Somewhere, there are heirlooms

Why do we embroider? Here in Canada it's a way of making our personal mark. The texture and weight of the thread is interesting for the eye and the slowness of the act seems thoughtful. Thread is familiar to everyone and so there's an intimate connection with the viewer. Each embroiderer has her own style, and those of us who love to look, can recognize makers without having to read their names just like we can recognize painters. Embroidery is more like drawing than it is like sewing.

In 'world' textiles from countries like India and North Africa embroidery is more like a tattoo. It marks out who you are, where you come from, and what your social status is. Specific colours in certain stitches identify and also protect the wearer. Embroidery is used in ceremony for important life passages. Red is the most common colour used in folk embroidery around the world.

I gather my thoughts and materials together for my trip to London, Ontario on Sunday. My workshop about the power and beauty of hand stitched textiles is next week. I'm looking forward to the ferry trip and the drive through south western Ontario. I'm looking forward to meeting the women who will be taking my class - and getting to know them each really well over the five days.

I'm over preparing again. I don't teach that many workshops, but I could not give up this opportunity to meet Jane Dunnewold, who is the other teacher. I have learned so much from her book Complex Cloth over the years, and last year I heard her speak in Kansas City at the Surface Design Association's conference. She's a really lovely human being.

Power and Beauty - the workshop

running stitch
buttonhole stitch
couching stitch
chain stitch
stem stitch
straight stitch
french knot
back stitch
cross stitch - St George
cretan stitch
herringbone stitch
interlacing
shisha mirror work
bokhara couching
romanian filling stitch

I did some fine tuning to the workshop hand out this morning. The stitch diagrams and text were collected from these five books:
100 Embroidery Stitches book 98 - J and P Coats
World Textiles: by John Gillow and Bryan Sentence
Embroidery by Mary Gostelow
Elegant Stitches by Judith Baker Montano
The Techniques of Indian Embroidery by Anne Morrell

Other books with clear diagrams of embroidery stitches are:
The Constance Howard Book of Stitches by Constance Howard
The Complete Encyclopedia of Needlework by Th. De Dillmont
A Complete Guide To Creative Embroidery by Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn

Squarely in the Centre Of Visual Culture: American Pieced Quilts of the 19th Century

Pieced quilts made in America during the last half of the 19th century exhibit an unusually distilled and bold sense of graphic design. The women who made those powerful quilts lived during a time of social upheaval. They were repressed by Victorian ideals, widowed by the civil war, startled by Darwin’s discoveries, inspired by transcendentalist thinking, and bombarded with a mixed bag of criticism and encouragement from women activists. They also had access to a wide variety of domestically produced cloth and many opportunities to publicly exhibit their art form in well-attended fairs. Here were artists who used the quilt medium to express personal creativity and spiritual ideas to make quilts so powerful, beautiful and strong that they stand as icons of inspiration for quilt artists and painters to this day. Log Cabin, Barn Raising, Wool, velvet pressed. Pennsylvania Mennonite 82" x 83" 1880 - 1890

Log Cabin, Something More Magical Than It ever Was, recycled family clothing and silk, photos and paintings transferred to cloth, 90" x 90", made by moi in 1991.

Reminding ourselves of compassion

Toronto textile artist Linda Heron wrote me an email about the red thread. I found it very informative and would like to share it here. (abridged)

In Buddhist tradition and others too I think, the red thread is called a blessing or protection thread, and we tie one knot to remember the 3 Refuges (Buddha spirit in us all, Dharma teachings and Sangha community), a second knot to remind us of compassion for ourselves and all beings and a third one to remind ourselves of something that will benefit all, and to cultivate its growth. The red or maroon thread is symbolic of having come from a monk or nun's robe.

Stitched paper

A tool I can't be without now is an awl. Graphite and thread on paper. I use it to make holes for the needle in the heavy paper. Recycled fabric, ink, thread on paper.

a red thread

I took the red thread work on paper (seven new pieces) to the framer's this afternoon, then bought groceries. Ned's home.

Gone Artin'

Ned has gone fishin' for a week.

Yesterday I gave one of my students a sheet of twenty one little stickers and told her to reward herself with one each time she managed to play the last line of her sonatina with NO mistakes before Sunday's recital.
On Tuesday, the president of the local quilt guild dropped off the eleven president's challenges for me to judge.
When the dog and I walked past some neighbours last night, we discussed their current kitchen renovations However, all of these things seem to come at me as if from a far off place. I have been so immersed in creating new work at my studio that I've left this real world, this so-called real world.

I've gone artin'

XXVI

Oh, come with old Khayyam,
and leave the wise to talk:

One thing is certain and the rest is lies.

The flower that once has blown
forever dies.


This is just one of many quatrains from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the astronomer poet of Persia. He was born, it is said, about 1018, and died in 1123, at the age of one hundred and five. Translated by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859.

