Janice Wright Cheney: Widow

Janice Wright Cheney

"I saw a dead bear on the side of the highway, curled up like it was sleeping.  The sight of it filled me with a terrible sadness.  I thought, who mourns for this bear?  Who loved this bear?  My work Widow is the bear that is left behind, the bear that grieves.  This work explores the impossibility of reconciling love, and desire, with death.  So it had to be big:  it had to be a grizzly bear, because I wanted to express the enormity of grief." 

Janice Wright Cheney lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick where she continues to make art and also teaches at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design.    Click here to view her website. 

A life-sized bear armoured nose to paw in felted woollen roses and a velvet hide.  Strangely beautiful, the Widow stands up on her hind quarters to sniff the air.  She seems self-bewildered.  She has a fairy-tale quality.  Learning to live with the loss of her life partner. The line is blurred between human and animal as a fairy tale.  This grief seems more human than animal. The roses are crafted.  They are the kind of things usually intended to decorate.  They make the bear seem approachable.  In European tradition the rose is a symbol of feminine beauty.  Small, delicate, fragile.  But this bear is a hulking figure. 

 Click here to read a review by the Canadian poet Sue Sinclair of Widow. 

This is the second post of a new series on this blog.  

Canadian Artists who Work with Textiles  

My quilts help me to be brave.

Last Tuesday Rachel from Breaking the Blocks / Crafty Monkees interviewed me.  She asks artists to talk about their lives and how their artwork helps them cope. I woke up that morning wondering what I might say. 

What are my "blocks"?  

How do I "break" them?  

One block would be isolation but the internet broke that one for me. 

Another could be the mothering of four kids.   Many people would say this.

Except that I truly believe that motherhood gave me a subject and a reason to create so it was not a block for me.  It was a door.

Maybe I could talk about the breakthrough that happened when I became aware of my inner world and how huge it is and how stitching gives that world to me.  

It's interesting that this interview comes along at the same time as I've been working on my memoir.

My recent self study gave me more confidence when I spoke with Rachel.   

1.  I grew up in an isolated rural place with lots of books and art supplies and plenty of solitude.

2.  I met and married Ned early and had the four kids.  We determined to raise them with natural beauty outside their door.  Around age 30 I discovered how I could use traditional quilt pattern as a code to tell the intimate stories that were happening in my life.  I did a lot of teaching of watercolour painting, art quilting and classical piano for about 20 years along with full time parenting.  It was a busy time. 

3  In 2005, we had an empty nest and this began a new period.  Digital photography.  The internet.  

In 2006, I started writing this blog.   I took a degree in embroidery from the UK.  I retired from in-person teaching.  Over the next twenty years I stepped back into solitude and into the inner world.  

4  I guess that I am now in the period of my 'late work'.  

The unavoidable fact of life is death, but handmade quilts challenge that.  My quilts will outlive me.

Human mortality is a major 'block' for everyone but those of us who create hand-made objects break that block.   

All the images in this post are of a piece that I thought was finished.  See it here on my website.   I cut it in half up the middle and put a lovely wool batt in between the two pieces.  I've really been enjoying stitching it during this beautiful month of May.  

The title will stay the same:  Sky With Many Moons.

The podcast is available where ever you get your podcasts. Rachel called our podcast The Art of Imperfection.  Here is a link.   

Frances Dorsey: Shot Through The Heart

Frances Dorsey

When Frances Dorsey was seven to ten years old, she lived in Saigon, Viet Nam.   She remembers "a paradise on the edge of conflagration".  When she was twenty-one, she moved to Canada.  She has a duel citizenship with USA.  "I am a citizen of North America."

This piece, Shot Through the Heart, is made from used table linens that have been naturally dyed with extracts and earth oxides, as well as discharged and immersion dyed with mechanical resists.  Some have been  over printed with silk screen and also with block printing. The linens were cut up and reassembled.  They were embroidered hand stitched.  It is a large piece:  11 feet x 11 feet.  It was made in 2010. 

Suzanne Smith Arney saw this piece at a conference in Nebraska in 2010, and wrote about it in the fall 2011 of the Surface Design Association's journal.

