room art

Hibiscus, Acrylic and latex paint on wall, (7 feet high) Sun, Acrylic and latex paint on ceiling, 8 feet diameter

We're noticing our daughters' paintings as we get their rooms ready for Christmas visits.

it is impossible to say just what I mean

And indeed there will be time

There will be time, there will be time

Time for you and time for me

And time yet for a hundred in-decisions

And for a hundred visions and revisions

Before the taking of a toast and tea And indeed there will be time

To wonder

Do I dare?

And do I dare?

Do I dare disturb the universe? And would it have been worth it, after all?

Would it have been worth while

To have bitten off the matter with a smile

It is impossible to say just what I mean


T.S. Eliot
from the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 1917 (much pared down)

dream work

I've been trying to work at a larger scale in this new body of work. These three pieces each measure between 9 and 10 feet across. I had dreams of working even larger (12 feet or 15 feet) but my studio is only 9 ½ feet high and besides, most fabric only comes 5 feet wide at most. Working large is a big commitment, but I like the feeling I get when standing next to my big pieces. They are so large that I can not touch any edge when I am in the centre. Those of us who work with cloth automatically communicate a sense of intimacy because of the material itself. Adding hand stitch and its caress involves the viewer even more. Touch is the mother of the senses. Stitching takes time however. Each stitch takes about a second to make. At the scale I’ve chosen to work, time becomes a limit. I keep reminding myself about the feelings I have when I’m alone in nature. I’m hoping that the monumental scale of the work in combination with the intimacy of hours and hours of hand made marks will land my viewer on a teetering edge of wonder. The scale of the work adds more than just more cloth. It is challenging. These five pieces are not as big. Most are 60" or so. Recently I realized that my art with cloth doesn't need to be a quilt. That revolutionary idea has freed me. For years, my work was grounded in the language of the bed and all the life drama that happens there. The quilt was a protection blanket.
Because of their scale, I think this new work continues with those ideas, but also that other intimate thing that happens in bed. The dreaming.

Seams

Conceptually, seams are interesting. They are used to join two wholes into a single larger whole. Sometimes they are made carefully, and finished. Sometimes they are layered, one over the other. Sometimes, you can barely tell where one idea joins with another, and things are seamless.
Theory and practice can be joined together with seams.

Immensity is within ourselves

I want to make art that connects my viewer to his or her inner world. I want to reach people in a poetic way. With an emotional simplicity. There is time and labour within the work. I want to remind people of what it feels like to look at the horizon I want to work very large, very simply, but with evident labour. I want my handwork to be obvious, perhaps stitched, then removed, then marked again, then removed again. A worn down historical type idea. That we go on. I want to approach my work as if I have all the time I need.


I'm busy this week preparing work to mail to England for my last assessment before the exhibition next June. I am not sure if this will be the exhibition work but I am getting closer. I'm sending eight pieces in my portfolio, plus the many sketchbooks and notes I've made over the last three months.

“Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone.” Gaston Bachelard

slow material

Dyeing with plants has been the main thing I've done these last few months. It seemed necessary for me to colour my own large pieces of cloth so that they reflect where I live. My first tries in natural dyeing in 2010 were tough going. I was disappointed with the wide variety of brown I managed to get. I love red. At any rate, I tried a bit harder this fall and feel that it was a successful time. I learned so much, every day.

I learned to use silk and wool fabrics because they accept the dye so well. I learned where to source those fabrics and am glad for internet shopping. Now, its funny, but I prefer the browns, yellows and greys that I get with the plants. I love that they all ‘go‘ together. They never clash. Most of all I love that it is a slow process. I love that time is a material.
This idea about time is one that I have been exploring for a while with hand stitch. Now that the cloth itself holds time before the months of hand stitch mark it, ... even better.

Tom Thomson

Humans are enthralled by the horizon line. What is it that puts us into a reverie when, in solitude, we seek out that horizontal line in nature? The open spaces on either side encourage contemplation, while the line itself is an edge for the eye to balance on. Small natural marks, ripples in the water below the line, wisps of cloud in the sky, are glimpsed and the alive-ness of the quiet simplicity gives us back our own huge selves.

The images are reproductions of oil paintings by Canadian artist Tom Thomson (1877-1917)
The text is from the introduction to my dissertation. (2010)

the blue and the dim and the dark

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats

This encaustic collage is part of an art show at the Little Current library next month. I'm delivering it today.

construction site

We have a deck under re-construction. new front step, built a year ago

Ned has been working on it again this November, new south facing nook, where we've been having lunch in the sun

He's racing the weather. the second level underway

He's racing the light as it closes down earlier and earlier each day. third level underway

These photos are a progress report for our kids. my dye studio is on the deck

Today's photo. The old deck is still there. Next year he will remove and replace it.

Don't look underneath the deck. It's his workshop and garage for lawn machines.

inner understanding

patience silence have faith in the self Both patience and silence imply faith. (Louise Bourgeois)

who has seen the wind?

Working at this large scale (9 feet) involves my whole body. I need to stretch the cloth out as I stitch the long lines. I use big arm gestures, like making a bed.It's impossible to get a sense of what the work will look like while I stitch it. I have to go on trust. I step on it. I get lost in it when it's in my lap. But because cloth is soft, and folds up, I can carry this off. I can work on a monumental scale. I'll leave it to my daughters to work with steel, cement, and oceans. (which they each do)

celebration

We enter our third year of the Manitoulin Circle Project this month. You can see by the stitching on the left side of the second panel, Mended World, that it was ready to be rolled yesterday. Rolling a quilt on a frame needs more than one person. 110 different sets of hands have worked on the project over the two years. We celebrated. I made a cake. Lots of people came for that and the slide presentation about the first panel's creation and installation. The two panels that are still being pieced were put on display. In the lower right is the fourth panel, so far a grid of re-purposed wool. Precious Water, the third panel, is laid out above that, and in the back you can see Mended World on the frame. I have a pin wall in my studio at home, and have been trying to keep ahead of things. The lower half of Precious Water is entirely made from three inch squares. These are either reverse appliqued with dots or embroidered with horizontal stem stitches. They are being pieced together by hand.

Still lots more dots to make. It's careful work.



Lots of touching.

Lots of laughter.


Dots of love.