Harmony and Polly and Regina, oh my

Grey Scale I by Polly Apfelbaum,
marker on silk/rayon velvet, 60 x 37 inches,  2015

 

Ned and I went to the National Gallery of Canada to view Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction when we were in Ottawa last February.  

Grey Scale detail, marker on silk/rayon velvet, by Polly Apfelbaum, USA

This is the important exhibition that you have probably read about online.  It debuted in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in September 2023, and then travelled first to the National Gallery in Washington DC in the spring of 2024, and then to Canada in late 2024 until the end of February 2025.  The exhibition is scheduled to open at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York in April. (April 20 - September 13 2025. ) 

Syaw (Fishnet) by Regina Pilawuk Wilson,
acrylic paint on canvas, 48 x 79 inches, 2011

Fishnet (detail) by paint on canvas by Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Australia

The exhibition was beautifully installed in our spacious national gallery.    

I was familiar with Regina Pilawuk Wilson's work as I own the catalogue for the Marking the Infinite exhibition.  It was great to see this painting face to face.  I really appreciated understanding with my body that that this painting is as large as one of my quilts.  (48 x 79 inches) 

Pink Weave, by Harmony Hammond, USA
 oil and cold wax medium on canvas, 24 X 24 inches, 1974 

Harmony Hammond   is a recognized artist in a wide variety of materials, and has, through out her 50 year career,  privileged textiles in her work.   I find it interesting that of all her work, the curators chose these two oil/wax paintings to represent her contribution to abstract art.  

Grey Grid, by Harmony Hammond, USA
oil and cold wax medium on canvas, 20.5 x 20.5 inches, 1974 

These two paintings by Harmony Hammond along with the velvet piece, Grey Scale I, by Polly Apfelbaum, (who is no slouch in the art world either, btw,) expand the thinking of those of us who unconsciously put art into categories.  Why? I wonder.  Polly Appelbaum's audacious idea to use permanent marker on sensuous silk rayon velvet gives me such pleasure.  (see top photo of this post)    

Untitled #8 by Agnes Martin,
india ink, graphite and gesso on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 1977 

Untitled #8 by Agnes Martin, A Canadian who worked in the USA for most of her career.

It's rare to see an Agnes Martin piece in real life.  

I love that her pencil drawing is so much larger than the Harmony Hammond cold wax pieces.  That's one of the main reasons I like to go to art galleries.  The scale and the texture of the work can only be understood when you stand face to face with it. 

(By the way, the above artwork is not included in the beautiful catalogue, although two other Agnes Martin pieces are.  This makes me wonder if each installation of the exhibition is slightly different.)  

Floor Pieces II, III, and VI by Harmony Hammond,
acrylic on fabric, dimensions variable, 1973

Floorpiece by Harmony Hammond, paint on linen that has been braided  USA

I looked carefully at these floor pieces to see what had been painted and what had not been painted.  

In this post, I am showing some of the artists who created work that highlights the idea of domestic textile methods, (woven cloth, braided rug, pieced quilt) with fine art techniques (painting, drawing).

I plan to write another post about this exhibition.  If you are near New York City this summer, I hope that you will visit the MOMA and walk through this beautiful exhibition.    

we have hardly begun, we are already here

tiny red hearths 

she was born 2014, the quilt was finished in 2016

velvet shapes

she was born 2017, quilt was finished 2018

cotton pinwheels

she was born 2020

quilt not finished yet.  Pictured are front and back, hand pieced.

the 10 year old.

the seven year old

the almost four year old.  

indulge me

Poet in Love

He seems to me equal to gods that man who opposite you

sits and listens close to your sweet speaking 

and lovely laughing -- oh it

puts the heart in my chest on wings

for when I look at you, a moment, then no speaking

is left in me

no: tongue breaks, and thin

fire is racing under skin

and in eyes no sight and drumming

fills ears

and cold sweat holds me and shaking 

grips me all, greener than grass

I am dead -- or almost

I seem to me.

Fragment 31, Sappho

I received this white whole cloth quilt that was beginning to rot away from passage of time.  The back was the worst with big holes and disappeared batting so first I covered the back all over with new batting, some of which was not batting at all but a felting material (pre-felt) and then I added a layer of silk and rayon squares that had been dyed and then marked in the centres, all odd sizes, with large circles.  And then after that, on the other side, I added easter egg shapes of silk velvet and then I quilted the piece, echoing and renewing the earlier maker’s thick blue thread only I used a pinkish avocado thread instead. 

We used it on our bed during that velvet egg patching time and the colours were so very bright because they were from the pandemic dye experiments my artist daughter mixed up and the colours – well the colours were like spring and gave a renewal feeling of softness to that side.  When I quilted it, echoing the interesting and beautiful whole cloth pattern from the original, I went through the velvet and the original quilt and then it was done.  I washed and dried the thing in the machines – subjecting it to life and a kind of drowning death and then rebirth and oh wow, the pre-felted parts reacted and shrank and turned it into something older, or perhaps I mean more human.  The amazing texture in the now quite misshapen quilt, is no longer usable as a bed quilt but too interesting to not look at and touch. 

