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.

two things in July

One: 

At the end of June I went to Toronto so that I could stay in the famous Gladstone House in the same room as our daughter April's commissioned art.

I wrote about her art at the Gladstone on my moderinist aesthetic blog.  

 April took me to one of her favourite galleries, Cooper Cole.

We saw the Father Time exhibition by Daniel Rios Rodriguez.

There was something about his archetypal body of work that resonated with me and I couldn't put my finger on it until I read the gallery text.  "He does not separate his role of father, partner, and artist.  "a father can be an artist, a home can be a museum, a studio can be a home."      

Also on view at Cooper Cole were Laurie Kang's large film pieces in the exhibition New Document. 

The large pieces of unfixed film are suspended from the ceiling and continue to change because of exposure to light.      

I found this moving and also just plain beautiful.

left: molt (oakville, los angeles, toronto) , right molt (los angeles, toronto)
both by Laurie Kang

We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. 

On display was the work of one of my favourite artists, Felix Gonzales Torres.  

His simple pieces are installed differently in every gallery they are shown.  I've seen his work before and it appears on this blog here and also here.  

Untitled (Golden) by Felix Gonzales Torres looking through it from the main part of the gallery

Untitled (Golden) by Felix Gonzales Torres looking at it from the window side

I spent two nights in Toronto. 

Two:  

Underfoot The Earth Divine / Overhead the Sun has been shortlisted for the Fine Arts Textile Award which is an international honour.

I invented a way to make a sleeve that was incorporated into the artwork and will allow both sides to be viewed.  

I approached this task not knowing exactly how to do it or what I even wanted. 

It took the better part of a week.

I really don't mind spending this kind of love on my work.

It's what I do. 

in the middle of my story

I am an artist.

I live on a large island in Lake Huron.

I have lived here for 26 years with my husband.

Before that, I lived in North Western Ontario for 40 years.

My cities were Winnipeg and Thunder Bay, half day car drives away. 

I dream all the time.

I have made art my whole life.  

While raising my family of four kids, I taught classical piano and continued my art.

I constantly study art.

I obtained two fine art honours BA degrees through distance education. 

 In December 2018 I received the Craft Ontario award for mid-career excellence.

The name of the award (mid-career ) is inspiring.

Does that mean that although I am in my mid-60’s and have pursued art my whole life that I am merely in the middle of my artistic career?   Yay.

Mid-Career - those words make me want to go closer to the edge. 

Those words make me want to go deeper into myself.

I want to go somewhere on my art path that I have not been before, and that I do not know.

I want to be brave in this journey.   I want to take more risks.

Soft Summer Gone

I’m Judy Martin and this is my quilt,
Soft Summer Gone.

It’s large.  One hundred inches square.  8 ½ feet – 2 ½ metres square

It’s simple, quiet and empty, yet at the same time, it is luscious and full of touch and time.

It’s entirely hand stitched.  Even the seams are layered, tucked and sewn by hand.
The quilting is hand embroidery.

Wool yarn is couched into a large gestural drawing, a swoopy windy cross.

The threads are many colours of silk floss in stem stitch. 

The fabrics are silk that I dyed with plants that grow where I live.
I live on an island in Lake Huron, one of North America’s great lakes.
The various yellows are from golden rod collected from fields and ditches.
That bit of blue is indigo.

I use a large oval hoop in my lap to do this – it took two years just to do the quilting.

My aim is to create textiles that connect with our inner world.

Consider the reverie that happens sometimes in nature.
A sudden time shift and we go back into childhood memory or leap forward into future hopes and dreams.
A feeling of well being.

My work employs the sense of touch, more powerful than the sense of sight for connecting to our emotional inner immensity. 

My work is large, simple, quiet, full of touch and time, similar to nature.

All photos of the quilt in this post are by Nick Dubecki, from Sudbury.
The photo of me with my back to the world is by Judith Quinn Garnett, a fellow exhibitor.
The photo of me with my lovely certificate is by my husband Ned, who drove me to the opening
.
Soft Summer Gone received two awards in Surface Design at this year's Quilt National.
see here for complete list of award winners at this year's exhibition.

art and life were all mixed up in 2014

an example of the many UFO's  (unfinished objects) waiting to be put together with companions  

January -  Installing Mended World solo exhibition Art gallery of Sudbury
February - Installing Lucky Protection at Artists on Elgin in Sudbury and then Family Paintings in the local library.   All three solo exhibits up at the same time
March - Visiting Mexico.   Birth of grand daughter Aili Evelyn

detail of watercolour painting April in October 

April - Emptying yet another bedroom to create more home studio space
May - Jurying Stitches Across Time for Dufferin County Museum.  Natural dyeing, both with indigo and collected local plants. This will continue throughout the summer
June - Attending daughter April's BFA graduation from Concordia in Montreal, then her wedding to Andrew at our cottage

watercolour and acrylic painting WAVE

July - Visiting with the 7 and 4 year old grand boys and Oona (their mother), at our cottage
August - desigining wool artwork for the Wild Pure Aesthetic Wonder exhibition that will happen in in Newfoundland in 2015
September - visiting Gros Morne and the great Western Penninsula of Newfoundland with Ned.  Two quilts are published in the book 500 traditional quilts.  Teaching hand stitched meditation panels in home studio

detail of Yin Yin, hand stitched linen with reverse applique

October - Receiving an award from the Ontario Craft Council. Speaking (keynote) at the Espanola Fiber Festival.  Visions exhibit opens in San Diego and Yin Yin wins an award.
November - Attending World of Threads Festival opening in Oakville Ontario, two solo exhibitions are well received.  Attending Art=Quilts=Art in Auburn New york, Canadian Pioneer wins an award.
December - hosting all four children plus spouses (three grand children) for Christmas through New Year's day.

Continuing on, appreciating this lucky life and sending out good wishes for a creative year to all.

keep on
xxoo

quilts=art=quilts award winner

Canadian Pioneer, wool quilt (detail)

When I packed up Canadian Pioneer to ship to Quilts=Art=Quilts in Auburn, New York, I noticed something.

 

Those wool bundles that I had folded, tied onto the surface and then felted seem to resemble a bush of trees.  They make me think of the huge thick forests in Canada that seem to act as barriers to human interaction with the land.

Trees protect the land,  Maybe they hug it.

One of the jurors, Kathleen Loomis has written about this piece here.  She explains why it was given a first prize.  Further information about Canadian Pioneer is here in my New Work gallery.

990 Queen Street West

My black dress piece will be included in AWARD WINNERS 2010 at the Ontario Craft Council Gallery in Toronto this June and July.

I regret that I wasn't able to attend the awards presentation and opening of the exhibition yesterday. The other work in the show is in a variety of fine craft media like glass, clay, and wood as well as textiles. I am proud to have been one of the 27 artists selected.

My particular award was a scholarship to continue my fine art degree with the Julia Caprara School of Textile Arts /Middlesex University in the UK.