SAQA virtual conference March 19-21

Thank you and congratulations to Studio Art Quilts Association for organizing the virtual conference and giving us the ability to share our project with the membership during this surreal and frightening time.
It is a pleasure for me to be able to speak to you today about the exciting experience of collaborating on an exhibition with Penny and Miranda.
In my part of our presentation, I will share how my work has changed over time and discuss what I hope to express in my work now.

My work for this exhibition is an exploration of our vast inner world.
I feel that it is my truest work, very simple and abtract.
Until I was 60, myt art quilts were visual stories about my family.
My husband and I (he's on the ladder in the photo) have four children, now grown up.
I was an exhibiting artist for their entire lives....


This is the beginning of the presentation 'handwork, homework and heartwork' that was viewed live on Friday March 20 at 2:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time.  Judy Martin and co-presenters Miranda Bouchard (emerging curator) and Penny Berens (nova scotia artist-colleague) about their upcoming exhibition "In The Middle Of The World"
The presentation was recorded along with the other wonderful presentations at the conference and will be available to the membership who paid their conference fee until the end of June.  This conference entitled Mosaiqa was supposed to be held in Toronto Canada but was changed to a virtual conference because of the world pandemic that is threatening us all globally.

Congratulations to the conference committee (Maggie Vanderweit and team) and to SAQA staff and board members who came together to successfuly produce this innovative solution.  

The Wild Pure Aesthetic Wonder exhibition in Woody Point, Newfoundland

from left to right, I Dream of Wild Places by Rachel Ryan, Coyote felted sound mask by Jennifer Galliott, Spora, a wall mounted sculpture by Barb Daniell and Beginning with Time by Judy Martin (side view)

I imagined plant spores as terrestrial asteroids, colonizing new environments"  Barb Daniell

Beginning With Time: reclaimed wool blanket, wool cloth, plant dye, wool thread 78 x 90 inches by Judy Martin

"I want to create immense areas of emptiness filled with repetitive small marks, like the cliff faces in Gros Morne"  Judy Martin

Gloria Hickey at the closing reception of the exhibition.  Gloria gave a walk through, sharing personal anecdotes of the process of curating this innovative exhibition.  Background, Barb Daniell's Spora, foreground, Jennifer Galliott's Coyote.

"In an increasingly urbanized and technologically advanced society, wilderness may well be our most rare and precious resource.  Pristine wilderness cannot be manufactured.  Wilderness is as the heart of Gros Morne and the challenge for this exhibition was for the artists to bring the wild into the heart of their art"  (from the curatorial statement)

Foot Rest of the Earth: Serpantine periodotitte and Cushioned from the Past: Lichen Encrusted Granite, both by Linda Hope Ponting.  Wool yarn, knitted, woven, felted and needle felted.  These are the size of boulders, the top one 38 x 20 x 6 inches, the lower one 34 x 28 x 20 inches.

Rosalind Ford, with one of her two suspended elder ducks.  Fracked, screen printed cotton, embroidery and plasti-dip. 

"The proposed fracking activity presents a large undetermined threat to the birds in the area." Rosalind Ford

Into the Boreal by Shoshanna Wingate   ecoprints on fabric, stitched and embroidered.  Birch, alder, larch leaves, raw silk, original poems.

poet and artist Shoshanna Wingate

poem by Shoshanna Wingate inspired by birch leaves

"Engagement with the natural environment is a foundation for my own work and I hope to find a new way to expand tradition." Shoshanna Wingate

Beginning of Time by Judy Martin, seen from reverse side.  Both sides are the right side.

The Wild Pure Aesthetic Wonder exhibition closed on October 18, 2015.  It had hung all summer (from May until October) in the Woody Point Discovery Centre in Gros Morne National Park.  The Discovery Centre was visited by 25,000 people.  Each of the pieces was created especially for this exhibition.  The co-curators were Gloria Hickey and Philippa Jones, the sponsors of the exhibition were the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador and Parks Canada.  View or download the catalog of the exhibition.  There is also a curatorial essay available , click here to read it.

