Fare Well

Today is the last day of 2020 and I am thinking about endings.                                                         About things feeling finished.     About turning the page.

Above is  Underfoot The Earth Divine, one of the few pieces I finished during the pandemic.

The first image in this post is the reverse side of the piece, and it high lights the lovely wool thread drawing that happened spontaneously.   

The second image shows the front, pieced from rescued damask table linens.  You can see where I cut holes into the piecework in the lower half, and then repaired them with velvet.  

Good bye 2020.  

We've had many challenges this year.  

We've learned a lot about our selves.  We've learned that we can rely on our own selves.                 We've learned that we are strong and we are beautiful.  We've learned that we will figure it out.

I spoke about these ideas of inner strength and softness in the lecture I gave in Toronto last October.  The lecture shares about where I live and about the creation of my work.  It details the spring and summer of 2020 and shows how my work helps me to carry on through emotional turmoil. I learn to trust myself through the step by step making of each piece.   

The lecture shows how I've learned how to let things rest when I don't know quite what to do next.  

And that mending and correcting errors  are essential because the journey of broken-ness is part of each piece and also part of me as a human.

The lecture seems a little slow at the beginning, but I encourage you to visit it when you have a quiet 45 minutes.  I hope that you can find the time for a visit with me, my dear friends.  Here's the link.

Thank you very much for being with me through 2020.  I felt your support.  Love You!   

my awakened heart with zoom

I think about my outdoor surroundings,(my yard), as my mother, or perhaps my teacher.  She teaches me about the importance of repetition and of lively small marks.  She teaches me about the fertility and growth of spring, the blooming of summer, the fragile beauty of autumn and the quiet silence of winter.  I also think about my yard as a lover, because it is so generous with its gifts and love, and I like to be with it so much.

I just finished pre-recording a lecture about my work for the York Heritage Quilt Guild in Toronto Ontario.  Creating a pre-recorded audio-visual was a learning experience for me.  It tooke several long days and nights of decisions about what to say and how,  and of what work to show and why.  The original plan was that I would speak about the development of my work over nearly 40 years.  However, our beautiful world is in so much pain now and has been in global crises since early 2020 that I felt an urgency to speak with authentic voice about my response to the wounds.  My creativity helped me (and healed me) over and over again during the spring and summer and continues to do so as we move towards winter.   The pictures in this post are of a small wool and velvet piece that I made during the summer and speak about during the lecture.

The first text in this post, (in italics) is quoted from the presentation. If you are a member of York Heritage this lecture is part of your program for 2020-2021.  Here is a link to read more about the talk.   and to also see the amazing line-up of speakers and teachers that this guild has for their members.   Thank you v much to Irena Hopper who invited me and also thank you v much to Deb Larsen who was my technical whiz-assistant and put the audio and visuals together.  

How To Speak Poetry

In early 2004, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery mounted a solo exhibition of my work entitled My Hand Sings Red and Lakehead University invited me to speak while I was in the city for the opening.  I introduced my slide talk by reading part of Leonard Cohen’s prose poem "How To Speak Poetry" , backing each line with a detail of what was then my recent work.

“How to speak poetry” is advice to poets on how to read their own work out loud.   It's a beautiful and powerful piece of writing, and it resonated deeply with the audience reeling from current world events.  For this post, I've scanned some of those slides.

How To Speak Poetry

There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horrors of this time.

Do not even try

We have seen newsreels of humans in pain and dislocation

You are playing to people who have experienced catastrophe

This should make you very quiet

Speak your words.  convey the data.  Step aside

Everyone knows you are in pain

Step aside and they will know what you know because they know it already
You have nothing to teach them

You are not more beautiful than they are

You are not wiser

You are among the people

Then be modest

Speak the words, convey the data, step aside

This is an interior landscape

It is inside

It is private

Respect the privacy of the material

These pieces were written in silence

The courage is to speak them

The discipline is not to violate them

Let the audience feel your love of privacy

Even though there is no privacy

The poem is nothing but information

It is the constitution of the inner country

Do not be afraid to be weak

Do not be ashamed to be tired

Leonard Cohen

My Edited Life: Seventeen Quilts

Something More Magical than it Ever Was  1991  re-purposed family clothing and silk, traditional dark and light log cabin arrangement quilt, hand quilted,by Judith e Martin  90 inches square

The first quilt, Something More Magical Than It Ever Was (shown above) in this edited life story was completed the same year I turned 40.  It is a memory quilt about the early years of our marriage.  The traditional dark and light arrangement of the log cabin pattern reminds us that we need both darkness and light in order to grow, just like a seed does.

Quilt 2:  In the Centre of the Body is the Soul.  The first quilt that I started after our move to Manitoulin in 1993.  It was on Manitoulin that I learned that hand embroidery adds emotional power to the surfaces of my quilts.   Go here for image.

Quilt 3;  I began a series of Velvet Journals in the late 90's.  The idea behind them was that all of us present ourselves to the world, but that our inner self is more interesting and  true.  These ideas continue to surface in my current work. This particular piece is entitled The Rescuer because art critic Lucy Lippard once wrote that quilt makers rescue a woman's life from oblivian. Click here for the front and here for the back of this quilt.  The piece is English Paper Pieced with hand written journal pages and magazine papers.

