journal entry

This coming winter I am in a time-line because of the linen bienniele in Quebec.  I am challenged with the task of connecting contemporary art thinking with rural heritage.   The artist as social agent.  I have to focus and not become side-tracked.

Personally, I want to be creative with what I have around me. 

In addition to this work in linen, I will continue working with woolen blankets. Both bodies of work are about cloth that gave beauty and goodness to the harsh domestic life of early Canadian settlers.  

But I am afraid.  Or maybe just timid.  Unsettled.  Often side-tracked.  

I read about an artist who stitched a moon every night for a year. 

She stitched a moon, the phases, while sitting in the same chair by a window each night.  

Time was something that she could hold. 

Once or twice or three times, I saw something rise from the dust in the yard, 

like the soul of the dust, or from the field, 

rise and hover like a veil in the sun billowing

as if I could see the wind itself. 

I thought I did it - squinting - but I didn't

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

I saw it.  It was a thing.  It was a thing and spirit both

the real world:  evident, invisible. 

                                   Marie Howe  

Deschambault-Grondines

typical house in the village of Deschambault, Quebec, Canada

This post is about the visit that Ned and I made last week to a small village on the shores of the St Lawrence river called Deschambault.    We were invited to come before October 4 so that we could see the interior of two of the three historic buildings before they close for the season.     

the moulin a vent de Grondines, built 1674

On the my Process blog, almost all recent posts have been about my work with linen.  This is because throughout August and September I have been researching and gathering ideas for new pieces that use old linen.  I will be sharing my progress on these pieces over the next few months. 

(the old rectory)  le vieux presbytere de Deschambault built 1815 

The Bienniale Internationale du Lin de Portneuf is held every two years.  It is a festival where original, conceptual art works about flax and linen and heritage are showcased.  The variety of art is displayed across the historical sites of the villlages in the community of Deschambault-Grondines, located about a half hour from Quebec City.   

The old mill
  Moulin de la Chevrotiere built in 1802 with an annex built 1766

Twenty artists are invited every two years to create new work that will be installed for the entire summer season outside, around, or inside these historic sites.  2027 will be the twelth biennale, and the dates are June 11 until October 3, 2027.  There is a catalog of the first ten biennales and I was thrilled to find some of my favourtie artists from Europe and Canada included in this Canadian festival over the years. You can purchase the beautiful catalogue that celebrates the first ten biennales (20 years ) on the website.  (here)

I looked at the exterior park-like area and walking trails through tall trees as potential sites for my linen pieces.  These trails go along the creek up to the dam and to the pond.  

I also looked at the interiors of the two historic venues that would be available for my work.

interior of the old mill  

Both interiors were beautiful with thick stone walls that were smoothed with white plaster.  They had lovely windows.  The ceilings are low however, and that will limit the size of my work, which is usually quite large.  

interior of the old rectory
(exhibition of Marie-Charles Nadeau's weaving and photography)

I loved viewing the several exhibitions in the two buildings.  All of them were excellent.  

I was especially impressed by the young Montreal artist, Marie-Charles Nadeau, who wove and dyed ordinary household linen to speak about the past life of early French settlers.  Her photographs of them burning struck me at an emtoional level.  

Marie-Charles Nadeau 
Archives du Temps Passe

Marie-Charles' work showcased the labour and care that go into creating 'ordinary cloth'. 

Her photographs emphasized the poignant fact that eventually cloth, like the human body, is ephemeral.  Her photographs and careful handwoven textiles resonated with me. 

These things are what I also want to also express with my work. 

Marie-Charles Nadeau, Archives du Temps Passe
in the Vieux Presbytyre de Deschambault

I'll write more on this topic as we go through the winter ahead of us.  I'm so proud to be one of the artists invited to show new work in the 2027 edition of the biennale.  I am supposed to ship it to Quebec in early May.  

It is good to know what will be occupying my creative brain and hands over the next months.  

Grow your own heart

How do you grow your own heart?

When we feel and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love.

You can't offer happiness to another until you have it youself.

Learn to love and heal yourself, then you have something to offer others.  

Thich Nhat Hanh

Images of one of the quilts I've been growing my heart with this summer.  In progress.

earth and air

I've named this piece Earth and Air, and I've been thinking about why I did.
Initially, it came out of the Luce Irigaray quote I was inspired by for my exhibition entitled The Cloud In Me.
"How do I make earth out of air and protect the cloud in me?"

The earth figure is intuitively pieced from men’s wool suiting fabrics.  These were dyed with a variety of plants gathered from the ditches and fields of Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada where I live.  The figure was hand quilted by hand to a linen tablecloth with coloured threads, a little red.

