Quilts are Journals: The catalogue

 

There is a sweet catalogue about the Quilts are Journals exhibition at 100 percent shop and gallery that has gone through a re-printing.  The catalogue contains the complete transcript of an interview that Judy Martin had with Anni Spadafora before the exhibition opened. 

To purchase ($10.00) :  contact the gallery:

1558 Dupont Street , Toronto, ontario

 hello@100percentsilkshop.com  416-419-3662

The 100% gallery also had the entire show professionally photographed by Miki Francis Sankara.  Those magical photos can be seen on the 100% shop and gallery's newsletter at this link.  

Many thanks to 100% silk for hosting a mini-retrospective of Judy Martin's work and providing a printed catalogue.  

Arc Poetry

 Judy Martin was invited to participate in the summer edition of Canada’s important poetry magazine, Arc Poetry.  

Her work is on both covers and is also featured in a central 8 page spread.  

The artist considers her work to be like poems, so this was nice.  

The art director placed the first side of the quilts opposite their second sides.  Above is Prayer To the Sky.  Below is Far Away Stars and Cloudy Day. 

To purchased a single copy or to subscribe to the Arc Poetry, click here.  

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. 

The World of Threads newsletter is free and is sent by email every two weeks. To subscribe, go to the World of Threads website, here.  

Marking Time with Fabric and Thread is published

There is a new book published this fall written by the American tapestry artist, Tommye McClure Scanlin.  The title is: Marking Time with Fabric and Thread: Calendars, Diaries, and Journals within your Fiber Craft.   

Judy Martin's stitched journal, Not to Know But To Go On, is one of the thirty diaries or journals featured.  

Judith E Martin lives and works on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron.  She holds two BA degrees in fine art, from Lakehead University, Thunder Bay Ontario (1993) and Middlesex University, London, UK (2012).  She made her first quilt at the age of 20 , and in the 1990's she made hand-stitched story quilts using the poetic code she discovered in traditional quilt patterns and world embroidery.  Her work has been widely exhibited across Canada as well as internationally.  Judith's stitched artwork was featured in the book Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art by Claire Wellesley-Smith (2015) and is supported by the Ontario Arts Council.   

'I have kept journals since the mid-1980's when I was in my 30s.  Most of them are black hard-covered 8 and half by 11inch sketchbooks.  I continue to write down my ideas, record family events and stories, collect inspirational images, and make sketches of the work I want to make.  I have let my children draw in them over the years when they were bored, and now I encourage my grandchildren to draw in them with me when we visit.  I use a ballpoint pen for nearly everything."

"In 2010, I was inspired to create a stitched journal to record every day of the years before, during, and after my 60th birthday.  I began it on my birthday, July 10, 2010, and continued until July 10, 2013.  The project gathered up three years of time.  I was not interested in trying to represent what I did during each of the days or even what the weather was  I was just interested in the whirl of time and how fast it goes by and how beautiful life is."

"The process was to couch strips of fabric from  my stash of saved cloth onto artist canvas with a complete skein of cotton embroidery floss for each day.  Every day I would select a new skein and use it all up. the days are thus marked by bands of coloured thread, and are clearly differentiated on the back of the creaem-coloured canvas.  The cloth I chose was also used up, although it was never measured.  I used this project as a way to go through my fabric collection.  I discarded or gave away cloth I no longer cared about, and used only fabrics that had meaning or beauty for me in this project.

About the thread: Although I kept a wide variety of colours of embroidery floss on hand I did not look at them like I did the cloth. When it came time to choose one, I put my hand in the basket without looking and used whatever one came out, because we do not know what the day will bring, do we?  This idea of chance, of not knowing but continuing, changed the textile from a journal of days to a philosophical poem.  I worked with pieces of canvas approximately 13 x 22 inches until they were filled up, then attached them in order with a wide cotton tape.  I also embroidered the date of each panel on the back."  

The result of my three years of daily practice is a long strip of stitched cloth that resembles a Finnish rag rug, 220 feet long and 13 inches wide.  Its title, Not To Know But To Go On, comes from Agnes Martin's ideas that I found in the book of her collected writings published in 1992 by Hatje Cantz.

page 58 and 59

In the above photo of page 58 and 59 of Marking Time With Fabric and Thread are pictured Judith E Martin's mixed  media fabric construction, Not to Know But To Go On 2010 - 2013, 73 yards by 13 inches by 1.2 inch.  The photo on page 58 is of this piece installed in World of Threads Festival in 2014 is by Gareth Bate, curator of the festival.  The photo on page 59 is of the journal laid out in a forest path and was taken by the artist.   

There is a editorial press release of this new book on the publisher's website:  Schiffer publishing .

30 artists were profiled in the book: Besides Judith E Martin, the list includes Janet Austin, Ayesha Barlas, Kate Colwell, Geri Forkner, Rowen Haug, Natasha Khiev, Kay Lawrence, Mary Jane Lord, Kalliopi Monoyios, Heidi Parkes, Ellen Schiffman, Clare Danek, Jennifer Edwards, Emma Freeman, Jennifer McGregor, Rebecca Mezoff, Karen Turner, Val Vaganek, Carol Ward, Rebecca Cartwright, Jess Jones, Robin Lynde, Joan Sheldon, The Tempestry Project, Susan Martin Maffei, Michael Rohde,  Karen Schaller, and the author Tommye Scanlin.  

