In the Middle of the World tours to Kenora, north western Ontario

 

Judith E Martin is delighted to announce that the two-person exhibition In the Middle of the World will be shown again this coming spring in Kenora, Ontario between March 30 - June 15, 2023.  

The two artists in the exhibition, Penny Berens from Nova Scotia and Judith E Martin from northern Ontario create hand stitched textiles that reference natural environments.  They have been working on this body of work alongside freelance curator Miranda Bouchard for about five years.  In the Middle of the World will travel to Nova Scotia in 2024.  The premier of this large exhibition was at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Almonte, Ontario October 2 - December 18, 2021.  

Judy is pleased to be returning to Kenora for this exhibition.  She and her husband Ned, lived in Kenora between 1982-1993 and took their kids boat-camping on Lake of the Woods during the summers.  

Thunder Bay Art Gallery Fund Raising Auction

Friday June 8, 2018
6:45 - 11 pm

Love Meditation: Moon and Time
indigo, wool, cotton, stitch resist, hand stitch,
19 inches framed   2018 by Judy Martin

This piece is part of the live auction
Thunder Bay Art Gallery

Canadian Pioneer enters the permanent collection of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery

 Canadian Pioneer
64 inches x 48 inches
re-purposed wool blankets, wool yarns, fulled, hand stitched

Canadian Pioneer has become part of the permanent collection of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery.

Old blankets were cut and sewn into a vertically striped cloth which was then slashed open.
The circular wound was mended (and strengthened) with blanket stitch.  Stitched into it were small squares of folded wool to represent the repeated daily chores.  Finally, the whole thing was drowned in the washing machine and transformed into something tougher as it became felted.
Offered as a metaphor for the women pioneers of Canada, this piece is perserverant, optomistic and courageous.  It is a warm flag with a large open, raw heart that communicates warmth, usefulness, bravery, and optimism.  

Art Gallery of Sudbury

Duet

2014
hand stitch on vintage embroidered tea cloth
18" x 32"  by Judy Martin
felt, silk threads, vintage table linen
framed under glass
available to purchase or rent at the art gallery of sudbury - art rental program

Pop folk Textiles

Now on until April 18 is the exhibition Pop folk Textiles at La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario in Sudbury, Ontario.  Sophie LeBlanc, a young curator mentored by Thom Sokoloski, was inspired by her studies of world textiles to examine how ubiquitous textiles are in our everyday life.  She invited four artists to participate.

Danielle Gignac constructed a tipi made from trees and old socks gathered from Sudbury and other communities.  Danielle recently graduated with a Masters in Architecture from the University of Waterloo.  Her piece was entitled 'Walking Home' referring to the homeliness and sheltering quality of the socks on our feet.  The weaving of the socks through the structure presents a nod to the paths we travel on our way home.  During the exhibition opening children and adults were cozy inside the structure in their sock feet, reading story books.

Greta Grip knitted QR codes.  Each  of the four codes was knitted from the wool of a particular sheep and actually work to bring up an image of that sheep.  Her installation included two videos, one of the sheep in their environment and being sheared, and one of her own hands knitting.

Greta also showed a hand knit sweater made from yarn gathered from the four sheep, Sara, April, Sammy and Dot.  In her brief talk at the opening she spoke about her interest in contrasting the slowness of wool with the speed of contemporary tech.  " We live a life of instant gratification, with instant results, much like how QR codes are scanned and information is attained. This work relates what you are wearing to what wore it before you, and  who or what made it so that you could wear it." G Grip. 

Mariana LaFrance showed her first quilt, a traditional tumbling blocks pattern made with plant dyed re-purposed cotton sheets.

Mariana hung her quilt in an innovative way.  She wanted it to appear three dimensional.  Mariana's performance that connected sleep, dream, and regeneration was the highlight of the exhibition opening on March 13.

An interesting collage on the back wall was created by the curator, Sophie LeBlanc.   She collected photos and 'wise statements' from artists and art lovers in the northern ontario region and then Andy Worhal-ized them. (detail shown)

These dried queen anne lace plants (above) were collected by Mariana Lafrance on Manitoulin Island. She placed them behind her quilt to make the quilt appear bumped out as if some one were sleeping beneath it.  Mariana also used queen anne's lace seeds in her performance that showed how humans are connected to nature more than we realize.

