Autumn Song

We closed our cottage on Thanksgiving weekend, just Ned and myself.

We got there around 2 pm on the Saturday.  It was very blustery. 

I started a fire in the kitchen stove and he started one in the fireplace.

We had an early simple dinner.

I had my holy Rothko piece with me.  

I am thankful for the angle of the sun that makes the water sparkly at 5 pm

and for all the pillows, blankets and quilts that I prepare for winter storage

and for my teacup of gin and for Eleonor Wachtel on CBC radio. 

Ned wore his red toque all day and night and I wore my undershirt.    

We have started into our 50th year or marriage. 

On my mind is the spring 2023 exhibition.  

To help me plan, I have been writing out the measurements of the walls   

and pinning different pieces up to see how they look together.

I want to choose a collection of work that is beautiful but also a bit raw.

I want my exhibition to be like a poem that reveals an inner self full of love and emotion and worry. 

I stitched my red Rothko piece by the fire both nights. 

Meaning in art often comes from the materials it is made from.

Repetition is a material.

The over and over gestures made by the body calms the maker.

The sight and feel of the repeated marks soothes the viewer.

On Monday we finished up and drove into the setting sun with the boat on its trailer.   

We were home in time to see the  moon rise.

and the next day's sunrise 

Why do you stand at the window abandoned to beauty and pride

the thorn of the night in your bosom, the spear of the age in your side?     

Leonard Cohen.

Circles, red thread, domestic textiles, ancient marks, 

whirling spirals, grids, time, dream and the vulnerability of sleep.

All of these are in this work of mine.  What do they mean?

And what does it mean that there are two-sides 

and that I work the marks from the back? 

The first thing I did in this piece was to dye it red.  

It is a full size linen damask table cloth.  I made holes in it with a kind of acid.  

This was in 2011.  See here. 

then in 2020 I planted velvet in each hole with reverse applique.  

A garden of dots arranged in a grid, like Agnes Martin's idea of perfection. 

"it is not in the eye, it is in the mind. In our minds there is an awareness of perfection."  

Now there is a layer of dark sheer fabric covering the reverse side. 

And I am stitching circles around the reverse dots using a running stitch.

The stitches get smaller and smaller as you go around.   

It takes time.

When I finish, I clip the sheer cloth away and the velvet is set free.  

The raw edges flame into petals that stand up from the base cloth.  

This work is about finding a way to meditate. 

These repeated circles help me to feel my own spirit.

This work doesn't address the outer world.

(There is a war going on that we fear any day will turn nuclear.

There are school shootings, children are being killed for no reason.

There are floods and hurricanes and fires that ruin people's lives for years.)

My circles do not fix these things.

My circles do not comment on these things. 

They do not try to convince people.

These circles are a way to find emptiness and calmness.

I was sad because I was alive.  I did not even know all the things I wanted, and that is what made me saddest.  If I were more religious than I am, I might say that the feeling was yearning for the place we came from before we were born. 

Perhaps instead, it is about the human search for perfection, the perfection we find only in great works of art and out in the landscape.  Sharon Butala

I think that we yearn for perfect peace, which doesn't mean being in perfect solitude, but for peace in the heart.  A peaceful heart in the midst of the multitudes, tumult, chaos, violence, sorrow, and beauty of everyday life.  We can never have that peace.  (Except in a work of art or in the sunset we have intimations of it.)  That is why we feel sadness.  Sharon Butala

 I will continue stitching these flowery circle stars.    

Carry on bravely my friends. xo  

princess or mermaid?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I've been working on my archives.

stitching in car on highway 69 south bound

My archives include photos and papers and actual quilts but this post's text is about my journals.  

(the images in the post are of my recent stitching and grand daughter collaborative drawings)

My journals are 'my book' and I have been writing it for 37 years.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom 

A few years ago I started to type selected journals into the laptop.  

In the beginning,  I bundled up the books and put them back on the shelf.  

See here.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom

However, that wrapping only added to the 'journal clutter' 

that I worry about leaving  behind.  

stitching in car on highway 69 north bound

So now I am giving them to Ned to burn one by one.

I will never finish going through all of them,

but the project remains fascinating to me and I do it an hour each day.

