new work this spring

I spent a lot of time alone when I was a child.  I grew up on a farm near Fort Frances in North Western Ontario, and from an early age I realized that making things helped me to find my true self.  

At the age of 12 I began to sew my own clothes and also to sell the doll clothes I loved to invent.  As a teen, I attended some painting classes with my mother and was encouraged by the teachers. 

beauty emotion spirit soul    judy martin  49" square

It was still a happy surprise however that I eventually turned these childhood passions into accomplished hand stitched art made in Northern Ontario, Canada. 

my soft jewel-heart   judy martin  28 inches square before frame

The framed mini quilt is a new piece for the Perivale gallery's summer season, opening May 19 in Spring Bay Manitoulin island.
Beauty Emotion Spirit Soul is the title piece for the  exhibition that took place last month at One Sky gallery in Sudbury. 
The biographical text is a small section of the writing I apparently need to do for the new website, still under construction.  I have to make sure there are keywords within it.  It's hard, and I am starting to question and doubt.   

Love Yourself

 you don't have to try so hard

 you just have to be yourself

that's enough
you're enough

(Scott Stabile)


A love meditation.   Showing at the Perivale gallery on Manitoulin Island this season
(opens May 20)
Click here  to see some of the others

growing is what life is for

  A tree in the forest doesn't keep looking around at the other trees

wondering if its right to be putting down roots so deep
instead of using its energy for making acorns

it just grows

that is its job, to grow
only people drive themselve crazy asking
'what's this for?"

Am I doing all right?
am I doing better than someone else?
Is it all right to be doing this?

I copied this out and taped it inside my kitchen cupbaord ...
the one I keep the salt in, beside the stove

Learning my craft and then practicing it for no other reason than for itself
is one of the first steps I took in my life towards learning that

growing is what life is for

hand made paper by moi
type written text
text about taping the text to my kitchen cupboard where the salt is by moi
all the text about a tree in the forest, growing, is for by Beth Gutcheon  an early influence.

I'm getting ready for the Perivale gallery's 2018 season..
I will be showing stitched pieces mounted on linen-covered board, framed. 

here i am

i'm here

turning the air to cloth

turning the air to cloth

Watching the birds whirling gracefully across the blue sky with undulating curves, I think how they look like cross stitches.  Then they disappear, fly away.

I was inspired to make something that might hold that ephemeral moment.

In this piece, embroidery is used as a quilting stitch to connect the birds and the air around them into a kind of spirit cloth.

The black birds that move so beautifully in unison over the fields could be seen as a metaphor for those dark yet brief moments that happen in all our lives.

Or perhaps they just show us that it's time to make a change in direction.

Round Lake Mud Bay 1915 oil on wood by Tom Thomson

There is an exhibition opening this weekend at the Perivale Gallery and I am showing this bird quilt.

Images of the full quilt can be seen here.

It is a two sided quilt.

Above Us is the second side of the wall piece turning the air to cloth.  The dark outlines of the birds in flight are filled with white or light coloured threads to signify peace and calmness.  The underneath side of the common embroidery stitches that cover the body of the quilt mark it with an unexpected, subtle drawing.

stitching myself into a dotted line

Andy Goldsworthy said  "whenever possible, I make a work every day.  Each work joins the next in a line that defines the passage of my life, marking and accounting for my time and creating a momentum which gives me a strong sense of anticipation for the future."  

I try to do my best work every day.
I divide myself up yet keep myself together with my work.  At the same time.
My daily walk helps me manage this as I stitch myself to place, yes,
but also stitch myself together with each step.

I walk a line.  It represents time.
I sew a path measured by my own stride.
Each day, each dot, is important because it's another day that I've kept myself together, able to carry on with all my scattered-ness.

