Frances Dorsey: Shot Through The Heart

Frances Dorsey

When Frances Dorsey was seven to ten years old, she lived in Saigon, Viet Nam.   She remembers "a paradise on the edge of conflagration".  When she was twenty-one, she moved to Canada.  She has a duel citizenship with USA.  "I am a citizen of North America."

This piece, Shot Through the Heart, is made from used table linens that have been naturally dyed with extracts and earth oxides, as well as discharged and immersion dyed with mechanical resists.  Some have been  over printed with silk screen and also with block printing. The linens were cut up and reassembled.  They were embroidered hand stitched.  It is a large piece:  11 feet x 11 feet.  It was made in 2010. 

Suzanne Smith Arney saw this piece at a conference in Nebraska in 2010, and wrote about it in the fall 2011 of the Surface Design Association's journal.

"The napkins and tablecloths are soft with age and use.  Looking closely, I can make out a nine-block structure, with those blocks subdivided into four.  Each discovery revealed another level to decipher.  Stepping closer, I read the fabrics' histories written in monograms, embroidery, as well as small tears and stains.  Dorsey added her own text in faded yellow, red and purple dyes.  There are folds and stitchings and photo -derived images of her father's army photos and letters, such as b-52s and mortars.  I read the title and stepped back.  Shot Through the Heart infuses the room with a chilly clarity; the whole and partial circles are no more suns than dinner plates.  They are targets."

Frances Dorsey taught about textiles at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for sixteen years.  Her father was a rifleman "who relived his combat daily."    She currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and continues to make thoughtful and beautiful artwork with textiles.  

This is the first post about a new series on this blog:  

Canadian artists who work with Textiles  

her vision grounds me

Stoney Island Memories 2019

Working alongside Penny Berens is one of the highlights of my career.  Noticing how she maintains her own heart felt vision helps to keep me grounded.  

It's easy for me to find artists in books who seem to know their own selves and are able to write about their making process and belief systems, but Penny is a real person with whom I can speak with on the phone.   I just spent nearly a week with her in Nova Scotia when we installed and spoke about our joint exhibition, In the Middle of the World. 

Resting Between Tides 2019

She notices details.    

Her work is drawn with needle and thread in her lap.  She does one artwork at a time. 

Each of her pieces is directly influenced by some particular event or sight or feeling that she has experienced.

Walking on Stoney Ground 2019

There's nothing general about her interpretations, although her works do have an atmosphere.

Our work complements each other because of the differences between our two approaches as much as because of the similarities.

When Autumn Leaves Fall 2017

Winter's Edge 2021

The large scale of my work makes an immediate impact on the viewer.  

My work communicates a lasting feeling of spirit and intimacy.  It sets you up to receive the details and imagination of her wall pieces, as you slowly move past them, one after the other.  

    

Details of Winter's Edge

You are ready to notice the details and the events and the change of seasons in her interpretations of nature.  

Also the boulders and the piles of smaller rocks.

The sun and the moon.

The wind and the beaches.  The grasses and the berries.

All the small repetitive marks that nature paints in the bush or on the beach are detailed in Penny's work and it is interesting to experience them, step by step, with close observation.

November Song 2024

detail of November Song

She says that she wants to work more abstractly and messier. 

The last thing she said to me when we hugged good bye was that she was going to start doing this right away.  She's five years older than I am and neither of us are going to retire.

I'm glad that she's only a phone call or a text message away.  She keeps me on track.  She encourages and inspires me.

Beaver Moon Dreaming 2020

I'm lucky to have an artist like her in my life. Making the two person exhibition together with her and also with our cheerleader and advocate, curator Miranda Bouchard, was an important step in both our creative practices.

Thank you for being real, Penny.  Thank you for being full of integrity and personal strength.

All artwork in this post is by Penny Berens.  More of this body of work can be seen on Modernist Aesthetic.  

In the Middle of the World was just installed in Nova Scotia.  Read Miranda Bouchard's curatorial statement and see my sculptural pieces at this link.   

my ten thousand piece quilt

This is a simple post about the simple quilt that I am hand piecing this week. 

ten thousand piece quilt by Yoshiko Jinzenji, naturally dyed cotton, 72 inches quare

Inspired by Yoshiko Jinzenji's ten thousand piece quilt that she made in the 80's and included in her book, Quilt Artistry: Inspired Quilts from the East.  

I started it during the drive to Kitchener to deliver the Inside Out exhibition .  

Simple because you begin at the center, and then go round and round, increasing the number of patches in each strip as you work towards the edges.

My one patch quilts are usually made from collections of nine patch blocks that I join up.  

This one is different.  Simpler in a way.  

We continued on after Kitchener to a resort in Mexico.   

The fabrics are left over linen scraps from previous projects that I am using up.

Hand piecing squares fills me with positive energy.

As the work in my lap grows under my fingers, I feel stronger and braver.

 

The pink strip I'm adding today is 16 squares long.  It's left over from the sunshine quilt.    

This soft textile is a journal of days.  

It is recording memories of this week in Mexico with our daughter and her boyfriend.  

 Sending out love from us.  xo

Blogging, Instagramming, natural dyes

left: dyers mushroom and wool , right: linen unknown
both steeped for 6 months in jars and opened January 15 2021

This is my main blog.  Judy's Journal. 

I consider this blog to be an important part of my work.  I try to write once a week.  Thank you for continuing to read what I write.  Thank you for your comments and emails, I appreciate them all. 

onion skin, cotton with alum mordant, February 9 

Writing this blog is helpful for me.  It sorts things out.  I keep thoughts and can find them again easily.  I use the search button at the top of this page and type in what I'm looking for.  In a way, it acts like a filing system.  

the orange/tan pieces are onion skin on velvet, cotton, and linen,
the two pink pieces are unknown dye on a small piece of silk velvet and a linen napkin
(found in jar Feb 11)

Things have changed in the blog world since I started writing in 2006.  

