the tenderest thing

 softness

 honesty

 humility

 bleeding

 our bodies are a way of knowing

 and cloth is like the body

 life experience

 wisdom

day dream

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.  

inner horizon

Again and again I pull this piece into my lap.
She's un-finished.

When I get close to finishing her, something makes me re-think and un-do and today I mended her again.  Those slices I made last August opened her into a female figure
but she's no princess.

She's been through a lot.
She's been generous with her time.
Listening and holding me thorugh a winter of doubt,
a spring of uncertainty and travel,
and a summer of family.

I like to say that I approach my work as if I have all the time in the world, but the truth is, I don't.
This moon is waning.

I worked the stitches from the back, the distortions and un-planned marks guided me.

This is me.
This old moon.
My surface smoothed out and easy, hiding that inner turmoil on the inside.
Not very well.

This old emotional moon.
Patched and stitched with circles.

Why do I keep coming back to blue circles?

It's not just me - we all do.
We all go back to where we started eventually.
That is who we really are.

When I draw a circle quickly on paper, I start it at 12 noon and go counter clockwise.  I go against time when I rush like that.  But when I stitch circles, I can go either way.  Stitching is a slower way of marking a circle and it encourages stepping not running.  Breathing in a considered manner.
In order.  Kind of.

She is just as interesting on either side.

When I worked on paper, I never worried about what the back of my painting looked like.
It didn't seem important.
But when I stitch into cloth, there are two affected sides.
I noticed this first when I made the quilts and the backs became as important and beautiful as the fronts.
There are two sides of everything.
All things contain their opposites.

Works in cloth are full of metaphors.
I love that.

The deer made their small heart marks in the snow just before I went out for my walk.
They didn't think about it.
I love that too.

dream work

I've been trying to work at a larger scale in this new body of work. These three pieces each measure between 9 and 10 feet across. I had dreams of working even larger (12 feet or 15 feet) but my studio is only 9 ½ feet high and besides, most fabric only comes 5 feet wide at most. Working large is a big commitment, but I like the feeling I get when standing next to my big pieces. They are so large that I can not touch any edge when I am in the centre. Those of us who work with cloth automatically communicate a sense of intimacy because of the material itself. Adding hand stitch and its caress involves the viewer even more. Touch is the mother of the senses. Stitching takes time however. Each stitch takes about a second to make. At the scale I’ve chosen to work, time becomes a limit. I keep reminding myself about the feelings I have when I’m alone in nature. I’m hoping that the monumental scale of the work in combination with the intimacy of hours and hours of hand made marks will land my viewer on a teetering edge of wonder. The scale of the work adds more than just more cloth. It is challenging. These five pieces are not as big. Most are 60" or so. Recently I realized that my art with cloth doesn't need to be a quilt. That revolutionary idea has freed me. For years, my work was grounded in the language of the bed and all the life drama that happens there. The quilt was a protection blanket.
Because of their scale, I think this new work continues with those ideas, but also that other intimate thing that happens in bed. The dreaming.

Metaphor and Moi

I'm giving a talk tonight in Mindemoya here on Manitoulin Island. We quilters call it a trunk show, I've filled 4 laundry baskets. All the pieces (about 30) date since 2003 except for one (1996). Some of the pieces are still in progress - but the women I'm speaking to understand UFO's. All my work is about what I care about the most and feel the need to say so while I am able. I want to communicate to my children and their children what it was like to be living in this time period in our history. No matter how arty quilts get, they never lose their connection to the bed and all the things that happen there, and they never lose the idea that they protect those who lie underneath them. These unwritten metaphors go along with the work of all women who make quilts as art. Other metaphors that I use are the ones that have to do with recycling, remembering tradition and repairing things that have been ruined. These connect my work to my worries about our world.

dot grids

Just about all my newer work has the motif of the dot grid. Yesterday I was asked why am I so attracted to this gentle rhythm? Dots fill a space with pattern, but it's subtle. In grid formation they resemble nets. They look contemporary. They are small individuals that line up to make transparent yet solid shapes. However, sometimes they are just decorative and do not add anything valuable to the work.

Manitoulin Art Tour

I spent the entire day in the studio, preparing it for the Manitoulin Art Tour. For the first time other artists will be exhibiting in my space along with me. Heather Thoma's colourful weavings, Andrea Smith's pottery and Christine Williston's masks are set up now, as well as a new wax painting by our daughter April. (pictured)
I've put up my prize winning quilts as well as several new works on paper. I wrote notes about the quilt process and pinned them up beside my quilts and hope that visitors will respond in my guestbook. Here's one of my notes.

snow-leaves

Three layers of linen hand quilted with stem stitch embroidery and densely packed running stitches. Huge jagged leaves tumble all around, the spaces between them filled with obsessive stitching. There are just so many things to worry about.

The tumbling giant leaves refer to the overwhelming immensity of the environmental problems we face today. They refer to the frightening impenetrability of the forest, lakes, rivers, and mountains that faced the pioneers. They refer to Canada itself, a place where leaves change colour and fall from the trees in the autumn and where snow falls from the sky in the winter.