World of Threads installations and weaving from the USA, Spain, Finland and Canada

Pacific Ocean by Bonnie J Smith, California USA

Indigo dyed  cloth and thread 

While walking along the shore every day I gaze to the west and view the vastness and beautiful Pacific Ocean.   

My thoughts while creating this installation were for the viewer to love the Pacific Ocean as much as I do.  My belief is that when someone loves something they will also want to take care of it.

Ecologically all oceans represent what is happening on this earth.  Let us keep them in great shape for future generations.  Bonnie J. Smith

Hand Woven Tapestries by Anna Kocherovsky from Michigan USA.  Anna used wool, linen, cotton and metallic threads for all these pieces.  

Pictured above:  Travel Diary, Fox and the Forest (two panels). Star Light, Star Bright

Star Light, Star Bright by Anna Kocherovsky 

The Memory of Nature  Jaizkibel III by Lourdes Elizalde from Basque Country, Spain

Handwoven tapestry, plain weave and soumak technique, wool, cotton, silk threads

Inspired by my love and concern for Mother Nature, my desire is to express an intimate, joyful and deep sensation.  Climb those cliffs, enter their hollows, feel the sun on your back and the humidity in the shadiest areas.  Touch the roughness and feel the softness of the sandstone slipping through your hands.   

detail of  Memory of Nature by Lourdes Elizalde

installation by Theda Sandiford from Jersey City, USA.

(made from black zip ties and library ladders)

Her statement:  Racial gaslighting hides in plain sight in everyday conversations.  It subtly shifts dialogue from a raciesst topic at hand onto me, the accuser, forcing me to question and re-assess my response to racism, rather than racism itself.  "are you sure it was about race?"  "I'm sure he/she/they didn't mean it like that."  These comments are a convenient way for people to avoid uncomfortable conversations about race.  The questioning, twisting, and undermining of my truth, manifests in insomnia and anxiety.  In this installation, zip tie blankets draped on library ladders expose the sting of micro-aggressions to dispose of this trauma.

Laurentian Forest

installation by Ixchel Suarez from Oakville, Ontario

cotton, silk, wool, linen, jute, tulle, rope, raffia, human hair, all hand stitched

The soft sculptures presented in Laurentian Forest interconnect trees, forests, and our bodies, visually weaving human-nature bonds.  They reflect on time's juxtaposition with nature, mirroring our evolving, aging, and transient existence within the natural world.  This art prompts contemplation of impermanence and fragile beauty.  It serves as a visual narrative bridging time and nature, inviting viewers ot escape into the timeless harmony between them.  Ixchel Suarez

The Pure Soul in a Dream by Paivi Vaarula, Finland

One morning I woke up and the shade of a dream was still floating in my mind.  There was this person with such a pure soul.  I just had to translate that into a textile.  I chose transparent and white wool yarns and woe these wings to reflect the dream I had.  

Handwoven on a floor loom, the folds  were stabilized by steaming.

 Time of Joy by Paivi Vaarula from Hameenlinna, Finland

Everyday life consists of joys and sorrows.  In this work, I interpret those moments of joy.  My starting point was the joyful times with my sons.  I dyed the yarns with natural dyes, wove the fabric with a traditional floor loom and steamed the folds to stabilize the form.

World of Threads in Oakville, Ontario Canada, is on view until January 14, 2024.  

Itchiku Kubuta : Symphony of Light

chou / the first blush of winter (detail) by Itchiku Kubuta 

I went to see the Itchiku Kubota exhibition at the textile museum last weekend, not prepared for the awe I was to experience.

Symphony of Light: Seasons by Itchiku Kubuta
Ryou/Certitude 1986,  Kuo / Change 1986 and Hin / Nostalgia 1987
tie-dyeing, ink painting, embroidery on silk crepe

Itchiku Kubuta (1917 - 2003) apprenticed with a dyer who specialised in hand painting and resist dyeing when he was 14 years old and established his own studio 5 years later (age 19).  The following year, while visiting a museum, he saw a fragment of Tsujigahana dyed kimono silk from the Maromachi period (16th century) that inspired him for the rest of his life.

Symphony of Light: Seasons
Hou / Late autumn melencholy 1987,  Kou / Twixt autumn and winter 1989, Ei / Unexpected Snow 1989
 and Sei / blue Trace of hope in sudden snow  1989,
tie dyeing, ink painting, embroidery on silk crepe

"it carried a quality that was plaintive and mysterious.  I continued to look at that small piece of fabric, as if placed under a spell, for over three hours"  Itchiku Kubata

He devoted himself to reviving this ancient dyeing method, and eventually succeeded in 1981.   

Symphony of Light by itchiku Kubuta
Chou / The  First Blush of Winter 1986 and Kan / Never Ending Snowfall
tie-dyeing, ink painting, embroidery on silk crepe

He wanted to create panoramic visions of the subtle but swift passage of time and nature through the seasons and decided to create 80 kimonos that would connect to each other, sleeve to sleeve as a continuous canvas.

He was 63 years old when he began.

Itchiku Kubuta completed twenty-nine kimono for autumn and winter and five for the universe before he died at 86.  An additional two for the universe were created by his assistants posthumously.

Symphony of Light: The Universe  by Itchiku Kubuta 

It's his vision that I find awesome and humbling.
He started his larger than life project with no hesitation about his own mortality....as if he truly felt that he had all the time in the world. 

His canvas references the human form in the kimono shapes, connecting to each other, arm to arm.

Each is made one at a time over a lengthy period of time....going through multiple laborious steps.

It is grand.  They are sublime.

There is a museum in Japan devoted to this man.

The website shows the Symphony of Light kimonos in a continuous line.  click here.

Ohn
Mount Fuji Against Golden Layers of Clouds  2000 by Itchiku Kubuta
tie-dyeing, ink painting, embroidery on silk crepe

Kubota also created individual kimono.
Three of his Mount Fuji kimonos were on display.

detail of Ohn by Itchiku Kubuta

Frank Stella said:

"I don't like to say I have given my life to art.

 I prefer to say that art has given me my life"

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. 

starry night

Starry Night (detail above) hand stitched plant-dyed wool and silk.  2012

This piece showed in the 32nd quilts = art = quilts at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Centre in Auburn New york in 2012.  It sold. 

It was still a baby.
Just hatched, left the nest.
These images are to give the piece some web-time. 

This blog is immediate, I can do it myself.
But it is a journal.
The references to family, environment and personal emotions give context to my work, but take away from a professional presentation. 
Nothing since 2009 is on my 'real' web site and sincere plans to update that get buried in the whirl of it all.
So for now...here it is.

memory cloth

Last November I visited Canada's textile museum in Toronto and saw this raffia skirt from Cote d'Ivoire, Africa.

Made by Dida women, the fabric is raffia woven without a loom, dyed with plants and marked very beautifully with tied resist.

posted here so that I don't forget this very real object

grace

 To remind her about the lake at home, when the moon is full

 To repeat and repeat that I love her

To advise that life is imperfect, beautiful, risky, brief

Visit here for more about this new piece.

starry night

 Natural light behind dyed and stitched wool  

Starry Night, hung in a window.

All the imperfections are enhanced

Packed off for exhibition.  Click here for more details on that.

stitch meditation

Those I care about are going through major life changes.

This is a new piece.

heart absolutely

roses. you keep giving them, they keep fading and dying anyway, but they are beautiful for a short time.

dyed and marked, layered, used, stitched, removed, painted, layered, stitched again,

12 hours of stitching time, 12 more hours, 12 more hours, hours and hours.... the layers of wool change into a single piece of wool and I continue and continue.