I look at it and think I want to wrap myself in this weird courage – this cloak of resilience and mistakes and time past and isolation-colour experiments. An object originally made by a woman I do not know but I admire nevertheless, a cloak from the pandemic when we didn’t know what we were doing or what would come next, when I was so afraid, but poured my fear and desire to protect my family into this cloth of many colours.   A softer than soft quilt.  An emotional cover up.  A close listener to my sweet speaking and lovely laughter and my breath.

I think of my quilts as poems, and for me, this one is like Sappho’s fragment 31, her love poem that describes how she falls apart when she looks at the beloved.  How she is greener than grass and also feels dead.  Her tongue breaks and fire races under her skin and in her eyes no sight and in her ears drumming and cold sweat holds her and shaking grips her. "Greener than green I am and dead, or almost I seem to me."

And how this quilt fell apart, dead or almost – but now it is greener than grass on the inside.  Dull on the outside, bright in the inside.  Your sweet speaking.  Your lovely laughing.  

I am not the original maker of this quilt, but I followed her lead and quilted along her beautiful lovely laughing lines, I listened to and then enhanced her sweet speaking.  I made something that is greener than green but also wrecked.  Something to wrap around a poet.  Something to represent a poet.  A poet in love.  A poet’s bittersweet dream cloak.

Fragment 31 is perhaps Sappho's most famous poem.  In this post it is translated from the original Greek by Anne Carson.  Fragment 31 was a key reference in Carson's long essay about the creative space of yearning, of not knowing but wanting to know and being in love with that erotic wooing or seeking, that human lovers and artists and thinkers are familiar with.  Eros the Bittersweet, was selected by the modern library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time.

lucky pillow and pinwheel quilt

 

I put one of my embroideries into a pillow and called it the Lucky Pillow because seven is a lucky number and my granddaughter turned 7 last week.  

I finished it on the drive to Toronto to visit the family.

The seven year old has a 3 year old little sister and they play together.  Here they are playing with the small quilt that I am making for little sister.

It's made from hand pieced pinwheels, one of my favourite ways to place half square triangles together.  To up the playful feeling of my hand dyes, I visited local quilt shops and purchased some new printed fabrics for this wee quilt intended for a new person.  (she's only the ripe old age of 3)   

Suvi's quilt is one of the hand work projects I took with me to Mexico.  I loved being able to put the pieces into a baggie and sew it on the plane using a thread cutter rather than scissors or take the baggie with me to the beach or pool.  In the above photo, I am putting a nine-patch of pinwheels together in the lobby of the resort during a period of waiting for one of our families to arrive.  

I prepared this project beforehand with rotary cut squares that were machine pieced together with a single diagonal line.  I cut off half of the tiny square and discarded that part, then pressed the squares open.

It is a very portable and cheerful project.

   

This baby quilt is one of two hand work projects I took to Mexico, the other one being the one patch quilt I wrote about last week.

I keep looking at it on the wall because I am cautious about using too much red fabric.  I want a light as air feeling that's interesting far away and close up.  

  

The lucky pillow as a hat for grandad.

the pinwheel quilt.  xo

let my heart out

 I think I'm finished with mending this old quilt. 

It's on our bed, helping us through the winter nights.

I've put strips of white velvet to cover the worn out edges. 

Velvet is now the first thing you touch when you pull the blanket up,

and if your hand strays a bit over the surface, it finds a velvet egg shape the size of an adult hand.    

Just the right size to make you think, eyes shut, 

in the middle of the night, that the whole thing is velvet.  

That you are covered over with softness.

It's very luxurious.  It's dreamy.

I didn't use a pattern to organize the large dotted mends.

I just began covering the worn out cloth, hole by hole.    

I think it might be art. 

I know that it's a dream cloth.  

It's thick and puffy,

unusual for me. 

It has heft.  

I put new cloth into an old worn out thing with the intent of giving it new life.

Egg shapes.  Bright colour.  Easter stories.

Eggs symbolize the greatest of mysteries. 

Last year, when the pandemic was still young and there was so much fear,

I mended this same white whole cloth quilt's other side with a layer of wool batt 

and a layer of silk fabrics dyed with avocado stones.

I just laid them over the wrecked quilt and followed the blue stitching lines to attach them.    

Images of that other side are here.   

We have been sleeping very well because of this quilt.    

We feel cared for.

It is unusual for me to make such large marks without planning their placement on a design wall. 

I found the holes to cover one at a time with the quilt in my lap.    

I had to trust.  

I can't be afraid.

I am unafraid.

The problems we are facing in this world are so large.  They are immense.

I am so sorry.

I want to work and work and mend and mend.

I want to bring softness and hope to our lives.  Our ordinary lives.  Our precious lives.

My hands help me let my heart out unblocked by my mind.

I need to be immediate.  I need to cover big areas with softness and newness and touch. 

I am connecting something old to something new and I am being brave and it is becoming gentle.    

And my love is poured out upon the earth. 

Gaea