Judy Martin's installation consisted of 74 bundles of cloth and thread around 4 little tree branches.

A video demonstrated how to make these bundles.  The artist's premise is that by doing handwork we feel better, and she provided materials for an interactive bundle making station.

Several people who attended the opening created their own bundles to take away.


As usual for La GNO, there is a video of the opening statements with an introduction by Danielle Tremblay, the gallery's award winning director.  I will mention here that La Galerie du Nouvel Ontario focuses on Franco-Ontario artists and most of the video is in the French language.  Daniel Aubin, communication officer for the gallery, provides English translation during the opening.  Each artist spoke for a few minutes.  If you are interested, Judy Martin speaks about her bundles in the middle of the 23 minute video (11 minutes in).

Art and Ambiance Art Auction

Armour
knitted and felted wool, metal buttons, framed in shadow box.  Judy Martin 2008

Part of art and ambiance art auction at the thunder Bay Art Gallery, March 6, 2015
an annual event that supports the gallery's exhibition and education programs.

UPDATE:  the auction has been postponed until June 5 2015.  

Thunder Bay Art Gallery

1080 Keewatin Street

Thunder Bay, ON, Canada

P.O. Box 10193

807 577 6427

Art and Ambiance

Sunwise
dyed and felted hand woven wool, couched with velvets and other fabrics, then hand quilted
About 18" wide, 45" high
the wool was originally woven by Thunder Bay artist, Jan Korteweg.  Judy taught piano lesson's to Jan's daughter, Lisa, and the wool blanket was a baby gift for Judy's first child, Oona.   



Part of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery fundraising auction
Art and Ambiance
Live and silent auction
Tickets to attend are $40
Music and refreshments
April 11, 2014

Convergence

Paradise Meditation I     2012    linen damask, acrylic paint, thread.
Part of the Tom Thomson gallery's 50th annual juried exhibition, Convergence.
(One of eighteen)
Located in Owen Sound Ontario, the exhibition opened March 30 and continues until May 25 2014.  This gallery is open seven days a week, click here for gallery hours  

Paradise Meditation was hung on a small corner wall.  (large photo collage on the right is Sky Edge by Becky Conber, apologies that I have no information about the central piece shown above)

Paradise I's beautiful subtle damask pattern went unnoticed I feel.    
Actually, both the experience of being involved with this juried exhibition and my attendance at the opening reception were disappointing. 

the Lucky Protection exhibition

How does this exhibition fit within the art world?  Why is it cloth and thread?  What are the things that only thread and cloth can do?

Cloth is fluid.  The blanket piece above covers an unwieldy display area.  The  fluidity of the cloth softens the hard edges in this white room.

The distress that this fabric has undergone over its long life is evident.  Probably it dates from the 20's - the laundry tag places it at an address that Ned's grandparents lived in during the 1930's.   This cloth is at least 90 years old.  My father is 90 years old.  

The moon is a measure of time.  Thread is like time, it stretches.
It is human nature to stop and gaze at a full moon.  No matter how many times we see it, the moon is always wonderful, always a miracle, floating there in the huge sky.  We stare at it.  We go into ourselves.
I think of the constancy of the moon and of women from earlier times looking at the full moon with the same emotional response that I have.  With the same reverence.

 

"this is not art" we tell ourselves.  The brain tries to tell the heart, but the heart doesn't listen.
The heart responds with ancient memories of cloth.  Of being wrapped as a new baby, of pulling a sweater over our heads, of doing up buttons on a wool coat.

 Thread can draw a line with all the freedom of a pencil, but with more intent because it is so slow.  Stitch by stitch to make these marks.  SEcond after second.  Minutes, hours, days, weeks.  All that time is caught with the threads.

 I am trying to give reverence to what has gone before, by connecting recycled hand touched textiles to the present day.  I use my hands to do this.

 I've been making sewn art for so long, that I forget that there are some people out there who are prejudiced against sewing.  I am surprised.

 With this exhibition, I am defending sewing.  Sewing is art.

Hey Jude, Remember to let it under your skin, then you'll begin to make it better.  (Paul McCartney)

All images are of original sewn art by Judy Martin, on display in the exhibition entitled Lucky Protection that is the featured art display at Artists on Elgin, 168 Elgin Street, Sudbury, Ontario for the month of February 2014. 705 674 0415

The text is from the artist's talk on February 1.
The gallery made a video that documents the entire exhibit.