Marcel Duchamp

A urinal is placed on its side on a pedestal in an art gallery. “R. Mutt” is written in black dripping oil paint on one side. Visually, it is easy to understand. It is what it is. But this seems too simple, and so we search for clues. Why would this be art? What is the artist trying to communicate? The invisible dialog that "The Fountain" stirs up in the viewer is the beginning of conceptual art.
Duchamp’s urinal has caused us to consider and reconsider what art is for ninety years. Tracy Emin’s blasphemous tent with personal information listed with jean patching material does this too. Only now it’s female.

Janet

Janet Rice Bredin and her husband Sid drove over from Sudbury to have dinner with us today. It was very good to see them and have a visit. A few years ago, Janet organized several round robin quilt challenges and this painted fabric square is the central medallion of mine. Title: Pinwheel on the Beach, number thirty three of one hundred quilts.

giving

What Christmas is.

Winter

It's dark when we wake up and it's dark again by 5 p.m.
I feel as if there is just not enough time in each day.

Tracy Emin

The module I'm currently working on in my OPUS studies is entitled "Issues of Twentieth and Twenty First Century Art and Design". Today I studied Tracy Emin, a young British artist famous for her willingness to show details of her private life. I learned that she was shortlisted for the famous Turner Prize in 1999 and installed her own unmade (for 4 months) bed in the Tate Modern art gallery. The piece by Tracy that I was researching was an appliqued tent entitled "everyone I've ever slept with." I was fascinated to learn that this piece had been part of the famous Saatchi collection and was burned May 24 2004 in a warehouse fire. It is astonishing that information like this has become so accessible because of the internet and that I am able to study fine art and embroidery in England without leaving my home on Manitoulin Island in Canada.

secret garden

Each piece I make offers up clues.

grandmother

"The earth is my mother
The sun is my father
The water is my grandmother"


Cree






(He's four months old , photo by Oona)

Gaea

We listened to the Liberal Leadership speeches this evening and are relieved that concern for the environment is a top issue.