This book is available in book stores  now.  

Not To Know But To Go On is featured on the cover of Schiffer's new Catalogue

 

The latest catalogue put out by Schiffer Publishing, features Judy Martin's stitched journal, Not To Know But To Go On, a daily practice that documents three years of time and was completed in 2013.  

Not To Know..... is one of the many calendars, diaries, or journals that Tommye McClure Scanlin gathered together for her new book, the first one featured in the catalogue. Click here to view the entire catalog.

Marking Time with Fabric and Thread  will be available October 28, 2024. 

In the Middle of the World catalogue now available for online viewing

The artists (Judith e Martin and Penny Berens) the curator, Miranda Bouchard, and the book's graphic designer, Zoe Wonfor are pleased to share our 125 page catalogue to interested people for free on Judy Martin's website at this link.    

It is also available on Miranda Bouchard's website in pdf format at this link.

The catalogue has an ISBN number, 9781738969210, and is available for viewing through the Library and Archives Canada with this link.

If you want to hold something in your hands and turn the pages slowly, there are still some soft cover books available from three Ontario outlets:  The Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Lake of the Woods Museum / Art Centre. and the Manitoulin Expositor book store.   

Marking Time with Fabric and Thread

Judy Martin's stitched journal, Not to Know But To Go On, is one of the 25 featured pieces in a new book scheduled for release in late October 2024.  The author of the book is Tommye McClure Scanlin and the publisher is Schiffer.

It will be possible to purchase Marking Time With Fabric and Thread at any book store.

In the Middle of the World catalogue: second printing

The Forever by Judy Martin. 
four wool blankets with plant dyed wool, velvet and linen couched with wool yarn, 2021
shown as it was displayed at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, Oct -Dec 2021
In the Middle of the World catalogue pages 56 and 57

The beautiful catalogue that documents the bodies of work created by Canadian artists Penny Berens and Judith e Martin has had a second printing in mid November.  The 125 page soft cover book includes a scholarly essay by freelance curator Miranda Bouchard.  Copies are available from the artists and curator, email Judy (see sidebar) for a mailed copy.  Cost is $35 plus shipping.

The catalogue is also available in the following outlets.   

The Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, Ontario

The Muse (Douglas Family Art Centre/Lake of the Woods Museum) in Kenora, Ontario

The Manitoulin Expositor book store in Little Current, Ontario.

Thank you everyone for such amazing support of our work.  We appreciate it!  

Special mention of thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for ongoing support of Judy's work and for this exhibition and publication project.  

In the Middle of the World - exhibition catalogue is published

In the Middle of the World, the catalogue of the exhibition, is now published and available from the curator, Miranda Bouchard, and the two artists, Judith E Martin and Penny Berens.  It is also available at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum and the Muse (Lake of the Woods Museum and Douglas Family Art Gallery) in Kenora.

Email Judy to reserve a copy.  The price is $35 plus shipping.  

Noble Tenderness / My Awakened Heart by Judy Martin

The book is 10 inches square and soft cover.  It is 125 pages of good quality paper.  The images of the artworks are clear and large.  The essay by curator Miranda Bouchard is well foot noted and thoughtful.  There are two other essays as well as a forward and an index of images.   

Resting Between Tides by Penny Berens

Miranda Bouchard launched the catalogue on October 9, 2023.  She thanked many people and organizations in her gracious social media text.     

Since 2021, I’ve had the honour of working on a catalogue to accompany my long-term curatorial project, In the Middle of the World, and creating a lasting record to share and celebrate the works of the incredible Canadian artists, Penny Berens and Judy Martin.

This project, supported by the Ontario Arts Council - Conseil des arts de l'Ontario through the Visual Arts Projects program, has been a true labour of love for my collaborators and I. It’s been years in the making, a project whose deep meaning and magic are beyond my ability to aptly describe. At long last, I’m pleased to announce that the catalogue is ready to share!

We’re selling hard copies of the catalogue (soft cover, full colour, 125 pages) for $35 each, plus shipping/delivery. ($6.00 in Canada, $12.00 for the USA) Copies are limited – get yours soon!

We’re also pleased to offer the soft (digital) copy for free, in PDF format (https://www.mirandabouchard.com/.../motw_final_ebook...

) or in .epub format (available upon request). I’m deeply grateful to MANY contributors, helpers, funders and organizations for their support of this project.

