Feminine Writing: The House With the Golden Windows

the house with the golden windows

 

In 1993 I made a paper and canvas piece entitled The House With the Golden Windows.  It was inspired by a childhood memory from when our family drove home from Fort Frances.  My mother would half turn her head from the front seat and point at the small farm houses set back from the road, their windows glinting from the late afternoon sun. “Look at the golden windows” she said.

Last week I found an envelope of black and white photos of the house. I'd like to talk about them in today's blog post.   

Helene Cixous

This art piece is an example of Feminine Writing, described by the important French philosopher / intellectual / writer, Helene Cixous. (born 1937)   She said: 

The feminine writer, like a mother, looks with a look that recognizes, studies, respects, doesn’t take, doesn’t claw, but attentively, with gentle relentlessness, contemplates and caresses, bathes, and makes the other shine.  She brings back to light the life that has been buried.  She signs its name.  

I believe that this sewn house is feminine writing because it shines a light on the domestic day to day.  It makes that daily life shine while using feminine techniques and materials.  

For one year, I took a photo every day from within the house I lived in with my family in Kenora, Ontario.  Every day I chose an interesting or beautiful sight from one of the windows, and then snapped it with my film camera.  Although the east side of the house did not have many windows I did take a few from the window over the kitchen sink that looked directly at where the neighbour kept his garbage cans.  

However, my favourite view was of the back yard.  It could be seen from the many north windows and most of the 365 photos are from the north side of the house.  

the north wall interior

I was a mother artist when I made this piece.  You can see the children's sandbox from the north facing windows.  The house was finished in time to exhibit it in the Lakehead University degree show in the spring of 1993.  We moved to Manitoulin that same year.    

this detail of the north window shows the maple tree and the neighbour's fence

I didn’t realize that was to be our last year in the house when I began taking those photos. 

the house with the golden windows, 1993

The house is an installation.  I wanted to make a piece of art that would require my viewer to move around it in order to understand it.  I wanted that same viewer to enter into the house and feel some kind of emotion.  I wanted my viewer to experience my work with the body.

Ann Hamilton

Ann Hamilton, (born 1956), was working with the idea of the body as a way of knowing during that time.  There was an article about her installations in an early 90's  Fiber Art magazine when I was just coming up with the idea to make this house.  Although I wasn't yet familiar with Helene Cixous, I knew about Ann Hamilton.    

When we experience something with the senses (smell, touch, hearing, sight)  and also with movement, we become open.  We receive and resonate.  We experience a poetic recognition.   

Louise Bourgeois

Another artist that has influenced me when I was making the House with the Golden Windows is Louise Bourgeois. (1911 - 2010)   Her art helped her deal with her emotions.  She needed to make art. 

She also expected her viewer to have an emotional response to her work.  She famously said, "If you are not touched by my work, then I have failed."  

Femme Maison  1946

Louise Bourgeois was 35 years old and was raising three boys when she made this piece.  She believed that the domestic world of a mother artist was worth making art about.    

“Art is not about art. Art is about life, and that sums it up."  she said. 

But what emotion do you think Louise Bourgeois is communicating with her image of a woman squeezed into a building?  She made other Femme Maison pieces. See here. 

This house is about domesticity, yet it is not a domestic object.

This piece was made for an art gallery.  The reason that I don't have good photos of it is that it needs an art gallery kind of space to install it in.  

I believe that quilts are art.  I have always believed that.  By making an installation like this, obviously for exhibition, I help others to realize that sewing and patchwork are valid techniques for art making.  

I turned 40 in 1991, and was just beginning to take ownership of the idea that I could be an artist and a mother at the same time.  I leaned into art as a kind of salvation.  I didn’t keep my art passion a secret from the family, but I also didn’t talk about it.  I did it.  I also did my best to be a good mother.  I don't know how I did it now that I look back.  People ask.

I do know that my art was and is a place for me to be truly me.    

Briefly Gorgeous (my mended quilts)

Sunshine and shadow quilt 1987, given to my father for his 70th bithday in 1993
He went horizontal on it throughout the day and wore the fabrics out. 
I began mending it with velvet when I visited him, until he passed away in 2017.
I finished mending it in 2022 and the family loves to use it for comfort.

