a pilgrimage

pilgrimage:  noun

a journey made to some sacred place as an act of devotion

a visit made to a place that is considered special, where you go to show your respect

I visited the Royal Ontario Museum when I was in Toronto last month.  The main reason to visit was in order to see this quilt, then on display in the special exhibition of  Quilts: Made in Canada.  

I met my brother and Kirsten there.

Pieced Triangles Quilt 1880
  Maker no longer known. 
 Asphodel-Norwood Township, Ontario. 
 Roller-printed cotton, plain weave

Look closely at this quilt: it's made of over 8000 light and dark triangles, each less than 2 centimetres long and hand-stitched together to create an intricate pattern from the smallest scraps.

The patient maker who sewed it worked outwards from the centre, creating a series of rectangular frames that slowly increase to build a quilt.  (wall text)  

I look at the movement of the colours

I sense the amount of time that each triangle took to place.

I appreciate the passage of time that this quilt has remained even though the maker has passed on.

I marvel at the accuracy of the intricate handwork.

I understand this woman.  

My imagination is engaged.

My interior world is entered into.

Her repeated touching reaches me at an intimate, personal level.

The sense of touch is powerful. 

"The impact of art touches something buried deep in embodied memory.  It is a mystery."  

Juhani Pallasmaa 

primordial faith

phenomenology is not a theory, it is a practice

have 'primordial faith' (merleau ponty)

have faith in my own perceptual experience

perceiving is not theoretical

this is just how it is

this is just how I experience it

a primordial dimension of experience

phenomenology does not replace everything that has gone before

it just tests it

phenomenology is lived experience

not denying anything

just clarifying

believing in the world

including myself in the world

sensuous

not forgetting

letting my heart break

things keep happening

sometimes it is confusing

whenever I don't know what to do

I look at the sky

it is accessible all the time

Timeless

 I am making marks with a needle and thread.

Each mark, each stitch is unique.
Each mark a small texture.
Each mark a reminder of my hand's caress.

Not only do the marks express this gentle touch, they also carry the 4th dimension of time.

It takes months to put all these stitches into my cloths.
Months of lived experience.

Just consider what happens during that amount of time.
The daily waking up and going back to sleep
the events of the world and of personal life story.

It's awesome.
It causes wonder.

recall the past
leap into the future
think about how brief our time is to be alive
of what we might accomplish

our precious time
Think about all of these things at the same time

I want these individual one at a time marks to look as if they've always been there.

I want them to be timeless. 

wounded

contemplation and vulnerability
interior and exterior
dark and light

every single piece
damaged in some way
torn ripped collapsed

to be whole one must be wounded

the realtionship between my body and the scale of my work
the physical gestures of my arms and hands
the way the viewer needs to move back and forth to experience it

the network of large scars
the small repetitive piercings of the needle

I begin with cloth
ripping
pinning, touching, holding
stepping back from
looking at
feeling, remembering

the body is a way of knowing
and cloth is like the body

Phenomenology is the lived experience of the world for both maker and viewer.

the raw edges, the stitches,
literally catch the corner of our eye
this is a level of abstraction that you need to slow down for

the marks are made one at a time over a long period of time

I'm building on work I started years ago

small,nearly identical marks

slow down to see it
yearn to touch it

fragile cloth
monumental scale
phsyical repetitive activity

It is our senses and deep memories that connect us to our emotions,

(a post about my new work for exhibition)

artist statement

 The simplicity of my work is arrived at in a complex way.   

I call on my Finnish heritage and its aesthetic of embracing or flouting traditional techniques.

I call on phenomenology and believe that when textile art is pared down, the touch of the hand, and the movement of the maker’s body become more evident.

I call on the virtuosity of labour, not hard work but careful, repetitive work.

I call on craftsmanship, utter concentration, traditional techniques, the learning of new skills, and the idea that the work itself is what is important, not how many hours it takes.

I call on all of myself in what I do.

NYC journal: Ernesto Neto

Another highlight of the Chelsea galleries for us was the Ernesto Neto exhibit at the Tanya Bonakdar gallery until May 25.

Neto is a Brazillian sculpter who works with soft materials and gravity to create skin coloured fantasy immersive spaces that involve all our senses.

"Let the children, let them play. Let the children play" he sings in this video.

On entering the gallery space, we had to walk through an archway of crochet and air, causing bells to ring. It was uplifiting.

Joetta's post about this exhibit has many more beautiful photos. Also, Roger Atwood's profile of Ernesto Neto gives more information about this artist who creates with surprise, light, nature, biology, and fun.

Gaston Bachelard and me

“Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone.” Gaston Bachelard from The Poetics of Space

the passage of time is embedded

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Saturday Sunday

The process IS the object.
The time it took. The space it occupies.

"We often look for the underlying meaning of things, when the thing itself is the meaning." Anni Albers