World of Threads "Now For Something Different" newsletter features Judy Martin's large installation about TIME.

Installation view of Northern Ontario /Time
by Judith E Martin, World of Threads Festival 2023

The October 31 edition of the World of Threads Festival newsletter includes this article about the large installation  by Judy Martin.  Dawne Rudman, co-curator of the festival, invited Martin to write more about the installation and so the text is by the artist.  The photos are by the other co-curator Gareth Bate unless otherwise noted.  

The Forever

The larger wool pieces are inspired by the rock cuts that form corridors along the highways through the Canadian Shield of Northern Ontario, a beautiful place where I have lived my entire life.  

Hanging and spinning within this landscape are vulnerable pods and human-scale cloaks.

Eternity

Made from old blankets, velvet, and hand stitch, the titles reference TIME, the most important material that I employ.  

Like many artists, the aim of my work is to communicate in a poetic way.   I want to help you to connect with your inner world.   (Judith E Martin)

The next photos show volunteers and the curators of the World of Thread festival working together to install this large and heavy installation over a period of several days in early October 2023. 

There are eight components in this installation, and almost all of them have gone on quite a creative journey to appear as they did at the World of Threads Festival in 2023.  The two largest elements are Eternity ( the colourful one) and The Forever (the grey one).

The idea to create a rock cut from old wool blankets occured to me around 2014.  I began with Eternity, but before it was all the way finished, I started The Forever.  They premiered along with the other components at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario, in 2021 as part of "In the MIddle of the World, a two person exhibition with Penny Berens, curated by Miranda Bouchard.  In this installation, both rock cuts hung vertically and need to pool onto the floor.  The cloak sculptures were spread out around the gallery.

installing Eternity

The work later showed at the Lake of the Woods Museum's new gallery addition in Kenora, Ontario.  This gallery had an angled ceiling that went as high as 25 feet.  Because of this ceiling height, I was able to have Eternity hang vertically without touching the floor.  It was a good opportunity to change the orientation of The Forever from vertical to horizontal and be closer to my original 2014 sketch.  

Installing The Forever

I studied other hanging sculptures such as the Abakans by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz in order to figure out how to distribute the weight and incorporate a curve with an articulated hanging device.  I wanted my piece to curve like one of the massive rock cuts along highway 69/400.   In the Middle of the World was displayed in Kenora from April until July  2023.

Installing The Forever  (photo Dawne Rudman)

In the fall of 2024, In the Middle of the World toured to Artsplace gallery in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.  This is a small white cube of a gallery and we chose to edit out The Forever, because it was so immense and the gallery did not have a lift.  I was able now to turn Eternity on its side and created a new curvy articulated hanging device to suit the smaller white cube of the Nova Scotia gallery.

Still installing The Forever, World of Threads Festival 2023

Now my dream is to hang both the rock cuts together in their horizontal and curvy way.  Curving and hanging without touching the floor in a nesting arrangement is the best reflection of my initial 2014 sketches.  

Nearly done with the installation of The Forever

Each piece was very labour intensive and took many hours.  I did it during the pandemic.  

installing the time present and the time future cloaks 
 (photo Dawne Rudman)

Time Future: Touch the Stars is a very heavy velvet cocoon.  It began as a long length of commercially embroidered linen that I sewed strips of naturally dyed velvet to.   The sensual experience of touching that tucked velvet put me into a dream world, hence the title.  I also love the lining of this cloak, a very soft silk satin that was block printed in India with a dot grid.

time present: the softness inside her

Time Present: The Softness Inside Her began as a heavily stitched wall piece made from wool that I dyed with onion skins.  I thought it was completed in 2020 and put images of it on my website.  An offer to purchase it came from the states in 2021, but by then, I had already transformed it into the cloak you see here.  

installing the two wool bundles

Her Arms Wrapped Round and My Heart are two bundles that hang like pupae.  It is what is inside them that is important to me.  (The footprints from my installation of footprints made from broken branches and fabric that were placed alongside the Kagawong river during the Elemental Festival on Manitoulin Island and were meant to represent my daily walk).

my heart and her arms wrapped round,
bundles of branches wrapped with wool

These two bundles went into a private collection and I am grateful to the owner who has loaned them to me for exhibitions.  The title for the two pieces comes from W.B. Yeats:

when my arms wrap you round I press

 my heart upon the loveliness,

 that has long faded from the world

Artist Judith E Martin
 at the opening of the World of Threads Festival in 2023  
photo:  Albert Fuchigami

Time Past: Island Heart

Time Past: Island Heart is a bed quilt (2020) that I hung from a padded wooden device. The quilt has been laundered many times, is very soft and visitors are encouraged to touch it.  Please touch it.

Flowers Bloomed

Flowers Bloomed went through a lot of steps before it  became the cloak it is today.  I used to call it Flowers Started Blooming Inside Me because it was such an intimate piece.  It was a self portrait of my inner world.  Now it is a self portrait of softness.

A highlight for me was having the video made by Gareth Bate that included K.D. Lang's rendition of Helpless.  available on Instagram, click here. 

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