With Quilt 4, I marked the turn of the millennium with the Millennium Journal Project.

Millennium Jounral (84 days shown of 850) a record of the turn of the millennium in personal code of symbols, 2001 by Judy Martin

For each day between November 1998 and February 2001 I recorded the weather and what I did each day with a code of personal symbols.  I represented my four children with coloured triangles.  Green for Oona, Blue for Jay, Pink for Grace and Multi-Coloured for April.  Those colours seemed to get truer and truer as the kids get older.

Quilt 5:  I began a series of three Amish -style Diamond in Square quilts during the climate of fear that took over the world after September 11, 2001.  Each Stitch is a Prayer (here) was completed in 2003 and was the first of the Protection Blanket series.  Ned and I currently use it on our bed.

War Diary (detail of volume two shown)  2003, set of two cloth books.  A record of 180 TV headlines days during the build up to the invasion of Iraq by Judith e Martin

Quilt 6 is not a quilt actually, but two cloth books.  War Diaries.  Each book holds 90 days (ten 9-patch pages).  Black paper is stitched to each patch and contains the headline of the daily news during the build up to war and concerns about weapons of mass destruction (detail shown above).  Also in each of the books is personal journal text that shows how normal families had to just keep going on.  Two more details of volume two are on my website here and here.

Quilt 7:  Protection Blanket.  Another of the Amish quilts, this one employs sequins to reflect the bad energy as is done in many world cultures.  See here.

Wrapped Form 2008 by Judith e Martin

Quilt 8:  Not a quilt but two bundles, one of which is shown above.  I began wrapping just after my mother died in 2007 and still continue to explore the feeling of well being that repetitive wrapping gives. Not only the baby or the sore finger or leg being wrapped feels comfort, but also the person who is doing the wrapping.  The second bundle can be seen here.

left: self hug 2015 , right: red  sweater 2008, silk hand embroidery on Vintage linen pillowcase by Judith e Martin

Quilt 9:  shown above.  Not a quilt but two embroidered pillow cases.  Wrapping myself in a favourite garment makes me feel better.

Twenty Four Hour Care  2010  cotton and velvet quilt, hand stitched by Judith e Martin  78 " square

Quilt 10:  Making this traditional quilt was healing for me after the loss of my mother, the title reflects the amount of care that she needed for quite a long time.  Ned and I add this one to our bed in the winter.  Twenty Four Hour Care - shown above.

Quilt 11;  Canadian Pioneer.  With this piece, I look back on what it must have been like for my settler anscestors to come to Canada and make a life.   See here.

Quilt 12;  Lake.  The aesthetic of simplicity occurs in my newer work.  I am consciously trying to reflect the awesome sky and water that is my daily view.  I want to make art that gives the feeling of being alone in nature.   This piece is from 2014 and can be seen here.

Quilt 13:  Turning the Air to Cloth and Above Us , a two sided quilt.  Both sides are the right side. Completed in 2015, this quilt is covered and quilted with hand embroidery.  See here and here.

In progress quilt top made 2015 by Judith e Martin, cotton, silk and light weight wool false starts gathered up  80" x 90"

Quilt 14:  At the end of 2015 I gathered up my life so far and pieced it together into the quilt top shown above. Why? you may ask. It does not follow the ideas of simplicity that I want to put into my new work, but instead used up many unfinished pieces, clearing a way.  I think of this as a break-through piece  that helped me find a path to simplification.

In progress quilt with big stitch quilting, Judith e Martin 2016

I'm quilting it with a gauze batting inbetween the pieced top and a silk back.  I'm using perle cotton to stitch multi coloured running stitches horizontally across everything.

Portfolio of Sketches for 90 inch quilts, (Large Emptiness, Small Marks)  36 sketches in hand stitched folder, 13"x13"x 3"   2016 by Judith e Martin

Quilt 15:   Not a quilt but a Portfolio of Sketches (above).  I want to make large square stitched textiles of pared down imagery that allow for contemplation of space and this portfolio holds 36 ideas.  see here

Quilt 16:  untitled in progress, 120 inch square silk quilt completely hand stitched with embroidery - shown here.

Female Figurine / Moon Cloth  2016 by Judith e Martin  Hand stitched indigo dyed wool, human sized

Quilt 17:  The final piece is also not a quilt`and is shown above.  Moon Cloth.   Worked from the inside, displayed like a vessel or ancient goddess figure - it rotates back and forth with the slightest breeze.

Apologies to regular readers of this blog, all works have appeared on the blog before over the years. I write this entry because on Friday, a women's group came to my home and I showed them these seventeen pieces primarily because they were what are in our cupboard.  Every time I speak about my work, the story becomes more fine tuned.

key note

I take my work seriously.
I take it everywhere. When the kids were little I took it to playgrounds and ballet rehearsals.

