her vision grounds me

Stoney Island Memories 2019

Working alongside Penny Berens is one of the highlights of my career.  Noticing how she maintains her own heart felt vision helps to keep me grounded.  

It's easy for me to find artists in books who seem to know their own selves and are able to write about their making process and belief systems, but Penny is a real person with whom I can speak with on the phone.   I just spent nearly a week with her in Nova Scotia when we installed and spoke about our joint exhibition, In the Middle of the World. 

Resting Between Tides 2019

She notices details.    

Her work is drawn with needle and thread in her lap.  She does one artwork at a time. 

Each of her pieces is directly influenced by some particular event or sight or feeling that she has experienced.

Walking on Stoney Ground 2019

There's nothing general about her interpretations, although her works do have an atmosphere.

Our work complements each other because of the differences between our two approaches as much as because of the similarities.

When Autumn Leaves Fall 2017

Winter's Edge 2021

The large scale of my work makes an immediate impact on the viewer.  

My work communicates a lasting feeling of spirit and intimacy.  It sets you up to receive the details and imagination of her wall pieces, as you slowly move past them, one after the other.  

    

Details of Winter's Edge

You are ready to notice the details and the events and the change of seasons in her interpretations of nature.  

Also the boulders and the piles of smaller rocks.

The sun and the moon.

The wind and the beaches.  The grasses and the berries.

All the small repetitive marks that nature paints in the bush or on the beach are detailed in Penny's work and it is interesting to experience them, step by step, with close observation.

November Song 2024

detail of November Song

She says that she wants to work more abstractly and messier. 

The last thing she said to me when we hugged good bye was that she was going to start doing this right away.  She's five years older than I am and neither of us are going to retire.

I'm glad that she's only a phone call or a text message away.  She keeps me on track.  She encourages and inspires me.

Beaver Moon Dreaming 2020

I'm lucky to have an artist like her in my life. Making the two person exhibition together with her and also with our cheerleader and advocate, curator Miranda Bouchard, was an important step in both our creative practices.

Thank you for being real, Penny.  Thank you for being full of integrity and personal strength.

All artwork in this post is by Penny Berens.  More of this body of work can be seen on Modernist Aesthetic.  

In the Middle of the World was just installed in Nova Scotia.  Read Miranda Bouchard's curatorial statement and see my sculptural pieces at this link.   

Love Letters

 

This post is about the beautiful catalogue for the exhibition In the Middle of the World, featuring the hand stitched work of Canadian artists Penny Berens and Judith E Martin, with a scholarly essay by Miranda Bouchard, curator.   All images are from the catalogue, all text is from the final paragraphs of Miranda's essay. 

As testimonials to their processes, experiences, labours, and love, the works of Berens and Martin communicate uniquely and bravely about what it is to be human and alive in this world.

During a talk delivered in March 2020, Martin expressed,  "I believe that the results of our work will be felt and understood by new generations, some not yet born.  They will feel the love held in our stitches.  All of us, all of you, who make hand-made objects, have this belief.

We believe that our work will be understood and appreciated in the future.  In this way, our work is life-affirming and full of hope."  The works are love letters to people and planet that help us look simultaneously inwards at ourselves and to reflect outwards at and onto the world.

For years, the artists have pressed beyond the limits, expectations, and norms they've been confronted with to make their marks and do their work.  Throughout the development of In The Middle of the World, they've courageously stretched, testing the frontiers of their creative practices to make and share, keeping their notions of truth in sight.

The slow nurturance of the work reflects the value in moving ever onwards, in spite of time and fear, at an intuitive pace that privileges real relationships.  

These works invite us to consider the importance of caring for the Earth as lovingly and attentively as we care for our bodies, and of sharing stories and skills so they can be cherished now and into the future.

They dare us to be courageously vulnerable amidst all the mending that needs doing in the world.

Penny Berens and Judy Martin offer poignant reminders that creation is ongoing and never static, as are the living processes of relating to our true selves, to each other, and the worlds we find ourselves in as time continues to pass. 

This work is never - nor should it ever - be done.

The artists and curator acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council during the long haul of preparing the exhibition and this publication.  

The complete catalogue can be viewed as a PDF, click here.  The soft cover book is 125 pages and is available for purchase.  Click here for more information.  

June gratitude

a single tulip, with this view   

a new bundle for my Gore Bay exhibition

our exhibition catalogue, nearly ready to print

our 5 month old twins and their mother

These four images are from three Mondays and a Saturday.  To keep in touch with you.   

Last Week

Feb 13

Yesterday,  it took me 12 hours total to drive home from Quebec which meant that I was able to drive in both red sunrise and red sunset.  The first red was along the Gatineau highlands (above photo).   Later, I was on highway 6 with the familiar Strawberry Channel and a magical February sky. 

time present on top, awakened heart beneath

Feb 14

the boxes for Kenora - to do today.  

This exhausts me so very much.

the forever with hanging device and hooks being placed

The Boxes

1 medicine earth in bag with tissue paper, my heart in a bag with bubble wrap, her arms wrapped round in a bag, all with labels

2 eternity bagged in a box, time past in a box, flowers bloomed with device in a box, the list made but not printed

3 underfoot the earth divine, rod is labeled, needs to be cut and drilled, time present (with device),  my awakened heart is labeled the rod needs to be drilled

4 the forever, time future not in box yet

5 rods

In The Middle of the World exhibition to be presented at the Douglas Family Art Centre in Kenora, Ontario March 30 - June 15 2023

time future with hanging device

Feb 15

Doing the boxes, the folding and arranging of my beautiful, heavy work, affects my body so much.

I am also affected emotionally.  I am over come. 

Resolved today to gather my thoughts about the nitty gritty installation requirements into a document.  Shall I pack shelf brackets so that some of my pieces can be mounted out from the walls?