That walk gives me a container to wrap my self up in.

providence bay manitoulin island mother's day weekend

The future waits for me on a path not yet marked with my daily dot.

when I was young

I knew I loved to work with needle and thread from a very early age.  I loved it.  My first memories of stitching include embroidering commercially stamped pillow cases, making my own clothes, and making Barbie clothes that I sold.  I would do those things forever.  I wanted to.  I felt right when I was stitching.

I made my family stitched gifts, a pillow for my older brother, a night dress for my mother.  When I gave my little sister a knitted skirt for Christmas one year, she cried so I bought her something else instead.  I made my husband’s wedding suit and he wore it.

When I was young I also realized that I had a talent to draw and paint and so I entered poster contests in elementary school.  I remember painting a bear for one of those.  I was asked to design the cover for the regional music festival and drew a portrait of Beethoven.  In high school I was allowed to use the art room at lunch hour and was provided with oil paint and canvas boards.  The teachers bought my paintings.  I wanted to go to art school after high school, but went to Teacher’s college instead.  I was 19, and that was the last year that you could enter teacher's college without a university degree. Also, it was free.  I met Ned during that year, taught school two years, and then married him.

I've used my paintings (our four children gave me such a beautiful and meaningful subject) to explain to others how I came to think of my quilting as art.  Painting made me realize that I could communicate what it was like to be me.
" I am here.  I was here.  I made this.  I am alive."

When I was mothering those children my art was about that experience.  I loved being a mother.  I loved watching my children in sunlight.  I learned from them how to have fun. I painted that .

But my SELF, my true self,  is with a needle and thread in my hand.  

I make paintings (art) with my sewing.  I have not stopped.

"I am here. I live here. I have relationships. I observe and dream and think."

Images are of some preparations for the Perivale gallery season which begins May 22.

the light the hope

Lake - indigo dyed and hand stitched quilt on left.
The Light of the Moon - acrylic, thread, paper and cotton wall piece on right.

Before I delivered my work to Shannon at the Perivale Gallery earlier this month, I re-read the journal text in the stitched paper collage.

The darkness will always be there but you can see the light of the moon as hope.

 

I am showing three pieces at the Perivale Gallery this year.
Left to right:  Duet, Lake and Light of the Moon.
Ivan Wheale will be in attendance at the opening on May 17.  I hope that it will be well attended.

time, dream, memory

In this post, new work with old materials

time, dream, memory: time, 8 x 10" van dyke print, hand made paper, vintage wool, vintage photo frame, hand stitch, 2014

time, dream, memory: dream, 9 x 11", van dyke print, hand made paper, vintage wool, vintage photo frame, hand stitch 2014

time, dream, memory: mother  9 x 14"  van dyke print, hand made paper, vintage wool, photo frame and lace doilies,  hand stitch   2014

time, dream, memory: memory   8 x 10" van  dyke print, hand made paper, vintage wool, vintage photo frame, hand stitch 2014 

 
  time is material

Perivale Gallery

When we first moved to Manitoulin, I took my paintings over to the Perivale Gallery in Spring Bay to see if   Sheila McMullan would show my work.  She and her husband Bob decided to "try" me the following year.

" But that's Ivan Wheale's gallery" I was told by the locals, naming the most well known (non aboriginal) artist on Manitoulin Island. 

Each spring I produced new paintings and after viewing them propped up against the gallery walls, Sheila and I would discuss art over a glass of wine.  Maybe Sheila would have preferred it if had I continued to paint water colours of my children, but my work changed.  I grew just as the kids have.  Matured.

Sheila, I can still feel your encouraging and determined spirit.  Miss you. xxx

Sheila Florence McMullan  1926 - 2012 

My watercolours in this post were painted in the 90's and showed at the Perivale Gallery.

These images are scanned from slides as the originals are in private collections.  

April's Moon

satin, wood support, silver leaf, threads, beads
When April was home in May, she completed this piece and we had it framed in a shadow box. It will be exhibited at the Perivale Gallery this season.

A new post is up on Modernist Aesthetic for those interested.