Why I haven't written

all my life   
hand stitched cotton quilt with silk self portrait (etching)  made in 1990 by Judy Martin

I think it was because I prepared a presentation to give over zoom on Dec 1, and doing that took most of my reflective brain, leaving me almost empty.  However, I am grateful to have been given a reason and opportunity to consider how my life and work fit together and what my thesis is.  I hope to be able to share those thoughts here soon.  The talk was recorded.  

Otherwise, I've been staring out the window a lot.  I've been re-organizing my bookshelves.  I've been dyeing a little every day with onion skins, sumac leaves or berries.   I've been doing a lot of stitching.

Thank you for reading this blog.  xo

baby quilt in progress for 3 year old grand daughter - all new fabrics , hand pieced.

Magdalena Abakanowicz: Soft Strength at the Tate Modern, London, England

Every Tangle of Thread and Rope, Abakans by Magdalena as installed at Tate Modern until May 21 

magdalena's brown abakan 1969,
 ball point pen sketch on opened note book, 6.5 x 8 inches

magdalena's embryology bundles circa 1980,
ball point pen sketch on opened note book, 6.5 x 8 inches

We visited the Tate Modern last week because I wanted to experience the Magdalena Abakanowicz exhibition.  While there, I borrowed one of those folding portable stools so that I could sit among the Abakans and draw them.  I wore my grey knit dress for these visits, because it had great pockets for my phone and little notebook.  My shoes were comfortable and I wore black tights, just like all the other pilgrims.  

embryology  1978 - 1981, burlap, cotton gauze, hemp rope, nylon, sisal, dimensions variable,
by Magdalena Abakanowicz

embryology, there are approximately 800 pieces in this body of work, 1978-81,
burlap, sisal, cotton gauze, hemp, stockings,  etc

When I sat close to the burlap wrapped bundles of the Embryology grouping, I could differentiate the wrapping materials:  brownish cheesecloth, grey and brown cotton stockings, twine, sisal, but I couldn't always tell what was inside them.  

Magdalena did not self-identify as a feminist yet her work is seen by many as emblematic of a powerful female imagery.  One can't help but think about birth and vulnerability while sitting with her work.  And sex.  And decay.  And nests, and wombs, and eggs.   Her work is about LIFE and its connection to fibres. 

mature woman sketching Magdalena Abakanowicz's Embryology
 at the Tate Modern, London, England

sketch of Magdalena's embryology,
 ball point pen on opened out notebook, 6.5 x 8 inches

By drawing them, I touched them slowly with my eyes.  I was touched by them.  They are hand made monuments to human labour and creativity.  The connection to the body and all its functions is so strong that I am finding it hard to express in words.  It's incredible.  The inspiration I felt when I was near them was deep.  I was pulled by heart strings into her spaces and even now, at home, I remember the experience as something holy. 

It was a privilege be so close to them.  I was in awe the whole time.  

Drawing the soft sculptures helped my mind and body absorb them. 

Sitting rather than standing helped my wobbly legs. 

mature woman in front of
Magdalena Abakanowicz's Abakan Orange 1968
at the Tate Modern exhibition, Every Tangle of Thread and Rope.

There's a new post on modernist aesthetic dedicated to Magdalena Abakanowicz's Abakans.   Click here

In England

Sometimes I have no words. 

image description:  mature woman wearing running shoes and a spiral necklace stands beside a monumental piece of textile art by Sheila Hicks.  

The artwork is entitled Moroccan Prayer Rug.

It was created by Sheila Hicks in 1972 and is five and a half metres high.  It is hand knotted wool.  

Part of the retrospective exhibition at the Hepworth gallery in Wakefield, England.  

Sometimes life is amazing. 

Her scarlet gown

 

she stood

in her scarlet

gown

if anyone touched her, the gown rustled

eia

she stood, her face like a rose

shining she stood

and her mouth was a flower

eia

she stood by a branch of a tree

and writ her love on a leaf

Carmina Burana        12th  - 13th century  

Medieval text found in my 1993 journal.

