a pilgrimage

pilgrimage:  noun

a journey made to some sacred place as an act of devotion

a visit made to a place that is considered special, where you go to show your respect

I visited the Royal Ontario Museum when I was in Toronto last month.  The main reason to visit was in order to see this quilt, then on display in the special exhibition of  Quilts: Made in Canada.  

I met my brother and Kirsten there.

Pieced Triangles Quilt 1880
  Maker no longer known. 
 Asphodel-Norwood Township, Ontario. 
 Roller-printed cotton, plain weave

Look closely at this quilt: it's made of over 8000 light and dark triangles, each less than 2 centimetres long and hand-stitched together to create an intricate pattern from the smallest scraps.

The patient maker who sewed it worked outwards from the centre, creating a series of rectangular frames that slowly increase to build a quilt.  (wall text)  

I look at the movement of the colours

I sense the amount of time that each triangle took to place.

I appreciate the passage of time that this quilt has remained even though the maker has passed on.

I marvel at the accuracy of the intricate handwork.

I understand this woman.  

My imagination is engaged.

My interior world is entered into.

Her repeated touching reaches me at an intimate, personal level.

The sense of touch is powerful. 

"The impact of art touches something buried deep in embodied memory.  It is a mystery."  

Juhani Pallasmaa 

Red Cross Signature Quilt 1918

 this stunning antique commemorate's the 100th anniversary of armistice

It was made in 1918 as a fund raiser

nurses paid to have their signatures embroidered on the white cotton

This antique is currently on display at One Sky Gallery in Sudbury until November 11.

It has been used and shows age, but that adds to the poignancy

lest we forget

how to love

I am writing this from Georgian Bay Canada.
Where the rocks are ancient spirals.

And folds.
And they have been here forever
and they shall continue.

And I've been working on the same pieces for months
And I shall continue.

And April and Jordan arrived on my birthday all the way from Chicago, and then they made a cake.

And we went for a sunset boat ride to celebrate.
And the sun continued its journey
And it too shall continue tomorrow
and the next tomorrow too

 

And then the next day April began to work with  a remarkable quilt top
Rescued from a flea market in Wisconsin

And finally,
the centerpiece that Jordan crafted for the birthday dinner
using wildflowers that have grown here forever
and they too shall continue

All these things fill me with gratitude
and tenderness
and wonder
and love.

work in progress

soul is the essence
essence  from within
it is where everything begins

Van Morrison

I look for the poetic in my world of experience and under my own skin.
In my heart.
A recovery of the world through poetics.
A reclaiming of sensory experience, seeing tasting hearing touching
A reclamation of the body.

Adrienne Rich

Above are four vintage ironing pads lined up left to right as they were layerd on the board, bottom to top.

The dark one on the left is natural wool and probably about 90 years old
I think the singed one next to it is also a wool felt.
The third one, also felt, but it might have acrylic mixed with the wool.  It is nearly new.
The last one is a scorch resistent metallic fabric that covers them all.

I've had these since 2006, the year Ned's mother passed.
I could not throw them away
They held something.  They looked like figures.

Maternal stories are forgotten and lost and our culture encourages this amnesia.

What is the poetic meaning held by these old cloths?

time
and heat
and labour and protection
and presenting ourselves neatly to society
and women standing up and bearing down
and daily repetition
and the smell of damp hot wool
and singe marks
and body-size and shape

why would I add red thread?
red thread is often added to domestic cloth as a marker, usually intials
red thread is also a protection element found in traditional world garments

The work of art is like an act of mourning.
Mourning is a way to work through feelings of loss.
All creation is a re-creation of a loved and lost object.

Melanie Klein

the body and the spirit
the self in the center
the layers of time and of labour

Cloth is like the body.
It gets old, it survives, it holds memories and dreams - all at the same time.

 sculpture

 not just pretty little stitching marks

reparation

Soul is what you've been through
What's true for you
Where you going to
What you're gonna do

Van Morrison

finished pieces can be seen here

spirit island

Manitoulin Island is called spirit island.

Manitoulin has a long history of settlement by a spiritual people.

Traces of these people go back at least 10,000 years in the area where I live.

I am allowing the spirit of place to come into my work.

I live on Manitoulin Island and I am white.

The culture that is true to the place where I live is not mine and I keep that in mind.  

The spirit in this land is generous and alive.

I use a hoop to help me hold the cloths I stitch.
When I work at a large scale, I feel as if the hoop helps me to hold the land.
Place and the spirit in the land are held in my lap.

Like each of us, I walk my own path of life story.

I have always lived in northern Ontario and my work reflects the isolation, solitude, big sky and water views that I grew up with and continue to live with. 

 My relationship with this land is that of an immigrant and of a settler.  A Canadian pioneer.

I look to history books, novels and poetry about the time periods in Canada when the settlers came.

I am inspired to work with vintage domestic embroideries and linens and wool blankets because so many of them came over from the old country.

I try to help them and me have a dialog with the land here in northern Canada.

I think about what daily life was like for the women pioneers and look at material objects that might hold history of it.

It takes me a long time to figure out how to honour these old textiles and make them relevant within contemporary thought and aesthetics.

I used the house shape in earlier work and now I use the bundle as metaphors for self and for the women pioneers who came to Canada and specifically, came to Manitoulin.  

I use saved domestic cloths.

I use the idea that all of us look out our windows no matter what our culture.

 All of us look at the full moon and the stars.

All of us stare endlessly at the horizon.


The text and pictures are from the talk I presented last Thursday in London Ontario.
More here.

stitching myself into a dotted line

Andy Goldsworthy said  "whenever possible, I make a work every day.  Each work joins the next in a line that defines the passage of my life, marking and accounting for my time and creating a momentum which gives me a strong sense of anticipation for the future."  

I try to do my best work every day.
I divide myself up yet keep myself together with my work.  At the same time.
My daily walk helps me manage this as I stitch myself to place, yes,
but also stitch myself together with each step.

I walk a line.  It represents time.
I sew a path measured by my own stride.
Each day, each dot, is important because it's another day that I've kept myself together, able to carry on with all my scattered-ness.

That walk gives me a container to wrap my self up in.

providence bay manitoulin island mother's day weekend

The future waits for me on a path not yet marked with my daily dot.

fold lines and silk patchwork

women's vintage handkerchiefs, some cotton, some linen,  unfolded

My dear friend Connie gives me things when I visit her.
Over the winter she gave me a box of handkerchiefs.  Then she gave me another.
I pinned the hankies up to see if they would cover my design wall,
Yes, I think they will.

Then I noticed the beautiful folds.
The hills and valleys, the lines and creases.
Then I thought about how those lines came to be.
Laundry.
Washing, bleaching, ironing, folding carefully, ironing again and again.
Making small packets of empty heat and time.  Holding it secret.
No stitching other than the occasional monogram, which I believe was done in a factory.

I just wanted to make a note of this.  Of me noticing.

Martha Agry Vaughn Quilt 1805  Maine  silk patchwork

I have also been looking at this beauty.
It's giving me a path.
It is in the collection of the Winterthur Museum.