Home from England

It's easy to say - trust in yourself.

It's easy to say - just do one thing that you're sure of and as you do that, you will start to know what to do next.

It's easy to say - plunge in, and then go slowly.

It's easy to say -  not to know but to go on.

Working intuitively.

I think that this kind of approach seems mysterious and a little scary, 

but it really is very much like life itself. 

we went to a family wedding in Newcastle on Tyne in the UK..  There were peeling church bells

We don't know what will happen each day.

It helps to follow routines.  It gives a sense that we do know.  

For example I always sleep on the same side of the bed.

But many things happen over the course of a day that you cannot plan for.

You just have to react.  

A typical example is a conversation.

You cannot predict what the grandson will tell you or what your old friend will ask you, but you will reply.  And it will be a good reply.

The conversation will continue.  Something worthwhile will happen.

You didn't know that this would happen.  You didn't plan for it. 

Same with my stitching. 

When I begin, I have a general idea inspired by the materials.

For the torso piece in this post, I was triggered by the faded indigo silk.  

I took the faded cloth with me to England along with a wool backing cloth and some pinkish toned threads.

I honestly did not know what would happen with it. 

I started at the edges and with couching.    

I liked how they became strong and also lively.

I drew the piece into my journal,

Then I looked at some photos of pre-history Newgrange 

and put some dots and zigzags into my journal drawing. 

The British Rail system is really good.  Ned and I spent quite a bit of time on trains moving back and forth between the north of England and the south west region of Cornwall.

Couching is one of my signature techniques.

As I was doing it, I thought about another favourite technique, the reverse applique dot.

I could reveal the white backing cloth using that technique. 

We visited the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield to see the Sheila Hick's retrospective.  

While in England I stitched when I needed to. 

In the middle of night sometimes and also on trains and planes.  

Doing one thing and then another thing

Liking something and repeating it 

Not liking something and not repeating it.  

This is the way I work.

Our elder daughter and her teen boys and our son and his wife went to the wedding too.

Sometimes 'mistakes' happen, 

and I have to cut things up or in half and start again. 

I keep going.

I don't know but I keep going. 

it will be ok

I am writing this post to help me see

what am I doing?

I don't know

I've been home a week.

I was in Ottawa with family.

I've been working on this green piece solidly since.

I keep simplifying.  There was more red, but I've removed it.

I've only left the heart.

I've run out of fabric, but I keep going. 

I scrounge yellows and creams to stretch the green.

This green nourishes me so much.  The happiness of it.  

The earthiness of it.  The hope in it

I'm also helped by the motion of my hands.

In and out the needle goes.  In and out my breath.

I had the idea that I was nearly done.

But I'm not.

time is a beautiful whirl

Not To Know But To Go On by Judy Martin at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery 2013, Canada

Q:  Can you please describe how to do the couching technique that you use on your big journal-sculpture, Not To Know But To Go On.   Thank you.

Not To Know But To Go On at the World of Threads Festival 2014 Oakville Canada

Lately, I have received several emails with questions and this post contains a brief tutorial about the technique in Not To Know But To Go On, and also some exciting news about it. 

Not To Know But To Go On at Mary Black Gallery Halifax Canada with Penny Berens in exhibition Cloth of Time 2016

First the news:
Not To Know But To Go On is part of the new SAQA global exhibition, 3-D Expression.  This show opens in Grand Rapids Michigan in September and travels until 2023.  I shipped it to SAQA at the end of May.

To make it:   

It's so simple.  Tear strips of fabric and couch them to a base of heavier weight cloth.  

Q:  What type of material do you couch onto?
 A:  I cut panels from artist cotton canvas to measure about 13" x 22", and then later stitched them together with cotton tape.

Q:  Are you using regular quilting fabric cut into strips?  If so, how wide?  Do you finish your edges?

A:  The type of fabric varies.  I use cotton quilting and dress-making fabric, linens, silks, polyester sheer fabric,  and re-purposed clothing. The fabrics were collected over my years of being a quilt maker and a mother, and I only used fabrics that I love.  I tear strips of the fabric about 3/4 inch wide and do not finish the edges.  Rather I roll it into itself and lay it on the base cloth. Once I decide on a piece of cloth, I use it all up.

I couch the cloth to the base with the thread in a wrapping stitch.  This stitch looks as good on the back as it does on the front.  (see below photo)

First and foremost, this is a piece about time, three years of time.  That’s 1068 days.

Q:  What kind of thread do you use?
A:   I use ordinary cotton embroidery floss.  One complete skein for each day all six strands at one time.  I closed my eyes when I chose the thread so that I would not select something to match the cloth.  I had to trust that the threads and the cloth would be OK.

