mothers almost always mean well

"Don't use up words to get rid of tension....

 That tension should be in your sculpture."

                                                                                                                     Henry Moore

                                                                         

Judith e Martin

I'm often asked if my professional name is Judith or Judy.  My website is Judith Martin Textile Artist.  People often call me Judith.  (They also call me Jude, Judy, Mom, Sweetie.)  My mother named me Judith, but she called me Jude.  My dad calls me Judy.

 

This weekend I decided (again) to be Judith e Martin professionally and Judy or Jude to my friends.  (Margaret Atwood's friends call her Peggy)

If you google Judy Martin the prolific author of books on traditional quilting comes up first and I worry that that some people still confuse me with her.  I am not her.  I am the Canadian Judy Martin who makes quilts. (Google also brings up Judy Martin the wrestler but I am not worried about confusion there)

The Storm at Sea quilt in this post was a wedding gift for Tom (Ned's brother) and Marg in 1988.  (Number 82 on the one hundred quilts blog.)  It's ironic I suppose that page 41 of Scrap Quilts by Judy Martin was my resource.  I have the quilt because April borrowed it for wedding decor.

Concordia graduate

I Will Bring This Colour Home On My Lips, by April Martin, 2013

April graduates from Concordia this spring with a BFA.  Her majors were sculpture and fiber.

It makes my heart sing to see that her sculpture from wood and plasticine is the piece chosen for the online invitation.  Read more about the Concordia faculty of fine art graduate exhibition (May 26 -June 13) by clicking  here.

Jake Moore was the curator of this show.  Please click here to read Jake's interpetation of April's piece.

blue and white

 the marks are evidence of my time

 they describe something recognizable

April's getting married in one month.   I am making blue and white cloths to celebrate.

The trees have flushed this week.  Time is moving so quickly.

"It's our movement that tells us we're alive."  David Hockney

One of Sandra Brownlee's tactile notebooks

In this post, photos of just one of the many notebooks Sandra Brownlee brought to the workshop last week.  Click here to see a photo of her suitcase of journals.

"I love fabric.  It has life in so many dimensions: practical, structural, literary, symbolic, cultural, personal, visceral.  It's been my ongoing avenue for expression and exploration.  Weaving, drawing, and writing are synonymous for me."  Sandra Brownlee

"For thirty years I worked at the loom, fascinated by the ritual and orderly building of the fabric.  Initially I wove cloth and explored textile traditions.  The loom subsequently gave me a place to allow my intuition to guide me as I created intimate black and white fields of patterns, marks, and figures." 

"At the same time, there were also my notebooks."

"Working in my notebooks has always been a vital part of my creative life."

"Since childhood, keeping a notebook has been my way of making the physical world and my responses to it more vivid."

"There is both discipline and liberation in this commitment to documenting on a regular basis a moment or experience."

"My notebooks have increasingly become sensory delights containing expressive studies and inventions, objects in themselves."

"Now, inspired by my notebook practice, my work is moving in new directions."  Sandra Brownlee

"I trust the intuitive and the spontaneous.  Through my senses, particularly the tactile and visual, I come to understand words."

"Through touching, stitching, gathering, and working in my notebooks their meanings become clear.  The tactile component allows me to respond and improvise."

"It focuses me so that the rest of the world falls away, and I become engaged in the creative process."  Sandra Brownlee

grand daughter Aili 6 weeks old on mother's day

dad 91 years old on May 14, 2014

Photos of  Sandra Brownlee's notebooks are by Judy Martin with permission from the artist.  Photos of my hand as a bridge across generations are also by me.

new project

I am beginning a new project.  It's just at the testing stage right now as I re-approach natural dyes on blanket weight wool.   The small piece of walnut dyed wool (on left in above photo) can act as a base for sampling hand stitch.

To re-enter the dye process with long pieces of heavy wool, I will use those onion skins I've been saving for two winters and the three metres of wool I already have on hand.