The Meditation Panels Workshop in Newfoundland this October

 Meditation Panels

This workshop introduces the archetypal symbols and shapes used around the world and across time.  These first shapes connect us without words to our spiritual need for ritual and are the inspirational basis for original and personally scaled meditation panels.  Hands on instruction in Judy’s improvisational methods of working over foundation cloth in combination with traditional hand stitched construction methods and hand embroidery will start participants on a project that will continue to nurture the maker over a period of months.

We will be guided by our sense of touch.  This is a quiet workshop, inspired by the successful Manitoulin Community Circle Project in which 149 women and men made several hand-stitched meditation panels for the local community during four years of weekly meetings.    

Judy Martin's workshop,  Meditation Panels, is a 3 day workshop offered at the conference in Newfoundland this coming October 16,  17 and 18.   Here is a link to the conference .  I can't give you a direct link to the workshop, so follow the links on the main page.   The organizers have put a supply list online, but it is incomplete.   They will be correcting it, but in the mean time, please use the information below.

Materials supplied by the instructor   

($46 )

Judy Martin is bringing the four original meditation panels from the Manitoulin Circle Project to this workshop in Newfoundland.  The opportunity to be close to and touch these inspiring hand stitched works of art is reason enough to take this workshop.

Each participant will take home five samples of specialized silk or cotton threads for hand stitching and at least two new needles.  Each participant will also receive a length of texture magic – a heat-shrink product, two metres of light weight foundation cloth, and a printed hand out.

Materials to be supplied by the student:
a)  Fabrics that you believe look good together.  Choose two to five. Please do not bring your whole stash.  Just bring approximately ½ metre lengths to the workshop.  Try to choose natural fibres – cotton, linen, silk, wool or re-cycled damask table linens.  Ensure that the weights of your chosen fabrics are similar.  Because we are stitching into them, choose solids rather than prints. The fabric can be re-purposed family clothing or domestic textiles or it can be brand new.
b)  cotton embroidery floss that co-ordinates with your fabrics.  (2-3 different skeins)
c)  sewing thread that co-ordinates with your fabrics (one spool)
d) sketchbook 
e) drawing and note taking kit - ball point pen, pencil, eraser and black permanent marker
f) a design cloth:  Find an old bed sheet for this.  You need a cloth that you can draw on.  This design cloth will not be included in the finished work but is important for the design process.  Minimum size about 40-48 inches square. 

The images in this post are of Siska Poenn's hand stitched meditation panel sampler.  Siska is one of the participants in Slow Stitch, weekly meetings in Judy Martin's home community on Manitoulin Island, Ontario Canada.

Keynote Address, Espanola fibre festival

detail, Layers of Time  The fourth panel of the Manitoulin community circle project.  Materials:  re-cycled wool blanket, recycled lace doilies, linen damask, beads, french knots, cross stitch, back stitch, eyelet stitch, all by hand, completely constructed with hand stitch and quilted by hand.  Judith e Martin and community, 2013.

 

Earth Ark (left ) and Precious Water (right) installed in the Espanola United Church for the Espanola fibre festival

I’d like to speak tonight about the process of making .  I want to state my belief that making something slowly with one’s hands is perhaps one of the most nourishing things one can do.  Creating something from nothing – or better, creating something new from something no longer needed or wanted is healing for the planet and for us.   

The panels of the Manitoulin Circle project are now finished objects.  It seems that every few months they are invited ‘out’ and the women who made them and I are given a chance to re-visit them.  We re-consider them.  We reflect.  

The Marimekko secret back of Earth Ark in foreground, Layers of Time in background

These panels are different than my personal work.  They are larger.  They are more.  More hands, more touch, more laughter, more conversations, more personal trauma, more catching up on books or television series.  The process of making them is held within them, and is why the finished products seem so important.

