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| Cover Image: Mended World 2012, made with community assistance as part of the Manitoulin Circle Project 94" x 94" repurposed linen and cotton damask, machine and hand piecework, hand quilted photo by Klaus Rossler |
Judith e Martin was featured in the spring 2015 edition of the Studio Art Quilts Association Journal.
The article is by Martha Sielman.
Judy Martin’s studio in Sheguiandah,
Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada, contains just a chair, a design wall, and
her collection of over 200 journals that she’s kept over the course of her life
making in fiber. This past year she’s been re-reading her journals and then
wrapping them shut, bundling them up. “I’m enjoying doing this more than I can say - both the
re-reading and the shutting up. Perhaps this is in response to my own mortality
and not wanting to leave behind a messy house for my kids. My journals
help me to make sense of my life and art.”
Known for her dense hand stitching, Judy’s
art explores the process of making. For her, this process is more important
than the outcome. In a speech she gave about a community meditation project she
organized, she said, “Making something slowly with one’s hands is perhaps one of
the most nourishing things one can do. Creating something from nothing –
or better, creating something new from something no longer needed or wanted is
healing for the planet and for us.” The Manitoulin
Circle Project for which Judy was the lead artist brought together over 140
women over four years from 2009 to 2013 to create four huge 90”-square
panels, which are now installed permanently in the Little Current United Church
sanctuary.
One
of the four panels, Mended World, uses a variety of donated and thrift
shop damask table linens string-pieced together, cut, and pieced again. Because
of the multiple seams, the narrow strings often had to be mended using
backstitching as they were being pieced together. As Judy worked to mend an area
of the central circle, the title Mended World came to her as a
description of the form they were stitching, as well as a vision of hope for
our planet. She said, “I think that these
panels give hope. These panels are solid; they are real. They were
made by real people as gifts. Gifts for the future. These panels are a
tangible way to show our belief in a future.”
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| Judy Martin with Precious Water, 2013 86" x 86" completely hand stitched,. This piece is one of the panels from the Manitoulin Circle Project and was made with assistance from the community during weekly meetings photo by Frank Myers |
Growing up on a farm in northern Ontario, Judy says
that their rural isolation fostered a tendency towards self-reliance. “I remember mud, grass, insects, birds, 40-minute school bus
rides, trees planted by my mother, vegetable gardens by my father. I grew up
with my two siblings and a lot of solitude. Summers were spent under the
willow trees day-dreaming. Today I choose to live in the country and try to
spend most days alone. My work reflects this choice and often references
what I live with here on Manitoulin Island: large empty fields of grass, long
views over ripples of water towards a calm horizon.”
Judy uses her long hours of hand stitching as a
time for reflection. “My art
is about relationships: with family, with nature, and with my inner self. My
art is the only place where I feel I can express these things and communicate
about them on a deep level. My stitching is based
on repetition and accumulation. I am inspired by the many small marks in the
natural world, each unique but all the same.”
Wool is a favorite fiber. Judy
especially enjoys repurposing old blankets with their layers of inherent
meaning and history. She says that blanket-weight wool is an excellent material
for a Canadian artist because of the climate. She dyes much of the fiber she
uses with natural dyes extracted from local plants in Ontario. However, Judy
also uses silk, linen, cotton and enjoys ordering small samples of unusual
threads via the Internet just to experiment with them.
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| Not To Know But To Go On 2010-2013 14" x 223 feet one skein of cotton embroidery floss was used up each day for three years, couching found fabric to canvas, photo by Gareth Bate |
Thread is intrinsic to Judy’s work
because hand-stitched marks are the essence of her art. Not to know but to go on was begun when Judy was about to turn 60.
She wanted to record the passage of time, so every day she chose a few pieces
of fabric from her scrap baskets, tore them into ¾” strips, folded the strips
in on themselves lengthwise, and then stitched over the entire strip, attaching
it to a 14”-wide canvas background. Each day she chose a color of embroidery
floss randomly from her basket. Each day she stitched until she had used up the
entire skein. For three years, each day was marked by a different color of
thread but often the same base fabric was continued until that scrap was used
up. These 223 feet recorded the daily passage of Judy’s time and intention.
Judy spends most mornings either sitting on her deck or in a sunny window overlooking the lake and stitching for about three hours. After chores and a walk, she goes to her studio to plan out new work and do any machine sewing. She also presents lectures on how her work combines concerns for the environment with a love of poetry and the life-changing effects of motherhood. She is again teaching workshops, as well as leading another slow stitch.
