World of Threads coming soon

Sunflower Sky

Judy Martin has been selected to be in the World of Threads Festival 2026-27 in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. She is proud to be among the 192 artists from 22 countries who will be showing their work.

Judy will have a solo show of four large textiles in one of the corridor galleries. 

World of Threads Festival Website  

Free Admission!  Opening Reception: Sat. Sept. 26, 2026,   Open 7 days a week. (Closed for holidays) 

Festival Opens: Wed. Sept. 23, 2026  Festival Closes: Sun. Jan. 17 2027  

Festival Venue:  Queen Elizabeth Park Community & Cultural Centre, 2302 Bridge Road, Oakville, Ontario, Canada, L6L 2G6.  

World of Threads Festival:  The festival is a leading international showcase of local, national and international contemporary fibre and textile art. It’s organized, co-curated and promoted by Dawne Rudman and Gareth Bate. A group of dedicated volunteers install and run the festival. It’s a not-for-profit initiative with charitable status. Some of the most exciting and compelling artwork being made today is happening in the field of fibre and textile arts. Since 1994, the festival has exhibited some remarkable artists and brought them to the attention of Canadian and international audiences. Festival 2023-24 attracted over 80,000 visitors. 

2026-27 Exhibitions: This will be the biggest festival to date with artworks displayed throughout the building. The major festival group exhibition is Water Stories. It will be in the main gallery and adjoining Corridor Galleries. There will be 44 Solo Shows and 19 Installations in the public spaces of the building. The large installation space features the group show Across Time: Heritage and Tradition.

There will also be four smaller group shows in the Corridor Galleries including War and Displacement, In the Round, Nature Reclaimed, and Cat Walk IV. 48 artists will be showing Individual Pieces.   

Multi-day visits are recommended to take it all in. www.worldofthreadsfestival.com

Quilts Are Journals at 100 percent Silk

100% Silk Shop & Gallery is exhibiting a collecion of Judith Martin's quilts entitled Quilts are Journals from February 7 - March 7 , 2026.  The exhibition includes quilts that Martin made from the 1980s alongside more recent works.  Across these many decades the artist notes her unwavering ability to find healing throguh her quilting process.  

The results are varied hand-dyed and hand-stitched quilts, often large-scale with interest in complex and minimalist patterns. Together these works celebrate an artist who has spent decades with the traditions of quilting, bringing deep curiosity and experimentation.  And more, explores the heightened state of attention that working with textile techniques often brings, making her writing an extraordinary companion to the quilts themselves.    

Throughout the endless archives of Judy's Journals, Judith records the regular stuff of life like appointments, family visits, and celebrating holidays while also reflecting on the imperatives of creating as if they are one and the same, at random, as expected, all rich.  She often shares photos of her quilting in the passenger seat of the car, driving the coutnry roads of Northern Ontario. 

She references other artists like Lucy Lippard and Anne Truitt to reflect on material knoweldge and the devotion of practice, sharing images of theri work and quoting their writing.  Judith's desire to make connections and create work seems boundless.  

Judith Martin was born in 1951 in Fort Frances, Ontario but relocated to Manitoulin Island with her husband and four children in 1993.  She continues to reside there.

Coming from a family of artists and scientists she obtained her teaching diploma from Lakehead University in 1969 and spent years teaching classical piano and grade 4 cohorts in Northern Ontario communities.  She made her first quilt in 1972 using one of the most complex quilting patterns, crown of thorns, and has been dedicatedly making quilts ever since.  

Curators:  Lee Dekel and Inez Genereux, from 100% Silk Shop & Gallery, 1558 Dupont Street, Toronto

Exhibition text:  Anni Spadafora

Mercy

The lovely catalogue has been reprinted and is available from the gallery. 

The Sky / Le Ciel is installed in Sudbury

from left:   all the lived emotions (the two sculptures),
sacred ground,
the day, the night, and then the day again,
and prayer cloth: hope

The Sky : New Quilts by Judy Martin has just been installed in the art gallery of Sudbury.  Martin was invited to exhibit at this venue for the entire summer (June 17 - August 30) by gallery director/curator, Demetra Christakos.  Ally Zmijowskyj Carlos was in charge on the installation of the fourteen textile artworks.

from left:  under drifting stars, sky with many moons,
starry starry in middle of room,
the day, the night, and then the day again,
prayer cloth:hope and inner world.

The opening reception will happen on July 10, 5-7 pm.  

This exhibition is being shown at the art gallery of Sudbury's temporary location, (174 Elgin Street, downtown Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.).  The art gallery of Sudbury will be moving into a renovated building in 2026 or 2027.  

FESTIVAL of QUILTS discount code

Use the Discount Code JUDITH24 when you purchase tickets for this year's festival of quilts.  

August 1 - 4, in Birmingham, England.  Book tickets at the Festival's website. 

 

Judy's solo exhibition is entitled SOFTER and DREAMIER.  She will be showing 14 recent quilts and large embroideries.  Pictured in this post is Tomorrow Is Another Day, a new applique that references the cosmic mystery above.  

The Textile Galleries at Festival of Quilts

Snowy Snowy by Judith E Martin  naturally dyed wool log cabin fabric construction

 

Softer and Dreamier is the title of Judy Martin's solo exhibition at the Festival of Quilts this year.

The dates of the festival are August 1 - 4 and all information is on the Festival's website.  

Along with many workshops, lectures, shopping, and hundreds of competition quilts there will be nine textile galleries at the Festival of Quilts. “This year's incredible line-up celebrates the creativity and diversity of the world's most talented quilters and textile artists.”

