isla mujeres

a photo essay 

 taken from passenger seat of a rented golf cart

 as we zipped around the roads and streets of Isla Mujeres, a small island off the coast of yucatan penninsula, Mexico

 we were there on Mardi Gras day (not planned)

 

 the colour of the walls, doors, and window trim is joyous

 so much vibrant colour gives me the feeling of being loved

 Isla Mujeres translates to Women Island in english 

work in progress

soul is the essence
essence  from within
it is where everything begins

Van Morrison

I look for the poetic in my world of experience and under my own skin.
In my heart.
A recovery of the world through poetics.
A reclaiming of sensory experience, seeing tasting hearing touching
A reclamation of the body.

Adrienne Rich

Above are four vintage ironing pads lined up left to right as they were layerd on the board, bottom to top.

The dark one on the left is natural wool and probably about 90 years old
I think the singed one next to it is also a wool felt.
The third one, also felt, but it might have acrylic mixed with the wool.  It is nearly new.
The last one is a scorch resistent metallic fabric that covers them all.

I've had these since 2006, the year Ned's mother passed.
I could not throw them away
They held something.  They looked like figures.

Maternal stories are forgotten and lost and our culture encourages this amnesia.

What is the poetic meaning held by these old cloths?

time
and heat
and labour and protection
and presenting ourselves neatly to society
and women standing up and bearing down
and daily repetition
and the smell of damp hot wool
and singe marks
and body-size and shape

why would I add red thread?
red thread is often added to domestic cloth as a marker, usually intials
red thread is also a protection element found in traditional world garments

The work of art is like an act of mourning.
Mourning is a way to work through feelings of loss.
All creation is a re-creation of a loved and lost object.

Melanie Klein

the body and the spirit
the self in the center
the layers of time and of labour

Cloth is like the body.
It gets old, it survives, it holds memories and dreams - all at the same time.

 sculpture

 not just pretty little stitching marks

reparation

Soul is what you've been through
What's true for you
Where you going to
What you're gonna do

Van Morrison

finished pieces can be seen here

spirit island

Manitoulin Island is called spirit island.

Manitoulin has a long history of settlement by a spiritual people.

Traces of these people go back at least 10,000 years in the area where I live.

I am allowing the spirit of place to come into my work.

I live on Manitoulin Island and I am white.

The culture that is true to the place where I live is not mine and I keep that in mind.  

The spirit in this land is generous and alive.

I use a hoop to help me hold the cloths I stitch.
When I work at a large scale, I feel as if the hoop helps me to hold the land.
Place and the spirit in the land are held in my lap.

Like each of us, I walk my own path of life story.

I have always lived in northern Ontario and my work reflects the isolation, solitude, big sky and water views that I grew up with and continue to live with. 

 My relationship with this land is that of an immigrant and of a settler.  A Canadian pioneer.

I look to history books, novels and poetry about the time periods in Canada when the settlers came.

I am inspired to work with vintage domestic embroideries and linens and wool blankets because so many of them came over from the old country.

I try to help them and me have a dialog with the land here in northern Canada.

I think about what daily life was like for the women pioneers and look at material objects that might hold history of it.

It takes me a long time to figure out how to honour these old textiles and make them relevant within contemporary thought and aesthetics.

I used the house shape in earlier work and now I use the bundle as metaphors for self and for the women pioneers who came to Canada and specifically, came to Manitoulin.  

I use saved domestic cloths.

I use the idea that all of us look out our windows no matter what our culture.

 All of us look at the full moon and the stars.

All of us stare endlessly at the horizon.


The text and pictures are from the talk I presented last Thursday in London Ontario.
More here.

connected to the body

tablecloth, dyed red with procion, then overdyed with blackberry, then devore process to make a grid of holes empty spaces, lace, absence, loss, mortality

Cloth is like the human body. It holds memories and dreams at the same time. It wears out.