My sister got married in 1976 and I made her a quilt from new fabrics.  It is my second-ever quilt and is very badly made.  It started to fall apart from age, but also because of my beginner quilt making skills.
I asked her to give it back to me so that I could mend it and plan to use velvet this time too.
I hope to finish it by July as that would mark her 50th anniversary.

 

I Saw A Butterfly is a quilt I made in 1988
and gave to our middle daughter when she went to university.
It became very soft with use and the fabrics and batting were disintegrating, so first I taught her how to mend it, and then I finished mending it myself in 2022.  (with velvet of course)

Sometimes I mend quilts that I didn't make myself, and that is the case for this one.  It was a white whole cloth quilt, beautifully stitched with thick blue thread in a hearts and flowers pattern.  
I replaced the distingrated batting with two kinds of wool batting, one of which would felt, and I also replaced the white backing with a rayon and silk one dyed with plants.  
Poet in Love, mended 2022

There were many holes in the quilt and so I covered them with large brightly coloured velvet circles and ovals.  When I quiltedthe piece, I followed the original blue threads.  And then put the piece into the washer and the distortion happened. 
Poet in Love  Mended (or something like that) in 2022 

I made the dresden plates in the early 80's, probably 1982, and appliqued them to a white background made from old sheets.  We used the long rectangular quilt as a lawn blanket for sun bathing for a long time but when the white background fell apart, I unpicked the plates and appliqued them to squares of naturally dyed wool and silk.  I like how the plates are so faded and pastel, they are remnants from my high school and newly-wed sewing projects.  Those that disintegrated have been replaced with, you guessed it, velvet.  I finished mending You are a Single Star in 2024.

We've been using You Are a Single Star on our bed, and it has been lovely.  Large and heavy.

But just this week I discovered that the backing cloth is wearing out.  
The backing cloth is an old damask table linen that was mailed to me from a Canadian textile artist who was decluttering her studio.  I loved it because of its softness, and that quality gave me the title for my Festival of Quilts exhibition in 2024, Softer and Dreamier.  Now, I see that the backing cloth is fading away.  It is disappearing. 

But part of the reason why I think that quilts are such an important and profound art medium is because they are like the human body and will not last forever.  The fact that they carry their own death with them all the time, even while they care for my loved ones and are so beautiful while doing that, is what makes them authentic and meaningful for me.

Quilts are, to borrow from novelist Ocean Vuong, who wrote the exquisite book in 2019,
 Briefly Gorgeous.   
When I mend quilts, I am continuing the work of these visible, touchable documents about care.
I may be able to extend the life of them for 50 years or so if I used new cloth,
but cloth eventually gets old and wears out, no matter what we do.

Dorothy Caldwell: Listening for the Quiet Sounds

 

Listening for the Quiet Sounds by Dorothy Caldwell, 6 x 9 feet, 2023

 

Dorothy Caldwell was born in Bethesda, Maryland USA in 1948.  

She moved to a rural acreage in Ontario, Canada in 1972 and continues to lives there with views of several hills, farmers' fields, and a lake.  In 1990, she won Canada's highest award for fine craft, the Saidye Bronfman Award, (a Govoner General Award).  Caldwell's work is adored, exhibited, and collected around the world.  

Listening for the Quiet Sounds (detail) by Dorotny Caldwell
Earth pigments screen printed onto cotton  with ink washes, applique, stitching

Dorothy Caldwell was trained as a painter, and graduated from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia with a fine art degree in 1970.  Textile art was not yet an option in art schools but in 1974 Caldwell attended the World Craft Council conference in Toronto entitled In Praise of Hands and saw global hand crafted objects and textiles.  These inspired her to open her painting practice to new materials and technques.  She has since travelled the world studying and also teaching tradtional and innovative ways to mark cloth in a contemporary, abstract manner that feels timeless.