"The napkins and tablecloths are soft with age and use.  Looking closely, I can make out a nine-block structure, with those blocks subdivided into four.  Each discovery revealed another level to decipher.  Stepping closer, I read the fabrics' histories written in monograms, embroidery, as well as small tears and stains.  Dorsey added her own text in faded yellow, red and purple dyes.  There are folds and stitchings and photo -derived images of her father's army photos and letters, such as b-52s and mortars.  I read the title and stepped back.  Shot Through the Heart infuses the room with a chilly clarity; the whole and partial circles are no more suns than dinner plates.  They are targets."

Frances Dorsey taught about textiles at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for sixteen years.  Her father was a rifleman "who relived his combat daily."    She currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and continues to make thoughtful and beautiful artwork with textiles.  

This is the first post about a new series on this blog:  

Canadian artists who work with Textiles  

In a While, Crocodile

Here is another post about writing my book.  

Since 2000, I have been trying to archive my art work and relate it to the timeline of my life.   

In one of my bookshelves is a binder from 2001 that has images of my work beside typed and printed journal entries that match chronologically. 

It is fascinating - to me. 

In 2015, I began the My Process blog in another attempt to put my creative process into context with my lived life.  A photo of what is on the design wall is paired with the most recent entry of my written journal, just to explore how real life and creating art connect.  

It's fascinating - to me.

  

In 2019 I hired an assistant to help me put my archives in order.  Her job ended with the pandemic but I am very grateful for the google-drive lists of work and for the binders of organized pre-internet paperwork. 

It’s the daily practice of decluttering our house that brought me back to this autobiographical project.  Boxes of slides, envelopes of negatives.  What are they if not clutter?  There are now two APPs on my phone that translate slides and negatives into digital format.  (example of a slide below) 

morning kindergarten watercolour by Judy Martin 1985

I am so hung up on this project.   I only get so far before I talk myself out of continuing.   I think to myself: ‘Why would anyone read this?’ and also ‘What if someone reads this? 

What would they think?

Would they be hurt?

Would they be bored?’

Yet, if I had Judy Martin in my art quilting class, I would say to her:  "Why are you thinking about the audience so much?  Do what your own inner self tells you to!  Make your own self yearn to touch that textile.  If you don't want to stare at that art and contemplate it, who else will?  Give yourself permission to be comforted by your own quilt."    

 

And so, I will continue with my book.    

(I do not need to publish it)  

See you later. Alligator.

See you soon, Baboon. 

In a while, Crocodile. 

my book

Have I mentioned that I'm writing a book?  

I want to put my life and my artwork into some kind of meaningful context.

At first I thought that if I  collected the entries from this blog into something poetic, that would be enough. ‘The Best of Judy's Journal’ kind of thing.

However, Judy's Journal is image based, and the photos in it are not of high enough resolution to be printed.  Without the photos, it wouldn't be half as interesting.  

And besides, ‘the best of judy's journal' is not really what I want to do.  

What I really want to do is gather up my life and work into a single document.

For the last dozen years I've been transcribing every word that I've written in over two hundred journals for 45 minutes a day into my laptop.  At the same time I'm organizing them into chronological order.

A couple of weeks ago, I started an edit and focused on those journals I kept during the Thunder Bay and Kenora years (before 1992).  This is the time in my life when I embraced quilt making as my art form.  It also happened to be the busiest years of mothering.   

I'm calling what I’m writing a first draft.  

I know it’s serious because I've been writing this thing during the time I used to spend stitching.  

(The barn photos in this post were taken from the back seat of our car.  Oona, our oldest, was visiting and to celebrate we went for a drive towards and along the southern part of Manitoulin Island.)

And then, 

Last night, I found a huge box of family negatives in the downstairs closet.  

I couldn't tell what the negatives were depicting until I taught myself how to scan them with my phone using an app.  I knew that they were of 'that time' in my life but I hadn't expected them to be so beautiful.  Magical.       

It seemed like the two things came together, my editing of that special time and then these nostalgic images. 

So that's what I'm up to this month.  

Just thought I'd let you know.   

Harmony and Polly and Regina, oh my

Grey Scale I by Polly Apfelbaum,
marker on silk/rayon velvet, 60 x 37 inches,  2015

 

Ned and I went to the National Gallery of Canada to view Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction when we were in Ottawa last February.  

