women's work, women's worth

I am re-blogging  someone else's post
about women's self esteem
and speaking out loud about our own worth
and our own work.
Arlee Barr shared it on facebook, which is how I found it.
Here it is:        The Pale Rook - June 5

However, all the images in this post are of the vintage crazy patchwork art-piece that Julia McCutcheon brought in to share with the slow stitch group last week.  She'd brought it in before, but I didn't have my camera with me and I asked her to bring it again so that I could photograph it.

 I thought that you might enjoy the zig zags and the birds,

the red thread,

 and the re-purposed hems from vintage linens.

The outlining of those perfect bits, discovered and saved.

star chart

Star chart  painted with mineral pigments on tanned elk leather
The many tiny stars in the middle represent the milky way
A sacred object of the Skidi Pawnee tribe who lived in what is now Nebraska
Buffalo hunters
village livers
cosmic believers

It entered the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago in 1906
it was already between 100 and 300 years old
the north star is the largest cross

Sources:  here  and here  with thanks.

intimate minimalism

the removed red threads are wrapped in found lace getting it right is important.

and this is nice

Heart and Soul

My piano students and I played Heart and Soul today. The music drew other kids in from the hall (I teach in a school library) and one (not a student) played the duet with me. Music and hearts - well what can I say. They speak. Don't worry so much I tell myself. Visit this blog "Jump for art" and be cheered up.

No longer exists

I don't know if other artists wreck their own work, but I do. This piece from 2004 no longer exists. Our youngest would quite often tell me "don't cut that up, Mom" as she left for high school, referring to whatever it was I was working on the day before.

Lately I've visited some blogs. These three recently sent readers my way and I want to say thank you. It's great to be connected to so many like minded people.
Art for Housewives
Thread Spider
Spirit Cloth
I found these two by following some of their other links.
Screaming LuLu
dog daisy chains

Kingston hi-speed

ink applied with stick and brush

Visiting my father in Kingston has several perks: wit, wine, Princess street, and hi-speed internet. (On Manitoulin, all we have is dial-up.) What follows is a list of recent cyber wanderings that I reccomend.
Anna Garforth who uses moss to makeEnvironmental Graffiti
Jude Hill - slow spirit cloth
Jeanne Williamson - paint and cloth
Elizabeth Brimelow - landscape quilts
Taking a nap- opus student in Baltimore
Miss frugality - quilt-like thingamajigs

Self wrap

Last July Cheryl McLean, publisher of the journal CCAHTE (Creative Arts in Health Training and Education)visited my studio during the art tour. When she returned to London, she wrote about the visit in her blog Arts and Health, Crossing Borders. It was a pleasure to meet her and discuss the personal healing that happens when one is able to work through life passages in a creative manner with needle and thread. She also maintains a website about Creative Arts in Health. www.cmclean.com

yellow green

I'm in Kingston for the weekend. While browsing my father's high speed internet I visted Serena Fenton's blog and she introduced a site for wire crochet, a technique I may be able to use in my current Opus assignment.
I also discovered another that has content close to my heart. Red Thread Studio: Slow Cloth by the writer on things ecological, Elaine Lipson.

I live in a beautiful place

I drove the townline road today. It's very hard to put away my camera when I live in such a beautiful place.Spring is my favourite time of year. Full of promise and seduction.
Recommended: Life on Manitoulin.

great lakes town hall

I've been invited to be a guest writer on the great lakes town hall all this week. I will be making completely different postings each day than what I'm putting into Judy's Journal, so please click on the link provided, which takes you to one of my photo essays. It's quite an interesting web site all round. At first I felt anxious about what I could possibly say because of the scientific nature of the biodiversity project that this forum is connected to. I am not able to write intelligently about such...any one of my children would be more able. I've decided to put up my artwork. For example, these two separate photo works are from when we first moved to Manitoulin fifteen years ago and found ourselves affected by our view of the big sky and changing water every day. Greek philosophers have taught that everything is water, and water is the basic element in all life.
To know water intimately is to know something about ourselves and to appreciate its pesence as a means for increasing the life of the soul. Thomas Moore