Her most recent personal project was a response to a call for an exhibition entitled Wild Pure Aesthetic Wonder, curated by Gloria Hickey and Philippa Jones. It will be exhibited at the Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council’s Fibre Conference in Gros Morne, Newfoundland, in October 2015.
Her most recent personal project was a response to a call for an exhibition entitled Wild Pure Aesthetic Wonder, curated by Gloria Hickey and Philippa Jones. It will be exhibited at the Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council’s Fibre Conference in Gros Morne, Newfoundland, in October 2015.
In the spring and summer of last year, Judy harvested and processed local plants found near where she lives on
Manitoulin in order to dye yards of thrift store finds of blanket-weight wool
fabric. “It's always a discovery to work with nature. So many variables
can come into play. It was challenging to ensure that the lengths of heavy
cloth dyed evenly. Natural dye processes take time, heat, and full immersion.”
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| Beginning With Time: Day 2015 Judith e Martin reclaimed blankets, plant dyes, hand stitch 78" x 90" photo by Nick Dubecki |
Then she began
stitching. She wanted to transform the wool from something meaningful in its
own right to something that used all those qualities but added the emotion and
self-revelation that art brings. She found that for this piece, sticking with her
preferred minimalist aesthetic was more challenging than usual. The
materials were so luxurious that it was constantly tempting to become more
elaborate, but she wanted the aesthetic to be simple and pared down. She was so
inspired by the wool, the earthy warm brown of the reclaimed over-dyed wool
blanket (previously pink), that she is now planning to expand the process in
order to make a room-sized installation that will include several
blankets.
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| beginning with time: day DETAIL 2015 Judith e Martin hand stitch , plant dyed wool, photo Nick Dubecki |
In September, with three blankets started, Judy went with her husband to
Newfoundland in order to visit both Gros Morne and the Viking settlement on the
upper Western Peninsula. In Newfoundland she found “everything and more as
far as wildness, pureness, and aesthetic wonder are concerned.” And she
returned inspired to choose one of the three blankets and complete it.
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| Beginning With Time: Night Judith e Martin 2015 reclaimed wool blankets, plant dyes, hand stitch 78" x 90" photo Nick Dubecki |
Beginning with Time is a
large piece (78” x 90”), and it covered her entire design wall. Both sides are
filled with dense, ordered columns of seed stitch in wool yarns. Judy has
titled one side Beginning with Time: Day
and the other Beginning with Time: Night.
“I hope that what my work communicates is the quiet
joy of making and at the same time the feeling that we are each just a tiny
speck. This piece has taken on
a stubborn silent quality - it will not be defeated. The dots below the horizon
are perhaps the safety net I think about or represent a depth we cannot fathom.
There is no eye level focal point. Instead, it evokes a feeling of being lost
in the woods. The comfort usually associated with wool blankets is altered and
gravity is created: the heavy materials and dark colors have an emotional
gravity as well as a physical one.” It has been shipped to St. John's for an
exhibition at a craft gallery for the month of April and then will show in Gros
Morne from May through October 2015.
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| Fragile As A Leaf In Autumn 2004 cotton, linen, procion dye, shibori process, piecework, applique, hand embroidery, 73" x 98" photo Sarah Warburton |
The importance of touch is a theme that Judy returns to again and again. “The
marks made by the wool threads make us want to pet it with the nap, along the
grain, up and down and in circles. I do anyway.” She maintains that while we
credit sight with being our most important sense, it is touch that unlocks our
unconscious memories and dreams. During emotional experiences such as dreaming,
listening to music, or caressing our beloved, we close our eyes. Touch is how
we know with our heart and body. Our skin is our biggest organ, so touch is an
emotional thing.
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| Fragile As a Leaf in Autumn detail Judith e Martin 2004, hand embroidery, cotton fabrics, photo Sarah Warburton |
The meditative nature of
repetitive handwork is what gives Judy’s art its resonance. Judy writes, “I believe that my work in textiles reaches others on a more emotional
level than drawing or painting ever can. The reason for this is the very
materiality of cloth and stitch. Cloth has a most intimate connection to the
human body. Babes are wrapped in cloth within minutes of emerging from the
womb. Cloth is fragile and wears out with age, like the human body. The hand
stitch is a slow method of making a mark and seems to hold time and make it
visible. This time spent repeatedly touching a piece expresses a thoughtful
caring and tenderness. There is power in cloth that has been stitched by hand.”
Martha Sielman is the Executive
Director of SAQA. Judy Martin will be one of the featured artists in her
forthcoming book, “Art Quilt Inspirations: Abstracts and Geometrics.”
