500 Traditional Quilts

You know, when I made this quilt eleven years ago, I didn't think of it as traditional.  I thought it was art.   Art that came directly from my insides and I was thankful that I could use the firm ground of pattern handed down to me by women artists of an earlier time.  By making this red quilt and appliqueing my own hand not holding those four flying shapes I was able to express how I felt during the time my nest was emptying and my parents were aging.  It was a poem.

There is a new book coming out this September from Lark - 500 Traditional Quilts  by Karey  Patterson Breshenhan, director emeritus of the International Quilt Festival in Houston Texas. 

Two of my quilts have been selected to be in the book.
The first is Flesh and Blood (shown above).  Made in 2003 from cotton, wool and sheer polyester,   pieced with a sewing machine and then appliqued, embroidered and quilted by hand, 90" square.  The traditional pattern's name? Ocean Waves.  Click here to see Flesh and Blood on my website.

The second quilt that will be in the book is entitled Something More Magical Than It Ever Was.  It was made over twenty years ago in 1991 from recycled family clothing and new silk fabrics in a traditional Log Cabin pattern with some variation.  It's not included in this post but you can see it on the website as well, here.  That quilt was about memory and how we adjust our memories as time goes on.  I thought it was art too when I made it.  I felt that I was using a woman's art medium.

An exhibition of the 500 quilts will be in Houston this fall to celebrate the ruby anniversary of the quilt festival.  This exhibition will tour to Chicago in May 2015.  Both quilts have been invited to participate.

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Flesh and Blood is in private collection but the owners loaned it back to me so it could go on exhibition. 

I do want my work to be seen.  I offered them the quilt shown above as a replacement while Flesh and Blood is on tour.

Protection Blanket, 2005, hand dyed rayon, machine pieced then hand quilted and embellished with couched rayon ribbon and sequins, 80" square.  The traditional pattern here is an Amish one, usually made with somber or deep toned fabrics.   Diamond in a Square.   (to view on website click here)
I had recently learned that in order to keep their children safe, many mothers in eastern cultures sewed shiny things onto their children's clothing to reflect the bad energy.  I sewed sequins onto the central diamond - making it into a shield that would protect the sleeper.

I drew on this quilt,  pleased to have the spaces and symbolism of traditional pattern under my intuitive gestures.    I made this piece nearly ten years ago and it is nice for me to examine the couching again.

It's fascinating.

grounded by tradition

choose time

I have not been sleeping, I have been so busy with little details for the exhibition.  The exhibition is a wall in front of me that I cannot see beyond until it is shipped, yet it can't be shipped until those details are finished.

time, time, time, time, time
I choose you

our hands sing red

A document.

Each person who has stitched or otherwise helped in the creation of the four meditation panels of the manitoulin circle project will be named in a permanent book.   I'm asking for a tracing of each person's hand which I then can use as a pattern.  I have painted paper with a variety of red and flesh coloured transfer dye that is then cut into the hand shapes and heat transferred (with an iron) into a large book.  (100% post consumer waste hand made paper from India)

We sign in each Thursday that we stitch together so I have each person's signature.  Scanned and flipped in the computer these are transferred to the hand made paper with solvent.

Two volumes filled.  141 participants.  

retreat

 There was a retreat at my house last week.

Janet drove over from Sudbury on Saturday.  Above is her knit 'sky scarf' that records the daily weather.

I picked up Margi on the previous Wednesday at the Sudbury airport.  In her new dolls she is using the cloth from an India Flint workshop she had attended last fall.

  Penny's 'scratchings' occupied her.  She sums up each day with such grace and is well into her second scroll.

Those white eyelets record her participation in Thursday's circle project and the spirals below are abstractions of snails she found on her Friday morning walk on our road.

Penny took this photo of me drawing Margi's hands at the circle project on Thursday.

Our hands connect us in so many ways, don't they? 

My name

My name is Judy Martin.
My parents gave me the name Judy, short for Judith.
My husband gave me the name Martin and I am proud to have it.
My name until I was 22 years old was Judy Johnson. There's a Judy Martin who has the same mailing address I do, she lives just down the road. I talked to a Judy Martin who lives in Sudbury on the phone yesterday. But the Judy Martin who makes me wonder about using my name is the Judy Martin who writes books about traditional quilting. It's not her fault. She can't help it that she used to be a featured writer in Quilters Newsletter and creates very popular patterns. That Judy martin has a popular website, click here. I used to call her the real Judy Martin and still apologize when people suddenly realize that I'm not her. I could add an initial, I could add Johnson, I've tried using Judith....but nothing feels quite as right as Judy Martin. It's my name. what can I say?

the making process

It has taken a lifetime to put myself into my art and it is a spiritual journey. Everything is everything.
I used to see my work as conceptual because I like thinking that art is based on ideas, but now I realize that I’m more interested in ‘insight’. I love the satisfaction that comes with creation and never want to lose the pleasure of making.

