where do your ideas come from?

What a huge question

The first thing that comes to mind is that my ideas come from MY LIFE.

It is the most obvious answer.  But our lives are so immense aren't they?  

answer:  Place
a)   the environment I currently live in and experience is a source of ideas.  It is awesome to live in Northern Ontario.  Driving to Manitoulin from any direction places me between rock cuts and close to clear lakes.
And Manitoulin Island is full of spirit.  I seek solitude here.  It is quiet with water horizon views.  
Also the SKY is a source of ideas.  Moon, sun, stars, clouds, blue-ness, hugeness, above-ness.

b)
where I grew up, a farm in North Western Ontario, with big fields and a spectacular lone elm tree.
I always felt isolated there.
My parents and siblings had a big impact on me, and still do.  

c)
I study art every day.
I look at reproductions in books and read about artists and their ideas and lives.
I write about these things in my journal, sometimes inspired to try something immediately. 
Art study is a passion of mine.

d)
My journals. 
I gather thoughts in them every day.
I re-read them.  I find and develop my own ideas in these journals.
There is true-ness in the journals

e)
My mothering.
It is ongoing, and continues to give me more than you can imagine.

f)
Strong emotions such as great sadness, furious anger, or physical fraility may be where I start a piece.
However, although these pieces may begin with vehement negativity, as I work into them with my hands, those emotions are displaced, replaced with a glowing serenity.
I feel serene after so much time with the work in my lap, and the completed works are calm.

What is an idea really?  So often it begins as just a glance - a speck
something off to the side.
after so many years at this art-game, now I recognize the feeling of that speck
I grab it from the air and write about it or sketch it into my current journal
and move on with my day.  
It usually takes me a few days of sleeping and moving before I feel it as an IDEA, not just a glance.

I have inner dialogue with my self.  
I imagine that all humans do to some extent.

My heart responds to stimulation so quickly and generously, 
and I want to make art that will allow my open heart to speak.
I want to make work that is as true to how I understand my life as possible. 
So that when another human encounters my work, that person will know me. .

And also, even more
I hope that person's heart and inner self will recognize something in my work
that resonates deep within them. 

And they know something more about them selves.

But I am side-tracked away from the question about where ideas come from.

I guess the short answer is that
I don't know.

To live an absolutely original life one only has to be oneself.  Agnes Martin

All images in this post are of a new large scale work in progress.

It's summer

It is summer

and I have been immersed in family

it's a good busy

The kids are doing the cooking and also the planning of what to cook.

The grand kids are doing the cannon ball diving, the fishing and the comic book reading.

I'm working on a large piece.

It has a wool central area, dyed with plants and stitched in several colours of thread

surrounded by linen damask, pieced with raw edges, strengthened with big stitches.

life and death are not opposites
death is enfolded in life's centre

'when I keep my heart open, when I let it be touched
I learn that it is botttomless, it is vast, limitless

 I discover how much warmth and gentleness is there,

 how much space'
(pema chodron idea)

the Alaska family was here for 11 days and time stopped for me while I watched them

Baker Lake embroideries

detail of embroidery by Elizabeth Quinningnaaq

embroidered wall hanging from Baker Lake by Canadian Inuk Artist Elizabeth Quinningnaaq

embroidered wall hanging from Baker Lake by Canadian Inuk artist Annie Taipana

detail of embroidery by Annie Taipana

Embroidered Wall Hanging from Baker Lake by Canadian Inuk Artist Annie Taipana

detail of embroidery by Annie Taipana

embroidered wall hanging from Baker Lake by Canadian Inuk artist Linda Nuilaalik

Embroidered Wall Hanging from Baker Lake by Canadian Inuk artist Victoria Mamnguqsualuk

detail of embroidery by Victoria Mamnguqsualuk

detail of embroidery by Annie Taipana, Canadian Inuk artist

visual art is a language.

beginning with time: night

 

I finished the wool stitching I've been working on.  Today I took it into Sudbury for professional photography, left it with him over night.   'Treat it like a sculpture in space',  I said.  'Make it look as good as you possibly can'.

In this post I'm showing my own photos of the work in progress.  This is the reverse side of the Wild Pure exhibition piece. (other side shown here )  The charcoal wool blanket in the main area is an old camp blanket from the family.  It, and the brown blanket section on the bottom were both over-dyed with blackberry vine and iron.  

 

now feeling a little lonely,
when it was with me, I knew what to do.

a morning and an afternoon and

night's queer knuckled hand

hold me separate and whole

stitching tight my daily soul 
Mary Swann

from Swann by Carol Shields 

quilts=art=quilts award winner

Canadian Pioneer, wool quilt (detail)

When I packed up Canadian Pioneer to ship to Quilts=Art=Quilts in Auburn, New York, I noticed something.

 

Those wool bundles that I had folded, tied onto the surface and then felted seem to resemble a bush of trees.  They make me think of the huge thick forests in Canada that seem to act as barriers to human interaction with the land.

Trees protect the land,  Maybe they hug it.

One of the jurors, Kathleen Loomis has written about this piece here.  She explains why it was given a first prize.  Further information about Canadian Pioneer is here in my New Work gallery.

new project

I am beginning a new project.  It's just at the testing stage right now as I re-approach natural dyes on blanket weight wool.   The small piece of walnut dyed wool (on left in above photo) can act as a base for sampling hand stitch.

To re-enter the dye process with long pieces of heavy wool, I will use those onion skins I've been saving for two winters and the three metres of wool I already have on hand.

I covered the skins with water and brought them to a boil for 90 minutes, then let everything rest overnight.  This procedure was repeated over the next two days.   During the same length of time, the wool cloth was left in a mordant solution of alum, cream of tartar and water.

After those three days, the onion skins were strained off, and the fabric was placed in the dye bath and brought to a low simmer for 90 minutes.  This was also allowed to steep.  (over a week)

In the stitch tests on the walnut coloured wool, I tried reverse applique with velvet, and black thread as a wrapping stitch.  Not sure yet if either are perfect.

At this point I have just a broad idea of the finished piece and am feeling my way into it.  Literally.