In touch

A post about the cloth I've been working on these past two weeks.     

 

I'm adding complete skeins of cotton floss in horizontal rows to a wool patchwork, couching the thick threads firmly through several layers with red sewing thread.  I want to make a texture that you will yearn to touch.

I took it with me to stitch while Ned drove us to visit family in Eastern Ontario and Quebec.  We took the rural roads whenever possible, and there was no snow.

Look.  This happens so often and is not planned.  Suddenly I notice the similarity in what my eyes see and the marks my hands make.   

We visited our twin grand daughters.

They've started to walk!  They eat solid foods with gusto!  They play together.  They love music.

We had a wonderful time with them.  

I want to get in touch with something more mindless, more intuitive.  I'm not clear about the meaning.  Maybe its the spectator who puts the meaning in.  

I don't work from experiences that are fresh.  I tend to repeat things.  I've carried thoughts around in my head for months.  I have a feeling about a form that I want and I want the feeling to develop as far as it can go, and I want my work to be able to stand a lot of inspection.  Vija Celmins

I'm back at home now and continue with this mindless stitching.   I read an old Border Crossings magazine the other day and Vija Celmins was interviewed in it by Robert Enright.  What she said resonated with me so much I had to note her responses into my journal.  In fact, her words inspired me to make this post.  

See Vija Celmins’ art work in the most recent Modernist Aesthetic post.  Click  here.  

My feeling is that when you are not using your brain, you are not necessarily being stupid.  It's just that you're in touch with some other things in yourself.  Then they become brainy. . Because look how we talk about the art afterwards.  We can talk about these pieces in an intelligent way even though the work itself is ..... what is the work like?  I don't know..  I don't know what the work is like.   Vija Celmins

princess or mermaid?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I've been working on my archives.

stitching in car on highway 69 south bound

My archives include photos and papers and actual quilts but this post's text is about my journals.  

(the images in the post are of my recent stitching and grand daughter collaborative drawings)

My journals are 'my book' and I have been writing it for 37 years.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom 

A few years ago I started to type selected journals into the laptop.  

In the beginning,  I bundled up the books and put them back on the shelf.  

See here.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom

However, that wrapping only added to the 'journal clutter' 

that I worry about leaving  behind.  

stitching in car on highway 69 north bound

So now I am giving them to Ned to burn one by one.

I will never finish going through all of them,

but the project remains fascinating to me and I do it an hour each day.

Maybe some year I'll use the notes that are organized chronologically to help me  

write a memoir or an autobiographical novel about being a mother artist.

loss / beauty /our exhibition

There's a beautiful exhibition going on right now, miles away from me.  It's called In the Middle of the World and I'm really proud of the work in it and how it is installed.  

It feels a bit strange though, to have my work up on display there, and yet continue on with ordinary life here on Manitoulin.  

"There is such a shock after a show.  A show is an experience and after a show the artist is a different person.  He/she moves on.  So does the work."  

Louise Bourgeois said that in 1976.  It's how I'm feeling.

The exhibition is a two-person one with my colleague and good friend, Penny  Berens, who lives in Nova Scotia.  Penny and I discussed our work and how and where it would be shown with Miranda Bouchard, a free-lance curator who lives, as I do, in northern Ontario.  We both leaned on Miranda for layers of support.  

I wrote about Penny Berens's beautiful wall pieces on my Modernist Aesthetic blog.  Go see. 

 

I wrote about my sculptural textiles on Judy's Updates.  Go see that too, please.   I included my poetic artist statement in with the images, so that it would seem as if you are listening to someone read it into your head as you move through the exhibition.

let it all go 

the small middling tall bigger really the biggest and all things

let them go dear.

so comes love.

ee cummings 
 

All the images are from Manitoulin Island, taken from car windows during a drive with my husband last Sunday.  The stitching I had in my lap is a new piece, I don't know what it is about.  

magic break

 we took off for 6 days into the colour

 stayed in hotels, had nice dinners

 listened to an audio book

 talked

 it was a break

 it felt like we were in our own time capsule

 just the two of us, specks in this awesome world

I stitched,
looked out the car window

This is your life, dear friends. 

Meet it with bravery and with great love. 

Lenore Tawney 1992

winter in Canada

stitched in car again today

driving northern ontario

These photos are of northern Ontario, all of them taken through the car window.
We were married in Thunder Bay on a beautiful September day and we drove back there last weekend in celebration of our long marriage.     45 years

my maia quilt

Recently, I've been putting my stitching time into the baby quilt.
I've been using red thread to outline the applique shapes and also to quilt in a dense pebble grid.

The texture of this piece is the most important thing.
Those applique shapes are velvet.. the grey and tan shapes dyed with plants.

It's an easy project to work on when I am traveling - not too big.
6 months so far of work on this piece
(the baby is 15 months and walking)

We visited our Toronto babies over the weekend.

Finally the ice is melting, and I photographed it from the car window
when we drove north and home.

The ice patterns remind me of the applique shapes
in my maia quilt,

 

and the texture of the stitching
reminds me of nature's way with small repeated marks.

Big sister liked the velvet dots on the quilt
and sang to them as she touched them one by one.

'watch the water glitter with excitement.

when we cut below the silver skin of the surface

the center retains its fluidity'

C.D. Wright