Remembrance

Floating World by Linda Finn   acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

This post is about Linda Finn.   (1935 - 2025)    obituary here

It's also about some other artists from this rather isolated area of northern Ontario Canada where I live.  I feel that each has supported me and my work and I miss them.  Linda Finn's paintings, prints and assemblages were always at the Perivale gallery  here on Manitoulin, each piece innovative and inspiring.    

The War Letters Project in the Art Gallery of Sudbury  
'April 1917' is on the back wall.  Screen print on bible pages, acrylic on paper , photo etching and lithographs on paper, assembled in 2007 by Linda Finn

In 2017, Linda had a solo show at the  Art Gallery of Sudbury and displayed The War Letters Project. an ongoing body of work that she had begun in 2007.  It gathered up a wide variety of art pieces including assemblages, paintings, prints and bookworks.  This exhibition toured to eleven galleries over a period of years, most of them in Northern Ontario.  

detail of Linda Finn's assemblage April 1917  (Judy's hand shown for scale)

Each piece in the project started from letters that Linda's grandmother Essie received from soldiers over the two world wars.  The artworks are all shown on Linda's website (here).  You might be interested in the 20 minute video (The Old Tin Box) that tells the story of this project.  

Essie's letter, monoprint with chine colle on paper, 2008 (detail) by Linda Finn

Now, I want to take a moment to mention three other artists who were my friends and who I miss.  Each of them reached out to me and made me feel part of the art community of northern Ontario when we moved here in 1993.  Each of them were influential artists not just here, but more widely through Canada.  I tried to find images that could be shared but was not able to.  Please click on the names as well as the second provided link to read about (and view some of the artwork of) these artists who have recently passed away.  

Ann Suzuki   (died 2021)   her obituary here

ear hear earth heart by Ann Beam, acrylic on paper, 24 x 30 inches

Ann Beam     (died 2024)   her website here     

Ray Laporte   (died 2022)   his obituary here

My friends.  Remembered here.   I miss them and continue to be inspired by each of them.  

Now, in the spirit of  remembering, may I show you the prayer cloth that I finished last night?  

Perhaps it is more of a play cloth.  The transferred painting is by my middle daughter, Grace, from when she was five years old.  She made the painting of the mermaid and the merman on paper, and then I transferred it to polyester fabric with my iron.  I was teaching this kind of art in the schools at the time and we used it at home for birthday party t-shirt-making and the like.  The heart at the bottom was painted just once, but then was ironed three times onto the cloth, getting a little fainter with each repetition.  I will be seeing Grace this weekend and will give it to her for her twins to play with.  They love doll-sized quilts.  

Making and completing small quilts helps me cope.     

Mermaid Quilt by Judy Martin, heat transfer on polyester, velvet, hand stitched, 28 x 33.5 inches  2025 
original painting by Grace Martin when she was five years old