Sheila Hicks retrospective in Wakefield, England

grandes boules by Sheila Hicks

textile fresco 1969 in the background 

framed small studies done over 50 years, a rope piece in the background,
  evolving tapestry 1987 in foreground, all by Sheila Hicks

study

study Phare Rude 1978

study   whaler Malgorn 1978 

study Phare Inverti 1977

Pockets 1982 by Sheila Hicks, she stitched together pockets from a medical center in Jerusalem that had been used by patients who were undergoing treatment,
 they could store their belongings in the pockets 

Badagara White 1966 Sheila Hicks

Entrance to the Forest 1972  prayer rug series

grand portal 1974

Ned and I visited Wakefield last August just so that we could see this exhibition by artist, Sheila Hicks.

Images and several write-ups about this show can be accessed through this link to the gallery.

It was wonderful to see room after room of her experimental approach to textiles.  These kinds of exhibitions do not come to where I live in Northern Ontario.  I have to make pilgrimages to them.

My next pilgrimage is to see Magdalena Abakanowicz's exhibition of Abakans at the Tate Modern.  I'll post a photo once I'm there.  For now, enjoy the courageous approach of Sheila Hicks, an American living in Paris, who keeps working at age 85, and who is not afraid of colour and fun.  

Home from England

It's easy to say - trust in yourself.

It's easy to say - just do one thing that you're sure of and as you do that, you will start to know what to do next.

It's easy to say - plunge in, and then go slowly.

It's easy to say -  not to know but to go on.

Working intuitively.

I think that this kind of approach seems mysterious and a little scary, 

but it really is very much like life itself. 

we went to a family wedding in Newcastle on Tyne in the UK..  There were peeling church bells

We don't know what will happen each day.

It helps to follow routines.  It gives a sense that we do know.  

For example I always sleep on the same side of the bed.

But many things happen over the course of a day that you cannot plan for.

You just have to react.  

A typical example is a conversation.

You cannot predict what the grandson will tell you or what your old friend will ask you, but you will reply.  And it will be a good reply.

The conversation will continue.  Something worthwhile will happen.

You didn't know that this would happen.  You didn't plan for it. 

Same with my stitching. 

When I begin, I have a general idea inspired by the materials.

For the torso piece in this post, I was triggered by the faded indigo silk.  

I took the faded cloth with me to England along with a wool backing cloth and some pinkish toned threads.

I honestly did not know what would happen with it. 

I started at the edges and with couching.    

I liked how they became strong and also lively.

I drew the piece into my journal,

Then I looked at some photos of pre-history Newgrange 

and put some dots and zigzags into my journal drawing. 

The British Rail system is really good.  Ned and I spent quite a bit of time on trains moving back and forth between the north of England and the south west region of Cornwall.

Couching is one of my signature techniques.

As I was doing it, I thought about another favourite technique, the reverse applique dot.

I could reveal the white backing cloth using that technique. 

We visited the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield to see the Sheila Hick's retrospective.  

While in England I stitched when I needed to. 

In the middle of night sometimes and also on trains and planes.  

Doing one thing and then another thing

Liking something and repeating it 

Not liking something and not repeating it.  

This is the way I work.

Our elder daughter and her teen boys and our son and his wife went to the wedding too.

Sometimes 'mistakes' happen, 

and I have to cut things up or in half and start again. 

I keep going.

I don't know but I keep going. 

In England

Sometimes I have no words. 

image description:  mature woman wearing running shoes and a spiral necklace stands beside a monumental piece of textile art by Sheila Hicks.  

The artwork is entitled Moroccan Prayer Rug.

It was created by Sheila Hicks in 1972 and is five and a half metres high.  It is hand knotted wool.  

Part of the retrospective exhibition at the Hepworth gallery in Wakefield, England.  

Sometimes life is amazing. 

quilts deserve respect

I think we need to believe that we have all the time in the world.

I think our inner sense of time has no boundaries.  While living as normal people in the every day present, our inner sense of time flips around, going back to childhood and leaping ahead to future plan or worry or dream. 

This is a post about the new sleeve that I invented for my large linen damask quilt

 'underfoot the earth divine'.

I consider most of my work as having two interesting sides, an outer front side and also a beautiful second side.  

The problem is how to show both sides with elegance.

The usual way to hang quilts on the wall is to sew a sleeve on the back side, but this method covers up the top 4 inches of the second side.  I reject it.

Colour is important.  The second side of 'underfoot the earth divine' is a buttery coloured linen damask.   Dyed with natural wild golden rod blossoms, I call this second side 'overhead the sun'.

