Interview question

Mary Cassatt, Breakfast in Bed

World of Threads question: Are there any specific historic artists that have influenced your work? Please explain.

Judy Martin answer: I have been fascinated with art all my life and am humbled by my ongoing studies. I got my first fine art degree in the early 90's and was influenced at that time by the work of feminist artist Miriam Schapiro and by the ideas of Judy Chicago.

It's hard for me to say if one or two specific artists influenced my work. I have been inspired by so many artists and types of artwork. I like very early Greek statues, I also like Giotto's simple figures from pre renaissance Italy. I like the humanness of Velasquez's faces and the passion of Goya's narratives. I like Picasso, the flaunting of his masculinity and the immensity of his vision, I like Matisse, such simplicity in his lines and shapes, I like Van Gogh, the energy and inner passion in his wonderful brush strokes. I like how DuChamp made us notice the mysterious in the every-day and how David Hockney realized time passing with photography. Whoops, those were all men I just mentioned. But that was the art history I studied. Joyce Wieland, Reason over Passion

My work is influenced by Joyce Wieland's use of feminine imagery and domestic technique, Louise Bourgeois's grand idea that art is therapy, Emily Carr's connection with the spirit of nature and Mary Pratt and Mary Cassatt, who painted women, children and the domestic.


I also love Mark Rothko and Paul Klee, those guys who painted empty contemplative space and who attempted to make visible the invisible.


Agnes Martin's committment to solitude and work and Frida Kahlo's confrontational look at her own life story through painting. Those ideas inform my work.

Recent Australian acrylic painting is very inspirational right now. The empty spaces, the human gesture of line and shape. Wow.


Louise Bourgeois, Femme Maison
Indian embroidered tunic

I am in awe of those anonymous early quilt makers who were able to really see their surroundings and create beautiful and meaningful repeated patterns. I have respect and admiration for early Amish quilt makers, as their placement of colour is fantastic. For a long time I have admired the earthy minimalism in Dorothy Caldwell's resist dyed work. She remains a huge inspiration as does the passion of quilt artist Nancy Crow.

World textiles knock me over. African, Indian, Japanese cloth. Embroidery, dye methods, meaning.

Been blogging forever it seems

Journals from our bicycle tour of Western Europe in the 70's. I was pretty faithful about writing (and sketching). The above is from Holland. I wonder why I felt it was so necessary to keep track of it. The newness of it. My reaction. A Spanish circle dance in jeans. Journals and art help me to understand the mystery of who I really really am.

Art tells us who we are, how we feel. How can we ever move ahead if we don't have that knowledge?
Doris Shadbolt

the whirl of it all

Another Christmas. This was a good one. Two children were home with partners, Grace phoned from Turkey, Oona phoned from Alaska. Jay photographed April and me sharing the sofa after Christmas dinner. Time whirls by but my daily stitching helps me to catch it, somehow.

Very Best Wishes To You

My very best wishes to you.

quotes by Agnes Martin

“I was taught: “you are important, people are important beyond anything else’ I thought that I was big and the work was small. It is not possible to go on that way.” “The function of artwork is the stimulation of sensibilities, the renewal of memories of moments of perfection. Perfection is far away. Art work is hard.” “Artwork is a working through of disappointments and a growing recognition of failure to the point of defeat, but still we wake up, and there is inspiration. We go on.

Be defeated. Carry on. It is a discipline.”







“The truth about life and the mystery of beauty are the same. They are the first concern of everyone.”

paintings of my mother

I folded up and threw out a painting today. Not this one. I'm keeping this one. Inspired by a black and white photograph, this is the way I like to remember my mother. Smiling. Brave. Touching my shoulders with pride, showing off the new smocked dress that she had made for me. I made several paintings of my mother in 2008 from photographs. It helped me, she had passed in 2007. I used the black and white photographs my dad took. She liked to pose with us kids on Sundays after church. Above: the one I threw out today. It was time. Too large for my archival box, it was in the way. I tossed it because it did not flatter her. It did not look like her. Above: also tossed. I stitched red thread into each painting and showed them in 2008. Too personal.

holiday

This morning I took a holiday from holiday preparations. I worked. From the Canadian Oxford Dictionary

holiday:
a) a day on which most work, school, and business ceases
b) a religious festival
c) holiday season - the festive period surrounding Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's

deed of gift

Quilt backs have a secret beauty. They are a place where the maker can add special touches, like a glimpse of narrow coloured ribbon. Or prairie points. This quilt entered the Art Gallery of Sudbury's permanent collection on Monday.





We dropped it off on our way to the air port.







To see the front of the quilt, click here.

Quilts give time, not take it

I was asked to speak about the circle project in church this morning. The deadline prompted me to bind the edges of Earth Ark. Mitered corners are second nature to me now. On Saturday, Ned and I took the quilt to the sanctuary.






He put up one of the stands he has built over the years. This was a temporary solution. The meditation panels will eventually be installed on a wall. Seeing the quilt up made me feel sad for some reason. It was not perfect. It needs to be cleaned, there is still a lot of quilting to do. It needs to be blocked so it hangs well. I put two twigs together and sewed them on.


In the large cathedrals of Western Europe, it was important to have a visual means of illustrating bible stories and religious ideas, as most of the population were not able to read Latin. The carvings, sculptures, tapestries, and stained glass windows in those churches remain. They still move us.

Today, we can all read. Do we still need liturgical art?

This is a quilt. Quilts bring to mind women and the domestic. For some, a quilt is too humble to be considered art. But it is art. It is an art that helps us to feel.

Quilts give time, not take it

They give the maker’s repeated caress.

Protection

protection study, wool yarn knitted and felted with metal buttons


Grace is moving to England on Monday. She wanted to learn how to make a Christmas turkey, so that was today's project. It's been great to have her home as this past week.

She came to the circle project with me yesterday.

I'm back

November 26 - December 6 stitching.

The research and writing of my dissertation has consumed me for nine months. I kept notes on a zillion books in these plastic duo-tangs. I made outlines and talked to myself in five black hard covered blank books. The wall in my home studio helped me a lot. Now that the thing is outta here I can return to my self.

HELLO MAKING! GOOD BYE just thinking about it.

Being emotional today

The Coronation of the Virgin by Tommaso Del Mazza, Louvre, Paris

We are so used to having emotional responses that we are not consciously aware of them. We respond to beauty with emotion. We respond to nature with emotion. We respond to art with emotion. Because we don’t stop to name our feelings, we have not recognized them. In order to encounter immensity within ourselves, we need to stop thinking so much and recognize our emotions more.

“Our emotional life is really dominant over our intellectual life but we do not realize it.” Agnes Martin


To have an emotion engages everything, body mind and soul. The opposite is the case with thought. To have a deep thought it is necessary to separate the mind from the body and soul.

Earth Ark update

Earth Ark came off the quilting frame yesterday. Chain stitch embroidery/quilting. Karen Heather Strong T pins hold the quilt to the wooden frame. They had to be removed. First I rolled it up, then I unrolled it to take out more pins. It's quite heavy now with all the additional thread. Here is a glimpse of the reverse side. A square of Marimekko fabric bordered by recycled linen damask table cloths. This secret Finnish signature is one I plan to use for all four meditation panels. Grace is home for ten days. I am so glad that she came to work on the project yesterday.



















p.s. I FOUND my spiral necklace!