Photos from Saturday, my 70th birthday.

The Mother The Child and Joyce Wieland

In 1988 I was part of a group exhibition in Thunder Bay Ontario at the Definitely Superior Gallery that was entitled See Jane Sew Strontium.  The gallery had invited Joyce Wieland to attend the opening and give an artist talk and also a workshop the following day.  

I lived in Kenora at the time (6 hours by winter highway from Thunder Bay) and after a lot of deliberation, decided that I couldn't justify leaving my young family to attend the events.  I can't remember the exact reason, it may have been weather.

My friend Barbara Sprague was also included in this exhibition, and she was making the trip from Kenora to Thunder Bay and I asked her to deliver a letter to Joyce Wieland for me.   The other day, I came across the draft of my letter in a 1988 journal and that prompted me to find the artwork from that exhibition and re-photograph it for this blog post. The title of the piece is The Mother The Child.  

Dear Ms Wieland

First of all, let me say that I feel very connected to you through your work.  I saw your quilt, Reason Over Passion, at the National Gallery and it made such an impression.  I remember standing in front of it in awe.  Your femaleness comes through and it is such a rich, womanly, femaleness.  There is so much about being a woman that I can feel in your work, be it quilt or painting.  And you have a wonderful wit.

Anyway, I'm very sorry that I cannot attend the workshop and meet you.  I had planned ot attending until last week.  There are a lot of reasons I guess, but the main ones are distance, winter, and the fact that I have four children, two of whom are under three years.  I know I'm not the only woman who has very little actual control of how her life is spent.   I would like to have seen the exhibition.  I've only seen Barbara's quilt.  I'd really like to know your reaction to my piece.  Please, if you do have any time that you could spare, I would very much appreciate a written note.

I've used some photos that my father took and developed.  They are of my brother, my sister and me.  There are several of me at age 15.  There are also photos of the farm where I grew up in Northwestern Ontario.  I feel that our childhood and childhood landscape are remain within us always.  I think that these things are our inner core, the 'batting' layer inside us.  The painted tree symbolizes both growth and woman's connection to nature while the self-portrait is the 'outer self''  that I present to the world today, that of the good mother.  The baby is looking outward, the mother in this drawing is hiding behind her child.  

Anyway, with this letter I feel that I've made some sort of contact with you.  I'm just sorry it's not in person.  I'll see you next time.  Sincerely, Judy Martin

Joyce Wieland answered me and I've saved the letter....but I can't remember where.  I think I should find it and frame it.  Joyce Wieland  1930 - 1998

Evelyn's questions

Not To Know But To Go On 2013  13" x 220' installed in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts in St. Bonaventure, New York as part of the SAQA Global Exhibition  ..  3-D Expressions

Q  Where do you find inspiration to work from?

A  Inspiration is not really 'found'.  It arrives.  Agnes Martin says that inspiration falls like rain when we are asleep.   The key, I think, is stay open.  I keep a journal beside me all the time and use it to catch those ideas that hover close to me when I'm reading or looking or listening.  Making note of what resonates with me is noted and then when I re-read the journal,  I find inspiration.

one entire skein of cotton embroidery floss was used up each day for over a thousand days

 Q  Thinking of the piece that you have in the exhibition, why did you decide to make this piece 3-dimensional?

A  Not To Know But To Go On is basically a time-line for three years of my life from 2010 to 2013, full of ups and downs, loops and circles, repeats and unknowns.  Each day that whirled past is a cycle of sunrise and sunset, each month is a cycle of moon, and each year a cycle of seasons.

the fabrics are from Judy's collection of favourite cloth from her life, torn into strips and couched to artist's canvas

The meaning of the piece is expressed by its form: a line.

like a star in my sky 2020 three layers of wool with wool thread, hand stitch, second side

Q  Once you have conceived an idea, how do you start?  Do you make sketches, do research, look at other works before you begin?

A  My work always begins with a rough ball point pen sketch in my journal. 

like a star in my sky in progress (first side) plus wrapping cloth 2014 second side showing

Q  How do you decide when you have the idea?