Our driveway is glare ice

I have been enjoying Lesley Turner's photographs of Indian textile dyeing and block printing. Lesley is a Canadian Opus BA student like me and lives in Calgary. We have not yet met, but know each other because of the internet. Christine Spencer, also at the same Opus level as Lesley and myeself, lives in England. From the look of Chrissy's blog, she's way ahead of me in the course we're both embroiled in right now with our tutor Mary Cozens Walker.
Pictured is the mixed media piece I'm donating to the arthritus society in Sudbury for a fund raiser at the end of the month. Embroidered With Wildness.

wish jar

I found this on Keri Smith's blog. She said we can copy it and spread it around...I am pleased to do so. I wish I had written it. The author is Gary Snyder and the entire article is in the November issue of the Shambhala Sun.

LIfe and Death and Everything In Between

Debra Roby has written intelligently about how difficult it is to keep a craft or art blog focused and separated somehow from one's every day life. I would say that it's impossible. My artwork and this blog about my artwork refer to my own life with its ups and downs all the time. I want to thank Debra for her wonderful compliment (I think) about how Judy's Journal does keep on track. Another blog that Debra makes note of is Allsorts which looks interesting and is a new one for me.

Gunnera

We seem to have the ideal growing conditions for the perennial plant, Gunnera and I am astounded by it's dramatic size. Only four rubbings of the leaf fit on a double bed sheet.

Thanks to Chrissy, the writer of the lively and warm blog, Life on Manitoulin. Chrissy chose Judy's Journal to receive one of her five "reflection" awards. I'm thrilled by this and have begun to reflect on my own list.

Sleepless in Anchorage

There is a four hour time change between Anchorage and Manitoulin Island. I have been falling asleep at 9 p.m. (which is 1 a.m. my body time) only to wake up again in the middle of the night. Tonight I used this 'found time' to visit some of the blogs I have links to. On Whip up I found out about a new environmentally conscious blog Sew Green and was also inspired by a lovely red quilt "red blankets are warmer".

I visited Serena Fenton's Layers of Meaning and was introduced to the new blog connected to Craft magazine.

Before I went back to bed, I clicked my mouse onto Keri Smith's Wish Jar Journal and was uplifted by quotes by David Abram and John Cage. I love you, internet.

Oona

Hey Oona, I love your new blog. I hope that you enjoy thinking out loud as much as I do.

Joe Lewis

I'm so glad to see that Joe Lewis has resumed his blog around town, after taking a holiday break. His enthusiasm almost makes me wish we lived closer to southern Ontario.

Manitoulin Island

These old cement houses and split rail fences are hauntingly beautiful, and are one of the things that make this island unique. I noticed a photo of one on Our Manitoulin last night when I checked out island blogs. According to Life on Mantioulin this is "de-lurking week". I guess this might be a good time to mention that the new blogger format has allowed me to re-configure my comments section. So if you have been trying to comment on this blog and haven't been able to, well, now you can! Another well maintained island blog is Dylon Whyte's. Dylon is my website designer who also happens to be an author of chain mail jewelery books. Last but not least is Freshisle Fibers, a knitting and dyeing blog that I am thrilled to discover and shall return to. Yes, we are an interesting bunch of bloggers here on Manitoulin Island.

postcard series

I was recently asked if all of the art pictured on this blog is my own. Yes it is. Always. Even though I may write about another artist in the text. For example, today I came across Sue Lawty's name twice and so I'm taking that as a sign to create a link to her blog. It comes out of the Victoria and Albert museum in London England where she is currently artist in residence. She is working directly with collections of pebbles, one of the things I find quite inspiring.

Natural Rhythm

I switched over to the new blogger tonight . It required that I edit my sidebar and unfortunately, I seem to have lost some of the more recently added favourite blogs. One of these is Friederike, a wonderful textile art blog from Germany.

I enjoy having other artist's blogs just a click away and shall re-instate those lost ones when I next feel like spending two or three hours stuck in front of the computer. Never fear.