new biography

Judy Martin was born (1951) in the Fort Frances area of North Western Ontario and grew up on a large property with a lone elm tree that could be seen for miles.   Her father built and constantly renovated the family home,  her mother landscaped the yard with evergreens and filled the house with books and art supplies.

Judy married Ned Martin when she was 22 and the couple raised four children in three beautiful Northern Ontario locations, Thunder Bay, Kenora, and Manitoulin Island.  Judy and her husband continue to live and work on Manitoulin.

 Martin made her first quilt when she was 20, undaunted by the difficult pattern, Crown of Thorns.   She continues to make quilts but although her work has become simpler, it has not become smaller. Her textiles are like drawings, made from plant-dyed wool, silk, or re-purposed fabrics that have been sewn into artworks measured in feet rather than inches. 

 Martin believes that the sense of touch is the most effective way to make an emotional connection with another and her surfaces are covered with hand stitches. 

The repetition and weight of these marks over broad expanses of cloth seem to give access to our inner world.

While living in Kenora, Martin acquired an honours BFA degree from Lakehead University.  Her thesis exhibition included a sewn walk-through house and a wall quilt entitled Hold Me.  

Throughout the 90’s, Judy exhibited tender watercolour paintings of her children as well as quilts made from dyed and over-dyed fabrics.  In these textiles, she worked with two or more traditional quilt patterns in order to create a story or a poem using that feminine code.

 In 2012 Martin acquired a second university degree.  (first class honours BA in Embroidered Textiles from Middlesex University in the UK)  

She continues to study fine art and literature on her own, and keeps notebooks to help organize her constant search for meaning. 

Judy’s work has been widely exhibited across Canada as well as Europe, the United States, Japan and China. 

 In 2015 her stitched artwork was featured in the book Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art by Claire Wellesley Smith and in 2018, she received the Craft Ontario Volunteer Committee Mid-Career Award for Excellence. 

p.s.  It has been a while since I put information about my parents and my children into one of my biographies or about that lone Elm Tree that I grew up with.  More about the images can be found in the New Work blog, here  and here. 

mystical landscape

go on
move forward

consent
receive

give myself to the open

 make my way without a map

 trust beyond measure

if something is to come, something sublime
it is through risk

leading no one knows where

because there are still flowers
there is the rose

the rose forever opening for the first and the last time

images of sky with many moons, wool, indigo, hand stitch, completed today,
text by Luce Irigaray
the title of the post is because I started reading Mystical Landscapes am filled with emotion by the words and images.        

moon cloth in hard twist

I prepared Moon Cloth for exhibition by signing my name.
I considered embroidering the title as well, but changed my mind.

careful, respectful, aware of my own art
each little thing

To see full image of this piece click here.
For more information about the Hard Twist exhibition in Toronto click here

moon cloth

 

I worked from the back of the cloth, cutting strips off the bottom and couching them in angles and circles.

The fabric became so energized with hand work and marks I could hardly hold it.

 

I was inspired by the rotation of the moon, female figurines from pre-history and the immensity of our raw and vulnerable inner selves.

  new work

dream cloths

Tom Sach's mother raised him to love beauty and well-crafted things.  "If your art doesn't look good, when you die they're going to throw it away" she told him.

I think I agree with her.

Lately my quilts have not been bed-sized.
Have I abandoned the rich metaphoric language attached to the bed that I relied on and loved?  So much life (and death) happens in bed.

The two quilts I'm working on now are odd shaped.  The black one (above) is really tall and thin, while the beige one (below) is small and soft.

Look at it.  It's all about soft.  I want to put my face on it, close my eyes, put my cheek next to it and let it kiss me.  I reach out and pet it because I can't help but do so, and the touching triggers so many memories and dreams it makes me dizzy.

These pieces are not made to do what a quilt usually does.  (keep the body warm, protected and covered with symbols that women used to understand about fertility and safety)

Instead they refer to that other thing that happens in bed when we abandon control and fall asleep. When we enter our dream world place.

I have to take chances and do things I don't fully understand because an artist's best work lies just beyond his understanding.  I live for finding the place and the confidence to do that.  Tom Sachs

time and accident

She told me that I don't need to completely cover the surface and that she notices the marks more if there are fewer of them.

I told her that my work is about time and accident and that both sides are the right side.

I want to communicate time spent and the unintended beauty of nature and human marks.

I told her that I want my viewer to look at my work and understand the thoughtful solitude that goes into the production of it.

There is a feeling of being alone with one's own meditative self.

This is my subject and what I hope to communicate.

"Are your memories coming to you or are you going to them?
If you are going to them then you are wasting time.
Nostalgia is not productive.
If they are coming to you,
they are the seeds for sculpture."  Louise Bourgeois

Time Piece

 

 When can we finally tell our stories?

 

And to whom?

 

Or is it better to just remember them?

Here, a stitch resist and indigo memory cloth

the time I've made
which is not a place,
which is only a blur,
the moving edge we live in;
which is fluid
which turns back upon itself
like a wave

Margaret Atwood,
Cat's Eye p 409

this post linked to off the wall friday