  

For more information about Dorothy Caldwell, a good summary of her career is here on Grokopedia.  You can also watch her speak about her artistic journey at this link. and learn about her study of earth pigments on Fibre Arts Take Two.  The article I wrote about her work on Modernist Aesthetic in 2014 remains number one of all the artists I've profiled.

Dorothy Caldwell, number 7 in the list of Canadian artists who work with textiles.  . 

studio wall 2025

January

Prayer Cloth: Dream

I have a small studio at home that used to be the bedroom of our two youngest daughters.  All that it has in it now are shelves and chests for my cloth and journals, an armchair and a pinwall.   The pinwall helps me to create my quilts.  It also is where I block them when they are finished.  In this post, the 10 finished quilts I made in 2025.  

The title for the January quilt comes from something I think that Carl Jung said.  "I dream and my soul awakens, Imagination is the star."  

February

Mermaid and Troll

A painting that our daughter Grace made when she was about 6.  Paintings made with a special kind of dye on paper can be transferred with an iron to polyester and I made a quilt for her twin girls with the fabric painting I'd saved for so long. 

March

Cape of Rain

I un-did alll the cloak-sculptures that I made for In the Middle of the World (the exhibition I had with colleague Penny Berens ) and returned them to their original 2-dimensional shapes.  I pinned them to my design wall and re-titled them all.  This one, a distressed wool blanket full of holes, was entitled Flowers Bloomed in the exhibit.  Now for me, it is not so much a protection cloak against the rain, but one that contains the sadness of climate crisis. 

April

Prayers for the Twenty-first Century

I've loved the poem A Prayer For the Twenty-first Century by John Marsden since I read an illustrated version of it in 1998.  In 2017, I created a large flag-like textile from some red thread embroideries that I named after the poem. These four are from that piece that I took apart, reworked and then mounted on squares of white wool.       

May

The Day, The Night, and then The Day Again

I finished this two-sided quilt in time for it to be included in my summer exhibition, The Sky, at the Art Gallery of Sudbury.  Completely reversible, I wanted to show how there are many stars in the sky that we don't see during the day.  I also wanted to show the reassurance that we receive from the sky because every day comes back again after a long dark night.  

June

All The Lived Emotions

Another piece that is an evolution from a previous one.  In 2023, I made 42 'mothering bundles' from saved items and showed about 17 of them in the Stardust exhibition in the Gore Bay museum that summer.  This past June, I covered 14 of them with cloth gleaned from unfinished projects or failed online purchases for The Sky exhibition and gave these few a new title.  

July

Sky With Many Moons

Another piece that I finished up in time to show in my exhibition in Sudbury.  I've actually been working on this one for at least ten years.  In 2019 I thought it was finished.  (see here) .   

August

Not a new finish, but a new experience for me was to have my work featured in an important Canadian Poetry journal.  There is a ten page spread with images of my recent work as if they are each poems and Starry Starry from 2023 is on the front cover.  

  

September

Baby Floor Quilt

This is a true 2025 quilt because I began and finished it during the summer to celebrate April's friends who have started having babies.  Floor Quilts are practical gifts for newborns and her friends will share this one.

October

Two In-Progress pieces 

I'm excited about these two, as well as the several others that only got part way done in 2025.  

November

Sunflower Sky

The title of this one was inspired by the great artist Anselm Kiefer who often works with sunflowers in his large scale work.  There are several metaphysical and metaphorical reasons why he uses them but the simple description of a field of giant sunflowers that he planted in the South of France is what moved me to change the title of this piece from Sky Full of Stars to Sunflower Sky.  He speaks about lying down in the middle of the field and looking up at the ripe sunflowers with their bending-down heads.  He thought that the flowers resembled stars in the sky.  There is a White-cube reel on Instagram with this short talk, Here.

December

My Trembling Heart

At first I called this small piece Paris in February, because I took it with me when Grace and I visited that city, and was able to stitch it in the Jardin du Luxembourg.  I changed the title to My Full Heart after I drew that circle in the center.  Once I realized that the fluttering tiny cloth sequins are my favourite part, I changed the title once more.  I finished it on the last day of 2025. 

