drawing with touch

A drawing with thread

framed without glass, sewn to a linen-covered board

and placed on a wall with Tortoise (my sister's acrylic painting)  and the Energy Cloth I made in 2011.

Just looking.

To see an earlier presentation, entirely different,  click here.  

Don't Worry

 

I've been spending quite a bit of time on this picture of red horses.  For some reason,  I feel that I need to finish it before going on to my real work but why did I even start it? Did I think it wouldn't take much time?  Wrong.

Did I think it would be something nice to hang as Christmas decor?  That's a good idea, but it was not the original intent.
It came out of me learning Janet Bolton's methods and seeing a photo of Swedish folk art.
This piece is a break from my abstract work.  A change.
A change is as good as a rest they say.

Maybe it is my don't worry cloth.
Maybe the horses are Ned and I, far away from anyone.  On a hill, with sun  and snow.
In our mid 60's lucky to have each other as life companions, on a timeline.
Too soon we will need to be changed, pushed, listened to.

Making it gives me space away from real life.
Making it gives me time away from real art.

This little thing gives me a place to not worry.

planned freedom

About twenty years ago, I saw large embroideries from India in the Textile Museum of Canada.

 They were so cheerful, colourful, beautiful, and powerful that they hit me in the heart.

 I remember that there was a folk-art quality to them.  I remember miles of chain stitch.

Those cloths were taller than I was, wide enough to cover a bed.
They were completely covered with thread.

 Huge immense spaces of stitched marks.

I get similar heart felt feelings when I visit  English gardens.

My eye and heart eagerly follow the masses of blooms and foliage.
Masses of small unique marks.

There is an aesthetic of labour in both gardens and large embroideries,
There is time.

Gardens and large hand made textiles reach something deep inside us and that feeling is more natural than we can understand.

silk quilt in progress

Work in progress.  120" square.

mother and mothered

I cut up another piece of my own art yesterday and wrapped the parts around themselves. To see what these two pieces looked like before, click here and then here. something to do with mothering, maturing, separation

Update on the Circle Project

Time for an update of the Manitoulin Circle Project.

We are doing fine, thank you. We are still meeting on Thursdays to work together on these four large panels that will eventually hang in the community of Manitoulin.
The third panel is still being pieced. I have it on my pin wall in the studio. The lower half is being created from three inch squares. Horizontal lines in stem stitch are on some. Reverse applique makes the dots.

The second panel is being very densely hand quilted. I'm pleased that new people have joined this fall.
There have been 105 different pairs of hands on these panels.


Oliva was the 100th participant. She came in August.



I've chosen a knitting weight linen thread for the big stitch accent in the central circle. Last week, 'mended world' was rolled twice.

The first panel, Earth Ark, will be professionally photographed this month, and installed in the Little Current United Church on October 30. Stay tuned.

The body knows

Touch is the mother of all senses.


Jay and Erika just left.

painting with stitch

I may be finished with this stitched piece. I'm not sure, but I think so. Maybe it's a vessel.

Earlier view? click here. And here.

akrasia, a new word for me

Why do we fail to carry out what we choose to do?
Akrasia is the inability to carry out what we plan to do. According to Aristotle it has has two parts.
a) weakness of will
b) impetuousness

This information is from the book, The Vehement Passions by Philip Fisher . I'm starting my dissertation research with learning more about the emotions.

I continue to stitch this piece of linen.

stitching in car

Although the plane brought us to Toronto last Thursday, we took our time coming home. South Western Ontario Northern Ontario





Ned drove.

I stitched.

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.

drawing and painting with thread

I'm using two stitches and three weights of cotton thread to render this image of my black dress on a large piece of wool fabric.

With these threads I make evident some of the complex relations between myself and my world that are incommunicable with words. Textile art is process but it is also stuff and this method of mark making is deliberately low tech.
I am a moving thread that is becoming.
I am not who I already think I am.

Quilt Poetics

We read from Radka Donnell's book, A Quilt Poetics today and tonight during art quilting class. I am much nourished by her philosophy and have read this book twice since it came out in 1990.

A Quilt Poetics – Radka Donnell

Quilting is a primal women’s art form related to the intimacy of the bed and to the home.

Cloth is the body’s intimate covering. The bed is the charged site of birth, death and sex. The quilt is tactile and sensual and is itself a charged site.

Now, quilts risk being depersonalized and divorced from their domestic roots. They are so popular they have become trivialized and are just hobby art. We must reclaim the quilt and restore to quilts their original emotional power.

For generations of American women quilts were:
Artistic creation
Therapeutic release
Expression of nurturing
Device for bonding (gifts)
Ritual and sacred markers of major life-cycle events

Reproduction (women’s work) is the magic Mystery.

Accomplishing a ‘carry over’ of emotion into a quilt is a major task, as is creating the space in one’s life to accomplish the work of a quilt.

The World

I do hand stitch every possible morning for three hours in a row. In the evenings, I aim for another three hours. This meditative concentration makes me happy and and the sheer amount of time spent provides results.
A Norman castle with moat.
View of the moat from inside.