connected across continents with time and thread

The white cloths are from India.
The black cloths are from Sweden.
These are inspiring me now.
Don't you love how they resemble each other even though the makers never met?
Central floral, circular border decor, fantastical animals.  Red thread.
(The images are from books:   kantha and yllebroderier  )

The intensity of work built with thread, with its suggestion of obsession or even a kind of brilliant insanity is part of the viewer's experience.                                                                                                                                                                                     The process of stitching is meditative, essential in many cultures and traditions to quiet the mind and allow the spirit to evolve. Yet at the same time, there is a link to time passing and to the artist as a being in this world and the work is thus both physical and transcendent.

The contemplative, reflective nature of the process lends the work a depth and compelling gravity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   There is a tradition of needlework through the ages and all that it means for women and cultures.  The ancestral legacy and dignity of needlecraft connects generations.    

                                                                                                                                                            Elaine Lipson (paraphrased a bit)                               

running in circles

running

running

the running stitch

above, not running stitch
start with two drawn circles instead

running stitch on hankerchiefs

one sided flat stitch

running in zig zags

running and running and running

I've been enjoying producing samples for the workshops in London Ontario next month.
Inspired by traditional embroideries from India, Japan and Scandinavia, I am finding powerful and beautiful connections in our human hand-work across centuries and continents.

A work of art is a gift.

It circulates among us as a reservoir of available life.

Lewis Hyde

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.