Manitoulin Expositor review of the Stardust Exhibition

The Sky is Not the Limit when it comes to Creativity

Walking through the doors of the Gore Bay Museum and into Stardust, the new exhibit by internationally renowned fibre artist Judith E Martin, you are immediately enfolded into the arms of a very personal creativity.  Ms Martin is a visual artist who works in two-sided and three-dimensional hand stitched textiles.

While she was born and raised in a remote area of Northwestern Ontario, Ms Martin acquired a first-class honours BA in Embroidery from Middlesex University in London, England through distance education in 2012.  She and her husband Ned have raised their family at their Bay Estates home.

Ms Martin's work is exhibited internationally and is included in several permanent collections, one of which is the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska.  Ms Martin considers 'time' to be her main material, "both as how it is held within pre-used domestic wool blankets or table linens and also how it can be made visible through hand-stitching added over months, sometimes years.  The inner world is her subject."

There is no mistaking the immense amount of time, effort and love represented through the works displayed in Stardust.  The works are a road map through the many facets of her life, physical representations of the gains, the losses, heartbreaks and jubilation of a life well lived.

Ms Martin's work is familiar to many on Manitoulin island, having been a central part of community projects such as the Millennium Quilt which now stands as a permanent exhibit in the Assiginack Museum.  But many of the works displayed over the next few weeks in the Gore Bay Museum reveal an intimate portrait of the artist and her inspirations.

Several themes work to bind Stardust together.  The aforementioned 'time' features prominently, but so do circles and the role that wrapping has played in assisting Ms Martin in working through loss and mourning.

"Scientist/philosopher Carl Sagan said that we are made of star stuff, meaning that the raw materials of our physical bodies were originally forged in distant, long-extinguished stars" Ms Martin explains the thematic title of her latest show.  "He said, "The cosmos is within us.  We are made of star-stuff.  We are a way for the universe to know itself."

"Included in the Stardust exhibition are women's hankies and doilies, all of which have been given to me with the hope that I would use them in artwork", notes Ms Martin, adding that the exhibit has an intimate and generous quality because of these gifts and expressing gratitude for those gifts.  "I also hope that visitors will feel a connection to nature in most of the pieces..  Sometimes it is an obvious link, while other times the connection is abstract.  The use of the same techniques, colours, or shapes throughout the exhibition mimics what happens in the natural world.  Grasses, trees, ripples on a lake, every one is unique.  It is the repetition that counts."

Ms Martin also expressed thanks to Gore Bay Museum curator Nicole Weppler for hosting the exhibit.  "Nicole invited me to create an exhibit in 2018, even before the Pandemic and water damage closed the building for five years" she said.  "Things always seemed to get in the way of making it happen.."

Thankfully, the time has finally arrived wherein these works can be shared with Manitoulin Island. 

"Hand stitched work takes a long time to make and the pieces in this exhibition have been with me over a lengthy period, supporting me like friends or journals do," said Ms Martin.  "The time in them is another gift, from me to you.  There are several quilts in the exhibition.  Quilts read as comfort, safety, warmth and time; the time it takes to make them but also the time that allows the body to become vulnerable and give way to sleep and dream.  When we pull a quilt over us, it touches our whole body.  Time and touch are what this exhibition is about.  Textiles are tactile.  They relate to the body."

But no touching - please.

Well, except for one piece, a quilted blanket that sits waiting in a basket, ready to provide tactile comfort for those visiting the exhibit.  While time and circles abound in Stardust, the textures of the various textiles utilized by this amazing fibre artist exude the warmth inherent in the concept of quilt, taking things to a whole other level. 

But don't take our word for it.  Go and see for yourself.  Stardust will be on exhibit at the Gore Bay Museum until September 15, Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm.

This article by Michael Erskine was printed Wednesday July 19 in the Manitoulin Expositor.