Now I take it to doctor appointments and on air plane trips.  People ask me "what are you making?"
That is a difficult question for me and I answer very carefully.
Sometimes I avoid giving an answer.

Because the what is not as important to me as the fact that I am making.
I am a moving thread.
I am in the process of becoming.
But that is hard to explain.

We are here to begin a fibre festival.  We have come to this northern ontario town at this period of time to be with other people who get it.  Who understand how much we love to do it. We love to stitch, weave, spin, dye, felt..all these things.  We love the process.

Remember what the key is.  Fibre.
And what the note is.  The process itself.

......................................

(this post is a hint of the key note address I will be giving this coming Friday evening during the opening ceremony of the Espanola fibre festival.  The Manitoulin Circle Project will be on display, still room in some of the great workshops here)(wish you could all come)

I wore my black dress

The panels in the Manitoulin Circle Project are grounded in the archetype.   They use simple shapes that Carl Jung has identified as being within the collective unconscious.  Everyone around the world, from all periods of time, understands these shapes inherently.

The circle represents wholeness and sacredness and is the most natural shape.  It is the self and it is eternity.  It is endless movement.

The square shows limits.  If the circle is heaven, the square is earth.  When a circle is within a square, it is like the spirit within the body’s limits, it is like heaven contained.

Two of the panels have the horizon line dividing them, which reads as the lower half water, the upper half sky.  Sky and water and the spiritual self as an island, these ideas were with me throughout the designing of these panels.

In each panel there is the message of environmental appreciation and reparation. First of all they were made with donated and thrift shop damask table cloths and other beautiful domestic textiles such as lace doilies, women’s handkerchiefs, wool blankets.  Only a very few silk and cotton fabrics were purchased new.  Ruining (or rescuing) these cloths in order to re-create something meaningful was a constant metaphor.  The titles of the panels are intended to raise associations and thoughtfulness about caring for our world.

The four large panels of the circle project reflect the idea of community.  Each is made from small bits that have been massed together to form something larger than just more.  The dots in these panels gather together as humans do into towns and cities.

The pieces were slowly made.  Each took months, four years in total.  The women were of all ages, and although several were definitely experts, most were beginning stitchers.   We all did our best.   If something wasn't quite perfect, that is all part of it.  A few loyal ones stayed with the project for the entire four years, others moved on, new people joined. 

It disciplined me to work on such a public artwork in a small town.  The local paper put an ad in the community events section every single week.  The hours were 10 am until 6 pm every Thursday, changing to 1-4 pm on the few Thursdays I had to be away and one of the regulars took the project over.  Always, someone took over and the work continued.  I think that is remarkable and important.   

(From my talk last night at the opening of Mended World exhibition.) 

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. 

just enough

floor in the sultan's palace, istanbul

nine patch connected dots

stitching between Ankara and Goreme, Turkey with wedding manicure

river of time, not knowing, going on

home

I'm home again, and preparing the artist talk for the Mended World exhibition opening.
The gallery has asked for a visual presentation, and so I gather images.
I will tell people the three important things about the body of work in the show.

Time........the many kinds of time
Touch......the mother of the senses
Large empty spaces filled with small marks...distracting the viewer's eye just enough

Trunk Show #1: Introduction

Power and Beauty, Amish diamond in square quilt, dyed wool, hand stitched with mirror work. Unfinished.

I'm preparing a trunk show to take to Toronto tomorrow. I'm considering using this unfinished piece in the introduction. (Sorry, but I don't have a photo that includes the 12 inch Amish style borders) My trunk show connects my art and my life.

Introduction

I grew up on a farm in North Western Ontario.

My mother was an intellectual. Her parents were English/Irish. Her mother was the local artist. Her father a damaged WWI vet.

My father was an entrepreneur. His mother only spoke Finn. She wove Finnish rugs.

I’m 50 percent Finnish and the Finnish aesthetic – one of simplicity, elegance, noble poverty and love of nature informs my very being and all my work.

I’m finding that inner Finn more and more each year. The quilt that you see here has not been shown in public before. It’s not finished. It’s like me. I’m not finished either. I feel that I'm on the brink of a new and simple way of working.

This quilt is an Amish design embellished with Indian mirror work. Two very different cultures are brought together. Like so much of today's contemporary world, this piece is a hybrid.

I turned 60 this past summer. Emily Carr Visited Me 2005, painted and stitched rayon, pieced, appliqued, hand quilted. Turning 60 is a huge deal and instead of denying it, I am celebrating it. I am aware that the time available for me is limited. I believe that my best work is yet to come.

Emily Carr made her best work AFTER she gave up her boarding house business and went into the BC rainforest alone. She was 57.
detail. The blanket stitch embroidery is also the quilting stitch. oil on paper by Emily Carr.
This is when she painted her swirling skies and trees. She painted them when she was in her 60's.
oil on paper, Emily Carr oil on paper, Emily Carr. She painted all of these in her late 50's and early 60's. I am inspired by Emily Carr and her spirit continues to visit me and encourage me. My quilt appropriates her famous oil painting Scorned as Timber, Beloved by the Sky, that she painted when she was 64. But this is just the introduction.