Miranda continues:  

Special Thanks for my close project collaborators:

The artists: Penny Berens , Judith E. Martin , the designer: Zoë Wonfor

The guest writers: Melanie Girdwood-Brunton & Michael Rikley-Lancaster

The editor (essays and foreword): Sarah Pinder

The readers: Grace Butland, Elizabeth Creith, Alicia Hunt, Sharon Hunter, Andrea Pinheiro and Anna Wilson

The photographers: Chandra Barnett, Richard Berens, Nick Dubecki, Paul Latour, Ned Martin, Frank Myers & Sophie (Roo) Wonfor

The printers: OJ GRAPHIX, Espanola, ON

We are all grateful to our project funder, The Ontario Arts Council ; and to other organizations who’ve supported the project and the broader curatorial project: Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, The Muse - Lake of the Woods Museum and Douglas Family Art Centre , ARSTPLACE and Arts Nova Scotia . And of course, a very special thank you to our families, friends and colleagues for their ongoing support of our work and of the In the Middle of the World project!

Penny and Judy thank our beloved free-lance curator, Miranda Bouchard, for her devotion to this entire project and her determination to ensure that we are written about.

Minimalism opens in France

Help Me To Balance by Judith E Martin
90 x 66 inches, 2018
repurposed flannel blankets and cotton hand towels
hand mended, machine pieced, hand quilted. 

Judy Martin's Flannel quilt is included in SAQA's global exhibition, Minimalism.   This exhibition was curated by famed Canadian artist, Dorothy Caldwell and includes works from 43 artists.

The Minimalism exhibition premiers at the famous Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork, one of the world's top textile art events.  An annual event in Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines, Alsace, France, the dates for 2023 are September 14 - 17.  Click here for more information about the European Patchwork Meeting .

And click here for more information about the Minimalism exhibition including thumbnails of each of the 43 quilts and a biography of Dorothy Caldwell.  

A patchwork of used and mended cotton sheets and towels is hand stitched with a red thread grid.  The middle layer of this quilt is a recycled flannel sheet.  The softness and weight of so much cloth that has been touched repeatedly over time creates an incredibly intimate support blanket.    Judy Martin

There is a beautiful catalogue available for $25 from SAQA with artists statements for each quilt and also Dorothy's juror's statement.  Dorothy speaks about the Whitney Museum exhibition from 1971 that was curated by Jonathan Holstein and how she attended that show and realized immediately that the quilts (traditional and Amish) were minimalistic art. 

"The Whitney exhibition was the first major textile-art exhibiton in a mainstream art museum.  This was a turning point, as I moved on from painting to textiles.  The Minimalist tradition inspired making art where the material carries the message."  Dorothy Caldwell.

 

A Conversation with Judith Martin is published in Quilting Arts Magazine

Millennium Journal:  Inner Sonnet

Millennium Journal: Personal Identity

Millennium Journal:  winter solstice

 Cate Coulacos Pratos' interview with Judy Martin appears in the December 2020/January 2021  Issue 108 of Quilting Arts magazine in pages 10 - 13.   Cate asked Judy many questions over several emails during August and nine of those were tightened up for the publication.  Below is an example.

Q:  Tell us about your art-making process.  How do you begin?

A:  My work is led by the fabrics.  I will often pin lengths of cloth to the wall just to become familiar with them, placing them next to others.  Each piece has a different route, but all my work begins with a search for poetic meaning within the materials themselves.  I use sketchbooks or journals every day.  I  keep my thoughts and ideas in them, and also re-read older journals.  

This post is illustrated with the reverse sides of three of Judy's millennium journals - a suite of cloth documents that celebrate and record her daily experience during the turn of the millennium.  Each of the hangins is one lunar month (28 days).  She began in November 1998 and ended February 2001.  Below is the 'front side' of Inner Sonnet.  Judy used a personal code of symbols to represent her body, the weather, and how time was spent that day.  All 28 panels of the journal each measure 48" x 84".  Millennium Journal is an installation that fills a gallery space.   

Millennium Journal:  Inner Sonnet (front)

Interviews for Quilting Arts magazine in USA and German Patchwork Guild National magazine in Germany

Judy Martin was interviewed through email for two magazines that will be published this coming fall. 

She answered many questions about her inspiration and current direction and as well provided images of her recent work.  She also had to provide a portrait, and had the above one taken by Helga Himer in Sudbury late July.  There are two other versions of this headshot.   

Dr. Uta Lenk,  contacted Judy and wrote a profile that will be published in September for the German National Patchwork Guild's Magazine.    Uta Lenk and Judy Martin both have pieces in the touring exhibition Masterworks: Abstract and Geometric , an exhibition that was extended untl July 12.  Uta visited Heidelberg to see the show and wrote about her visit on her blog.

Catherine Prato,  artist and freelance writer for Quilting Arts Magazine, was asked by the editor to write a feature article about Judy.  You will be able to read this featured article about Judy Martin in the December/January issue.  

Toronto Star article April 11 2020

Toronto journalist Debra Norton interviewed Judy Martin in the middle of March for an article she was preparing to write about hand-stitching, specifically Soshiko and Boro visible mending.

The article was published in the Easter Weekend edition of the Toronto Star.  In the paper edition, all four images that accompany the article are of Judy's work.

Other artists included in this interview are:
Kate Theriault who teaches mindful mending in Guelph Ontario
Stacey Sproule who teaches it in Toronto and Julie Cathro-Silver who is mending her jeans with hand stitch.

Here is a link to the online article.