cloth sketch book

I've been into my studio almost every day this past week. I'm attempting to translate my ball point pen sketches into something more tangible. I'm using silk, poly sheer and indigo dyed fabrics that I have on hand. All 13 inches square, a few of them are touched with acrylic paint. Stitching is minimal right now. Only invisible thread attaches layers together, small bits of embroidery once in a while. I'm thinking about them as if they are a book. A sketch book. They are really helping me to find my palette, calm my imagery.

"I try to produce the work by pursuing the process of its making, the meaning and logic of the material."

Giuseppe Penome

Trunk Show #2: self portrait

I'd like to start at the beginning of my quilt story. Self Portrait 1985 Painted cotton, maternity clothes, hand pieced and quilted.

For years and years my artwork and my life were wrapped up with my own motherhood. My husband and I have four children, and this piece was made the year the third one was born.

It is not my first quilt.

Notice that the fourth side has no border, just a binding. I see it as a premonition of the fourth baby yet to come. I cut up the maternity clothing I wore and re-arranged it. Why I used white quilting thread remains unexplained. That the mother is nursing her babe and drawing at the same time is how I was. How I still am. An artist and as good a mother as I can be...at the same time.


This post is the second in a proposed series in which I will share the quilts I took to Toronto on September 21 for my talk to the Pomegranate Quilt Guild.

Harvest

Man is like vanity; his days are as a shadow that passeth away. In the morning he flourisheth, and sprouteth afresh;
in the evening he is cut down, and withereth. So teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom.

The text is from the Jewish Memorial Service for the Dead.

photos from the top are:
maple leaves
bundles
sumac leaves
hawthorn
willow
colour
his bonfire

September

"The current of the river of life moves us" Agnes Martin

Couching.

August 21 - September 22, 2011.
Explanation? Click here.

Large Embroideries at the Textile Museum of Canada

Man's robe, Hausa, Nigeria
Cotton, woven in strips, embroidered with silk thread
Some of the circles were removed then re-attached with needlelace technique. The little brown dots are seed stitch.
About 90 inches across, 50-60" high.
Palak cloth. Suzani
The solid red circles are embroidered with such fine couching, that they look woven.
Silk and wool embroidery on plain cotton ground.
About 1860. From Bokhara, Uzzbekistan
The circles are cosmological symbols (moon, sun)
About 100 inches across, 90" down.
Yaktak, Man's coat in Ikat silk weave
A lined robe that is not padded
Phulkari Wedding Shawl, Pakistan
Red cotton completely covered with silk floss embroidery
The cloth is stitched in horizontal and vertical directions to take advantage of the reflective quality of the floss. These shawls are given to the bride by the groom's grandmother.
about 50" wide, 80" high.

I made ball point sketches of these amazing large embroideries during my visit to the Textile Museum of Canada yesterday. Sketching helps me to really look at the pieces, and I didn't have my camera with me anyway. All of these images are lifted from the museum's amazing online collection. Being up close to these awesome hand stitched fabrics is very nourishing. The power inherent in them stays with me for months. Hunter's Coat, Mali West Africa, 1960-1970, cotton, cowrie shell, skin, tooth, claw, mirrors.

I also sketched this coat during my visit as well. The leather packets sewn to the coat in grid formations are thought to contain little pieces of paper with prayers written on them. There are round mirrors on the front of the coat, and square mirrors on the back. The cords that are all over were knotted, spit upon and given an incantation. All of these talismans were for protection for the wearer. The coat was worn before the hunt in a ceremony, not during.

Trunk Show #1: Introduction

Power and Beauty, Amish diamond in square quilt, dyed wool, hand stitched with mirror work. Unfinished.

I'm preparing a trunk show to take to Toronto tomorrow. I'm considering using this unfinished piece in the introduction. (Sorry, but I don't have a photo that includes the 12 inch Amish style borders) My trunk show connects my art and my life.

Introduction

I grew up on a farm in North Western Ontario.

My mother was an intellectual. Her parents were English/Irish. Her mother was the local artist. Her father a damaged WWI vet.

My father was an entrepreneur. His mother only spoke Finn. She wove Finnish rugs.

I’m 50 percent Finnish and the Finnish aesthetic – one of simplicity, elegance, noble poverty and love of nature informs my very being and all my work.

I’m finding that inner Finn more and more each year. The quilt that you see here has not been shown in public before. It’s not finished. It’s like me. I’m not finished either. I feel that I'm on the brink of a new and simple way of working.

