a tisket a tasket

I'm getting very side-tracked with my grandomther's basket quilt.
I worked on it for most of Monday, our first day home after Mexico trip.

I thought of mending each square before working on it.
nah

I questioned why I felt that I needed to do anything with it.
I tried to do something with it back in 2007 and ended up making a paper quilt.
Folded the real one up for twelve more years.

The thing is, it's quite badly made.

Machine stitching is mixed with hand stitching - and this is for both applique and the quilting.
It's as if my grandmother, my mother's mother, didn't know what she was doing.
She was just going for it

 I think she stopped working on it because she didn't know how to proceed.

I've been told that I am a lot like her...and handling these patches makes me feel her more closely.
She's right here.
She doesn't mind that I decided to cut her work up.
She's glad that I am working with it.
She was an amazing gardener.  and painter.

This always happens to me when I come home from a trip.
I'm faced with a house FULL of artifacts of our long life together,
and I start to put everything in order.

By making new things out of them!  It's so foolish. 

What I need to do is turn my back on it all and get back to me.
pure me....moving forward.

But instead I wallow in my - our- past.
My grandmother's quilt is just a passing phase.  I will get over it.
But for now, it is what I'm working on.

I'm thinking of treating the patched and mended piece like a Japanese boro
densely stitched with big threads.
Lord, save me from myself.

The physical act of making is a way of clearing the mind from demands of the outside world.  Somewhere between the heart and the mind is a state of concentration out of which ideas and insights emerge. 
Mary Jane Jacobs 

Alicia Henry

I went back to the Powerplant last week to see Alicia Henry's powerful exhibition, Witnessing for the second time.

 "Henry creates two-dimensional singular figures and group compositions that are commanding in their grace and expressiveness. "

 "Tender renditions of mother and child appear, as do groupings of more females that signifiy formations of families within communities"

 "Through their direct gaze and erect composure, Henry's multigenerational survivors exude a powerful strength and confidence.  They stand in anticipation of an egalitarian future - a utopian goal that underpins much of Henry's work"

 I am visiting the Powerplant in Toronto more this year because our daughter April (in above photo to demonstrate the gigantic scale of these wall mounted figures) is working right next door at Harbourfront craft and design studios as a resident artist this year.

I want to share the powerful simplicity and the confident handling of materials by Alicia Henry.  I was really moved and inspired by this exhibition. 

All text in quotes is from the pamphlet provided by The Power Plant.