Rowland Ricketts in Toronto

 I spent Sunday with Rowland Ricketts.

 He was in Toronto for five days and the last day was a master class.

The images in this post show his work with stitch resist (above) and rice paste resist (below)

Click here to read Rowland's inspiring story.

Rowland's wife Chimani, wove the 13 metres of 14" wide cotton kimono cloth shown above.
He dyed it with stitch resist.

We learned some of his techniques for stitch resist during the workshop.
Rowland Ricketts is pictured above in front of my stitch resist learning sample

Rowland's teaching sample with the studio's irons

The smell of an indigo vat just as it begins fermenting and springs to life is one of ripeness, a moment of rich potentiality when, as a maker, I momentarily stand between the history of the materials and processes that helped me get the indigo thus far and the promise of all the work that the vat is still yet to realize.  Rowland Ricketts 

I am aware of a connection that leads not just from my teachers to me, but one that reaches back to my teacher's teachers and the people they learned from, back into a past in which the processes I uses were developed through the accumulated experiences of all who have ever worked with this unique dye.   Rowland Ricketts. 

connected across continents with time and thread

The white cloths are from India.
The black cloths are from Sweden.
These are inspiring me now.
Don't you love how they resemble each other even though the makers never met?
Central floral, circular border decor, fantastical animals.  Red thread.
(The images are from books:   kantha and yllebroderier  )

The intensity of work built with thread, with its suggestion of obsession or even a kind of brilliant insanity is part of the viewer's experience.                                                                                                                                                                                     The process of stitching is meditative, essential in many cultures and traditions to quiet the mind and allow the spirit to evolve. Yet at the same time, there is a link to time passing and to the artist as a being in this world and the work is thus both physical and transcendent.

The contemplative, reflective nature of the process lends the work a depth and compelling gravity.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   There is a tradition of needlework through the ages and all that it means for women and cultures.  The ancestral legacy and dignity of needlecraft connects generations.    

                                                                                                                                                            Elaine Lipson (paraphrased a bit)                               

running in circles

running

running

the running stitch

above, not running stitch
start with two drawn circles instead

running stitch on hankerchiefs

one sided flat stitch

running in zig zags

running and running and running

I've been enjoying producing samples for the workshops in London Ontario next month.
Inspired by traditional embroideries from India, Japan and Scandinavia, I am finding powerful and beautiful connections in our human hand-work across centuries and continents.

A work of art is a gift.

It circulates among us as a reservoir of available life.

Lewis Hyde

paintings

with your dominant hand

 ask yourself a question

with your non dominant hand

write yourself the answer

Text: spoken by fellow participant Anne Barkley during our workshop with Janice Mason Steeves over the weekend
Images: some of the studies I did with cold wax and oil paint

our hands

Jody

Anne

Bonnnie

Jackie

Jane

Katherine

Laura

Michelle

Shawn

Hand stitching.
Evidence of time.
Evidence of thought.
Evidence of connection.

The workshop went very well, I enjoyed our time together in Newfoundland.

teaching

When I was lead artist of the Manitoulin circle Project, I worked alongside a group of women who had a wide variety of sewing skills.  We made four large panels together with hand stitch.

There were enough techniques that people could find out which ones they enjoyed the most.  Several of the women just did hand quilting in the frame and that's all.  Others never went near  the quilt frame and preferred to work on small hand held pieces to make the quilt tops.

It all worked out and although I was continually creating (figuring things out), and continually teaching, the panels were the big reward and definite goal.  All of us worked towards an end product to the best of our abilities.

We enjoyed the process of learning and making.  If that was teaching, then the manitoulin circle 'class' went on for four years.

Translating that lengthy and relaxed experience into a three to five day workshop is not as straightforward as I thought it would be.  To work the bugs out I've been practicing in my local community.  Last fall, three artistic volunteers came to my home studio and we went through the workshop I'm presenting this fall in Newfoundland.

From these young women,  I learned that they wanted to learn and practice the embroidery stitches and construction methods in the meditation panels, and that takes time.

From my sweet guinea pigs I learned that the design process is so thrilling, it can very easily take all the time.

Time is the biggest challenge for me in presenting a workshop.

I keep forgetting that time is limited, because I approach my own work as if I have all the time in the world.

I tell my students to do the same.

All images in this post are from the fall trial workshop.

One of Sandra Brownlee's tactile notebooks

In this post, photos of just one of the many notebooks Sandra Brownlee brought to the workshop last week.  Click here to see a photo of her suitcase of journals.

"I love fabric.  It has life in so many dimensions: practical, structural, literary, symbolic, cultural, personal, visceral.  It's been my ongoing avenue for expression and exploration.  Weaving, drawing, and writing are synonymous for me."  Sandra Brownlee

"For thirty years I worked at the loom, fascinated by the ritual and orderly building of the fabric.  Initially I wove cloth and explored textile traditions.  The loom subsequently gave me a place to allow my intuition to guide me as I created intimate black and white fields of patterns, marks, and figures." 

"At the same time, there were also my notebooks."

"Working in my notebooks has always been a vital part of my creative life."

"Since childhood, keeping a notebook has been my way of making the physical world and my responses to it more vivid."

"There is both discipline and liberation in this commitment to documenting on a regular basis a moment or experience."

"My notebooks have increasingly become sensory delights containing expressive studies and inventions, objects in themselves."

"Now, inspired by my notebook practice, my work is moving in new directions."  Sandra Brownlee

"I trust the intuitive and the spontaneous.  Through my senses, particularly the tactile and visual, I come to understand words."

"Through touching, stitching, gathering, and working in my notebooks their meanings become clear.  The tactile component allows me to respond and improvise."

"It focuses me so that the rest of the world falls away, and I become engaged in the creative process."  Sandra Brownlee

grand daughter Aili 6 weeks old on mother's day

dad 91 years old on May 14, 2014

Photos of  Sandra Brownlee's notebooks are by Judy Martin with permission from the artist.  Photos of my hand as a bridge across generations are also by me.