It resembles a rag rug, and actually, I was inspired by the narrow Finnish rugs of my heritage, but it is hand stitched, not woven.

Q:  What is the difference between a couching stitch and a wrapping stitch?
A:  They are the same thing. 

Every day for three years I threaded my needle and attached the strips of cloth to the canvas with a wrapping stitch or couching stitch.  An extra benefit is that the wrapping gesture of this stitch is very meditative and healing to do.

Time is a beautiful whirl.  Time is both the subject and the main material in this piece.  Day after day, time rushes by no matter the family event or world crises.  Time is relentless, and we have to trust.  We have to go on.  It will be OK.

SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Association) has many global exhibitions touring at this time.
And wow, there is a call for all Canadian SAQA members.  Click here to read the Call for Entry.  

sometimes there are moments of perfection

I'd like to talk about the perfection underlying life

when the mind is covered over with perfection
and the heart is filled with delight

but I wish not to deny the rest.

Judy Martin and Penny Berens

In our minds, there is awareness of perfection;
when we look with our eyes we see it,
and how it functions is mysterious to us and unavailable.

When we live our lives it's something like a race - our minds become concerned and covered over
and we get depressed and have to get away for a holiday.

And then sometimes there are moments of perfection
and in these moments we wonder why we ever thought life was difficult.

A new 6 inch book using the text from this 2012 post. 
It will be for sale at the gallery shop

We think that at last our feet are on the right path and that we will not falter or fail

Judith Quinn Garnett designer, OJ Graphix printer

 We're absolutely convinced we have the solution and then the moment is over.

Not to Know but to Go On                                          Agnes Martin

All above text is by Agnes Martin.

The images are of Not To Know But To Go On, the daily journal I kept in stitch between my 2010 and 2013 birthdays.  One complete skein of cotton embroidery floss was stitched up each day for over a thousand days.

This piece along with Penny Berens' Daily Scratchings plus NEW WORK by both of us will on display this summer in Halifax Nova Scotia at the Mary Black gallery.   July 13 - August 26.

I am the boss of me

On New Year's day, I challenged myself to make stitched collages as a form of daily practice throughout 2018.

I began by cutting plant dyed velvet and flannel fabrics into archetypal first shapes such as circle, cross, square or triangle and stitched them to wool felt pieces.   January 1 is in the center with January 2 (the super moon) stitched to its top edge.  Jan 3, 4, and 5 lined up in a row that fit onto the side of those first two 'days'.  I continued spiraling around the center with Jan 6, 7, 8, 9 on the bottom, Jan 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, on the right side and along the top Jan 15, 16, 17, 18, and (not shown in photo below) Jan 19 and 20.  Thus the collage was built like a quilter constructs a log cabin block.

daily practice number one  January 1 - 20 2018 (shown in progress)

In the second piece, started January 27th, I used previous inspirations now abandonded (UFO's) instead of the flannel shapes.  I am still using the dyed velvet, the wool felt base and the log cabin method of arrangement.

In the photo above, you can see a stitched cross.  When i chose it I felt that it would be a perfect central hearth for the new construction, but as you can see in the photo below, that cross is covered up.

I removed the cross because as I went along, it no longer felt right.  I found some beautiful and moody cyanotypes of clouds from twenty years ago and they changed the atmosphere of the piece.  I went back to the drawers of the unfinished and pinned ten or so different false starts over the cross.  Some of those trials are pictured below.

couched circle

This is not knowing as method 

This is self gathered up

This is trust that I know what I'm doing even though I do not know.

embroidered crosses on curved piecework

Because we do not know what each day will bring. 

Life is an adventure.

a densely stitched light house

Penny Berens and I are in an exhibition together this summer.  The premise of our show,  Cloth of Time is our daily practice and the passage of time.  I will be showing not to know but to go on  and cloud of time and if these stitched collages work out, I will include them.  Penny is showing daily scratchings, criss-crosses and her stone pathways.  Penny is a master of observation, and her work is a record of what she sees and touches.  It connects us to the natural world. 

stitch resisted indigo

Mine is a connection to the inner world

paper pieced star appliqued to wool

My daily practice is about the act of making itself.

  

People learn about themselves through the things they make (Richard Sennett idea)

reverse shows construction on felt base

Because I am the boss of me I made my own guidelines.

One:  work relatively small in these collages
Two:  the pieces are separate from each other and can vary in length of time depicted, technique and materials.
Three:  once I start I need to be honest and work every day until I feel it is done. 

daily practice number two  January 27 - February 16 2018

My next wall piece will be slightly different than these two.

I'll begin it in a few days.

Art is an adventure, and I am the boss of me.