Slipping Glimpser

About ten years ago, I read Michael Ignatieff's novel Scar Tissue. The narrator's mother was an artist diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Her decision to give up painting moved me so much that I embroidered some of the text onto the waist band and ties of this apron. Ignatieff is the Deputy Leader of the Canadian Liberal party. "She had stopped painting. When she looked at the canvases it was as if she were realizing what she would have had to abandon, certainly all of us, perhaps herself as well, if she had wanted to get to the wild and exalted place de Kooning had reached."


Willem de Kooning's text is on the body of the apron.
This is a new work and will be shown in Gore Bay over the summer.

Daily dyeing

I've been going through my supply of procion mx dye in an experimental fashion. Yellow. Dark Green. Black. These are in preparation for the workshop I'm teaching in London, Ontario. Violet. Fuschia. Gold. Red. Chino.

Newest Biography - third draft

Art and sewing supplies were made freely available to me when I was growing up near Fort Frances, North Western Ontario. Our house in the country provided me with the time and space to seek an inner world. I studied piano during my entire youth and because of that I have the self-discipline to work every day at my artwork. As well, the emotional content of classical music gave me the idea that it is possible to communicate what it’s like to be alive.

My husband and I have lived on Manitoulin Island for fifteen years, our daily view is of the Wikwemikong Peninsula across Manitowaning Bay. It's quiet here. During the ten years we lived in Kenora I studied part time through Lakehead University and graduated with Honours BFA in 1993. I’m currently in the middle of pursuing another BA degree by distance, this time with a focus in mixed media textiles. I welcome the challenge and my work thrives on it.

What is my medium? Usually there is some drawing or painting and usually there is some stitch. Metaphysics, ecology, and the beauty of nature and family are my subjects. My twenty-first solo exhibition, Red Thread, is at the Gore Bay Museum this summer and is all new work. My art can also be seen at the Perivale Gallery on Manitoulin Island and through the art rental program at the Art Gallery of Sudbury. I have been an exhibiting artist for over twenty-five years.

only the earth lives forever

I've decided on this image for the Red Thread poster that's being printed by SEC graphics. A higher resolution than my little camera is capable of was needed and so Sarah Warburton took the photo.

Hand painted border fabric. Favourite shirt mounted on paper and then stitched. What is it? It's not a quilt. Not a painting. Neither. Both.

Everett fix

Our daughter sent us these awesome photos of the favourite toddler. They were taken a month ago, when he was 20 months. For those who need a little Everett fix. (like moi)
photo by Oona Martin

L'il Abner and a monkey

Happy Birthday Dad!

red thread

I'm considering calling the exhibition in Gore Bay Red Thread. Nearly all of the work is about protection, is about life passages, and has some red thread in it.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was very important to my mother. I have been thinking a lot about her this month as the day approached. She celebrated mother's day instead of her birthday.

Flowers

We delivered my seven new flower paintings to the Perivale today. All of the artists at this gallery have been carefully selected by Sheila McMullan and all of the work is lovely. I have been working on several different bodies of work over the spring and am not sure that these flower paintings represent me accurately. I've also placed a (very nice)quilt there for the season as well.
At home later in the day, my youngest daughter and I did some weeding in the front flower bed. It's so nice to have had her at home this past week.

Watercolour on Cotton

In 2000, the Island Quilt Guild took on the millennium project of making a wildflower quilt to showcase the wide variety of wildflowers grown on this island. All of the applique patterns were derived from original drawings made by guild members. I remember that Joe Price was one of the guild members who made many of the drawings and that she helped me lead drawing sessions for those who were interested. This is one of my drawings for that quilt and I've since rendered it in watercolour on gessoed cotton. This morning I added stem stitch. This smoke flower painting is a new work and will be shown at the Perivale gallery this season.

Contacting Toronto

I love the way quilts look like when they are stacked. This vignette is in my home studio.
Our son is a photographer as well and has some photos in the Toronto contact festival.

Horse Barn on Townline Road

The sight of this barn roof has been a long time inspiration. Solvent transfer on fine linen. Metaphorically, isn't a roof like a quilt? They both protect. Sheet aluminum, engraved.

Going home

Driving back to Manitoulin today with our youngest.
pictured: Felt stitched to bridal satin.

April by Grace

Watercolour portrait of one daughter by another.

We found a poem by her today

My sister and I found this poem by my mother today.

The Cat That Walked by Himself

When I was just a child of three
Or was it four or five
At any rate since I recall
I must have been alive

When round about her garden fair
My mother walked with me
She whispered stories in my ear
From famous libraries

The cat that walked alone she said
Was very much my way
Of finding quite a special road
To choose to take each day

We had the book, I saw the page
The picture printed clear
So seeing it I once again
With memory hold it dear.

Pauline Johnson, 2002

I found another link using the high speed internet here in Kingston, true stitches(Canadian).

yellow green

I'm in Kingston for the weekend. While browsing my father's high speed internet I visted Serena Fenton's blog and she introduced a site for wire crochet, a technique I may be able to use in my current Opus assignment.
I also discovered another that has content close to my heart. Red Thread Studio: Slow Cloth by the writer on things ecological, Elaine Lipson.

Seeds

Poppy pods, avocado stones, boxed and bundled in velvet and linen covered boxes. Keeping. Holding.