Briefly Gorgeous (my mended quilts)

Sunshine and shadow quilt 1987, given to my father for his 70th bithday in 1993
He went horizontal on it throughout the day and wore the fabrics out. 
I began mending it with velvet when I visited him, until he passed away in 2017.
I finished mending it in 2022 and the family loves to use it for comfort.

My sister got married in 1976 and I made her a quilt from new fabrics.  It is my second-ever quilt and is very badly made.  It started to fall apart from age, but also because of my beginner quilt making skills.
I asked her to give it back to me so that I could mend it and plan to use velvet this time too.
I hope to finish it by July as that would mark her 50th anniversary.

 

I Saw A Butterfly is a quilt I made in 1988
and gave to our middle daughter when she went to university.
It became very soft with use and the fabrics and batting were disintegrating, so first I taught her how to mend it, and then I finished mending it myself in 2022.  (with velvet of course)

Sometimes I mend quilts that I didn't make myself, and that is the case for this one.  It was a white whole cloth quilt, beautifully stitched with thick blue thread in a hearts and flowers pattern.  
I replaced the distingrated batting with two kinds of wool batting, one of which would felt, and I also replaced the white backing with a rayon and silk one dyed with plants.  
Poet in Love, mended 2022

There were many holes in the quilt and so I covered them with large brightly coloured velvet circles and ovals.  When I quiltedthe piece, I followed the original blue threads.  And then put the piece into the washer and the distortion happened. 
Poet in Love  Mended (or something like that) in 2022 

I made the dresden plates in the early 80's, probably 1982, and appliqued them to a white background made from old sheets.  We used the long rectangular quilt as a lawn blanket for sun bathing for a long time but when the white background fell apart, I unpicked the plates and appliqued them to squares of naturally dyed wool and silk.  I like how the plates are so faded and pastel, they are remnants from my high school and newly-wed sewing projects.  Those that disintegrated have been replaced with, you guessed it, velvet.  I finished mending You are a Single Star in 2024.

We've been using You Are a Single Star on our bed, and it has been lovely.  Large and heavy.

But just this week I discovered that the backing cloth is wearing out.  
The backing cloth is an old damask table linen that was mailed to me from a Canadian textile artist who was decluttering her studio.  I loved it because of its softness, and that quality gave me the title for my Festival of Quilts exhibition in 2024, Softer and Dreamier.  Now, I see that the backing cloth is fading away.  It is disappearing. 

But part of the reason why I think that quilts are such an important and profound art medium is because they are like the human body and will not last forever.  The fact that they carry their own death with them all the time, even while they care for my loved ones and are so beautiful while doing that, is what makes them authentic and meaningful for me.

Quilts are, to borrow from novelist Ocean Vuong, who wrote the exquisite book in 2019,
 Briefly Gorgeous.   
When I mend quilts, I am continuing the work of these visible, touchable documents about care.
I may be able to extend the life of them for 50 years or so if I used new cloth,
but cloth eventually gets old and wears out, no matter what we do.

Remembrance

Floating World by Linda Finn   acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 inches

This post is dedicated to the memory of Northern Ontario artist, Linda Finn.   (1945 - 2025)    obituary here

It's also about some other late artists from northern Ontario Canada, a place I have lived for over 30 years.   I feel that each of them worked very hard to support art and artists in our beautiful, spread-out community.  I’m writing this post to  sing out their names with respect.  

Linda Finn's paintings, prints and assemblages were a constant at the Perivale gallery  here on Manitoulin. I sought out her innovative work whenever I visited the gallery.  

The War Letters Project in the Art Gallery of Sudbury  
'April 1917' is on the back wall.  Screen print on bible pages, acrylic on paper , photo etching and lithographs on paper, assembled in 2007 by Linda Finn

In 2017, Linda Finn had a solo show at the  Art Gallery of Sudbury and displayed The War Letters Project. an ongoing body of work that she had begun in 2007.  The project included a wide variety of art pieces; assemblages, paintings, prints and book-works and toured to eleven Ontario galleries over a period of years.  

detail of Linda Finn's assemblage of bible pages printed with repeated images of a soldier 

Each piece in the project started from letters that Linda's grandmother Essie received from soldiers over the two world wars.  The artworks are all shown with better photos on Linda's website (here).  While there, you might be interested in the 20 minute video (The Old Tin Box) that tells the story of this project.  