I covered the skins with water and brought them to a boil for 90 minutes, then let everything rest overnight.  This procedure was repeated over the next two days.   During the same length of time, the wool cloth was left in a mordant solution of alum, cream of tartar and water.

After those three days, the onion skins were strained off, and the fabric was placed in the dye bath and brought to a low simmer for 90 minutes.  This was also allowed to steep.  (over a week)

In the stitch tests on the walnut coloured wool, I tried reverse applique with velvet, and black thread as a wrapping stitch.  Not sure yet if either are perfect.

At this point I have just a broad idea of the finished piece and am feeling my way into it.  Literally.

tactile notebook workshop with Sandra Brownlee

I've just spent five days with Sandra Brownlee , and the experience of being with her in combination with eleven other artists in the tactile notebook workshop will remain with me a long time.  Sandra gave everything she had in her to the workshop, responding to the day, the place, and each of us with sensitive listening and awe inspiring intuition.  All images in this post are of the hardcover sketchbook that I purchased especially and then covered with plant dyed wool crepe over two layers of bamboo quilt batt. Sandra asked us to make covers for our books "so that you want to hold it".  

The workshop's intent was to help us access our huge inner self through words and a slow approach.  There were many readings and meditations that we did as a group and individually, we often made lists of words, choosing one or two to make physical.

 Continuous line meditation above, response with words below.

Seeing the work made by my fellow participants was inspiring and most gave permission for photographs.  Perhaps I'll show some more about this workshop in future posts. Links to this same workshop, England 2014, Australia 2014, Scotland 2013, Canada 2011 and many more on the internet.

Concentration, being with the center, is the secret of our uniqueness, the secret of our being, of our authenticity.  Making time each morning to concentrate on the messages from your body, making time to concentrate on the images from your dreams, to dialogue with the treasures from the unconscious - this will keep you in touch with the river within.  Then, at any moment of the day, you may touch into that river, into the places where things happen.
                                                        Marian Woodman, from The Silence and the Dance 1993

Dorothy Caldwell

Lake, stitching on cotton with earth ochre by Dorothy Caldwell, 2013

 I have been inspired by Dorothy Caldwell's work for decades.

Absorbing Place, stitching on cotton with earth ochre by Dorothy Caldwell 2013

Recently, Ned and I spent some time with her new solo exhibition, Silent Ice/Deep Patience now on at the art gallery of Peterborough.

Flying Over Salt Lakes, stitching on cotton with earth ochre by Dorothy Caldwell, 2013

The five small pieces in this post were lined up at eye level on the exhibition's title wall.  Each is the size of a large sketchbook page.  (about 13" x 16")

Human Trace, stitching on cotton with earth ochre by Dorothy Caldwell, 2013

I wrote about my personal experience of Dorothy Caldwell's exhibition on modernist aesthetic.  Click here to go directly to that post.

Pink Hill, stitching on cotton with earth ochre by Dorothy Caldwell, 2013

"My work is a map of land and memory"  Dorothy Caldwell

Photos in this post and the modernist aesthetic review are by Judy Martin, with permission from the artist.

mother daughter wildflower book

I made a book about the walks I took with daughter April when she was six.  We had just moved to Manitoulin, and the wildflowers were abundant in June. We collected one every walk and then would go home to identify it.  Press it.

I also saved drawings that our two younger daughters made of powerful women, and seven years after that walk they were heat transferred to fabric pages.  The pressed flowers were placed behind hand stitched mylar.  The book also has some embroidered text that our third and oldest daughter said to me when she was fifteen and my thoughts about it.  I'll show  it another time.  Maybe. 

I'm packing the supplies that Sandra Brownlee has requested us to bring to her workshop 'Tactile Notebooks'  next week.  This book is just one of many cloth journals I've made over the years. Memories and conversations with myself made visible.  (I'm not taking it, just sharing it here)