Thank you for reading this entire post.  Reflecting on these images caused me to realize that my work is always changing or growing, and never really finished. I think this is a hopeful way to be.  So with these pieces from my full heart, I send you each good wishes for 2026.  Carry on bravely my friends.   

my trembling heart

Happy Winter Solstice

My Trembling Heart on the studio wall,with journals and the book I read while biking.

The kids are starting to arrive today.  Ned and I have been getting the house ready.  

I have also been finishing up the trembling heart piece in the evenings.  

Actually, I've been procrastinating on everything. I give myself so much slack these days. 

For example, I spent two hours mending my foot pillow, (it was not on the to-do list).

I love having a pillow to put my feet on. I make them for myself out of unfinished projects.  The one above was falling apart (from use) and instead of writing those Christmas letters, I did some hand sewing.    

Before bed last night, I thought about blogging and how I have been not been able to.  

So when I gave in to my needle this morning I thought maybe I could just tell you about this project. 

I like to use velvet when I mend.  Can you see the strip of velvet across the back of the pillow? 

Below are the 8 x 10 hand printed photos of my older brother/ younger sister that my mom photographed and my dad developed that I found in my father's papers. The plan is to mail them to my siblings. I think that they are stunning. 

I have not started to decorate yet.  The tree is not up.  

I've only removed the autumn clutter from the living room, and baby proofed it.  Those crystal decanters on the mantelpiece are heirlooms from Ned's family.  We're giving one to each of our kids this year as we de-clutter and carry on through our 70's.

Above, you can see my foot pillow under the part of the table where I sit when I write because it has the best light.  The pillow on my chair was mended with velvet last summer.  

Poem Blanket and My Trembling Heart, two works in progress

Sending out my very best wishing for serenity over the next few weeks.  May 2026 be a year of peace. 

November 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

protection blanket, reverse side, procion dye on rayon, hand quilted 2005

 
I make very simple, large constructed textiles.  All my work is hand stitched, a slow method that gives me solace as well as a place where I can gain perspective on world events. 

wrapped form, my mother's clothing, wrapped in sheet, life sized  2007

The concept and technique of wrapping and being wrapped grounds most of my work. 

I think about their mothers, newspaper clippings, graphite, on 22 x 30 inch paper, 2008

I create installations of large-scale textiles covered with stitch in combination with wrapped bundles.  

gathering myself, silk thread on linen monogrammed pillowcase, 2009

Visitors move alongside and through the work as if in a natural environment, able to view both sides and understand the work through time and with the body.  My work is usually large scale and is densely covered with small marks.  

not to know but to go on, one skein of embroidery floss a day for three years, (2010 - 2013)  

Yesterday, I had to write a description of how I work.  When I wrote the few paragraphs, I was thinking of my newest pieces, but all the images in this post are from my early blog posts.  I found them in the first five Novembers in the archives. (see sidebar in web version) 

My work hasn't really changed all that much.  I still use wrapping and I still work very simply.

I am so grateful for this work.

How do I begin?

I think the process starts with my place on this island and in my personal relationships.

I think that those two things are the ground for every thing I make.

I respond to my yard and the trees and the water and the sky

and the drive home with the sun going pink 

and the quietness 

and the feelings of safety that Ned provides.

I also look at books.

I read the words.

I read every day and do so because of the lovely words, one after the other.

Evocative words, well placed, that connect to something wordless in me.

I can't really explain it, but they inspire me.

Sometimes I write them down but most of the time I just absorb them.  Other people's written words.

I look at art books.  

I have a big collection of books on art, quilts, world texitles.

I look at the pictures in these books.  I study one or two pictures a day.

Every day. They feed my creative brain so much.

So that's where I start. 

That's where the ideas glimmer.

When I feel any kind of spark, I make a quick note or a sketch in the journal I keep close. 

I don't really draw.

I don't need a drawing, or want one.  If I had a drawing of what the completed piece would look like, then I wouldn't be able to make it.

I think that a refined drawing would stifle me.    

I do make quick and rough sketches with a ball point pen.  

The photos that illustrate this post are of of some of the quilts I worked on in October. 

Gratefully.