Saturday, October 26, 2024

the front and then the back

Counting my blessings 2000  velveteen and cotton quilt 85 x 80 inches

Counting My Blessings (verso)  2000  embroidered cotton, hand quilted 85 x 80 inches


Today Yesterday Tomorrow  1994  painted and pieced cotton hand dyed quilt,
hand embroidery, hand quilted  76 x 72 inches
Today Yesterday Tomorrow (verso) 1994  cotton and embroidered grocery list,
hand quilted 76 x 72 inches


Something More Magical Than It Ever Was 1991 family clothing and silk, log cabin quilt
with photo transfers and painted cloth, 90 x 90 inches
Something More Magical Than It Ever Was (verso)  1991  transfer printed satin and cotton
with hand embroidery 90 x 90 inches 
My Children 1987 painted hand pieced silk from my mother's blouses,
rick rack and polyester border, hand quilted  crib quilt size
My Children (verso)  1987 hand pieced silk and polyester from my mother's blouses, 
 hand quilted , crib quilt size

The quilts in this post are  from my early days of quilting.  They are for the new archive page on my website, (judithemartin.com) which will go live there next month.  

Thank you to the family members and collectors who loaned pieces back to me so that they could be photographed digitally.  Thank you Nick for taking the photos.  Thank you Zoe, for helping me get them onto the website.

I made quilts to save and nurture my creative self.  I started in my early 20’s. I will continue to make them and I am thankful. 

Friday, October 18, 2024

The Welsh Quilt Centre

The Prince of Wales Feathers 82 x 82 inches, Llanrannog, west Wales, 1880

I visited the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter, Wales on August 10, 2024.

The exhibition Merry Go Round was on display.


All the quilts are hand quilted with spirals and flowers in the traditional Welsh manner.

This year, in addition to the older quilts curated from Jen Jones' collection, small quilts by contemporary quilt artist, Mary Jenkins, were displayed on several small suspended merry go rounds. 

upper left wall, Handkerchief Quilt, Pembrokeshire 87 x 82, 1820 - 1840. 
Lower left wall, Brecon Star 75 x 70 inches, late 19th century
 right lower corner of left wall, A Present, made by a Welsh lady who emigrated to Canada and sent this quilt back to Llanelli, Wales.  Redwork embroidery was taught in Canadian schools. 1901.
on the two hanging merry go rounds in the foreground are small quilts by Mary Jenkins

upper wall, a quilt made from bandana handkerchiefs with lovely welsh quilting
lower wall, embroidered cat with Canadian Redwork, early 20th century
foreground, small quilts made by contemporary quilt maker, Mary Jenkins.  


The high ceilings of the town hall upper floor allowed for a lot of the older quilts to be displayed. 

grey patchwork above the bed:  Lampeter Velfrey Tailor's Sample Quilt, machine pieced wool remnants, hand quilted, 88 x 81 inches 1895
on the bed is the Breconshire Tailor's Sample Quilt.  It has a blanket as a batting and is so heavy and irregular that it is awkward to display on the wall. Machine pieced wool, 88 x 81 inches, 1880
in foreground, more of Mary Jenkins small corduroy and wool quilts inspired by Welsh quilts

detail of the Breconshire Tailor's sample quilt (on the bed in previous photo)

Thomas Quilt, naive patchwork using victorian fabrics, sophisticated welsh quilting,
made in Newcastle Emlyn, 72 x 70 inches, 1880

detail of Welsh quilting on the Thomas Quilt

Brecon Star, cotton prints, hand quilted, Brecon, Wales 75 x 70 inches, late19th century



The most compelling thing in the 2024 exhibition was the Merry Go Round in the middle of the room that displayed four of the Jen Jones' collection.  All of them are red and white, and most are hand quilted using the famous Welsh technique.


Welsh quilts often used found textiles such as shawls, handkerchiefs or bandanas and added borders and the lovely intricate quilting.

Paisley Panel Quilt with Saw-tooth Border  hand quilted with lots of spirals,
Newquay, Cardiganshire, 85 x 82 inches, 1890

Cotton bandana medallion quilt

detail of the Thomas quilt (named by Jen Jones in memory of her pet cat)

One of the reasons we went to Wales after the Birmingham festival was so that I could make a pilgrimage to Lampeter to visit this famous shrine of Welsh Quilting. Founded in 1971 by Jen Jones,   please click on her name to read more about her passion for the Welsh quilt.   

Thursday, October 10, 2024

never giving up on the art

september 28  hand quilting on something started earlier this year

 
september 29  hot wax, black cloth, a beautiful day


september 30  town studio

october 1 a new beginning

october 2  hot wax encaustic in Barb's studio

  october 3  visited the Cambridge art galleries with Barb
 Justin Ming Yong's two-sided piece, Sun In Eyes in foreground


october 5 recovered my studio bag with pieces of cloth that came to hand 

october 7 adding quilting stitches to the sleeve for Far Away Stars

october 8  packing up Far Away Stars / Cloudy Day to ship to Quilts=Art=Quilts

october 9 town studio

Blog update:  

For the next couple of months, I need to concentrate more on the neglected website. judithemartin.com  

My Process and Judy's Updates will continue as they are because they are both super easy to write, but the main blog, Judy’s Journal will morph to a photo journal (like today's post) for the next little while. 