The art I make is my life and I’m trying to allow the making process to take over from the thinking process.

juxtapose

framed by intellect grounded in emotion a haunting quality a knowing anxiety voice of reason voice of madness

Piles of my work are all over the house. I picked stuff from the framer for the two exhibitions in April and placed everything next to each other. I've included works still in progress in the mix and the juxtapositions delight me.

Touching

Why do I use my hand as a symbol?
I think its about touching. My hand says 'touch' as well as 'think'.
It says 'feel' as well as 'analyze'.
This piece is saying DO BOTH.
The viewer AND the maker - do both. Hand stitching helps to connect the mind and the body. Touching is the act that crosses the gap between the object and the mind. Hand stitching is the act that allows the maker to think.

Heart and Soul

My piano students and I played Heart and Soul today. The music drew other kids in from the hall (I teach in a school library) and one (not a student) played the duet with me. Music and hearts - well what can I say. They speak. Don't worry so much I tell myself. Visit this blog "Jump for art" and be cheered up.

quilts are art

Now that we use duvets to cover our beds instead of wool blankets and quilts - can we finally say that quilts are art? I don't necessarily agree with the following quote, but came across it this morning and was provoked.

“Only the useless is truly beautiful. Everything useful is ugly since it is the expression of a need, and a man’s needs are, like his pitiful, infirm nature, ignoble and disgusting. The most useful place in the house is the latrine.”
1835 – Theopile Gautier

My hand sings red

The spirit of our age.
We are challenged by a new awareness. The concept of difference is a prime concern. Not just the difference between men and women, but the differences among women themselves.

The Bayeux Tapestry

William came from Normandy on the eve of Michaelmas, and as soon as his men were able they constructed a fortification at the market of Hastings. This was told to King Harold and he then collected a large army and met William at the old apple tree, and William came on him unexpectedly before his army was drawn up. Nevertheless, the king fought very hard with him together with the men who would stand by him, and there were many slain on either side. King Harold was killed there, and Earl Leofwine his brother, and Earl Gyrth, his other brother, and many good men. The Frenchmen now had possession of the field, as God granted to them for the people's sins.
From the Anglo Saxon Chronicle 1066
detail: the hands of Edward the Confessor and Harold.

Thesis

That the shapes used in traditional quilt patterns are "first shapes". These shapes occur in textiles around the world. They have ancient meanings and are part of what Carl Jung called the 'collective unconscious'.
Even though we might not know the meanings any more, they continually call to us and we are drawn to their pleasing forms.

that was then

I came across this old journal entry today.

October 19, 2000
If I want to find my true voice as an artist, not only do I have to stop teaching art, I have to stop selling it. I have to not worry about the Perivale, or any other commercial space.

I have been reading Georgia O'Keefe's autobiography. Over and over she says - "My paintings are my own way of communicating." "I can say things with colour and shape that I can't say in any other way - things that I have no words for."

So if I can manage it, I would like to take a sabbatical from these four things.

1. teaching quilting skills
2. teaching painting skills
3. community quilt and art club work
4. selling paintings.

I found this old journal entry to be interesting because I did stop teaching quilting and painting for five years. I've also stepped away from executive memberships in the local quilt and art clubs. There's no doubt in my mind that this self-imposed sabbatical has had a positive effect on my work.

However, Sheila McMullan, the owner of the Perivale gallery, constantly encouraged work that often proved to be non commercial and I continued to exhibit with her.

I've recently returned to teaching my art (watercolour painting and art quilting)as well as twenty four private piano lessons each week. There's just not enough time. I'd really like to change my painting style and do something more like what Sylvia Edwards does. Shall see what comes.

Who am I? Where do I live? What do I do?

I attended a meeting at the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation today. The Ontario Art Council is renewing their strategic plan and twenty or so artists from the community were invited to attend and voice their concerns. It's part of a month of sessions across the province.

I'm a non-aboriginal artist living and working on Manitoulin Island. Is that why I left the meeting feeling both confused and humbled?

to my grown children

Be quiet, be still, be alive like an animal with all your senses open.

detail of expositor photo by Rick McCutcheon

Two exhibitions

Here is how curator Ivan Jurakic titled the exhibition in Cambridge - up until June 23.





Here is how Erin Snow titled the one in Almonte - up until July 29.

My opening in Cambridge

I gave a different talk on Saturday to another group of people, many of them students. One of the things I talked about was 'size'. Each piece is large enough to cover at least two or three people. I like making quilts that could be used to protect a family from the cold. Metaphorically, I want to protect humanity from what we fear in the twenty first century. War. Ecological disaster. Flu pandemic.
Ivan Jurakic (curator) and David Popplow (installer) did an amazing job with hanging the Protection Blankets exhibition. Thanks guys.