lucky pillow and pinwheel quilt

 

I put one of my embroideries into a pillow and called it the Lucky Pillow because seven is a lucky number and my granddaughter turned 7 last week.  

I finished it on the drive to Toronto to visit the family.

The seven year old has a 3 year old little sister and they play together.  Here they are playing with the small quilt that I am making for little sister.

It's made from hand pieced pinwheels, one of my favourite ways to place half square triangles together.  To up the playful feeling of my hand dyes, I visited local quilt shops and purchased some new printed fabrics for this wee quilt intended for a new person.  (she's only the ripe old age of 3)   

Suvi's quilt is one of the hand work projects I took with me to Mexico.  I loved being able to put the pieces into a baggie and sew it on the plane using a thread cutter rather than scissors or take the baggie with me to the beach or pool.  In the above photo, I am putting a nine-patch of pinwheels together in the lobby of the resort during a period of waiting for one of our families to arrive.  

I prepared this project beforehand with rotary cut squares that were machine pieced together with a single diagonal line.  I cut off half of the tiny square and discarded that part, then pressed the squares open.

It is a very portable and cheerful project.

   

This baby quilt is one of two hand work projects I took to Mexico, the other one being the one patch quilt I wrote about last week.

I keep looking at it on the wall because I am cautious about using too much red fabric.  I want a light as air feeling that's interesting far away and close up.  

  

The lucky pillow as a hat for grandad.

the pinwheel quilt.  xo

princess or mermaid?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I've been working on my archives.

stitching in car on highway 69 south bound

My archives include photos and papers and actual quilts but this post's text is about my journals.  

(the images in the post are of my recent stitching and grand daughter collaborative drawings)

My journals are 'my book' and I have been writing it for 37 years.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom 

A few years ago I started to type selected journals into the laptop.  

In the beginning,  I bundled up the books and put them back on the shelf.  

See here.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom

However, that wrapping only added to the 'journal clutter' 

that I worry about leaving  behind.  

stitching in car on highway 69 north bound

So now I am giving them to Ned to burn one by one.

I will never finish going through all of them,

but the project remains fascinating to me and I do it an hour each day.

Maybe some year I'll use the notes that are organized chronologically to help me  

write a memoir or an autobiographical novel about being a mother artist.

chanting

The similitudes of the past and those of the future,

the glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings,

the certainty of others,

the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will see the islands large and small.

Fifty years hence, others will see them,

A hundred years hence, others will see them.

what is it then between us?

what is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,

The dark threw its patches down upon me also,

I laid in my stores in advance,

I considered long and seriously of you before you were born.

We understand then do we not?

Live, old life!

Play the old role!

Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it

Till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you.

You have waited, you always wait.

We receive you at last.

We plant you permanently within us.

We fathom you not.  We love you.

These are Walt Whitman's words 

how monkeys fold quilts

 visited son's family

 spent time with the almost 3 year old

 got to see the quilt I made her 

xo

different perspectives

The view from a moving train is different from that on a platform, although the two viewers may be within meters of each other.  The experience is different in so many more ways than vantage point.

The noise, the speed, the shaking, the momentum, the humidity, the voices of fellow passengers, the smell, the temperature, the path traveled prior to that point, swamp the  experience of the train traveler.  Glancing at the person on the platform, how can we begin to see through their eyes?

Cultural clashes are like that.  but this relativism is a truth for all humans.  Even those who share the same culture, the same house, the same family, have starkly different experiences.  We are each on our own train and our views are peculiar to our own experiences.

But we crave understanding.  We need it for our survival.  As social beings we collaborate to solve problems that confront us all.  Wherever we are born and whatever language we speak there is a field of inherent questions that arises as a natural outcome of life.

What are we?
What should we do?
What of birth and death?
And no matter the diverse social constructs that form our reality, the answers from one lone traveler can always intrigue and be of use to another.

This is the spore that art can carry.  At the same time that we are never able to truly empathize with another human being, we can share at a deep level around the absolute pillars of existence that are not socially determined:  We are born.  We may love.  We will die.

At a time that even gravity is not a constant, our shared biological and neurological truths are common and infinitely unchanging.

The amazing text in this post is by Will Stubbs and is from his essay,  "art of the artless"  about the artist Nyapanyapa Yunupingu in the book Marking The Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, catalogue for the exhibition curated by Henry F Skerritt.

The images are of  my new piece, Noble Tenderness, a different perspective of my Awakened Heart.  I packed it up gently and brought it to Toronto last week to deliver to Karen from Guildworks gallery, Prince Edward County Ontario.

There is also an image of a walk in the park near where my grand children live in the city.

the most beautiful thing

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.

He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead - - - his eyes are closed.

The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion.

 

 

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists,
manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty,

which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms.

 This knowledge,

 This feeling,

 is at the center of true religiousness.

 In this sense, and in this sense only

I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.

Albert Einstein 

I spill, I overflow

I am large and empty and naïve and beautiful and raw and nowhere and everywhere and as if I am dreaming all the time.  I visited my kids in Toronto last week.

 Above bird drawings are collaborations by grand daughter Aili and grand mom Judy

I also saw some art.
The bird sculpture above and the wire wall piece below are by Kai Chan.
Showing now at the David Kaye gallery in Toronto until December 23, 2018

 The wire sculpture is entitled 'The tragic Venture of an Ant in my Bathtub 2018'

Maia, who will be 2 years in January, made the circle drawing above.
The barns are between Spring Bay and Gore Gay on Manitoulin Island

I live on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, Ontario, one of the largest islands in a freshwater lake in the world.

I have lived my entire life in northern or north western Ontario and its rural emptiness is held in the work I make.  We raised our children here
The two grand daughters and their art live in Toronto. 

I was in Toronto last week.  Now I am home,
The final two images in this post are wall sculptures by Kai Chan
Above:  In the Early Morning: The Lake
Below:  'the artist as a young man'

I am an ocean in a bowl

I spill 

Overflow

There is too much of me and at the same time there is not enough

I am dreaming and mindless at the same time

I am here and there

nowhere and everywhere

I am

I am

                                                                    I am still more                                                                       

 Jim Morrison