Grey Scale detail, marker on silk/rayon velvet, by Polly Apfelbaum, USA

This is the important exhibition that you have probably read about online.  It debuted in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in September 2023, and then travelled first to the National Gallery in Washington DC in the spring of 2024, and then to Canada in late 2024 until the end of February 2025.  The exhibition is scheduled to open at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York in April. (April 20 - September 13 2025. ) 

Syaw (Fishnet) by Regina Pilawuk Wilson,
acrylic paint on canvas, 48 x 79 inches, 2011

Fishnet (detail) by paint on canvas by Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Australia

The exhibition was beautifully installed in our spacious national gallery.    

I was familiar with Regina Pilawuk Wilson's work as I own the catalogue for the Marking the Infinite exhibition.  It was great to see this painting face to face.  I really appreciated understanding with my body that that this painting is as large as one of my quilts.  (48 x 79 inches) 

Pink Weave, by Harmony Hammond, USA
 oil and cold wax medium on canvas, 24 X 24 inches, 1974 

Harmony Hammond   is a recognized artist in a wide variety of materials, and has, through out her 50 year career,  privileged textiles in her work.   I find it interesting that of all her work, the curators chose these two oil/wax paintings to represent her contribution to abstract art.  

Grey Grid, by Harmony Hammond, USA
oil and cold wax medium on canvas, 20.5 x 20.5 inches, 1974 

These two paintings by Harmony Hammond along with the velvet piece, Grey Scale I, by Polly Apfelbaum, (who is no slouch in the art world either, btw,) expand the thinking of those of us who unconsciously put art into categories.  Why? I wonder.  Polly Appelbaum's audacious idea to use permanent marker on sensuous silk rayon velvet gives me such pleasure.  (see top photo of this post)    

Untitled #8 by Agnes Martin,
india ink, graphite and gesso on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 1977 

Untitled #8 by Agnes Martin, A Canadian who worked in the USA for most of her career.

It's rare to see an Agnes Martin piece in real life.  

I love that her pencil drawing is so much larger than the Harmony Hammond cold wax pieces.  That's one of the main reasons I like to go to art galleries.  The scale and the texture of the work can only be understood when you stand face to face with it. 

(By the way, the above artwork is not included in the beautiful catalogue, although two other Agnes Martin pieces are.  This makes me wonder if each installation of the exhibition is slightly different.)  

Floor Pieces II, III, and VI by Harmony Hammond,
acrylic on fabric, dimensions variable, 1973

Floorpiece by Harmony Hammond, paint on linen that has been braided  USA

I looked carefully at these floor pieces to see what had been painted and what had not been painted.  

In this post, I am showing some of the artists who created work that highlights the idea of domestic textile methods, (woven cloth, braided rug, pieced quilt) with fine art techniques (painting, drawing).

I plan to write another post about this exhibition.  If you are near New York City this summer, I hope that you will visit the MOMA and walk through this beautiful exhibition.    

journal entries from the middle of March

Sunday:  

Idea:  to work from the back, to use more colour, to cut silk in narrow strips, to couch it to the back.

I write this idea down before bed.    

Monday: 

Or, to cut holes into the circles on the back and reveal the inner black batt, and then stitch around them with black thread that would show on the front side.

To use coloured silk and chance and also holes and to work from the back with out knowing how the front will be affected.

Tuesday;

We made a trip to Lively for an 11:30 appointment for new computer glasses for me. 

I let the lady there pick them out.

The metaphysics of the ordinary.  The pared down aesthetic. Nothing strident.  Well made.  

Intensely worked surface. Not hard work, but careful work. Do not know how it will turn out.

Trust that it is going to work.

My work is about comfort and about the inner world and about the cosmic mystery.

It is not a call to action.  It is a call to reflection.

sun and moon of mine, you've come.

my sight, my hearing, you've come

ecstasy, you've come

eyes filled with sun, harvest of all my longing,

you've come.

desert bandit, penance breaker, silver moon beloved

you've come

Rumi

Wednesday: 

Went to book club today.   It was well attended.  Seven people.  We all liked the book.   Girl With a Pearl Earring.  Afterwards, I went to my studio in town.