Surrounding the figure are wide expanses of torn linen damask table linens.  These strips have been pieced together so that the horizontal seams are exposed.  The raw edges seem fragile, but in truth they are strong.   This sky area has also been hand quilted to the tablecloth backing, with white silk thread.

The dualities contained in the work are:  horizontal / vertical, wool / linen, colour / white, male / female, and Manitoulin Island’s Indigenous / European settler societies.

This artwork is about the affirmation of nature and the support of the huge sky above and around all of us humans in the world.  We all, at some time in our lives, stand alone and look out over horizons.  We are all given access to our own inner immensity by such standing and looking, and we all feel connected to the place where we stand.   Being quiet and alone in nature, we begin to understand how the earth has been here a very long time and we begin to believe that it will continue.  

It's summer

It is summer

and I have been immersed in family

it's a good busy

The kids are doing the cooking and also the planning of what to cook.

The grand kids are doing the cannon ball diving, the fishing and the comic book reading.

I'm working on a large piece.

It has a wool central area, dyed with plants and stitched in several colours of thread

surrounded by linen damask, pieced with raw edges, strengthened with big stitches.

life and death are not opposites
death is enfolded in life's centre

'when I keep my heart open, when I let it be touched
I learn that it is botttomless, it is vast, limitless

 I discover how much warmth and gentleness is there,

 how much space'
(pema chodron idea)

the Alaska family was here for 11 days and time stopped for me while I watched them

onion skins and old nails

I've been saving onion skins for quite some time, and last week I used them to dye some cloth.

I am writing about my process.
These are experiments. I do not claim that I know what I am doing.
Sometimes my experiments work.
I am inspired by the idea that natural dyers throughout time have experimented.

My process:
Put a large grocery bag full of onion skins into a big canning pot.
Pour boiling water over them until they are covered.
Allow this to steep and cool down over night.
The next day, bring the onion skin solution to a simmer and keep it there for 90 minutes.
Allow this to steep and cool down over night.  Repeat if possible.
Remove the skins from the liquid.

Divide the liquid into two pots.
In second pot of dye, add a jar full of iron solution.

The iron solution is Jenny Dean's recipe.
Into a wide glass jar with a lid place scrap iron (old nails, a small trivet, scrap metal)
Cover with solution made from two parts water and one part clear vinegar
Leave for at least two weeks.  (I left mine for more than one year)

Protein Fibres work best with natural dyes  (from animals (wool and silk)

Add wool and silk cloth as well as silk rayon velvet (see top photo)
No pre-soak or pre-mordant needed for these, the cloth was added dry

Gently bring cloth and dye up to a simmer for 90 minutes
Allow to do the steep and cool over night thing, two times preferably
Our house smelled like onion soup for a week and a half.

Hang fabrics outside without rinsing.
Just wring them and allow them to dry naturally
Fold gently and allow to rest for a few days

The colours of the protein fibres (wool and silk) are really rich
A nearly red rusty colour on the wool and velvet from the onion skins (above photo)
A deep olive greenish grey from the pot with the iron (see below)

Cellulose fibres

To make linen and cotton ready to accept the natural dyes, I did a pre-soak over night in two litres of 2 percent milk from the grocery store.  It was an experiment.

Soak cotton and linen cloth overnight in milk
Wring out the milk and place the wet cloth into the dye baths
Bring to a simmer for 90 minutes.  Steep over night.
Hung on the line without rinsing but after wringing/  (above photo cotton and linen with iron-onion

The fabrics had markings on them when they were dried that I didn't expect.
The dye bath itself was quite milky.

There was still enough milky dye left in the pot so I did a third round with the protein fibres.
Although the colours were much paler,  they were still really beautiful.  (see below)
I am truly pleased with this experiment.
It took place while we carried on with our so called normal life.

I washed all the cloth in the washing on delicate cycle, cold water, tea tree detergent.
Two loads in order to separate the iron fabrics from the pure onion
Dry in the dryer for added softness for the velvet.
The stains and natural markings on the cotton and linen remain.

What I do with cloth and dye matches who I am right now.
Just me.
This is how I study and how I learn.
This is what I know already.
I come to my practice with with curiosity and passion.
I am not trying to change anything.
I just want to learn more about the same things.  

sensuous

christmas table with old family silver and the june wedding cloth

Our five senses (taste, touch, sight, sound, smell) give us material memories that the body can hold

new year's eve with melted metal luck-fortunes and sugar-coffee-lemon ready for vodka shots

in our unconscious and we are able to access that knowledge of sensuous physical experiences forever.

blue and white

 the marks are evidence of my time

 they describe something recognizable

April's getting married in one month.   I am making blue and white cloths to celebrate.

The trees have flushed this week.  Time is moving so quickly.

"It's our movement that tells us we're alive."  David Hockney