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Just a quick note here to let people know that I am fine.    

The exhibition is beautiful and I will write more about that soon.

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I'm home now and loving being here after traveling to the exhibition near Ottawa and visiting some of our grown children and young grandchildren in Ottawa and Toronto.  

These days I am cleaning and decluttering my house, gathering my life story from my old journals and stitching in the mornings on my 90 inch square muslin and indigo quilt, grateful for it.   

The island state is a state of remaining within one's own boundaries, undisturbed by any external influence; it resembles a kind of narcissism or even autism.   One satisfies all one's needs on one's own.  Only the self seems real.    Olga Tokarczuk  

and the light poured in

I look around me and
everything seems , what's the word I seek,
ephemeral?
beautiful? 

 spiritual?

I've been alone for a few days, not quite a week. 
The empty spaces became filled with green
and my needle kept going in and out, in and out

I made things in the evenings that I had not even considered when I woke up
My fabrics piled up around me and the light poured into the house

it poured in

it revealed  beauty I hadn't noticed
and also that unnamable something....

I've gone back and forth to my studio in town,
making making making

looking at the water and the sky

writing and unwriting journals

 a kind of transformation is going on inside me

a shifting

When you make something you have proof that something has been accomplished, something is different.  It's proof that there has been a change.  You have made a physical change. You have made a thing.  It's through the physical world that you can have a spiritual life.  It is about transendence.  Something has moved from one state to another.  Art is proof.  Art moves your insides into the physical world.  It doesn't rob you of your insides, it;'s just a representation and it's always different.  It's like a mystery and you're trying to rein it in or something. 

Kiki Smith speaks this way

new work that grows

There's something un-real about the month of December,
as if real life deadlines go on hold.

I've been stitching 9-patches, making new cloth from tiny squares.

In the busy days
in the dark time of December
I retreat into the grid.

I sit by the window with the bird feeder view and hand stitch.

mrs cardinal

mr cardinal

I pin my work up because it is impossible to see it when it is in my lap.

I plan to organize the finished quilt with a horizon.

I've been looking at the open water, it's always moving, the ice not in yet

The moving water makes me think that I always am asking why?
Why do I ask why?

Trust myself.
Learn why

"what does it mean to say "I lose myself"  asked Immanuel Kant in 1786

I  lose myself in this grid

it's dark by 4:30
It's the shortest day.
But the cloth gets larger.

In the evenings I plug away on the sunny-rainy piece.
The stitches make it denser, but it doesn't get bigger

Our girls come home on Saturday.

retreat

I drove south on Monday
an early morning departure

early spring earth and air
to take part in the Ontario SAQA retreat.
(Studio Art Quilt Association)

Twenty five women are here
We brought our own projects to work on
I brought the 100 year old irish fine linen tablecloth

handed down through Ned's side,
hand embroidered long ago with clover and ribbons.
I am considering adding some red thread love marks, but am not sure how
or if.

We were asked to bring a show and tell item
and I brought earth and air - one of the pieces I made
last year for my exhibition at David Kaye gallery

I loved seeing it on the narrow bed.

I came because I want to connect with others
yet also have some time alone

Time to feel

island self

how wonderful are islands

vivid and pure

people are like islands,
self contained, whole and serene
respecting other people's solitude   (Gift from the Sea)

I am my self.
My self does not need a lot of interaction with others.
It needs its own self
It needs solitude and quiet

I am not anti social
I love to hold my grandchildren close and interact with them through creative imaginings
I love to watch and listen to my beautiful daughters, all 4 of them

It's easy to lose myself though,
and not give my SELF honour and respect

Studying  Agnes Martin, Luce Irigaray, and Pema Chodron has made me more OK

I am me
I am intelligent
I am sensitive

I take care of myself by making art
I take care of myself by stitching

in and out
soft caress
in and out

be still

that's all there  is
all there is

patience, patience, patience is what the sea teaches.

patience and faith

one should lie empty, open as a beach, waiting for a gift from the sea

women give and give and give

everyone, especially women, should be alone for some part of each week - each day

the most important times in one's life are when one is alone

we need solitude in order to find the true essence of ourselves

our state of grace

our inner stillness

(these thoughts from gift from the sea)

time is a feminist issue

and time alone brings us close to spirituality

I am using my usual techniques
reverse applique
eyelet stitch,
back stitch
french knots
tucks
couching

repeating favourite stitches

over and over

I use a lot of repeated marks

I learned this from my mother (nature)

this post is the second in the series Sunday photos

To Not Be So Lonely

This post is about the performance Mariana Lafrance did at her vernissage on April 12 for her exhibition entitled To Not Be So Lonely at the Art gallery of Sudbury.

She used the two puppets that she had made earlier from cotton dyed with walnuts.  She set up a checkerboard for them to play with made from charcoal dust and flour and her grandmother's china.

During the performance Mariana manipulated the puppets to play the checker game with a pool cue, each taking turn.  She spoke for them, using a childish aggressive dialog in French and in English.
eg.

'What's your favourite colour?'
"C'est le noir"
'Black, you like black?  That's not a colour"
"Ce n'est pas une couleur?"
'Nope, not a colour.  Me, I like pink.  Purple too. Pink or purple.
Those are my favourite colours."
"Rose et mauve? Ça c'est des couleurs de fille."
"..."
'I can't wait to be a grown-up.'
'When I'm an adult, everyone will be nice to me."

 When kings were made, a cup was placed in a saucer and tea was poured.

"Do you want any sugar"
'Sure, I'll have some sugar'
"We don't have any sugar"

"What do I do with the history that belongs to me and to my family?"  asks the artist.
"Checkers is a war game."

As well as the assemblage left behind from the performance, Mariana's exhibition consists of 3 videos, 3 textile drawings and several photographs.  In every instance there is a duality or a feeling of twinning in the imagery.  Mariana also uses her hands very expressively in all 3 videos, giving them a sensuousness rare in this media.  The exhibition will be on view until May 14 2017.

She explained her ideas about Not Be So Lonely to the gathering who attended and I quote her below:

The intent of this exhibition is not about the loneliness of the individual but more about the process of opening up to people around you, both as a person and as a culture.  In the process of opening up, you find that the others around you are more similar to you than different, and you find that they are quite like yourself, like twins, in a basic and essential way.  You bring "you' to that other person, and that other person brings themselves to you. Once you've done this you start to see humanity as yourself and others,  mixed up and yet essentially the same.      Mariana Lafrance. 

tangled brain

I had this small red journal at the cottage.
Began it July 12 in Liverpool, and finished it August 18 at the family cottage.

but since I stayed at the cottage for another eleven days,
I had to find spaces in that little red book to keep my thoughts and sketches.

It became so crowded and tangled in there that I couldn't think.

I could not think!
and thought is the 6th sense, Boetti says.

My journals encourage the 6th sense in me.
They give me a place to listen to my self but more than that....
They encourage me to think.

 My brain became so tangled when I didn't have enough empty pages.

Louise Bourgeois said this.
I wrote it into the red journal twice.  Once July 24.  Again August 18.

I had written Tracey Emin's comment about solitude on July 19.

Solitude is like a new blank journal for me.
It gives me space to think.