Thursday: 

Poetry is an element in all my work.  Poems not to be read, but to be seen and touched without the need to understand them.  

Poetry arises from the desire to get beyond the finite and historical (the human world of violence and difference) in order to reach something transcendent.  (Ben Lerner )

Friday:  

Poetry comes from wanting to recognize a world where everything is connected.  Poems give a sense of prayer.  (Cecilia Vicuna)

Saturday:

We went to Sudbury yesterday.  It was a busy day.  A medical appointment for Ned.  A visit to see the gallery I'll be exhibiting in this summer.  

In my new quilt, I am couching long strips of silk around large unstitched circles.  I am loving the simplicity and the feeling that working this way gives me.  It's really slow.    I am enjoying my time spent with this piece.

I feel as if I'm painting or drawing - allowing my hands to do the thinking, not my mind.

Textiles are records of the every-day.  Textiles are records of endurance.  Textiles record the care and attention given to simple things that surround us. (Dorothy Caldwell)

Some souls have blue stars.  

Some souls have echoes of a burnt voice.

Crumbs of kisses.

Sobs from trees.

Tranquil whiteness.

Flocks of Songs.  

(selected words from several of Lorca's poems that he wrote in 1920)  

making quilts

 Crown of Thorns 1972.  first quilt by Judy Martin
 re-purposed clothing and curtain fabric, hand pieced and hand quilted, 
(no longer exists)

I made my first quilt when I was twenty, and my second one when I was 24.  I've never gone to therapy like my children do.  I've made quilts instead.

self portrait, 1985
hand painted cotton, re-purposed maternity clothing, hand quilted 42 x 42 inches 

When I started having babies,  quilt making fit into my day better than any other art form.

Judy (31 years) with her two older children in 1982 

I live in Northern Ontario.  I've lived here all my life.  

The quilts I made during my 30’s and 40’s are shocking in their lack of skill.  I gave the baby quilts (learning samples) away to new parents who accepted them graciously.  

spider web baby quilt, 1983
polyester-cotton blends, machine pieced, hand quilted
this photo from 1999 when the baby was 16.  She was using it as a car blanket.

What's going on with them?  I look at the photos in this post and I could say so much about each one, but it would only be interesting for me.

They are soft objects that came together from materials I could touch, were real.

They also came from some kind of fantasy of what I hoped and dreamed and could not name.   

Skipping, 1988   fabric paint, cotton fabrics, machine pieced, hand quilted 

Quilts are slow to make.

There are a lot of repetitive tasks involved that put a person into a meditative state. 

And as I was making them, not only did I feel comforted, I also felt that here was the place I could say things that were not "normal".

About the photos in this blog post.  I spent all day yesterday writing and deleting text, but the images here have been stable.  I wanted to write about how I learned to quilt with no mentor.  

I studied fine art and received a fine art degree from Lakehead University while the kids were still little, but quilts were not part of the curriculum.    Quilts are not part of the fine art world.

Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow, 1995
hand painted clotton, overdyed cotton, machine pieced, hand quilted,
grocery list embroidered on reverse side

And the quilting world was very rigid at the time.  There were quilt police with rules and points and 12 stitches per inch.   My quilts were accepted into juried shows but they rarely won awards.  They were not understood in the quilt world. 

The quilts I made when I was actively mothering were related to my daily life as a mother and also to the fantasy I had about what quilts could be.  Even when they were finished, I maintained that fantasy and loved my own work.  I believe that making them saved my life.

We moved from Kenora to Manitoulin when the kids were 6, 8, 13, and 15 years old.  They went to school and I taught classical piano in a church basement.  

protection blanket  2005.  Chemical dyes on rayon embellished with sequins and ribbon,
machine pieced, hand quilted

In 2005, we had an empty nest.   I began this blog in 2006. 

I kept making my quilts.  I didn't know what I was doing in so many words, but I kept doing it.  

When I gathered up the few here I looked at them more critically.  They don't speak for me the way they used to but they remain evidence that I was here.     

prayer cloth: hope  2024    natural dyes on cotton, hand pieced, hand quilted with red thread 

This is a much edited post.  Thank you for continuing to read it.  

Psychic:  derived from the unconscious rather than the conscious.

Therapy:  care and attention

Making quilts:  still saving my life.