A  I think the idea develops as I sketch.  Drawing is a way to think.

My design wall is important.  As the piece progresses, I keep pinning my work up to gaze at and draw what I see and make new sketches of possible changes.

Judy Martin with Not To Know But To Go On as installed with 3-D Expressions at the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids Michigan in 2019.

Also, and this is very important.  I don't necessarily know what the end product will look like when I make that first sketch or catch the first idea with word or two.

Cloud of Time 2014  13" x 88 feet rescued domestic linen and variety of blue fabrics couched to artist canvas with 365 skeins of cotton embroidery floss in order to represent one year of time.

 I don't work three-dimensionally unless it is the best way to express the meaning of the piece.

Evelyn Penman is the Assistant curator and Director of the gallery that is hosting the 3-D Expressions exhibition.  Because the gallery is closed by the quarantine, the exhibition can be viewed online on April 29 along with a zoom interview of four of the artists.  More information is at this link. 

my dear friend

only the earth lives forever  judy martin 2008  shirt fragment, paper, thread, painted fabric border, mounted on canvas

whatever you are is what you are

manitoulin barn montage (detail) judy martin 2008  photography, mylar, acryilc marker

wounds, secrets, delights, fears, beauty
all enfolded into the immensity of a loving mystery

bundled journal pages, sealed with hot wax, judy martin 2008

all of you is enough

judy martin 2018

The images of my art are from 2008 digital files (that's ten years ago). 

I thought it would be easy to sort them out, but it's not.

The portrait at the bottom was taken last week.

The text is a fragment from a longer poem by Sudbury poet-artist-friend  Ray Laporte

Notes from my journal

 

 silk and wool coloured with coneflower and iron

My teacher told me that my work did not fit into the modern aesthetic. 

But we aren't in the modern aesthetic.  That has happened.  Whistler.  Monet.  Monet only became really good when he was 70 and did those water lily paintings.

It took him his whole life to find his own voice

Monet empowered himself. 

Monet said to himself - "why should I paint a background -  a foreground -a middleground - when all I really want to show is the foreground?"   Those water-lily paintings are  huge. 

Monet would have failed art school.

Use your imagination.  Work beyond the eye.
What is imagination?   Is it your mind?  Not only.
You have to let your heart loose too.
Connect with your HEART.

If you want to reach a different level - an inner attitude, more pleasurable, more imaginative - then you need to go beyond what other people think.

Carl Beam

 

Images in this post are of fabrics I dyed with plants this past month.  I used coneflowers, walnuts, iron, and time.

As I continue with my project of reading old journals and then wrapping them, (see here),  I come across remarkable things.  In this post I am sharing notes I took while listening to Manitoulin Island's Governor General's Award winning artist, Carl Beam  speak in 2004.     

wrecked

People are not aware of their abstract emotions,
which are a big part of their lives,
except when they listen to music
or look at art.

Agnes Martin

A woman made utility quilts as fast as she could 

so that her familly wouldn't freeze, and

she made them as beautiful as she could 

so that her heart wouldn't break.

American folk saying

image from April 2012
both quotes from my current journal
glad to be walking on my road again, the ice has gone. 

more beautiful blocks of time

 

 I wrapped eight more journals this morning.

That makes 37 so far.
Only 163 or so left to go.
Wondering if I like them multi-coloured like this, or if I should paint them white (after wrapping them)

They are true diaries in that I write every day.
First thing in the morning,
I begin a new page with the date at the top, and then I write whatever is at the top of my mind.
The best ideas are right there when I wake up.
Problems I've solved in my sleep.  Answers to questions.
New decisions that seem urgent.

Journaling is a daily art practice.

When I wrap the journals up like this, they lose the personal moments and become more about time itself.  The exterior textile wrap twists around the book and mimics my rapidly changing mind. Somehow, when the emotion of the interior is represented this way with fabric on the exterior, the book transforms into a textile covered block of time.

If you are interested, the history of this project can be seen first here, and then here.

To what do our lives cling?
Our lives cling to their narrative.        Helene Cixous