I’m a dyer and I'm learning about local Manitoulin plant dyes.  I'm a stitcher and am attracted to work that is not only large in measurements, but also in length of time.  I like it when I can’t see the end of a project, and when I can’t touch the edges.   My work is about the  process of making it. 

Two women thinkers I’d like to remark on tonight.  The first is Sue Bender, author of a book called Plain and Simple, a woman’s journey to the Amish.  She lived with an Amish family for 6 months, and noted that the women treated everything they did as if it was a ritual.  Whether breakfast for the family or a stunning jewel toned quilt – everything was given respect.  Art making is connected to daily life. 

The second woman is a British metal smith who writes and thinks about slow craft as social change.  Her name is Helen Carnac.  Helen Carnac calls making things by hand and experiencing the nourishment that comes from creating for its own sake rather than for commercial purposes   a  ‘social revolution‘.   I haven’t used those words before about hand work and am struck by them.

Marimekko secret back of Precious Water (foreground) and Mended World (background)

One week ago Friday Thanksgiving weekend, I was stitching by the fireplace.  It was raining outside.  I realized something.  I realized that ALL I really want to do is stitch.  All I want to do is hold cloth and mark it.  I love it so much.   I’ve been pretty busy with the career side of my work in the last month  - speaking about it, writing about it, promoting it on facebook, receiving awards for it, shipping it to exhibitions, getting it into urban commercial galleries so that more people can see it, perhaps buy it,  but in reality, that all comes second for me.  I just want to DO the work.   I just want to stitch.  The career stuff won’t be there anyway if the work didn't come first.  The work needs to be done, not just for itself, but for me.  For my emotional health.  I need to do it.  It’s who I am.  Last week on that rainy evening by the fire I stitched and realized that the process of the making is as important as the end result. 

The nice  thing about textile art is that it is possible for others to see the process.  It’s not as mystical as some other art media.  The process is evident.  The hand’s gesture is evident.  So go with that.  Take pleasure in what you do.  

Mended World, (left), Trinity (centre) and Layers of Time (right) installed in the Espanola United Church for the fibre festival.  Also notice the book of hands open on a table in near left of photo

My passion has always been stitch.  I've stitched nearly every day since I was about 8.  Stitching is a life-long love affair.  As I get older I worry less and less about making a product that others might like, and more and more about spending what time I have left to dye and stitch on a large scale.  I will be teaching the techniques of the project in Newfoundland next October, and have started to prepare for that.  It’s really challenging to fit four years of slow making and a life time of inspiration into a three day workshop that people will actually pay the craft council  of Newfoundland to take.  The prep is taking quite a bit of time but perhaps it’s like writing this speech.  Both make me look at the circle project again.   Re-considering how the panels went together and what the project meant is helping me to think through what and how I want my life to be like.  Artful.

I am ambitious and have the dream to be recognized for my stitching but it’s way too easy to let the career advancement become more important than doing the work.  Doing the work is the most important thing.  Take great pleasure in the doing.  Slow down, breathe, stitch, dye, knit or felt, whatever it is that you do, do it with respect.  Honour the experience. This is my motherly advice tonight.  

The above text is just part of Judith e Martin's keynote address to the Espanola Fibre Festival.  If you want to read the entire lecture, email Judy and make a request.
One of the nicest things that happened that evening was that several of the participants spoke spontaneously about their experience stitching with Judy. 

European Patchwork Meeting Alsace France

September 12 - 15, 2013
Carrefour Europeen du patchwork
A select group from Quilt National 2011 is showing in France at this very important exhibition.
 
Judy Martin's Cross My Heart is there. Click here for more details about that conference.  

This quilt sold on opening day of Quilt National 2011 in May of that year.  More images of this piece can be seen here. 

Manitoulin Circle Project




Judy spoke about the
circle project and led a
workshop to participants. This was part of the regional conference
WORSHIP MATTERS, held in Little Current, Ontario September 27 - 30, 2010.