I was here

I really don't know what I want to say about these two new pieces.

It took most of the morning to put them in the shadow-box frames
and then package them up in cardboard to ship.

love meditation: moon and time

One of them is a donation to a fund raising auction for the Thunder Bay art gallery.

The other, a gift.

like all my work, these are personal communications
they are about

who I am
where I live
what I love

they also show how
important time and labour are to me

as both these aesthetics are evident

 watercolour on paper

hand work shows my humanity
the marks are tenuous, wavering,
they demonstrate vulnerability

indigo dye, stitch resist, with hand stitch added 

both these pieces are examples of determination
of will
of a need to complete the task at hand to my best ability

they are both careful work

It  took me a week to
complete this watercolour study of a quilt that I would like to make
some day
Agnes Martin came to mind

 

I keep writing these blog posts about my work.
It seems important to say it.

I was here.

Rowland Ricketts in Toronto

 I spent Sunday with Rowland Ricketts.

 He was in Toronto for five days and the last day was a master class.

The images in this post show his work with stitch resist (above) and rice paste resist (below)

Click here to read Rowland's inspiring story.

Rowland's wife Chimani, wove the 13 metres of 14" wide cotton kimono cloth shown above.
He dyed it with stitch resist.

We learned some of his techniques for stitch resist during the workshop.
Rowland Ricketts is pictured above in front of my stitch resist learning sample

Rowland's teaching sample with the studio's irons

The smell of an indigo vat just as it begins fermenting and springs to life is one of ripeness, a moment of rich potentiality when, as a maker, I momentarily stand between the history of the materials and processes that helped me get the indigo thus far and the promise of all the work that the vat is still yet to realize.  Rowland Ricketts 

I am aware of a connection that leads not just from my teachers to me, but one that reaches back to my teacher's teachers and the people they learned from, back into a past in which the processes I uses were developed through the accumulated experiences of all who have ever worked with this unique dye.   Rowland Ricketts. 

Time Piece

 

 When can we finally tell our stories?

 

And to whom?

 

Or is it better to just remember them?

Here, a stitch resist and indigo memory cloth

the time I've made
which is not a place,
which is only a blur,
the moving edge we live in;
which is fluid
which turns back upon itself
like a wave

Margaret Atwood,
Cat's Eye p 409

this post linked to off the wall friday

looking at the sky

 Looking at the Sky  silk, indigo dye, stitch resist 2010  Judith e Martin

I was going to write about teaching today, but not yet.  Maybe tomorrow.

Today, I just want to think about repetition of mark

about memory and day dream

about birds murmuring

about stars up so high

about connecting outer with inner through these things

and through touch

the b side

 Lake side b  Wool, indigo dye, stitch resist, hand quilting   66" high, 53 " wide, 2014  by Judy Martin

The stitched line, no matter how fluid and organic, bespeaks time.  

It is an actual line, a physical presence, a manifestation of effort and choice.

It is not an illusion, nor the residue of my hand's gesture.  It is itself.    Lou Cabeen 

I put side A of this piece on my new work blog in November 2014.
Please click here . to see it.

the moon and the stars

"Once I was beset by anxiety.
I couldn't tell right from left.
I could have cried out with terror at being lost.
But I pushed the fear away by studying the sky,
determining where the moon would come out

 where the sun would appear in the morning.

 I saw myself in relation to the stars.

I began weeping and knew I was alright." 
text: Louise Bourgeois
images: new work with indigo and stitch

letting the hand lead

For my degree, I have to defend my exhibition work with external examiners. The exam is called a Viva. In the UK, art is very bound up in theory and it's a little ironic that I studied so many Japanese artists for my dissertation. The Japanese do not seem to theorize so much about what they do, but follow their materials and hone their own techniques. In this way, I think that the Japanese are more phenomenological. They let their hands lead rather than their minds. In my own work, I am finding that when I leave the theory at home with the books and go into the studio and just work, I usually find better and more answers then when I start the other way around. (with the theory) Sometimes when I stay home and read theory, I end up mending Ned's jeans and baking brownies.

To the Lighthouse

My mother's favourite novel was To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I listened to it this week while doing these dye processes. There it was - her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attic, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? With a sudden intensity,
as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre.It was done; It was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue,
I have had my vision.

(from the last paragraph of To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf)