foundations

The fourth meditation circle within its surrounding square.

 bias bindings

(note the original sketch above on the left)

poof, it's in the frame and we start quilting

Manitoulin Circle Project, every Thursday at the Little Current United Church, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada.
All welcome.

abstract emotions

the islands, 1961, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, Agnes Martin

 In a Chinese vase we can see all that the artist rejected

flying in the wind, 1963, oil and graphite on canvas, 75 x 75 inches, Agnes Martin

 in order to have as close an approximation of his response to reality.

cow, 1960, oil on canvas, 69 x 69 inches, Agnes Martin

 We can feel the same as he felt, looking at his work.

white flower, 1960, oil on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, Agnes Martin

 The same response is made continually over a thousand years.

night sea, 1963, oil and gold leaf on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, Agnes Martin

 Proving it is reality.

this rain, 1960, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 inches, Agnes Martin

 This is what art is about.  Agnes Martin.

Back in my studio after too long away, the first thing I did was to hang the self portrait recently retrieved from Sudbury art gallery art rental.   

This Agnes quote was already on the wall.

What is real time?

There are many kinds of time.
This stitch journal makes time visible, marking each day with a complete skein of embroidery floss.  It has been steady stitching since July 2010, nearly three years so far.

The panels here represent the day by day of January and February 2013.
But I stitched them in March.
I let eyelet stitching absorb me during the winter and my journal project fell behind.
But it's OK, because these new panels document a different kind of time.

The slow time.
Moving my hands, holding the fabric, repeating the stitch, I was able to let go of ordinary time.  Let go of worries of daily life and instead kept each present moment of sun in this journal.

The threads help me to net time.

When I look at the panel above,  I remember my vay-cay (as April calls it).

Even though the date says February, they read to me as that week off.
I think it is the power of touch.

Now I'm back with Dad in Kingston.  He's changed hospitals, and should be returning home in a week or so.  The panel in the background is propped on his power wheel chair.

Emotional time is different than real time.

pattern

pattern attracts me
grid of branches,
palm-thatch lined up edge to edge

repetition
pattern

it occurs all the time,
all the time.
growth in spring and summer
death in fall and winter
repeat

we live a pattern,
we live repetition.
perhaps you will say that I am attracted to patterns and repetition because I am a quilt maker

But maybe I'm a quilt maker because there is pattern in our world

 images:  the thatched outside kitchen in the Cayman Heritage Garden in Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Park

Empty Room Meditation

I am in an empty room.
All the walls are windows except the one at my back.

I am in an empty room, in my stitching chair.
It is quiet.

The windows are just screens. The breeze is gentle, the air sweet.
I close my eyes, still my hands.

I rest.
It's quiet.
There is no thing in my head.

In 1992, I took a journal writing workshop with Christina Baldwin .  I've been going through some of the exercises this week and re-doing them.  The exercises are still relevant and push me in an emotional way.  Totally different emotions than those of twenty years ago, yet I am still me.

"Imagine the space between your eyes and ears as an empty room.  Take out everything except for one thing.  This is the message.  Thank the message."

Questions like these are in her books about journal writing.
Why is it a secret?
What would make it safe to tell?
Who else is this secret affecting in your present life?
There is usually a reason that things happen to us.  What was the gift or the reason that resulted from this event?
Have you forgiven yourself?

memory cloth

Last November I visited Canada's textile museum in Toronto and saw this raffia skirt from Cote d'Ivoire, Africa.

Made by Dida women, the fabric is raffia woven without a loom, dyed with plants and marked very beautifully with tied resist.

posted here so that I don't forget this very real object

Blocking quilts

It's only recently that I have had the courage to block large quilts using my pin wall.

Myra Tallman, my friend and 'tradition of quilt making' mentor,  encouraged me to go ahead and use my own washing machine to wet wash the work before stretching it with pins onto a flat surface.

I am lucky to have a pin wall made from 12 inch ceiling tiles.

 

This pin wall is my most important design tool.  It allows me to step back from my large pieces.

 I also use it when I have my work photographed.   

 

After air drying for a few days,  the quilt is as thin and flat as any art gallery would desire.

It speaks for itself and needs no explanation.

My intentions are not the subject.

The object is the subject.

Not a word out of me is needed. 

 Louise Bourgeois 1992

goodness

a gift to use however I wanted

a quote pinned to my studio wall  

embroidery for luck

goodness in the world
counting on it