A Stitch in Time: artist profile about Judy Martin

medicine earth

If you paddle by Puckwana Island in Nares Inlet this summer and happen to look up, you might just spot Judith Martin sitting on her porch stitching away.  Martin is a textile artist who hand-stitches large masterpieces from dyed and/or re-purposed cloth. While her home and studio are based on Mantioulin Island, she spends her summers on Puckwana, the family cottage in Nares Inlet.  

Martin grew up on a large rural property near Fort Frances in northwestern Ontario.  She left home at 19 to attend Lakehead University where she met her husband, Ned Martin.  She and Ned lived in Thunder Bay and Kenora for several years before eventually settling on Manitoulin Island.

Her artwork is grounded in the sense of touch and the passage of time, and it stands out for the vast amount of hand stitching it involves.  She works by first stitching smaller pieces in her lap, repeating stitches and patterns over and over, almost like a journal where one works on segments each day.  These smaller pieces are then sewn together to form large-scale finished products that can sometimes take years to complete.

"My work does not represent the outer world, but rather the feeling that we have inside us when we are at peace," she says.  

turning forever to the heart

Martin's childhood home in the Rainy River Valley was surrounded by flat fields, big skies and vast views.  Her summers on Puckwana and the rest of year on Manitoulin give her the same kind of ever-changing views of big skies with a horizon line.

"My work is not a representation of these vistas.  Rather, I'm more interested in communicating how the large emptiness that I experience, so full of unique small marks, makes me feel," she explains.

Canadian Pioneer

Thread and cloth have always been a large part of Martin's life.  As a youngster she expressed her creativity through stitching doll clothes,making gifts for family, and even sewing her own clothes until she was in her 30's.  Growing up she was constantly sewing, quilting, embroidering or knitting.

Formally, she holds two fine art degrees from Canada and the UK (plus a degree in classical piano), and she continues to learn and evolve her textile work by reading and studying other artists..

Her influences include painters Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, and Emily Carr, textile sculptors Louise Bourgeois and Magdalena Abakanowicz, and large-scale abstract textile artist Dorothy Caldwell.

"I feel a great connection to my inner world when I stitch, and I look forward to the time-traveling that becomes possible for me to do while my hands are moving." she says.  

Prayer to the Sky

"I hope that the art I make, full of empty space yet covered with touch, gives this dreamworld feeling to my viewers."  

You can learn more about Judy Martin's artwork on her website judithemartin.com or on instagram @judithemartin or on her blog judys-journal.blogspot.com.  She also sells through the Perivale Gallery on Manitoulin Island and the Guildworks Gallery in Prince Edward County.  (Check out the News section of her website to see her list of upcoming exhibitions; she is showcasing her work frequently this year.)  

This article was written by Ginny LeVan for the Bayfield Nares Islanders Association yearbook, published in April 2023.  

twenty four hour care

On July 29, 2023, the Annual General Meeting of the BNIA was held in the Pointe Au Baril community centre and Judy was invited to bring her work to the meeting for members to see and touch.  She took seven pieces that showed how her 'normal life' as mother - wife - sky watcher has influenced her work.

above us

"During my years of active motherhood, I leaned into my inner life, and the story quilts I made during that time were a place to put memories, secrets and daydreams.  Those early quilts are full of colour, pattern, time, and touch, each of them a personal story, while at the same time, a functional bed covering.  I learned how to be an artist/poet over those years of normal, ordinary, busy, lucky life,  I went into a reverie every day when I looked at the sky."