This quilt is an Amish design embellished with Indian mirror work. Two very different cultures are brought together. Like so much of today's contemporary world, this piece is a hybrid.

I turned 60 this past summer. Emily Carr Visited Me 2005, painted and stitched rayon, pieced, appliqued, hand quilted. Turning 60 is a huge deal and instead of denying it, I am celebrating it. I am aware that the time available for me is limited. I believe that my best work is yet to come.

Emily Carr made her best work AFTER she gave up her boarding house business and went into the BC rainforest alone. She was 57.
detail. The blanket stitch embroidery is also the quilting stitch. oil on paper by Emily Carr.
This is when she painted her swirling skies and trees. She painted them when she was in her 60's.
oil on paper, Emily Carr oil on paper, Emily Carr. She painted all of these in her late 50's and early 60's. I am inspired by Emily Carr and her spirit continues to visit me and encourage me. My quilt appropriates her famous oil painting Scorned as Timber, Beloved by the Sky, that she painted when she was 64. But this is just the introduction.

goldenrod dye experiments

just the flowers We have a lot of goldenrod on Manitoulin. At least four varieties, including the large late blooming Canadian goldenrod. It's everywhere. I harvested twice last week. In the first session, I made two concoctions. The batch on the right is flowers and the upper leaves (no stems). On the left, just leaves and stems (no flowers). These were simmered for an hour and then left to steep overnight. For the second harvest, I painstakingly cut the flowers from the stems and tried to include no leaves. These I also simmered for an hour and left to steep overnight. Then I strained them and reheated the coloured water to just a simmer. Alum mordanted wool cloth and embroidered linen were dyed with the flowers only bath. I love using the wool, it accepts the colour so well. The next day I tried something I read on Leena's Riihivilla blog. She suggested adding lye or soda ash to yellow flowering dye baths to make the colour more intense. You can see the difference in the above photos. The top fabric in each set was processed with a weak lye solution added to the dye bath. When I used lye however, I did not heat the liquid. Just steeped the cloth in the natural dye for one day. I plan to overdye some of the yellow fabrics I've coloured with indigo eventually. Silk rayon velvet is the best recipient of any kind of dye. (no mordant necessary, top has lye, bottom not)

p.s. This is quite a la-de-da post about natural dyeing. It does not reflect the hours of time invested in harvesting, processing, mordanting. It does not speak about the time spent with research or record keeping of my own. I like that there is time invested. Time is my main material. Also: It does not mention the extreme caution required when using a caustic substance such as lye - (used to clean automobile garage floors). I always used rubber gloves, I worked outside as the fumes should not be inhaled, I did NOT use heat, and I won't put the liquid down my septic system when I'm finally finished. One good thing about these kinds of dyes is that they do last for quite a while, and multiple dips can be done. I made quite a bit of yardage. Protein fibres work well with natural dyes so I used mostly silk and wool. I had some success with linen. I've researched that a pre-soak in tannic acid will help cotton and linen accept more colour, but have not tried that yet. There is so much to learn.

I Love Canada

I Love Canada -- J'Aime Canada 1970, quilted cloth assemblage by Joyce Wieland, collection of Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina

The newest Canadian Art magazine has an article by Sara Angel about True Patriot Love, the landmark show that opened in 1971 at the National Gallery of Canada. Reason Over Passion 1968, Joyce Wieland, quilted Cloth assemblage, collection of the National Gallery of Canada

Joyce Wieland threw a cocktail party for Pierre Trudeau in 1968, just before he ran for the Liberal Party leadership. She gave him the above quilt with his motto, "reason over passion" made from stuffed fabric. So feminine, so feminist.
So missionary position. The Water Quilt 1970-71 Embroidered cloth and printed cloth assemblage by Joyce Wieland, collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario

One of the pieces in the exhibition was The Water Quilt, made from 64 cushions, each with an embroidered arctic flower. detail of The Water Quilt

When the embroidery was lifted, one could read the text from The Energy Poker Game by James Laxer, a book that outlined the danger of selling Canada's water and other natural resources. installation of True Patriot Love in 1971, National Gallery of Ontario. That gallery's first solo exhibition of a living female artist.

She organized a 100 piece marching band for the opening that played "the maple leaf forever: in the lobby of the gallery. Joyce Wieland in 1964. Filmmaker, quilt maker, painter, ecologist, passionate lover of Canada. She died too young at age 66. (1932-1998).

I've written more about Joyce Wieland, an art heroine for us all, in the modernist aesthetic blog. Click here.