More and more of us are using our phones to access social media.  Some social media such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are designed for phones, not desk top or lap top computer screens.

The blog format was designed for computer screen, not phone.    

avocado (pits only) with alum mordant
cotton, wool, velvet, linen  Feb 19

For those of you who are reading this blog on the phone, I invite you to please scroll to the bottom of the post to where it says "view web version" and click on that.  If you enlarge what you get, it is then possible to see the entire blog page, including that search button at the top that I mentioned.

view web version

red onion, alum mordant on wool and linen
avocado (pits only) no mordant on wool and silk velvet
Feb 20

See the buttons going horizontally along the top?

I'll go over a few of them here.  Try them and then use the back button to get back here to main blog.

judy's news     This is where I keep track of exhibitions and such, as they come up

avocodo pits with iron modifier added
silk velvet, linen and wool   Feb 21 

my process       This blog is updated more frequently than Judy's Journal.  It is a record of my design wall combined with the last entry in my written journal.  It gives a raw idea of how I approach my work.  I label each post so that I can see the development of a specific piece over time. 

avocado pits with iron modifier on linen
(scoured and pre-mordanted with alum   Feb 21

new work       This is where you can see a gallery of finished work.

Manitoulin Circle Project      The beautiful community project (2009-2013)

Modernist Aesthetic Blog    where I write about other artists who inspire me

100 quilts     an illustrated list of the over 100 quilts I've made 

Feb 22

Then there is the side-bar of the blog, designed for computer screens.

My email address is there if you click on view my complete profile 

Recent lectures and interviews are linked.  My Pandemic Summer, the Weave podcast interview, and the interview with the English school of stitched textiles.

Two websites are there, new and old.   These will both be replaced soon with an updated site.  

There are many more links and labels on that side bar.  

red onion with iron mordant on silk, wool, and silk velvet Feb 23

They are not visible if you look at the phone without going to the web version.  While it is not necessary to go to the web version,  I just wanted to point out that these additions are easily available.  The follow link in the sidebar.  (and a translate link)

Apologies to those of you who do read this journal on a laptop.

I hope that you have liked the images of my winter dyeing studio.  I've used kitchen waste (onion skin, avocado pits) with two kinds of alum and some iron.  Lots of simmering and steeping going on.

red onion skin with iron on silk and wool  feb 23

One more thing!  I love Instagram.

Instagram is where I go to find other artists and their thoughts.  I am very inspired by artists around the world that I see on instagram.  It's best to visit Instagram on the phone.  I do.  It's so easy.  

Instagram is very user friendly.  Many of the instagrammers I follow write as much in their instagram posts as I do in this blog.  

the same avocado pits (they were used 3 times!) on linen and wool  feb 24

I love Instagram because of the wider world that it has introduced me to.

I follow artists in Japan and Europe and Australia and the USA and if the language is different, there is a handy translate button.  My instagram handle is @judithemartin  .  I post there every few days.  

avocado pits on wool  feb 24 (still wet)

OK - that's all.  Love you xo

figuring things out

rescued 70's dresden plates, re-appliqued to fabrics dyed with walnut  2019

New phone

better camera

so many family photos on it from Christmas

I haven't seen them all yet.

blocking a new quilt by pinning it while still damp after washing into the 12" ceiling-tiles on my design wall 

I get lost.
I'm figuring it out
Instagram is easier than blogging.

As we enter this new decade let's do our best.

layering

Moon of Kindness  2018 by Frances Dorsey
dyed printed, stitched pieces of old discarded table linens, natural dyes
42" x 42"

In 2018 we were in Halifax, and visited the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.  While there I came across Nova Scotia artist, Frances Dorsey's work with domestic linens.  I share them here, so that I can see them again.

 I like the way the fabrics are layered and allowed to hang rather free.

Moon of Meanness  2018 by Frances Dorsey
dyed, printed, stitched old discarded table linens, natural dye
42" x 42"

The artist holds back on the addition of stitched marks, although she used stitch resist with dyes.
This is interesting and informative for me.
The fabrics have a different way of hanging when they are not stitched.
The layers are more evident.

Dorsey uses the archetype of circle within a square, and I identify with that.

These next three images are of pieces by Berlinde de Bruckere, an artist from Belgium. She  also layers her fabrics and does not stitch them much.  The holes and tatters in her work reveal layers that are sometimes 16 inches deep, more like sculptures. Go to this link and watch the short video.  Then you will have more understanding of how evocative her work is.

Fabric is very evocative of the human body as both are so vulnerable to aging and exposure to the elements.  Berlinde de Bruyckere's pieces have a sense of history and memory.
There have an emotional narrative, about love, suffering, and time.

 "I want to show how helpless a body can be.  It's nothing you have to be afraid of - it can be sometimes beautiful"  Berlinde de Bruckere

 Shot through the Heart 2010  by Frances Dorsey

used linen napkins coloured with natural dyes, oxides and metal salts
screen printing, discharge, stitching  108" x 108"
and click here  to see another direction that Frances Dorsey takes with dyed table linen.

Moon and Chrysalis number 2 by Junko Oki  2017

stitch, wax, cotton bandage over an iron frame

39.5" square  ............ and I continue in my admiration for Junko Oki 

the aesthetic of craftsmanship

meticulous workmanship
utter concentration

traditional techniques
embraced

 transcended

learning the skill takes time
making the object takes time

 don't look for a short cut

the flow of work is what is important
not how many hours it takes

 bring all of yourself to what you do

simplicity is arrived at through complexity