mothers almost always mean well

"Don't use up words to get rid of tension....

 That tension should be in your sculpture."

                                                                                                                     Henry Moore

                                                                         

the blue and the dim and the dark

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats

This encaustic collage is part of an art show at the Little Current library next month. I'm delivering it today.

Millie Gladu

ink on paper, Millie Gladu, 1966

I am in Fort Frances, the town closest to the farm where I grew up. Ned and I are here with my father for a family event. ink on paper, Millie Gladu, about 1967


Yesterday I went into the Fort Frances museum. The Ontario Craft Council exhibition is on display, which is serendipitous.

Upstairs in a back room there was an art sale. detail of above

It was disturbing for me to see that the life's work of Millie Gladu was being sold off in a yard sale type situation. Her name was well respected when I was a child. My mother studied with her. The above painting of hers is in the main area of the museum and is not for sale. It used to hang in the main area of the bank. ink on paper, Millie Gladu, mid 60's

What does it all mean? Emotions about mortalitiy, isolation, and gender make my throat ache.
I purchased four of her drawings. ink on paper, Millie Gladu mid 1960's. I spent ten dollars. Can you feel her touch?

paintings of my mother

I folded up and threw out a painting today. Not this one. I'm keeping this one. Inspired by a black and white photograph, this is the way I like to remember my mother. Smiling. Brave. Touching my shoulders with pride, showing off the new smocked dress that she had made for me. I made several paintings of my mother in 2008 from photographs. It helped me, she had passed in 2007. I used the black and white photographs my dad took. She liked to pose with us kids on Sundays after church. Above: the one I threw out today. It was time. Too large for my archival box, it was in the way. I tossed it because it did not flatter her. It did not look like her. Above: also tossed. I stitched red thread into each painting and showed them in 2008. Too personal.

Margaret Atwood

inside out dress, ink on paper

"It is dangerous to believe that success will make your measure. Success can always be taken away from you.
There are only two things that are important: The writing for its own sake and a central private life." When asked in 1972 what she wanted, it wasn't fame. Rather , Margaret Atwood said

"Just more of the same. I have it now."

this from Rosemary Sullivan's biography of Margaret Atwood, The Red Shoes.

experimental drawing

Garment or shield? Decoration or camouflage?
block printing with ink wash on watercolour paper


He wore it!

earth sky connection

Rose came to my studio yesterday to pick up this stitched waxed piece that she purchased during the art tour last July. I'd been meaning to photograph it all summer but because it's so large (22 x 45 inches)it's a hassle to remove the glass. I'd been waiting until I had more free time. Ha.

Anyway, I wanted a document of how it looks finished. I'm sure if I need a better photo, I'll be able to get one.

Ritual

A life passage like birth requires the attention of a special textile.
Cloth touches the surface that it wraps. It is intimate.

I am planning a new baby quilt.
We are expecting another grandchild in the fall.

the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and the half light

I just finished this wax and ink piece and will display it over the weekend in my Little Current studio during the art tour. The title is adapted from W.B. Yeats' lovely and famous poem, He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven.

Here's more.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


Manitoulin Art Tour
Friday through Sunday
11am - 4 pm

New Sister

This is a detail of a drawing I did in 1989. In preparing my studio for the Manitoulin Art Tour this coming weekend, I am putting up a display of new work and taking down the paintings I had up for the Canada Day Open House. I'll put them on what's available for purchase over the next few days.

Happy Mother's Day

I had a wonderful mother's day. My kids phoned to talk and wish me a good day. Thank you Oona. Thank you Jay. Thank you Grace. Thank you April. AND, I spent the entire day in my studio. Bliss.

Perivale Gallery in Spring Bay opens next weekend for the season. This painting of my mother and myself will be there. I love remembering the stitching she did for me. Smocked dresses.

Last week when she was ten

I had a nice phone chat with our daughter today. It was early in Anchorage, and she was helping our wee one get his own breakfast.

Delivered

protection tunic 2006 Delivered this.
protection dress 2006 Picked this one up.

We made another road trip to Sudbury today to exchange my work for the Local Colour portfolio. Living in the North increases the time that the business side of my so-called career takes. I'm starting to question myself again. It's nice that Ned supports me by doing the driving. I can stitch.

road trip to Owen Sound

more vulnerable 2008

Ned and I drove this piece to Owen Sound today for the Convergence exhibit. A seven hour drive (one way) it would have been cheaper to ship it. We enjoyed the beautiful day however - took the dog, listened to an audio book, ate in restaurants.

ink, watercolour, cloth, metal, stitch

I'm preparing a CD of digital images to send to Dylon Whyte, my web site man who updates my web site for me. This mixed media piece will be going into the NEW WORK gallery sometime over the next few weeks.

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

On the floor

In an attempt to make some leaps in my artwork, I went down on my hands and knees and worked on the floor today. I used the sharpened handle of an old paintbrush dipped in ink to draw with. I did not use a photo, but just memory and the drawing I did yesterday as reference.

"For me the real struggle has been to actually submit to painting, to give myself over to the materials and the process. You feel so indefensible when you do that - when you let this other thing take over. The idea of not being able to articulate what it is you are doing before you begin - is terrifying." Eric Fischl

Passionata

A lady looked at one of Matisse's recent paintings. She told him that the arm of the woman was too long. Matisse said:
"Madam, you are mistaken. This is not a woman, this is a painting."

from Art and Illusion by E.H. Gombrich

Gone Artin'

Ned has gone fishin' for a week.

Yesterday I gave one of my students a sheet of twenty one little stickers and told her to reward herself with one each time she managed to play the last line of her sonatina with NO mistakes before Sunday's recital.
On Tuesday, the president of the local quilt guild dropped off the eleven president's challenges for me to judge.
When the dog and I walked past some neighbours last night, we discussed their current kitchen renovations However, all of these things seem to come at me as if from a far off place. I have been so immersed in creating new work at my studio that I've left this real world, this so-called real world.

I've gone artin'

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was very important to my mother. I have been thinking a lot about her this month as the day approached. She celebrated mother's day instead of her birthday.