My job

My job is to observe and to pay attention to feelings that come over me and then translate them into something that can be understood by other people.    

My work's job is to be a pathway for emotion.  It does not need to be identical to my emotion, it can be entirely individual for the person encountering it.  

I remember the moment I became an artist and it was because I had such a strong feeling that I had to  communicate it.  The moment was when I saw my young children playing in the sunshine.  I was overwhelmed by the wonder of watching my children and I painted them.   

I painted my children for about ten years. 

Almost all those paintings sold to people who were not my family.  

I think that it didn't matter who the child was for those people who collected the paintings because the paintings were not specific, they were more about a universal feeling of childhood.

Quilts came into my life early and I continue to make them.  

I like that quilts take a long time to make and seem to hold the lives that whirl around while they are being stitched.  

I like that quilts are used to protect and care for people.

I like that the old patterns tell stories with a secret code.  The strips of cloth in this one look like streaks of lightening.  

The title of the quilt is Thunder and Lightening.  In order to have a good storm you have to have both thunder and lightening, and in order to have a good piece of art, you have to have both art and craft.  

An artist is someone who pays attention and tries to communicate an emotion.  

There are many kinds of artists.

Poets are artists.

Musicians are artists.

Actors are artists.

Painters are artists.

Quilt makers are artists.

I began making quilts when I was twenty years old and I am still making them.

I like that quilts can be abstract. 

I like that quilts can use repetition.  

I like that quilts can look like paintings

I like that quilts can fold up around a body.

I like that they are full of touch.

I studied fine art at university and now have two degrees from two different universities.

I have come to understand the power of moving through art as if you are moving through nature and occasionally I make installations.  The first installation I made is the House with the Golden Windows  shown above.

Sometimes the installations are more about time than space.  

The installation in these photos took three years to make.

I worked the same amount on it every day for three years.

It is called Not to Know But To Go On

My job is to make my work.

My work's job is to awaken other people to their own feelings.  Those feelings inside them, their hopes and dreams and memories as well as the wonder in our beautiful world.  

My job is to show the light.

My work's job is to be the light.

Beauty Emotion Spirit Soul

Beauty, Emotion, Spirit, Soul

When I was studying for the Embroidery degree from Middlesex University I had to develop a thesis.  I was encouraged to look around me, at art and at nature, and discover what it was that made an impact on me.  To identify it. And then to make my work using that thesis as a constant guide.

I looked at paintings and world textiles and American quilts and realized that it was the simplest ones that I loved the most.  The ones that relied on emptiness and repetition and a sense of space.   I looked at nature and identified how I felt when I looked at new growth in the spring fields and forests where I lived.  And how I felt when I looked across the body of water in front of our house into the empty not empty sky and the ducks swimming in the gentle ripples.

Beauty Emotion Spirit Soul reverse side

And developed my thesis:  Large Emptiness.  Small marks.  The feeling rather than the representation. 

I made a set of sketches using fabrics I was saving in my studio.  The sketches were all square, 13 inch  pieces of cloth that combined with other pieces of cloth and some thread and sometimes holes placed in them inspired by the sketches I'd made over time in my notebook.  The idea was that they were mock ups for what could be large-scale textiles.  100 inches square.  

When I graduated in 2012 from Middlesex University, my graduate exhibition was one large empty square that held many hand stitched small marks.  See it here as the cover image of my website; title is Monumental Simplicity.  Then seven years later in 2019, I used eighteen of those fabric sketches to make the fabric construction in this post.  Beauty Emotion Spirit Soul sold before I had a good photo of it but I contacted the collector last March and told her about my project to document my older work.  She happily agreed to loan it back to me for professional photography and now I am pleased to have these photos by Nick Dubecki and am sharing them here.

Underfoot The Earth Divine

 

In this post I am trying something new.  By using the online record keeping that Judy’s Journal and My Process provide, I can show in a single post, the making and exhibition history of one of my best quilts,  Underfoot The Earth Divine.   

To view the original posts, just click on the date.   

January 1 2019

The sewing started from the middle on New Year's Day, 2019.

January 5 2019    

January 19 2019  

technique: machine piecing                                                                                                           materials:  a variety of linen damasks coloured with natural dyes.

February 17 2019    

I cut holes into the pieced strips and inserted velvet strips  to add interest to the sky area of the large emptiness.

September 10 2019    

Hand quilting starts from the centre with an oval hoop.  The backing fabric is naturally dyed linen damask, the batting is wool.  To make the large piece easier for me to handle in my lap,  I turn in the outer edges at first.  

February 7 2020    

The hand quilting is finished.

February 19 2020    

The back. 

