Tuesday, April 09, 2013

considering memory

 
 
 
 
This quilt is from 1991.  I had it out because I made a new sleeve for it today.  I'm sending it off to be part of the Canadian exhibit in the international quilt festival in Chicago.  Pictured is the back, but you can see the front here.

Considering memory in art, I want to recommend the novel February by Lisa Moore.  I am a fan of this author as she is so precise.  The protagonist's inner life and survival as a widowed mother is beautifully written and rings true.  The more poetical  novel Ru, which I read on the plane last month is similar.  Both are stream of consciousness - not chronological.  Memories and subliminal connections come into one's head out of order with perfect sense..   

"Helen unlocks her front door, holding an armful of groceries, and there are three empty floors and silence.  It is a relief.  Solitude, she thinks, is a time-release drug, it enters the system slowly and you become addicted.  It's not an addiction; it's a craft."
February by Lisa Moore  page 111

9 comments:

Mo Crow said...

Oh this quilt is so beautiful Judy! I will read those books & y'know there is a brilliant book that I read last year by the Canadian writer Jane Urquhart "A Map of Glass" about the importance of memory & art & of love too..

Judy Martin said...

I love Jane Urquhart's writing but have not read this one yet. Thanks for the recommendation.

henrietta (aka ani aka zani) said...

how lovely - one of your quilts will be in chicago - if i am able to get away to see it - wouldn't it be grand in person. with my mother's dementia i have come to value memory and come to think of those that do not understand the role of memory as innocence - if you can understand what i am phrasing so poorly.

Margaret said...

Beautiful quilt, Judy -- the back as much as the front. The IQF Chicago viewers will be blessed.

roz said...

'stream of consciousness' ..thank you

Jackie said...

Hi Judy;
IS that that the 'O Canada' exhibit? I sent one off as well.

Judy Martin said...

Yes. O Canada 2013. It's in June, but the quilts go to Houston first.
Congratulations to you Jackie. That's two from Manitoulin. !!

Ann Knickerbocker said...

This is so poignant and beautiful. I was thinking recently about the role of involuntary memories (both good and bad thoughts that come to mind un-asked for) but this is a fine, reflective memory. It will keep me afloat all day!

mansuetude said...

i remember strolling through your other blog and finding... finding this pattern, and being stunned by its powers.
.
On Listening to your daughter talk about her childhood, as you say-- and you were there too... I think its not just memory, but point of view.

We collect differently the sense memory of any moment. And memory then isn't just about the image, recalled, but about a period of growth development and those senses and levels of mind/life absorbed: smell, touch, taste, sight, the rhythms of sound etc... and what occupies one person in the room may not occupy the others in such a powerful way.

Then there is voice: modes of telling; ways of saying--the craft a narrative chooses to emerge through; its form. The "solitude" we love and enter, isn't only in the room, it is inside us.

These powers are the timber of the fire we dance within and also sit around, listening, witnessing each to each.

etc...

even children own these forms, (i think), uniquely.