Momstuff

The LaCloche show looks amazing, the prep for the wax workshop proved worthwhile, the opening went well, the place was packed, the word "different" was used to describe my work, two of my pieces sold, the brief talk I gave before the awards presentation is posted in my updates .

That was yesterday.

Today Grace wore this lovely brides-maid dress in Courtney and Scott's wedding.
I moved the zipper, took in four seams, shortened it by two and a half inches.

wax workshop

wax resist, dye on cloth
I've been asked to give a workshop for the LaCloche participating artists this coming Friday. A month or so ago I told the committee that I would demonstrate my wax techniques on paper and on cloth and now it's in stone on the website.
Basting to a backing on the kitchen floor.

My method focuses on using wax as a resist. To simplify here it is:
heat wax, apply , scratch into wax if desired, add dye or ink, allow to dry, remove wax.

There's an earthy feel to anything wax touches, I'd say.

This will not be an encaustic workshop - it's only two hours in length. However, I am starting to experiment with encaustic, adding colour to my wax. Perhaps I have the LaCloche committee to thank for pushing me in this direction.

Domestic Art

Mother Canada front detail

Today we installed eleven pieces of my art work in Whitefish Falls for the distinguished artist part of the LaCloche show. All but one use stitching as the main technique.

Before we left, we had to wait for this two sided piece to come out of the dryer. It took courage to toss months of work into the laundry machines but I do love how the linen fabric has shrunk and acquired an 'old' texture and the red cotton threads took on a more interesting line.

Mother Canada back detail

A peek at the rest of my work installed is in my updates.

LaCloche Art Show

Here is the poster for the LaCloche Art Show. The committee of volunteers are installing the 240 piece juried exhibition today and have asked me to hang my 'distinguished artist exhibition' soon as well. I'm still stitching on two of the pieces and most of the others are still at the framer's. Hopefully everything will be ready for the end of this week.

Wax Experiments

I have been procrastinating in regard to the LaCloche 'workshop'. It's on the same day as the award presentation and open to all participating artists. It's only two hours in length and sometimes, apparently, draws 50 participants. There's no way that it can be hands-on. I've been trying to think about what I could possibly show all those painters and photographers? Yesterday I got out the electric fry pan and worked (played) with one of my favourite unknown quantities, wax.
The technique demands intuitition and courage and works as well on paper as on cloth. These pieces are on watercolour paper and are still in progress.

This is art

Jon Butler contacted me by email last Tuesday. He sent me a list of things to do to prepare for my distinguished artist gig at this year's LaCloche art show. The committee is publishing a pamphlet.

1. Photo of yourself for the front page.

2. Photos of art that you will have in the show for sale along with the medium and titles. 5 or 6 would be great.

3. Your bio. (400 -500 words).

4. Photo of the piece that you will be donating for the raffle prize along with title, size, medium and value. This will also be used for the poster.

5. The title of your workshop on July 3.

I am going to exhibit textile art at the LaCloche. The question remains: "Why does it take so much courage even for me, to call this art?"

Gloria, my sign of spring

Today I drove the 40 minutes over to Mindemoya to visit Gloria, my framer. Water brimmed in the ditches and it was sunny. Together we chose frames for some of the drawings I did last summer and for this linen stitching. It's not often that I put textiles behind glass. These pieces are either for the Perivale gallery which opens in May or for my LaCloche gig in early July.

Head Shot

I am posting the press release that went out today for the LaCloche art show coming up locally this summer. Jon Butler asked me for a 'head shot' and a bio last week. I have never been happy about putting photographs of myself in front of the world, preferring to hide behind my work and my children. However, we are who we are I guess.

Here is the text that goes with the press release, and the artwork.

Featured Artist

Our 2009 Distinguished Artist is Judy Martin.

Judy maintains a working studio in downtown Little Current that looks out on the North Channel and the historic swing bridge. Her wide range of art media includes drawings and paintings on paper and canvas, fabric and paper collage, experimental work with wax and hand stitched large wall quilts.

Judy grew up on a farm in the Fort Frances area of Northwestern Ontario and moved to Manitoulin Island in 1993. Although she already has a fine arts degree from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Judy embarked on a second one by distance from Middlesex University in the UK three years ago. Studying art at the university level informs her practice with art history and theory and gives her work a certain technical discipline.

Last summer the Gore Bay museum mounted ‘Red Thread’, Judy’s twenty-first solo exhibition. She has also participated in over sixty group exhibitions across Canada and the USA and her work is in several public collections including the Canada Council Art Bank.

Judy and her husband Ned live on Manitowaning Bay. Together they have raised four environmentally concerned young adults.

Her work can be seen year round at the Art Gallery of Sudbury’s art rental space as well as seasonally at the Perivale Gallery on Manitoulin. As well, Judy keeps an online journal where she publishes a piece of her art and writes about being an artist regularly. A link to this blog is on her web site. www.judithmartin.info

On July 3 between 4 and 6 p.m. there will be a Distinguished Artist workshop with Judy Martin. This workshop is open to all artists who have entered the La Cloche Art Show.

Watch for more information on the 2009 workshop.

p.s. The LaCloche exhibit attracts a huge amount of entries in so-called fine art media such as paintings in all mediums, photography with very few mixed media pieces. It's rather daring of the exhibition committee to invite me to be the distingusihed artist because of my unconventional mix of techniques. I hope that the artists who enter this year feel invited to be experimental, take risks, have fun.

Distinguished Artist

I have been invited to be the distinguished artist for next summer's LaCloche Art Show. This is quite a local honour, and today I said "yes". I said "thanks for asking me".

I dithered a bit because the exhibit shows the best of, shall we say, tradtional art work. It's made up of watercolour, oil, and acrylic paintings - most of them landscapes, tons of nature photography, a small selection of mixed media work and one or two sculptures. Although textile work is sometimes included (and called mixed media), there are no quilts included in the 180+ artworks. No free-hanging cloth-thingeys.

The featured artist (moi) is required to create a small exhibition, donate a painting, jury the show and give a presentation on some technique. Will this challenge be a good thing for both parties? Dates of the exhibit - July 4 - 12 2009.

The LaCloche

I spent the day looking at art with Linda Finn and Beth Bouffard. The occasion was jurying the thirty-first annual LaCloche art exhibition which opens next weekend and runs for two weeks. We looked at over two hundred paintings and drawings. The ninety three photographs were juried separately. Exhausting but also exhilarating.

You find only the shape you already are

Yesterday was the final day of the popular LaCloche artshow and so we drove to White Fish Falls to pick up my artwork.