aesthetic pleasure

 

I have been procrastinating about writing anything this month.    

I will share some photos 

of the layers of linen and wool and sheer that I have been stitching with black and red thread.

It seemed so urgent that I stitch every day.

I thought I might get this one finished.   I told myself that finishing it was why I was stitching so much.

But that was not true.  

I was stitching so much because I was letting my own hands do what they do so well. 

My hands take care of me.

These past weeks, I read essays by women in old magazines and attended panel discussions on Zoom.

I went into my town studio a lot, and came home by the back roads, 

because the trees and ditches take care of me too.

In the essays,  I kept coming across words like care and nurture and support and retreat. 

The water in the lake is beginning to freeze.  

Can you can see the misty fairy hair?.

Aesthetic pleasure is important now, not just for its own sake, but to revive us, to give us the wherewithal to fight another day.      Aruna d'Souza             Canadian Art winter 2019

This piece is called Inner World. 

I'm finishing it up for an exhibition next spring.  All the work in the exhibition is two-sided.  

Most of the pieces are made by stitching first on one side and then another, 

and when they are displayed,  the 'other' or the inner side faces outwards.   

Inner World

Art has begun to feel not like a respite or an escape, but a formidable tool for gaining perspective on troubled times.                       Olivia Laing         The Guardian     April 2020

Stitching helps me because, for the several hours each day that I spend stitching, 

real time is stopped.  

The whirl of it.  The fear of it.

Making my art is like being in a zone of enchantment.

  

Whatever brings the consciousness into a state of pure attention, in a time of perplexity, will also give back an answer to the perplexity.          D.H. Lawrence  1928

The stars.

The sky and the stars.

In current climates, the act of taking time out of our day to make, time to look after yourself, time to be with loved ones, is important.  Modern quilting is all about time.  The moments we share with one another and the processes we choose to adopt to take care of ourselves.                                                    Julius Arthur           Embroidery Magazine      July/August 2021

There's a lot going on with my kids these days.  

Inner World

The title of the exhibition is Inside Out.  

Mark making is a way to make an effect on our own world.                                                          Margaux Williamson             Canadian Art     Winter 2019 

Art is an articulation of resilience.                                                                                                      People create art through war and pandemics and hardship and the work lives on for hundreds of years.                                                                    Tatum Dooley  The Guardian     April 2020                 

truth telling

I went into the studio last week and pinned things up and looked.

I thought the dotted sheer panels I made last summer were finished pieces in themselves, but now I know better.  They are layers.  I look and I move things around and look some more.

Sometimes I just look.  

Stumped.

I would like to speak honestly about blogging.  

Writing  this blog seems hard lately and I am going to take a sabbatical from the writing part of it.  I will still post photos of my work, but please don't expect me to write.  I can't.

And there is something else.  

Recently, I've received emails that let me know that my blog is not working.  People have been asking for help with comments or following.  Blogger won't let them in anymore.  I don't know what has changed. 

 Come over to instagram with me. It's easier.  My handle there is @judithemartin

from 2008 journal:  Accept me.  Love me.  Who am I from the inside out?  I am enough as I am. 

layering

Moon of Kindness  2018 by Frances Dorsey
dyed printed, stitched pieces of old discarded table linens, natural dyes
42" x 42"

In 2018 we were in Halifax, and visited the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.  While there I came across Nova Scotia artist, Frances Dorsey's work with domestic linens.  I share them here, so that I can see them again.

 I like the way the fabrics are layered and allowed to hang rather free.

Moon of Meanness  2018 by Frances Dorsey
dyed, printed, stitched old discarded table linens, natural dye
42" x 42"

The artist holds back on the addition of stitched marks, although she used stitch resist with dyes.
This is interesting and informative for me.
The fabrics have a different way of hanging when they are not stitched.
The layers are more evident.

Dorsey uses the archetype of circle within a square, and I identify with that.

These next three images are of pieces by Berlinde de Bruckere, an artist from Belgium. She  also layers her fabrics and does not stitch them much.  The holes and tatters in her work reveal layers that are sometimes 16 inches deep, more like sculptures. Go to this link and watch the short video.  Then you will have more understanding of how evocative her work is.

Fabric is very evocative of the human body as both are so vulnerable to aging and exposure to the elements.  Berlinde de Bruyckere's pieces have a sense of history and memory.
There have an emotional narrative, about love, suffering, and time.

 "I want to show how helpless a body can be.  It's nothing you have to be afraid of - it can be sometimes beautiful"  Berlinde de Bruckere

 Shot through the Heart 2010  by Frances Dorsey

used linen napkins coloured with natural dyes, oxides and metal salts
screen printing, discharge, stitching  108" x 108"
and click here  to see another direction that Frances Dorsey takes with dyed table linen.

Moon and Chrysalis number 2 by Junko Oki  2017

stitch, wax, cotton bandage over an iron frame

39.5" square  ............ and I continue in my admiration for Junko Oki 

all at once

new work

Layers.  Horizontals.
Plant-dyed,light-weight cottons and silks.

Small pieces of cloth, each ironed in half and the fold stitched.
Then joined together into rows.

 All by hand.

Yesterday, I worked in my Little Current studio
(10 foot walls and good light)

I'm basting the pieced strips to a lightweight foundation.

I am trying to express what it feels like to look at the sky

Looking up.

the cosmos ...... the earth......  the atmosphere

At home, I am sorting.

Spring is here.

workshop in Thunder Bay

I'm teaching a workshop about the techniques in the Manitoulin Circle Project on the weekend and preparing for it has made me excited.  Pictured are two of the many samples I'm taking to show how the techniques in the panels can be used in entirely different ways.  More information about the workshop is here.

 Reverse applique shown above, layering below.

The exhibition itself,  Mended World , opened to the public on Friday and I still haven't seen how it looks. Ned and I will be at the gallery for the more formal opening-reception this Thursday. The gallery has invited me to give a digital presentation.

It's been good for me to bring the last four years of work into perspective with preparing for this lecture and workshop.  I am tired though. 

meditation panel four

 

 Layers of Time came off the quilt frame on Friday night and I brought it home.

Over the weekend I have been looking at it.  It stuns me.

The immensity of it.

Q:  is it finished?

A:  for now.

We will be binding it this Thursday August 15, 2013.  It's the end.  Come and reminisce, everyone.