milky way, north star

Pawnee Star Map

painted with minerals on tanned leather,                                                                                                  the many tiny stars in the middle represent the milky way,                                                                          

A sacred object of the Skidi Pawnee tribe who lived in what is now Nebraska,                                Buffalo hunters, village livers, cosmic believers.  

When it entered the Field Museum in Chicago it was already between 100 and 300 years old, the north star is the largest cross

This post is a repost, the original is from this blog,  April 18, 2013.  There are lots of places to find these kinds of images and what we have learned about such precious items on the internet.  See what I mean here 

I am still interested in these ancient ways of looking at the sky.  I look at the sky every day.  I photograph the sunrise almost every day.

Stand up and face the east.  Now praise the sky and praise each person under the sky.                              It's okay to be unsure, but praise, praise, praise.                    Miranda July

order belies chaos

Not To Know But To Go On from April 3 2013 post

It takes months to put these stitches into the cloth.

stitched grid (detail) from April 4 2008 post

Months of lived experience.

  

Bidwell from April 4 2017 post

Consider what happens in that amount of time.

Not To Know But To Go On from April 3 2013 post

The events of the world and the events of a personal life story.  

 

Order Belies Chaos from April 2 2007 post

How brief our time is to be alive.   Our precious time.

All images from this blog.  (15 years of blogging so far)

The text is from  my April 3, 2013 post.

Carry on bravely

 I’m using my iPhone to blog today and it has taken an hour to settle on putting up just this one image, which is not cropped , but at least I was able to shrink it for web viewing. 

Blogger wants to put my photos on its side because that’s the way they were originally taken and I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet.  Oh well.  

Carry on bravely my friends xo

truth telling

I went into the studio last week and pinned things up and looked.

I thought the dotted sheer panels I made last summer were finished pieces in themselves, but now I know better.  They are layers.  I look and I move things around and look some more.

Sometimes I just look.  

Stumped.

I would like to speak honestly about blogging.  

Writing  this blog seems hard lately and I am going to take a sabbatical from the writing part of it.  I will still post photos of my work, but please don't expect me to write.  I can't.

And there is something else.  

Recently, I've received emails that let me know that my blog is not working.  People have been asking for help with comments or following.  Blogger won't let them in anymore.  I don't know what has changed. 

 Come over to instagram with me. It's easier.  My handle there is @judithemartin

from 2008 journal:  Accept me.  Love me.  Who am I from the inside out?  I am enough as I am. 

studio work

I went into my town studio on Friday.

I pinned Medicine Earth on the wall.  It didn't seem right anymore.  I turned it on its side.

At home, I started a new pieced cloth.  I used up all I had of some soft wool cloth.

It's extremely simple.

Walnut dyed.

I've been sewing a lot of squares together lately, and I can't really explain why in words.  It just feels best for me now.

The textiles I make are documents.   At the same time, they hold me.   Also time.  Also touch.

Time is my obsession:  Not to waste it, not to lose it.  Time is an object to me, something you can almost take hold of,  if I could just collect enough of it in one clump. Anne Tyler (Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant)

a universe

The light is changing.

There is morning light in our bedroom.

I'm reading:  Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles and

Where the Heart Beats by Kay Larson (about John Cage)

In the evenings I'm watching: Steve McQueen's Small Axe series 

This post is just photos of four quilts piled on our bed.

I don't have any words to go with them.  

I guess my thoughts are in my quilts this week.

They are a kind of universe.

Lawrence Carroll A Place

1969 by Lawrence Carroll
oil, wax, canvas, staples, wood
212 x 93 x 34 cm  2017

There's waiting a place

someplace.  I have

not found.

A place I know

but cannot picture,

cannot describe

cannot feel.  

Untitled (stacked painting) by Lawrence Carroll
oil, house paint, wax, canvas on wood 
63 x 41 x 8 cm 1992 - 2017

It's there, over there

not behind me, but

over there,

ahead of me

and my impatience,

Untitled 2005 (house paint, wood, wax, plastic flowers
and Untitled 2017 (house paint and wax on canvas) both by Lawrence Carroll
installed in Museo Vincenzo Vela, Switzerland in 2017 

a place I'll sleep

with knowing its

a place I can sleep.

