time

a time to be born and a time to die
a time to plant and a time to uproot

a time to tear down and a time to build

a time to weep and a time to laugh
a time to mourn and a time to dance

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them
a time to embrace and a time to refrain

a time to search and a time to give up
a time to keep and a time to throw away

a time to tear and a time to mend
a time to be silent and a time to speak

a time to love
a time for peace

there is a time for everything
and a season for every activity under heaven                ecclesiastes 3:1-8

grand mum and aili  (us)

the stitching in this post are the 5 quilts that will show in this year's
world of threads festival...opening soon

four are on my new work blog, the fifth is Maia's quilt  Feel Invincible, Sweetheart

what if you dreamed?

what if you slept?
and what if, in your sleep, you dreamed?

and what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and plucked a strange and beautiful flower?

and what if, when you awoke

you had the flower in your hand?
ah, what then?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

images are of the back of this piece   

recently I have been making white quilts

 

 

 

 I looked at three of them last week.

 

 

Anything that slows us down is a spiritual practice. 

the left leg moving forward

I make quilts as a way to understand myself.
I start with my own experience and my own dream world.
If you find connections with your experience or your dream world through my work, then I have succeeded in something very special.

My life, my dreams,those moments hidden in every day life, all rise up as I stitch.

I consider things from the point of view of a mother.

Beauty makes us human.
Beauty makes us more aware of what we could do and be.
We are bound together by beauty  (this is an abigail doan idea)
Images in this post are of a new piece that I personally find beautiful.

I stitched it throughout most of 2017, and the handling of it, the looking at it, the touching it repeatedly, made me very happy.  It put me into my dream world then, and it still does when I run my hands and eyes over it.

The Cloud In Me.  New organic cotton with old and new velvet reverse applique.  Washed and dried seven times.  The dark velvet cloth that fills the random holes was a gift, fifty years old at least and some of it dis-integrated in the laundry and was replaced with younger stuff.  The areas of bleeding from the nine dots of pink silk have left a rosy stain in the centre of the piece.  The scribbled loopy lines that catch and distract my eye and fingers just the right amount are embroidered, yes, but they are also quilting stitches and work just as hard to hold the piece together as does the close hand stitched grid. 

(The Cloud In Me here)

On my walk today I noticed that I still need to chant my steps.

I used to be able to think about other things during this daily walk,
but I am lame since this happened.  I use a cane.  I still have pain.

The left leg moves forward and I count until I get to 100.
Then I stop and stand.  I breathe deeply, and then step to 100 again.
Yesterday I did 400 steps forward, and then came home, 400 more,

Does the huge amount of stitching I do disassociate me from my body?
So that instead of healing me, (as I have claimed) it allows me to ignore my leg
.
I stitch by my window where it is comfortable, legs up, and watch the birds.
I go into my day dream mind.
My repetitive yet very intelligent hand comforts me as it caresses the cloth
I feel at such peace.
yes, I ignore my body for a while.

The birds come to the feeder.
The snow melts.

The repeated touching of hand stitch connects to a dream world of emotions.

We each have an immensity within and quilts help us dream.

primordial faith

phenomenology is not a theory, it is a practice

have 'primordial faith' (merleau ponty)

have faith in my own perceptual experience

perceiving is not theoretical

this is just how it is

this is just how I experience it

a primordial dimension of experience

phenomenology does not replace everything that has gone before

it just tests it

phenomenology is lived experience

not denying anything

just clarifying

believing in the world

including myself in the world

sensuous

not forgetting

letting my heart break

things keep happening

sometimes it is confusing

whenever I don't know what to do

I look at the sky

it is accessible all the time

the tenderness, the beauty

We drove north on the back roads

 I stitched.

Our new baby :three days old above, six days old below

art is not about art.  art is about life.
Louise Bourgeois

enfolded

a gift of time - linen wrapped clover
yesterday, today, and tomorrow

the small white cloths represent my daily walk
(before I lost the ability to do that walk)

last winter and spring I was making a piece about the importance for me of my daily walk on our country road
every day that I did that walk, I placed a square of white cloth into a basket

the white sweet clover is from our property
it grows along the beach and we consider it a weed
it smells so beautiful
it is as tall as me
the smell increases as the plant dries

art is a connecting force in our lives
it connects high-low, human-earth
it connects what we understand and what we don't
for ourselves and for others

my broken leg was a gift.
it gave me time and solitude
I didn't go anywhere for two months except to hospital or dr. appointment
I stayed on one level
I started going up and down (just 5) stairs on July 20, seven weeks after I broke that left leg

I stepped backwards into more space and less worry

what is it to become aware of the body?
it is to acknowledge that presence of death in life.
not a binary opposite but
enfolded at its very centre.  penina barnett

daily life and the news
they close us down
art opens us up again
we need art as much as we need food and shelter

these little bundles
about loss
about my body
about healing

bundled, wrapped, bandaged
step step step