the sun, the moon, and also the stars

moon, wool thread, wool felt 2018  Judy Martin

sun  wool thread, wool felt, acrylic paint ( in progress)  judy martin 

and also the stars  wool thread, wool felt, 2018 judy martin

 

Intuition and conceptual thought are married in most of my work.
And some of the time they live happily ever after.

But there is usually some tension along the way.

I need to make my work as true as I can.
Believable.

Real

I rely on the archetypal shapes of circle, cross and dot and use them as language.

The works in this post are the under-sides of pieces made last winter  (see here)

They are the backs I suppose.
Felt drawings
I plan to display them so that the original 'first side' will not be shown.

I don't mind that the original designs will be secret.
Believe me.

I took them outside and laid them in the garden, amongst the caterpillars
and forget me nots.

from left to right:  sun (february)  and also the stars (march and april)  moon (january)  2018

These three pieces document each day of January, February, March and half of April 2018.
I used velvet and found fabrics to make small collages on wool felt

which were then attached together.

I kept going until I ran out of felt.

Then I turned them over, and used the felt 'backs' as if they were pieces of paper
and made completely fresh and new drawings.

Drawings that don't have anything to do with the winter.

These new drawings will have their first showing in Halifax Nova Scotia this summer.
Penny Berens and I have produced an exhibition entitled Cloth Of Time.

the underside of the leaf

cool in shadow

sublimely unemphatic

smiling of innocence

Agnes Martin

sincerely

I'm obsessed with the stitching I'm doing these days.
I fall into it.
I need to hold myself back from doing it all day.
Diagonal marks with wool thread,
alternating straight lines with curved,
I consciously attempt to make an eye bending experience.

I want to reach
a place of texture
that is untethered to conscious thought
like a dream is

like when you close your eyes
and retreat into your own body
and slow way down

"I want to get to non art.
non geometreic, non anthromorphic, non-notthing.
Another kind.  Another vision.  Another sort.
From a totally other reference point.  Is it possible?"
Eva Hesse

this stitching has driven me further into solitude

I feel guided by something ...

its out of my hands

The piece I'm working on is the second daily practice.  The other two are shown above (their backs)
(see here for story)  (also here )

I'm also reading old journals again

and then wrapping them gently with wool cloth, stitching them shut

I read today that:
interiority
reflexivity
craft
sincerity
are what makes Canadian art what it is.

"Something in me loves works of art that have within them the sense that they have only just survived their making.  In the end, you shouldn't know what is fiction and what is not. " Robert Frank

I am the boss of me

On New Year's day, I challenged myself to make stitched collages as a form of daily practice throughout 2018.

I began by cutting plant dyed velvet and flannel fabrics into archetypal first shapes such as circle, cross, square or triangle and stitched them to wool felt pieces.   January 1 is in the center with January 2 (the super moon) stitched to its top edge.  Jan 3, 4, and 5 lined up in a row that fit onto the side of those first two 'days'.  I continued spiraling around the center with Jan 6, 7, 8, 9 on the bottom, Jan 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, on the right side and along the top Jan 15, 16, 17, 18, and (not shown in photo below) Jan 19 and 20.  Thus the collage was built like a quilter constructs a log cabin block.

daily practice number one  January 1 - 20 2018 (shown in progress)

In the second piece, started January 27th, I used previous inspirations now abandonded (UFO's) instead of the flannel shapes.  I am still using the dyed velvet, the wool felt base and the log cabin method of arrangement.

In the photo above, you can see a stitched cross.  When i chose it I felt that it would be a perfect central hearth for the new construction, but as you can see in the photo below, that cross is covered up.

I removed the cross because as I went along, it no longer felt right.  I found some beautiful and moody cyanotypes of clouds from twenty years ago and they changed the atmosphere of the piece.  I went back to the drawers of the unfinished and pinned ten or so different false starts over the cross.  Some of those trials are pictured below.

couched circle

This is not knowing as method 

This is self gathered up

This is trust that I know what I'm doing even though I do not know.

embroidered crosses on curved piecework

Because we do not know what each day will bring. 

Life is an adventure.

a densely stitched light house

Penny Berens and I are in an exhibition together this summer.  The premise of our show,  Cloth of Time is our daily practice and the passage of time.  I will be showing not to know but to go on  and cloud of time and if these stitched collages work out, I will include them.  Penny is showing daily scratchings, criss-crosses and her stone pathways.  Penny is a master of observation, and her work is a record of what she sees and touches.  It connects us to the natural world. 

stitch resisted indigo

Mine is a connection to the inner world

paper pieced star appliqued to wool

My daily practice is about the act of making itself.

  

People learn about themselves through the things they make (Richard Sennett idea)

reverse shows construction on felt base

Because I am the boss of me I made my own guidelines.

One:  work relatively small in these collages
Two:  the pieces are separate from each other and can vary in length of time depicted, technique and materials.
Three:  once I start I need to be honest and work every day until I feel it is done. 

daily practice number two  January 27 - February 16 2018

My next wall piece will be slightly different than these two.

I'll begin it in a few days.

Art is an adventure, and I am the boss of me.

January Projects

January Project

a baby quilt for Maia
I started with the fun - folk borders

April's working from our house this month.
Photographing her ceramics on the clean snow.

January project

My daily practice 
velvet and flannel on felt

When it was 9 days old it was perfect.
Now it is 18 days old.

January project

a rescue cloth made from a flannel sheet a utility cloth of some sort. .

January Project

A flannel quilt top machine pieced with small dark crosses.  It holds the conversations that April and I are having.

These two large cloths are spread out with a 3rd layer of flannel between,  ready to be basted.

 Cloth and time are my main materials and I continue to trust them.

I ask myself:
What is this material's experience?

January Project

simplifying my life
death cleaning my clutter (book here)

daily practice

I make large hand stitched drawings.  
My work reflects upon the place I live, a sparsely populated island in Lake Huron, Canada.
I use the aesthetics of simplicity, time, labour, and repetition in combination with the sense of touch.
I spend quiet time with the work, and make repeated, interesting marks.

At the same time, I keep hand written journals (about 200 so far) where I document my daily life, my thoughts, and notes on what I have read. 
Perhaps because I am a parent of four children, I’ve been interested in how mother artists and writers manage their creative lives.  

I have a daily practice of journal-writing.

This year I am paying even more attention to my journals.
I'm re-reading them.
I feel as if I'm really knowing my self.

I'm reminding myself about who I am, because its hard to stay true when one is easily inspired.

On New Years Day there was a super moon.
I stood outside and looked up at it around midnight.
It was awesome, large and bright, with a large ring around it.
The air was super crisp and cold.

I'm starting a new daily practice of stitched collage, using up a piece of contrary felt that I purchased in Alaska in 2009 as a base to stitch into.

A new thing here is that our daughter April will be based out of our house in January.
Her energy is sure to influence how I spend my time.
I look forward to being with her a lot, but I also want to hold on to my self.

My own work.

I feel that these collages will give me a place to play with patterns.
I will allow patterns.

We are given these shapes or archetypes or patterns and we just need to record them.

It's destiny.

In most of my work I try to pare extra shapes away, in order to give more empty space for dreams,
but in these collages, I will let them come.

The first shapes.