What are you working on now?

I'm taking turns stitching into two pieces.
Connected by their design, both are large nine-patches.

One is stitched with black thread, the other with white thread.

expectations/memories/dreams

 

Circles within squares are design elements they have in common.

The cloth was found in my life collection of small pieces of fancy cloth.
(taffeta, linen damask, wool suiting, and silks of all sorts)

I stitched or painted on all the squares earlier. 

At first I thought that maybe they didn't need hand stitch
I was hoping to love their simplicity more.

But now,  the chika-chika marks of running stitch/ kantha stitch
has risen the level of intimacy in these two wall pieces
and has given them power.

(...and they fit into my suitcase.  Hola from Mexico xo)

junko oki

More than often, studying something too much may lead to confusion - Junko Oki

 I used red thread to create stitches that capture my soul - Junko Oki

When I said to someone that I wanted to show both sides of my work, I was told that to do so was unprofessional.  I should only show my best side, the side which is more beautiful and commit to it. Sensible advice, buut I still want to show the back side.  Why?  I don't know.  Maybe finding a reason to that question is an important topic for me to pursue.  Junko Oki

When I touch an old fabric I feel like I'm going back in time.  Junko Oki

Memories can be implanted into material - Junko Oki

I want to make many small pieces.  I love to work spontaneously and follow the path my intuition leads me.  Junko Oki

All images and text in the above post are from Junko Oki's new book, Punk.

Art by contemporary artists like Junko Oki  combine with traditional folk textiles from around the globe as inspiration for the one day workshops I'm teaching in London this week.

The circle:  A universal symbol of wholeness and unity, timelessness, no beginning, no end, no above, no below.  Spacelessness.  Dynamic and endlessly moving, a complete cycle, natural perfection.  J. C. Cooper

exhibiting in Toronto again this summer

Hard Twist 10: Memory is being installed in the Gladstone Hotel tomorrow.
It will be open to the public August 27, and will remain up until December 27, 2015.

I will be showing my wool blanket piece, Red Moons, in this exhibit.  I had it here at the cottage so that I could add the second sleeve that the curators requested, and also to sew on a label.  Our daughter delivered it to the Gladstone for installation when she went down to Toronto yesterday.

This piece doesn't have the amount of stitching that I usually add to fabric, but it does have time.
It has over 90 years of time.
Made from the borders of a much loved woolen blanket, the worn marks left by human bodies and hands are the evidence of life lived, dreams, weather and sleep's vulnerability.

Hanging it from the two sleeves projects the piece out from the wall into our space.  It becomes sculptural.

The Hard Twist exhibit has its formal opening on September 10 at 7 pm.
Specific information about time, place and list of other artists are on my update blog - click here.
More photos and info about red moons are here.
The Gladstone Hotel has profiled my work on their blog today - click here for that.
I am very pleased to be included in this important exhibition.

Canadian Pioneer

I started this quilt in 2008. 
First, I cut vertical strips from old blankets and then sewed them together. 
Then slashed a curve right through them.
Then mended that.
Then felted the whole in the washing machine.
It survived all these things.

Risk after risk.
"I do, I undo, I re do"  (Louise Bourgeois)

Made completely from wool.
Wool blankets, a woolen skirt,  wool fabrics, wool yarns

backed with wool, couched with wool

Finished in August 2012,
and named Canadian  Pioneer.

blanket stitching

I replaced the blank paper on my pinwall with this vintage blanket. That feels better. The red stripes are woven and worn and I find them to be so lovely. The stripes make a horizon line when lined up like this. A red thread horizon line. I'm not sure what to do next, but blanket stitch seems right.

Maintain a Childlike Wonder

A book for April, made during the week between Christmas and New Years. Advice, encouragement and love for a young artist.

maintain a child like wonder Try frantically, a door slams. It's good to have a general plan for your life and what you want to do yourself to change the world a little bit. The best way to teach my children to live a fulfilling life is not by sacrificing my life, it's through living a fulfilling life myself. Tis a gift to be simple.

Self talk in August

It's August and local guilds and arts organizations are planning the fall and winter ahead. I've been asked to consider teaching art quilting again yet I'm wondering how many piano students will return after the summer break.
If I teach, I'm afraid that I won't have any creative energy left to do the research I love, never mind my slow labour intensive work. However, I am coming around to it and recently gave myself a lecture.
"Do not say NO to opportunities in your visual pratice.
When people ask you to speak, teach, or exhibit do not say NO.
Take those opportunities to raise your own bar and explore things in more depth while still doing what you love. These poeople are the converted. They WANT to be impressed. Knock their socks off and at the same time, improve your own practice.Go deeper. Get better. Work harder."

blankets stitched

I've managed to get into my studio every afternoon this week, and may be getting used to the social workers that have started renting a suite of offices next door. Sidetracked by an older piece from re purposed wool blankets, I believe I've stabilized it by stitching it to some commercial felt that Oona gave me last spring.

Jay and Erika are still here - it's nice.

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.

Mother Canada

Stitching is like breathing. It gives rest, comfort and a purposeful result all at the same time. I worked on this piece last week at the cottage. I'm continuing with it here at home on Manitoulin. The stitch is a simple blanket stitch repeated in different shades of red.

An Election Issue

Received from Val Hearder: A letter to Stephen Harper by a Governor General Award winning playwright about the cuts to arts funding. Here is just a part of that letter, but please go to The Wrecking Ball to read all of it.

Dear Mr. Harper. ...
A grain of sand is all-powerful

I believe, my dear colleague, that you yourself have just planted the grain of sand that could derail the entire machine of your electoral campaign. Culture is, in fact, nothing but a grain of sand, but therein lays its power, in its silent front. It operates in the dark. That is its legitimate strength.

It is full of people who are incomprehensible but very adept with words. They have voices. They know how to write, to paint, to dance, to sculpt, to sing, and they won't let up on you. Democratically speaking, they seek to annihilate your policies. They will not give up. How could they?

The resistance that will begin today, and to which my letter is added, is but a first manifestation of a movement that you yourself have set in motion: an incalculable number of texts, speeches, acts, assemblies, marches, will now be making themselves heard. They will not be exhausted. Wajdi Mouawad

Little packages

Recycled wool, hand pieced, slashed, mended, blanket stitched, little folded parcels of wool attached with cross stitch.
Two months of late night TV.

Dear Vicki

Dear Vicki

Could you please let me know the whereabouts of my quilt Emily Carr Visited Me? It was included in the Tactile Architecture in the 2007 International Quilt Festival in Houston. Was it selected to travel? Thanks.

Dear Judy,

You checked "Yes" to the question: Do you want your quilt to travel to prestigious galleries and other venues through August 2008? Therefore your quilt is currently scheduled to travel to:
International Quilt Festival/Chicago at the Rosemont Convention Center in Rosemont, Il, April 11-13, 2008;
Spring International Quilt Market 2008 at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR, May 16 -18, 2008;
and International Quilt Festival/Long Beach at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center, Long Beach, CA, July 25 - 27, 2008.

Cordially,
Vicki Mangum
Manager of Special Exhibits
Quilts, Inc.
Houston, TX