For my sleeve, I found several damask napkins that had previously been dyed with golden rod.

I assembled them into a long strip along with a layer of batting and gauze backing cloth and spent a few days quilting the strip so that it would blend with the main quilt.    

My idea was that I could extend the top edge of the quilt with this sleeve and although the function would be obvious, I hoped that  the eye would not be disturbed.   I really didn't know if it was going to work out, but I felt it was necessary to keep going.

It was necessary to take the time to do my best.

Quilts are valuable.

They deserve respect.

This particular quilt has been shortlisted for a major prize in England.

We tested the sleeve in the outdoor gallery.  

The shortlist exhibition is part of Festival of Quilts Birmingham.  

Before I shipped it from Canada for this exhibition, 

it was necessary to create a new label for the piece and sew it to the back.   

(I'll remove this label after the festival because I prefer a more unobtrusive signature) 

Underfoot The Earth Divine

In rural areas of Canada, you can see for miles across the fields.

Inspired by this vastness, I dyed ancient table linens a variety of earthy greys with natural tannins and iron and then cut the cloth into long strips.  The strips were then joined together into a large square that resembles a plowed field. 

Within the large square, a small taffeta square marked with a velvet cross and red thread sits inside a large circle. 

The holes cut into this sewn surface reveal soft earth-coloured velvet that we yearn to touch.

My work starts and ends with the inner world.  

If you live in England and are thinking of going to The Festival of Quilts to see this exhibition, The Fine Arts Textile Award shortlist, along with many many other amazing quilt shows, there is a code that you can use to get a discount on tickets.  Just type FATA 22 into the form.

Enjoy the summer my friends.  It is here.

Lucy Wallis' quilt

Judy Martin home studio  collected inspiration wall

Lucy Wallis Circle on Square I 1984,  taffeta, velvet and cotton

This quilt by Lucy Wallis has been very important to me.
I saw it in a book published in 1990 entitled Quilts: The James Collection.
There is not much information about it.  Most of the text in the book is in Japanese.
Lucy Wallis lived on a farm in Somerset England when she made this quilt.
Apparently she made another similar quilt, but I have not seen it.

Circle on Square I by Lucy Wallis, page 108 and 109 in Quilts: The James Collection

By 1991 I had already discovered Lenore Tawney's amazing circle in square weavings (here's one) but this was the first time I felt that a quilt pulled off this important archetype.

Quilts: The James Collection  1990 Kokusai (published in Japan)

The book is still available online (at reasonable cost), and the actual quilt is part of the James Collection, International Quilt Study Museum in Lincoln Nebraska.  The museum dates Lucy's quilt at 1987 and orients it differently than the book.   see here

Judy Martin' collection of inspiration wall in home studio

I've used a large photo of the Lucy Wallis quilt for teaching purposes and came across that photo last week.  I pinned it on my studio wall.  (view old wall here)

Judy age 7 or 8 

This wall holds a collection of photos and momentos that I find such as this birthday card I made for my dad when he turned 86.

top: Aino Sibelius, the Finnish composer's wife
 middle, Lucy wallis's quilt Circle On Square I,
bottom Rothko's Orange and Tan 1954 oil on canvas

There is a narrow place by the closet that I use for 4 x 6 images.  Lucy's quilt has been here for a good long time, along with a quote by Jeanette Winterson and a photo of me from grade 9.

Judy Martin age 14 (new haircut)

Mended World, part of the community stitch project (2009-2013) is a response to Lucy Wallis' beautiful, complicated use of cloth and stitch.

Lucy Wallis Circle on Square I  detail  taffeta, velvet, machine embroidery (I believe)

Thank you Lucy.

And here's the Jeanette Winterson quote

Life has an inside as well as an outside.  Consumer culture directs all resources and attention to life on the outside.  What happens to the inner life?Art is never a luxury because it stimulates and responds to the inner life.    We are badly out of balance.

I don't think of art/creativity as a substitute for anything else.  I see it as a powerful expression of our humanity - and on the side of humanity under threat.  

If we say art is a luxury, we might as well say that being human is a luxury.

Jouissance

Joyful passion that extols female sexual pleasure and the maternal.

The tremendous strength of the female spirit.

This time last year, I was in England, and visited Levens Hall and saw these joyful trees.

circles, domes, eggs, spheres,
boxes, biomorphic shapes, body like materials,
fragmentary, non-linear
are abstractions that represent the female

Lucy Lippard said this in the 70's