Although I will continue the monthly emails until at least the end of the year, I may switch over to substack for updates.  We'll see.   

Thank you friends, for your continued support.   Never give up on your own creative practice.  

Saturday, September 28, 2024

while everything else continues, unexplained and unexplainable

What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me?

I can't turn in any direction but its there. 


I don't mean the leaves' grip and shine or even the thrush's

silk song,  but the far off fires,

for example,  or the stars, heaven's slowly turning theater of light,


or the wind playful with its breath;


or time that's always rushing forward,or standing still 

in the same - what shall I say - moment.


What I know I could put into a pack as if it were bread and cheese,

and carry it on one shoulder, important and honourable, but so small!


While everything else continues, unexplained and unexplainable.


How wonderful it is to follow a thought quietly to its logical end.

I have done this a few times.


But mostly, I just stand in the dark field in the middle of the world, breathing in and out.


Life so far doesn't have any other name but breath and light, wind and rain.


If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.

I simply go on drifting,



In the heaven of the grass and the weeds.


What is there beyond knowing, by Mary Oliver 

from New and Selected Poems volume two published 2005


These images are from the road trip through northern and mid Western Wales that Ned and I did the second week of August.  

All of them were taken from the passenger seat of a moving vehicle by me.  


We enjoyed this trip together very much.


The feeling of being with him in the middle of this fairy world

will stay with me for a long time and I am grateful.

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

statement and a gallery of my recent work

medicine earth 2021 wool, linen, hand stitch, 73.5 x 73 inches

I have been exhibiting my hand stitched textiles for over four decades. For the last dozen years or so, I have been making my work from rescued table linens, old wool blankets, and beautiful new fabrics such as velvet, silk, wool, and linen that I dye myself with locally harvested plants or kitchen waste. I create large scale abstract artworks with the aim to communicate in a poetic way. By poetic I mean that I want my viewer’s personal and large inner world to rise up while they slowly move alongside or around one of my pieces. 

Eternity 2021, Prayer to the Sky 2019, Thoughts and Memories and Dreams 2024

My work is sculptural. The quilts or blankets are double-sided, with each side having its own title. The cloaks, cocoons and bundles that I make hang from the ceiling or are presented on plinths. With my art, I hope to invite a reverie, such as one receives from being alone in nature. 

Time Future: Touch the Stars 2021,  Eternity 2021 

I believe that the sense of touch gives a direct path to the inner world and so I hand-stitch many repeated textural marks into the large areas of cloth to give my work haptic power. I want the urge to touch it or be touched by it, to be almost overwhelming. 

Underfoot the Earth Divine 2020, damask linen, natural dyes, hand stitch 89 x 89 inches, 
Her Arms Wrapped Round and My Heart, wool bundles, the size of toddlers

The soft materials I prefer contain stories about time. Memories can be triggered by these repurposed domestic cloths, either about family dinners, or about feeling warm and protected while falling into the vulnerability of sleep and dream. I use natural dyes, hand pieced small and large pieces of cloth, embroidered circles, feelings of vastness and cosmic mystery, phenomenological knowledge, and the power of unique, slow, textural marks, each one placed by the hand.

Soft Summer Gone 2017  silk, natural dyes, wool and silk threads, hand stitch 100 x 100 inches

I grew up on 160 acres outside of Fort Frances, North Western Ontario. As a child I experienced many long days of solitude and daydream.

My Open Heart 2017 wool, natural dyes, hand stitch 58 x 48 inches

In order to regain that open way of being I choose to live and work on an island in Lake Huron, and to spend most of my time alone. My husband and I have lived and worked on Manitoulin Island for over thirty years and feel privileged to be welcomed here on Ojibwe and Odawa land. We raised our children here. Manitou means The Great Spirit in the Anishinaabeg language and the palpable spiritual quality of this place feeds me, every day and every night of the year.

Under Drifting Stars  2022, cotton, natural dyes, hand embroidery quilted, 80 x 91 inches

I am a second-generation settler, as my father immigrated to Burris township in North Western Ontario from Finland when he was five years old. The Finnish aesthetic of simplicity and noble poverty greatly informs my work. 

Cloudy Day 2024, wool, velvet, cotton, hand stitch  91 x 52 inches

However, my work is also fed by daily views of Manitowaning Bay and the Wikwemikong Peninsula that I enjoy.

Sacred Ground 2024  wool, natural dye, hand stitch, 64 x 37.5 inches

I’ve never lived in an urban centre for longer than a month or two at a time but instead, have chosen to live close to nature and rather isolated on this sparsely-populated island. Both of my university degrees in fine art were obtained through distance education. I’m very grateful for the internet which connects me to art and culture around the world.

Earth and Air  2017  wool, linen, natural dyes, hand stitch  94 x 82 inches

The intent of my work is that it will make you feel like I do when I am alone looking out over the horizon or moving slowly through a windy field of grass or forest path.