And not turn from side

to side, night to night,

but a place not silver or gold

but something else,  its

not perfectly round

A Place by Lawrence Carroll
pencil, house paint, masking tape, wax on paper
43 x 35.5 cm  1985

it's over there,

ahead of

not behind me. 

Lawrence Carroll  (1954 - 2019)

More about this  fabulous artist over on modernist aesthetic.

There are also some videos here and here.

Blogging, Instagramming, natural dyes

left: dyers mushroom and wool , right: linen unknown
both steeped for 6 months in jars and opened January 15 2021

This is my main blog.  Judy's Journal. 

I consider this blog to be an important part of my work.  I try to write once a week.  Thank you for continuing to read what I write.  Thank you for your comments and emails, I appreciate them all. 

onion skin, cotton with alum mordant, February 9 

Writing this blog is helpful for me.  It sorts things out.  I keep thoughts and can find them again easily.  I use the search button at the top of this page and type in what I'm looking for.  In a way, it acts like a filing system.  

the orange/tan pieces are onion skin on velvet, cotton, and linen,
the two pink pieces are unknown dye on a small piece of silk velvet and a linen napkin
(found in jar Feb 11)

Things have changed in the blog world since I started writing in 2006.  

More and more of us are using our phones to access social media.  Some social media such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are designed for phones, not desk top or lap top computer screens.

The blog format was designed for computer screen, not phone.    

avocado (pits only) with alum mordant
cotton, wool, velvet, linen  Feb 19

For those of you who are reading this blog on the phone, I invite you to please scroll to the bottom of the post to where it says "view web version" and click on that.  If you enlarge what you get, it is then possible to see the entire blog page, including that search button at the top that I mentioned.

view web version

red onion, alum mordant on wool and linen
avocado (pits only) no mordant on wool and silk velvet
Feb 20

See the buttons going horizontally along the top?

I'll go over a few of them here.  Try them and then use the back button to get back here to main blog.

judy's news     This is where I keep track of exhibitions and such, as they come up

avocodo pits with iron modifier added
silk velvet, linen and wool   Feb 21 

my process       This blog is updated more frequently than Judy's Journal.  It is a record of my design wall combined with the last entry in my written journal.  It gives a raw idea of how I approach my work.  I label each post so that I can see the development of a specific piece over time. 

avocado pits with iron modifier on linen
(scoured and pre-mordanted with alum   Feb 21

new work       This is where you can see a gallery of finished work.

Manitoulin Circle Project      The beautiful community project (2009-2013)

Modernist Aesthetic Blog    where I write about other artists who inspire me

100 quilts     an illustrated list of the over 100 quilts I've made 

Feb 22

Then there is the side-bar of the blog, designed for computer screens.

My email address is there if you click on view my complete profile 

Recent lectures and interviews are linked.  My Pandemic Summer, the Weave podcast interview, and the interview with the English school of stitched textiles.

Two websites are there, new and old.   These will both be replaced soon with an updated site.  

There are many more links and labels on that side bar.  

red onion with iron mordant on silk, wool, and silk velvet Feb 23

They are not visible if you look at the phone without going to the web version.  While it is not necessary to go to the web version,  I just wanted to point out that these additions are easily available.  The follow link in the sidebar.  (and a translate link)

Apologies to those of you who do read this journal on a laptop.

I hope that you have liked the images of my winter dyeing studio.  I've used kitchen waste (onion skin, avocado pits) with two kinds of alum and some iron.  Lots of simmering and steeping going on.

red onion skin with iron on silk and wool  feb 23

One more thing!  I love Instagram.

Instagram is where I go to find other artists and their thoughts.  I am very inspired by artists around the world that I see on instagram.  It's best to visit Instagram on the phone.  I do.  It's so easy.  

Instagram is very user friendly.  Many of the instagrammers I follow write as much in their instagram posts as I do in this blog.  

the same avocado pits (they were used 3 times!) on linen and wool  feb 24

I love Instagram because of the wider world that it has introduced me to.

I follow artists in Japan and Europe and Australia and the USA and if the language is different, there is a handy translate button.  My instagram handle is @judithemartin  .  I post there every few days.  

avocado pits on wool  feb 24 (still wet)

OK - that's all.  Love you xo