Essie's letter, monoprint with chine colle on paper, 2008 (detail) by Linda Finn

Now, I want to take a moment to mention three other artists who I personally mourn.  Each of them reached out to me and made me feel part of the art community of northern Ontario when our family moved to Manitoulin from Kenora in 1993.  I looked to them as mentors, although they were only a few years older than me.  They developed their careers before the internet which means that online images of their work are rare.  I’ve provided each artist with two links however, and more information and some images can be found if you click. 

 I apologize if this post seems too personal or dark.  Death is not talked about much.  But you know, I feel that I’m not actually saying enough about these friends of mine when I consider all that they have done for Canadian art.  I’m just naming them.  

Ann Suzuki   (died 2021)   her obituary here

ear hear earth heart by Ann Beam, acrylic on paper, 24 x 30 inches

Ann Beam     (died 2024)   her website here     

Ray Laporte   (died 2022)   his obituary here

My friends.  Remembered here.   I miss them and continue to be inspired by each of them.  

Now, in the spirit of memory and joy,  may I show you the prayer cloth that I finished last night?  

Perhaps it is more of a play cloth.  The transferred painting was done by my middle daughter, Grace, when she was five years old.  She painted the mermaid and the merman on paper which I then transferred with a hot iron to polyester fabric. I was teaching this kind of art in the schools at the time and we used the technique at home for birthday party t-shirt-making and the like.  The heart at the bottom was painted just once, then ironed three times onto the cloth, each time getting a little fainter.  I will be seeing Grace this weekend and will give her the quilt.  I think that the twins can use it for their dolls.  

Mermaid Quilt by Judy Martin,
heat transfer on polyester, dyed velvet, hand stitched, 28 x 33.5 inches  2025,
original painting by Grace Martin when she was five years old

dream, earth, luck, moon, soul

dream

Beginning again.  

Beginning in the middle.

Here is my sewing.

earth

Art is about relationships.

earth (other side)

Art may seem as if it is about nature or beauty, but it is about love.

luck

The more I study art, the more I realize this.    

luck (other side)

Because love is caring.  

moon

Some call it wonder.

patience

 Some use the term 'unselfing'.     (here is a link)

patience (other side) 

In order to do my own unselfing I take risks with materials.

And then I make things from what has become wrecked.     

rose

It helps me make sense of being alive.  

rose (other side) 

I have so many things to say right now, that I am not able to say anything.  

That's why I am beginning in the middle.  Here is some sewing.

Here are some of the small wool and velvet bundles I made during July.     

soul

I've been to Great Britain. Lots to say about that.  some of it here.

I'm going to Nova Scotia.  The reason is an exhibition, mentioned here.

Women sew as a substitute for words. 

Conversation with Susan Sontag in my mind

Me:  When I think about my work, I can't think of any reason to do it. 

         I can't think of any meaning to what I'm doing in it.

Only when I don't think about the meaning of it, or the value of it, or the importance of it, can I enjoy my work.

And I do enjoy my work.

Susan:  When we ask ourselves a question for a long while without getting a satisfactory answer, there is usually something wrong with the question.

Humans didn't ask art to justify itself until the late 19th century.  We didn't ask art to be useful or practical. 

Useful, necessary activities are different from voluntary, playful, dreamy ones.

Let's say that  practicing an art is the second type of activity.  Let's say that is why we are drawn to it.

Then it is a mistake to be demoralized because we can't justify it for not being the first type of activity..  It fails to be a number one type of activity, but it is not supposed to be.

The qualities of being voluntary and being free are what drew us to making art in the first place.  When we try to make art a number one activity we start to doubt our worth.  The worth of the activity and also our own personal worth.  It's demoralizing. 

Vagueness is not only a condition for art and for literature.

Vagueness is a condition for any life of the mind.

Vagueness is necessary for humanity.

As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh:  Journals and Notebooks 1964 - 1980                                                                                                          of Susan Sontag edited by her son David Rieff. 

