earth and air

I've named this piece Earth and Air, and I've been thinking about why I did.
Initially, it came out of the Luce Irigaray quote I was inspired by for my exhibition entitled The Cloud In Me.
"How do I make earth out of air and protect the cloud in me?"

The earth figure is intuitively pieced from men’s wool suiting fabrics.  These were dyed with a variety of plants gathered from the ditches and fields of Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada where I live.  The figure was hand quilted by hand to a linen tablecloth with coloured threads, a little red.

Surrounding the figure are wide expanses of torn linen damask table linens.  These strips have been pieced together so that the horizontal seams are exposed.  The raw edges seem fragile, but in truth they are strong.   This sky area has also been hand quilted to the tablecloth backing, with white silk thread.

The dualities contained in the work are:  horizontal / vertical, wool / linen, colour / white, male / female, and Manitoulin Island’s Indigenous / European settler societies.

This artwork is about the affirmation of nature and the support of the huge sky above and around all of us humans in the world.  We all, at some time in our lives, stand alone and look out over horizons.  We are all given access to our own inner immensity by such standing and looking, and we all feel connected to the place where we stand.   Being quiet and alone in nature, we begin to understand how the earth has been here a very long time and we begin to believe that it will continue.  

It's summer

It is summer

and I have been immersed in family

it's a good busy

The kids are doing the cooking and also the planning of what to cook.

The grand kids are doing the cannon ball diving, the fishing and the comic book reading.

I'm working on a large piece.

It has a wool central area, dyed with plants and stitched in several colours of thread

surrounded by linen damask, pieced with raw edges, strengthened with big stitches.

life and death are not opposites
death is enfolded in life's centre

'when I keep my heart open, when I let it be touched
I learn that it is botttomless, it is vast, limitless

 I discover how much warmth and gentleness is there,

 how much space'
(pema chodron idea)

the Alaska family was here for 11 days and time stopped for me while I watched them

raw march

I've been working with raw edges this winter.

I've been using the big table.  Wider than most, it can also expand lengthwise.  When Ned was a boy, his father used to get him to crawl underneath this table to see the craftsman's mark.

The two pieces in this post are for the exhibition in October.   Most of the pieces for the show are connected by their process.  First, they were wrecked and then they were mended.  Putting them together is filling nearly all my time during these raw months.

I like doing them at home.

Gaston Bachelard said that the chief benefit of the house is that it shelters daydreaming.
To be human we have thoughts and we have experiences.
Mostly, though, what makes us human are our daydreams
and daydreams are very different from dreams.

Space is more important than time for the unconscious.

One of the reasons I like to work in a large scale is that it gives my viewers the space to daydream.

indigo checkerboard

 

 The last time I wrote about this piece, we were in Newfoundland.

 Now, we are in Mexico.

 It's growing slowly, expanding.

Entirely hand pieced using a 9 patch format, it is something I can do while on buses and airplanes, and while visiting with friends.

I love the inner wildness of the reverse side.  raw edges, tangled threads

Patchwork is open ended.
It can grow to any size.
It is not bound by selvedges like weaving, or organized on a ground like embroidery.
It has no bounds.
There is no top or bottom to a quilt.  both sides are the right side.
...
patchwork has an affinity with the nomad,
moving in an open space.

ideas from Gilles Deleuze
The Smooth and the Striated

the townline

bundled 

early spring

raw accumulation