Does the curator at the Muse have a firm idea already for how she will mount this challenging installation?

time past : island heart

'I would stand for hours at my window, watching the sky and birds, no need to make immediate decisions" Magdalena Abakanowicz

detail of island heart

Feb 16

Procrastinated and cried over the in the middle of the world work again.  It's so emotional for me to see all my work in vulnerable pile-ups around me.  All through the bedroom and living room and kitchen. 

For some of the pieces, I need to consider proper hanging devices, perhaps purchasing some kind of hook if we send shelf brackets.

Also, I need to make sure that each piece has an identifying paper label and fit the pieces into boxes. 

underfoot the earth divine

Feb 17

OMG, the work is so full of touch that my heart breaks open every time I unfurl another one.

earth divine fitted in box

Feb 18

All week I made good progress and am working all day.  My routine begins at 6 am with my half hour of old journals and then another hour or more working on the website. 

Yesterday, the curator in Kenora phoned me and gave me her opinion of shelf brackets that hold two-sided pieces five inches out from the wall.  "Ugly and Pointless".  She is going to hang everything from the ceiling.  She has a hydraulic lift and doesn't fool around with step ladders.

That phone call made me so happy. 

eternity fitted in box

Feb 19  

Yesterday I cried a little when Ned told me his Saturday schedule.  It didn't include my boxes. 

I need him to help me with the hanging devices.  Cut the rods down, see if the Forever hooks work.  We do have time to do all these things, I know, I know, we have all the time we need. 

time future and flowers bloomed piled in kitchen

Feb 20

I organized the courier pick up just now.  It will happen tomorrow with the delivery to Kenora by Friday Feb 24 before 9 pm.  We are worried about the icy driveway.  

Getting this Kenora artwork into boxes has been really hard, but I'm almost done. 

Social media is worried about Penny and I've written personal notes to several people who've asked about her.  I tell everyone that "she's OK".

Feb 21

We put all five boxes into the van and hope that will be easier for the Purolator guy to get.  It snowed last night so it's not a glare-ice driveway or at least it doesn't look like one.

Now that the boxes are all in the van,  I've spent an hour sewing a pink sleeve on a piece for the OTHER SHOW .  

It's too much for me.  I can't do it.  It's all too much.

but it's not, is it.   When we consider the larger global picture,  my problems and concerns described here are trivial.  

I am lucky to be able to create artwork from blankets and show it in art galleries.  I choose to do this strange thing.  I want to do it.  I love this work.  Sharing my artwork is part of being an artist.  Getting it out the door for exhibition is difficult for me, but still, I am glad to be able to do it.

Also, I am blessed to have a large family, all healthy.  Thank you thank you thank you, universe.

I am grateful for these things and I will say so here, in this public forum.  Please, if you are able, choose an organization to donate to that helps our broken world.  Thank you xo

p.s.  Purolator guy came around 4 pm.  He walked from road to front door and said he couldn't come into our driveway, he would get stuck.  I said "that's OK!  All the boxes are in the van."  And I drove it up to the road and he unloaded them into his vehicle and drove away."  xo

what is it that I do?

new sleeve for Awakened Heart

You have to do work that's meaningful to you, and then you have to keep on doing it.  (Ann Gillen)

new sleeve for The Forever

I try to do only what I want to do.  

I try to do what feels necessary to do.

I do what I love.

view from the door of my town studio 

I got back into my town studio this month.  .

The Forever on the town studio table, side b

I was able to complete the sewing of a new sleeve for the largest of the blanket pieces, The Forever.

The Forever on town studio table, side a

I am returning it to it's original design - a horizontal swath of marks.  click here

The Forever on dining table at home

It's nearly 14 feet wide, 10 feet high.  It's larger than me.  

Moment to moment, day after day.

I stitch it.  My body touches it.

Eternity and the kitchen rug

The work I do takes a long time and I like that.

new sleeve for Eternity

My work is a statement about life itself, in a way.  About lived time.

Every day, we have to just go on.  Waking up and getting dressed and looking at the sky and being gentle with those we live with and touching them and moving out the door and interacting with the air and greeting strangers and getting in a car and hearing terrible news and picking up the bread and turning the key and putting on and taking off our coat,  zipping and unzipping, buttoning and unbuttoning and returning home and starting dinner and petting the cat and pulling the quilt up and kissing our loved ones and turning out lights. 

It's energy.

a new sleeve for Eternity side two

My work holds all that time.  That energy. 

My Heart and Her Arms Wrapped Round in the rocking chair

Time is my subject and my method.

new sleeve for Noble Tenderness

The images in this post are of some of the pieces that I'm getting ready for the Kenora, Ontario exhibition of In The Middle of the World that begins on March 30.   This exhibition was shown in late 2021 but I continue to improve some of the pieces.    

It's what I do.

My awakened heart / noble tenderness : A two-sided piece. 

 Time is packed into what I do

artist talk

I am excited to share the link to my section of the artist's talk that Miranda Bouchard, Penny Berens and I presented for the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum on September 29, 2021.  I have a vimeo account and have uploaded just my small part.  

 HERE

is the video of my 15 minutes.

The Mississippi Valley Textile Museum will have a link to the complete talk soon.  As soon as that goes live I will share it here.  

As well, an online closing celebration is being planned for December 18.   Here is the link to register for that - it is 2 pm EST.  I hope that it will be recorded, crossing fingers.  

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYufuuqpzkoEta0eTqYoubCl6JLoin0R6aK

 

 For now though, please get your tea and come visit me on Manitoulin Island.  In this slide presentation I share my view through the cedar trees to the sky and the water.   It was my first time doing a live zoom with sharing my screen, so please forgive the first few minutes of not knowing.