thing and spirit both

These past few weeks I have added more stitch and some velvet to this red cloth.

I thought the cloth was finished.  I put it in my show at the Homer Watson last spring. 

But this autumn, I felt that it needed more. 

More weight.  More time.  More definition.  Some darkness.

I began by adding brown silk thread. 

I also added a layer of dark grey velvet to the second side.

This cloth is for our eyes and it is for our hands.  

This cloth has given me a space for my heart to beat in.  

In pre-Columbian South America all liturgical ceremonies involved large quantities of textiles.  

Textiles were the major form of art, the conveyers of religious ideas.

Textiles were considered to be sacred objects.  (William J Conkin, archeologist)

I've started to call this thin, red, linen quilt:  Holy Holy.  

Through this past week, all I've wanted to do is stitch it.

I wanted to stitch by my window and listen to audio books all the time.  

I forced myself to do other things.  

I put the timer on so that I knew when I could stop doing those other things

and get back to my stitching.

I'm ready to break open.  I'd do it with my own hands.  

Maybe tomorrow if we're lucky and strong, 

Tonight I will learn to live in the inches,

As we spin the wind of this terrible age,  a place to sing

My voice, still raw and golden.   

       David Lerner

Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame.

Touch the earth. 

Love the earth. 

Honour the earth. 

Rest your spirit in her solitary places. 

Henry Beston

It is a power cloth.

It is like a cloth from another world.

It is like a ritual cloth.  

A cloth full of holiness and spirit and touch and me.

My fingers swirling through it, or it through me.

I saw it.  

It was thing and spirit both: 

the real world: evident, invisible.  

Marie Howe

notions of the body in nature

Today I continue from yesterday's post, my inspirations and route to my voice

I'll put some further links.  I'm using the new blogger and the links take you to a new window.  I'm not sure that it is for the best.  Also, if you are having trouble commenting, feel free to email me.  xo

African textiles   here   and   here   and here  and here  and here

Indian textiles       here      and here    and here 

Japanese textiles    here    and   here     and    here     and here

and my body

inner horizon

Again and again I pull this piece into my lap.
She's un-finished.

When I get close to finishing her, something makes me re-think and un-do and today I mended her again.  Those slices I made last August opened her into a female figure
but she's no princess.

She's been through a lot.
She's been generous with her time.
Listening and holding me thorugh a winter of doubt,
a spring of uncertainty and travel,
and a summer of family.

I like to say that I approach my work as if I have all the time in the world, but the truth is, I don't.
This moon is waning.

I worked the stitches from the back, the distortions and un-planned marks guided me.

This is me.
This old moon.
My surface smoothed out and easy, hiding that inner turmoil on the inside.
Not very well.

This old emotional moon.
Patched and stitched with circles.

Why do I keep coming back to blue circles?

It's not just me - we all do.
We all go back to where we started eventually.
That is who we really are.

When I draw a circle quickly on paper, I start it at 12 noon and go counter clockwise.  I go against time when I rush like that.  But when I stitch circles, I can go either way.  Stitching is a slower way of marking a circle and it encourages stepping not running.  Breathing in a considered manner.
In order.  Kind of.

She is just as interesting on either side.

When I worked on paper, I never worried about what the back of my painting looked like.
It didn't seem important.
But when I stitch into cloth, there are two affected sides.
I noticed this first when I made the quilts and the backs became as important and beautiful as the fronts.
There are two sides of everything.
All things contain their opposites.

Works in cloth are full of metaphors.
I love that.

The deer made their small heart marks in the snow just before I went out for my walk.
They didn't think about it.
I love that too.

healing power of hand stitch

I borrowed back the little quilt I gave my dad for his 90th birthday.
He uses it for naps.  (see here)

I wanted to stitch into it, strengthen it.
I kept it for about a week but only got half way through.
He needs it and I gave it back to him yesterday. 

"If you are an adult child, you may feel that you are losing your father when he goes into care. 
Even if you haven't felt for a long time that you needed your protector, just the knowledge in the back of your mind that he was there provided a kind of security. 

You don't know it is there until you don't have it anymore."  Peter S. Silin

meditation panel four

 

 Layers of Time came off the quilt frame on Friday night and I brought it home.

Over the weekend I have been looking at it.  It stuns me.

The immensity of it.

Q:  is it finished?

A:  for now.

We will be binding it this Thursday August 15, 2013.  It's the end.  Come and reminisce, everyone.

monumental repetition

the repetitive  eyelet

row after curved row of circles
of eyelet repeats
buttonhole loops around and around
pulling gently at the center to make holes

contained voids
the fabric stronger with the addition of thread
rows of strong holes
small marks
small windows
small voids
all round and neat and tight and packed as if they are the fabric
it's so labour intensive and slow, you can't imagine

while my family is visiting I stay up late
I stitch until 2 or 3 am every morning like I used to do when the kids were young and at home
actually I look forward to it
I hardly slept when I was a mother-artist
now I am a grandmother artist

how long does it take ?  an hour? 3 hours?
double that
triple it
the amount of time and repetitive movement in this piece of cloth is monumental
it's obsessive, the repeating I do of the same gesture
it's like tying skates, tugging gently with each eyelet
like dancing, turning the fabric in my hands to make the circles

the result is so delicate
like snow flakes
like flowers
like fields and rows of planted, weeded, tulips
fileds of holes
fields of buttonholes and unimaginable time spent

stitching soothes me after a day of trying too hard
what will please everyone?
what would they like to eat?
should we go for a walk?
should I read? talk? listen?

stitching these solid strong lines of white
up and down, over and through, do it again
up and down, over and through, do it again
over and over and over
the same rhythm, the stronger fabric
it's heavier, weightier now
and there is still much to do

privilege

 

 

 

Hand  ling the art work was a privilege.

collection, Val Cross, found objects and bare iron wire

I stitched her words: all we want is a better fairer human life, Denise Jones, silk thread on linen

Shimmer, Catherine Dormor, digitally printed silk satin and organza

Flying Family Tree, Monika Brueckner, stitched paper

Untitled, Jean Kirk, shirbori dyed and pin tucked silk organdy

Yesterday I shipped the last of thirteen parcels back to their makers in the UK and Germany.