with no preparation, the appearance of an unusual image reacts in our mind and heart despite all common sense.
I often get asked when I find the time to do all the stitching. It's discipline really, and also a treat for me. I stitch every evening for two or three hours, and again every morning for one hour. I use a hoop. I love the meditative productivity.
The wool quilt is 90" x 90". The linen piece is 60" x 28". These large pieces eventually get finished over time.
I spent another four hours in my lovely studio today cutting up one of the large collages on canvas that I've been working on there and re-arranging the pieces. The effort was unsuccessful and it's depressing because I wonder if I've wasted rare and precious studio time over the last two months on these four messy pieces. 
I am pleased by J Penney Burton's interpretation of my work in her article for the Canadian Crafts Federation. She says: "The wall quilts of Judy Martin demonstrate many surface design techniques. In Moisture and Greenness, she combines many quilting patterns to form a cohesive yet non-traditional whole. This work could be seen as an environmental call to arms, referencing windmills, alternative sources of power, extreme weather, and the potential water crisis. These elements exude the peace and fragility of the earth, all shown under cover of the night sky." You can read her entire article about Canadian Textile artists or a wider variety of articles on the 2007 year of craft on the CCF website.
We have had such a great weekend. Toronto was a full and rich experience for me with lots of art and two fantastic restaurant dinners with family. I was able to go to the following galleries, most of them on Queen Street West. The Museum for Textiles, Spin, Engine, David Kaye, Ontario Craft Council (my quilt looks OK there in exhibition) Propeller, *new*, Birch Libralto, Prime, Steven Bulger, Edward Day, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. I also got to spend some time with my father in Kingston. We had good weather for the long drive home but it gets dark early at this time of year.
The world is too much with us, late and soon.
The familiar quilt patterns I use are arrangements of protection symbols found in textiles around the world. Diamonds in squares, repeated triangles and crosses, the hand, mirrors and sequins, as well as the colour red, all of these possess powerful amuletic meanings that can be read as a code. Hand stitching completely covers each piece, which gives weight and strength to the cloth. This stitching also lends the power of my own repeated caress that I think the viewer can feel.
running stitch, darning stitch, chain stitch, reverse chain stitch, open chain stitch, button hole stitch, couching, mirror work, romanian stitch, creten stitch, radiating stitch
I travelled with John Gillow this morning. We went to Africa and I was especially inspired by the amazing textiles created by the Kuba people from the central part of the continent. In the afternoon I let Henri Matisse be my guide and marvelled at how he had used clothing and hangings from Algeria, Morroco and Romania in his paintings. In the later part of the day I visited Rajasthan, one of the provinces of India, with Vandana Bhandari . She made sure that I knew the correct names for every garment we looked at and for every embroidey stitch that was used. Doing research in world textiles is a pretty cool way to spend a day.