Maybe some year I'll use the notes that are organized chronologically to help me  

write a memoir or an autobiographical novel about being a mother artist.

mystical landscape

go on
move forward

consent
receive

give myself to the open

 make my way without a map

 trust beyond measure

if something is to come, something sublime
it is through risk

leading no one knows where

because there are still flowers
there is the rose

the rose forever opening for the first and the last time

images of sky with many moons, wool, indigo, hand stitch, completed today,
text by Luce Irigaray
the title of the post is because I started reading Mystical Landscapes am filled with emotion by the words and images.        

What are you working on now?

I'm taking turns stitching into two pieces.
Connected by their design, both are large nine-patches.

One is stitched with black thread, the other with white thread.

expectations/memories/dreams

 

Circles within squares are design elements they have in common.

The cloth was found in my life collection of small pieces of fancy cloth.
(taffeta, linen damask, wool suiting, and silks of all sorts)

I stitched or painted on all the squares earlier. 

At first I thought that maybe they didn't need hand stitch
I was hoping to love their simplicity more.

But now,  the chika-chika marks of running stitch/ kantha stitch
has risen the level of intimacy in these two wall pieces
and has given them power.

(...and they fit into my suitcase.  Hola from Mexico xo)

extra-ordinary

 

 I recently labeled and re-sleeved and folded and parceled The River Beneath off for exhibition.

 

 It's a very thin quilt, made heavy with thread and touch.

 

The backing cloth is printed rayon yardage enlivened with a silk scarf purchased from Fibre Arts Newfoundland when I taught there in 2015.

the river beneath 2016 quilt back Judy Martin  rayon and silk, cotton thread  88 x 84 inches

Ordinary stuff. 

the river beneath

I'm always taken care of by my work.
You let go of your own idea and let the work go where it needs to go.
And that's sometimes very uncomfortable.
One learns to linger in discontent and not be judgmental, but to have faith.
Kiki Smith

more views of this piece in   New Work,  the river beneath.

Normal School Sewing Book

 

Today, a post about the Hamilton Normal School Sewing Book, loaned to me years ago by my friend Nicole Weppler, curator of the Gore Bay Museum here on Manitoulin Island.  Above, the sample for beautifully executed patchwork mending.

Patching:   a patch is a piece of material inserted for the purpose of strengthening worn or thin places 

The student's name was Helen J Scott, she was in the grade A class, room 4.  It was 1910. 

Normal school is not where you go to become normal.  Normal School is a term for what we now call teacher's college.  My mother went to Normal School in the 40's.

Sewing is the process of drawing thread through material by means of the needle. 
Cloth is the material made of animal and vegetable fibres

RUNNING

straight stitch

1.       stitches and spaces are of equal length

2.      Looks the same on both sides

3.      Stitches and spaces follow each other straight along the sewing line

4.      The stitch is as small as the cloth will permit 

OVER CASTING

slanting stitch

1.       Looks the same on both sides

2.      Stitches and spaces are of equal length

3.      Stitches and spaces are at right angles

4.      Stitches are always parallel and so are the spaces

Use – to prevent raw edges from ravelling

HEMMING

slanting stitch

Description 

       1.  looks the same on both sides. 

       2.   Stitches and spaces  form right angles.

       3.  Looks like overcasting, but the thread is carried through the body of the cloth and over the edge.

Use  to fasten an edge smoothly to the body of the cloth.  A) hems  b) facings 

 FRENCH SEAM

 FELLED SEAM

PLAIN BUTTON HOLE

Definition- a button hole is  a slit in the material with the edges protected and strengthened by thread and used to slip over a button to hold two pieces of cloth together

Marking – mark where the shank of the button should come.  If cutting with ordinary scissors, mark a point at both ends of the button hole

Cutting – when cutting stick point of scissors in at the shank end of the buttonhole and cut a straight slit the required length.

Do not double the cloth but cut through all the layers at once

Whenever possible, the cut should be straight with the warp or woof

Making – 

1. Make the stitches deep enough to prevent fraying but not to look clumsy

2. Stitches not crowded but close together – just showing the cloth between

3. Begin almost any place with two or three stitches in the same place about the width of the stitch from the edge, hold the thread down firmly with the thumb, throw the thread over the needle to make a loop then draw this firmly and smoothly in place.  

4. Repeat. 

EYELETS
HOOKS AND EYES
SEWING ON BUTTONS

DARNING

Definition:  Darning is the process of inserting new threads in material in order to repair worn or broken threads

 BAG
size of bag  width 5" depth 5"

 The book is hand bound with a shoe lace.

I appreciate this book.