July 17 2020    

Then the pandemic happened, and everything flipped including this quilt.  I turned the quilt so that the velvet pieces are at the bottom and added a couched yarn circle.  I was reading Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.  

"This then is life, here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions.           How curious!  How Real!  Underfoot the divine Soil, overhead the sun" 

September 13   2020  

December 31 2020    

I had professional photos made.  The reverse side has a name:   "Overhead the Sun"  

September 15 2021     

Underfoot the Earth Divine is part of the two person exhibition with Penny Berens, In the Middle of the World.  The show opened October 2 at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum and I was advised that a black sleeve would disappear into the dark ceiling when it was installed so that visitors could walk around it, and view both sides.  

July 30 2022        

I made a new sleeve for the Fine Art Textiles Shortlist exhibition in the UK.  (honourable mention award)

February 21 2023    

The second rendition of In the Middle of the World happened in spring of 2023, and Underfoot The Earth Divine was shipped to Kenora, Ontario.    

 November 6 2023    

Underfoot the The Earth Divine won the Schweinfurth Award at Quilts=Art=Quilts in Auburn, New York, last weekend.  

my awakened heart with zoom

I think about my outdoor surroundings,(my yard), as my mother, or perhaps my teacher.  She teaches me about the importance of repetition and of lively small marks.  She teaches me about the fertility and growth of spring, the blooming of summer, the fragile beauty of autumn and the quiet silence of winter.  I also think about my yard as a lover, because it is so generous with its gifts and love, and I like to be with it so much.

I just finished pre-recording a lecture about my work for the York Heritage Quilt Guild in Toronto Ontario.  Creating a pre-recorded audio-visual was a learning experience for me.  It tooke several long days and nights of decisions about what to say and how,  and of what work to show and why.  The original plan was that I would speak about the development of my work over nearly 40 years.  However, our beautiful world is in so much pain now and has been in global crises since early 2020 that I felt an urgency to speak with authentic voice about my response to the wounds.  My creativity helped me (and healed me) over and over again during the spring and summer and continues to do so as we move towards winter.   The pictures in this post are of a small wool and velvet piece that I made during the summer and speak about during the lecture.

The first text in this post, (in italics) is quoted from the presentation. If you are a member of York Heritage this lecture is part of your program for 2020-2021.  Here is a link to read more about the talk.   and to also see the amazing line-up of speakers and teachers that this guild has for their members.   Thank you v much to Irena Hopper who invited me and also thank you v much to Deb Larsen who was my technical whiz-assistant and put the audio and visuals together.  

working through the winter

So far this winter, I have been blessed with a beautiful rhythm in my work.

Nearly every afternoon I've gone into my town studio and have just about
finished the huge piece I've been working on for nearly 5 years.   (see pinwall)

At home,  I've been designing and starting new pieces in a rush.
Pieces that I did not think about.  (see pinwall)

I just started them, and they're great.  (see pinwall)

In other words, I've been lost in my work,
although it feels more as if I've been found.

I completed the quilting on a large piece I've worked on for more than a year
during the evening Netflix date with Ned

 and it's ready for the adjusting and finishing.   (see pinwall history)

 'Just do your work' Kiki Smith says

"Just do your work and if the world needs your work,  

it will come and get you.

And if it doesn't, do your work anyway."  Kiki Smith

monumental simplicity

The installation of the work in this space at One Sky is celestial.
The pieces are like stars in a constellation, each in its place yet connected to the others with invisible power lines.

Monumental Simplicity is part of this exhibition.

I made it in 2012, the thesis piece for my UK degree. 

A large ‘empty’ square.
with a horizon
and repetitive small marks that distract the eye just enough.

More images of this exhibition are here.

beauty emotion spirit soul

This post is about the gathering up and the installation of  the 18 pieces for my exhibition in Sudbury this month,  beauty emotion spirit soul.

We hung the show last night with the curator, Cristina Masotti,  and two of her friends.  Afterwards, Ned and I found a place to eat and then we drove home.  It's a two hour drive and we got home at midnight.

I have not been able to do a thing today except an instagram and a facebook post about the show.  I'm blank.

I want to put a poem into the guest book, or a quote by Pema Chodron.

I read something about Milton Avery's paintings this morning.
About how he instilled emotion into his paintings.  And optimistm.  And wonder.
I think that describes the work in this serene exhibition.

There is a lot of positive feedback about my work on social media.
A 15 minute kind of fame.

It makes me glad that I live with the ice-covered lake in front of me and the deer
who come by every morning and every evening.

Simple and quiet things that ground me.

Tomorrow night is the opening reception.