ruined building. dots of lightstripes of light marks, human touch