Not from the Real World

Yesterday,  I woke up and spread my Dresden plate quilt on the table.

Then I made a schedule for the five days I have before the Birmingham festival of quilts show is picked up from my house on Manitoulin  Island, Canada for delivery to England.

Saturday June 22:   Mend these Dresden Plate appliques with velvet. 

Sunday 23 - Wash and block this large quilt.  Finish making all display sleeves.  

Monday 24 - Make a list of the fourteen pieces.  Include measurements, insurance values and updated titles and send it to the organizers.  Finish all remaining sewing.  Begin folding quilts with tissue paper and plastic bags.  Start packing the boxes.  

Tuesday June 25 - Finish boxing up the exhibition with care.  Label everything. 

Wednesday June 26-  The boxes will be picked up between 10 am and 5 pm.

At the moment, the exhibition is stacked on chairs around the house.    

I've worked so hard for this solo show.  I've worked 10 hours a day for over a year.  

I've been able to do it by working on three different pieces each day for one week, and then switching to three new ones the following week.  I've had to abandon a few that I just couldn't finish.

Most of the pieces are large scale. Most are very simple, and have grids of dots or circles.

They are abstract, folk-like.  They are not representational.

Not from the real world.  Not from the news.

The quilts in this exhibition seem to be a throw back to a simpler time.   

The quilts in this exhibition speak the traditional language of quilts.  

They use traditional patterns.  They use fabrics that come to hand such as sewing scraps, repurposed domestic fabrics, and pieces of clothing.

The fabrics in the Dresden Plate quilt have faded.  Some of them are worn out and need replacing.  Why?  They are all at least fifty years old.  The fabrics in the applique's are from my high school and early marriage sewing projects.  I unpicked the circles from the worn white cotton that was the original background of a quilt I made as a bride, and placed them onto new squares of silk, linen, or lightweight wool cloth.  

I remember that sensuous time in my youthful life every time I touch one of those fabrics.

Now, touching the velvet replacement patches will send me off into a different kind of dream world.  

I look forward to sleeping with this quilt once the show is done.  The new title of the Dresden Plate quilt is You are a Single Star.

C.G. Jung called the circle and square combination a metaphor for the inner life.

different perspectives

The view from a moving train is different from that on a platform, although the two viewers may be within meters of each other.  The experience is different in so many more ways than vantage point.

The noise, the speed, the shaking, the momentum, the humidity, the voices of fellow passengers, the smell, the temperature, the path traveled prior to that point, swamp the  experience of the train traveler.  Glancing at the person on the platform, how can we begin to see through their eyes?

Cultural clashes are like that.  but this relativism is a truth for all humans.  Even those who share the same culture, the same house, the same family, have starkly different experiences.  We are each on our own train and our views are peculiar to our own experiences.

But we crave understanding.  We need it for our survival.  As social beings we collaborate to solve problems that confront us all.  Wherever we are born and whatever language we speak there is a field of inherent questions that arises as a natural outcome of life.

What are we?
What should we do?
What of birth and death?
And no matter the diverse social constructs that form our reality, the answers from one lone traveler can always intrigue and be of use to another.

This is the spore that art can carry.  At the same time that we are never able to truly empathize with another human being, we can share at a deep level around the absolute pillars of existence that are not socially determined:  We are born.  We may love.  We will die.

At a time that even gravity is not a constant, our shared biological and neurological truths are common and infinitely unchanging.

The amazing text in this post is by Will Stubbs and is from his essay,  "art of the artless"  about the artist Nyapanyapa Yunupingu in the book Marking The Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, catalogue for the exhibition curated by Henry F Skerritt.

The images are of  my new piece, Noble Tenderness, a different perspective of my Awakened Heart.  I packed it up gently and brought it to Toronto last week to deliver to Karen from Guildworks gallery, Prince Edward County Ontario.

There is also an image of a walk in the park near where my grand children live in the city.

Love You

Feel Invincible Sweetheart  2018  gift for Maia Wren Martin, born January 19, 2017

Festive greetings from our house to yours.
If I could give one gift, it would be this.  To each of you.

TIME

the most valuable thing. 
Thank you all who read this blog.
Love you xoxo