Click here for the link to the Textile Galleries to read about South America's Carolina Oneto who will be showing a large collection of her abstract modern quilts,  Lynne Edwards’  50 year’s of quilts, Amy Pabst's exhibition of miniature quilts and British modern quilter Sarah Hibbert's joint exhibition with Korean quilter, Jaeyoung EOM.  

The Festival welcomes you to use the discount code JUDITH24 when you purchase tickets to the festival save two pounds on standard admission.  

Softer and Dreamier , a solo exhibition at the Festival of Quilts 2024

Judith E Martin has been invited by the Festival of Quilts to mount a solo show for the 2024 festival that occurs in Birmingham United Kingdom August 1 - 4 2024.  This is Europe's largest patchwork and quilting event.  

The title of Judy's show is:  Softer and Dreamier

In her solo exhibition, Judy Martin will be showing approximately 20 new quilts that explore the cosmic circles in the sky above us as well as the dream world within us.  Informed by poetry, memoir, fine art, and the life passages that happen in bed, Martin creates large hand-stitched quilts and has been doing so for over 40 years.  

Judy and Ned are going to Birmingham for the festival and look forward to meeting other quilt lovers.

World of Threads festival opens October 14 2023.

eternity, time present: the softness, the forever by Judy Martin

World of Threads Festival 2023 

Judy Martin's Northern Ontario installation is one of more than 50 solo exhibitions at the festival this year.  Eight parts are installed in Martin's grouping.  The primary materials are wool, velvet, yarn and time.  

 

Time Past: Island Heart, Eternity, Time Present, Flowers Bloomed, The Forever all by Judy Martin

Martin was born and grew up in North Western Ontario.  She moved to North Eastern Ontario (Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron) thirty years ago. The larger pieces in her installation are inspired by the rock cuts of the Canadian Shield that line the highways that cut across this vast part of Canada.  

My Heart, Her Arms Wrapped and Time Future
 in front of second sides of The Forever and Eternity by Judy Martin

The installation includes six smaller pieces that read as abstractions on female garments or are they cocoons or are they seed pods?  

My Heart, The Forever

World of Threads festival continues until December 17, 2023.

It is open every day at the Queen Elizabeth Park Community Centre in Oakville, 2075 Bridge Road and is free to the public.  Plan to go two or three times as there is far too much to take in during one visit.

Visit the website to download the complete brochure of what to expect.  

The Stardust Exhibition

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.  He said:  "The cosmos is within us.  We are made of star-stuff.  We are a way for the universe to know itself."

 

"We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden".  (Joni Mitchell) 

Included in the Stardust exhibition are domestic linens, women's hankies and hand made doilies, most of which have been given to me with the hope that they would be used in artwork.  The exhibit has an intimate and generous quality because of these gifts, thank you. 

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.    

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.  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.  

Thank you to Nicole Weppler and to the Gore Bay Museum for the invitation to exhibit in this beautiful gallery.  

Each of us lives an original life.  In nature, there is no sameness.  No two rocks are alike.  No two people are alike.  No moment is like another moment.  We are born to do certain things.  We are born to fill a certain need.  We are born as verbs, not nouns.                                                                                       (Agnes Martin)

The museum has been closed to the public for five years because of the pandemic and then because of repairs for water damage.   This exhibition celebrates the re-opening of a much loved museum and art gallery.  

The stardust exhibition is a collection of domestic artworks.  Exhibited throughout the two gallery spaces and corridor are six quilts, four ironing pads, three tablecloths, two pillow cases, two books, eight framed embroideries and over one hundred bundles.  Two pieces are presented on well crafted stands made by my husband, Ned.  The stands blend well with the gallery's large wooden bench, as well as the several vintage chairs, small tables, and grand piano.  The addition of furniture within the space also blends domestic with fine art.  The artwork here is intimate, even personal, and was created over a period of several years.  

 The work is quiet but it is a companionable silence.  There is a sacredness to what feels familiar.  Every single object in this exhibition is about the passing of time and the repetition of touch.    We are stardust. 

We are golden. 

Exhibition continues until September 15, 2023.  

Gore Bay Museum, 12 Dawson Street, Gore Bay Manitoulin Island 

INSIDE OUT opens for public viewing in Kitchener, Ontario

Inside Out exhibition is installed at the Homer Watson Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario

Above photo left to right:

a) red thread hearts (second side), women's hankies appliqued to linen damask.  76 inches square two-sided textile, 2019,  

b) love spreads (second side), two linen damask table cloths, the central one dyed red and cut with holes which were then filled with velvet in reverse applique and surrounded by red silk thread chatai embroidery, 85.5 x 61.5  inches, a two-sided textile, 2023

c) ancient teaching: forget about your age, watercolour of an old blanket, 30 x 22 inches, 2022,

d) ancient teaching: eat rice, watercolour of a quilt design pierced with holes and stitched, 18 inches square 2019.

Below video:  provided by the Homer Watson gallery.   

The opening reception will be held on April 30, 2023 at 2 pm.  Judy will speak about this body of work at this time.   The exhibition is open to the public from March 3 until June 25, 2023.   Click here for more information.

Inside Out

Judy Martin's solo exhibition Inside Out opens March 3 and continues until June 25, 2023 at the Homer Watson Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario.  

Two other solo exhibitions are also on view at this gallery during the same time period, Micaela Fitzsimmons' Distant Horizons and Reflections of Ourselves, organized by Tracey Lawko, lead artist for this large collaborative installation.  

The reception for these three exhibits will take place on April 30, from 2 - 4 pm.  There is a bus being organized to depart from Toronto.  If you click on any of the above exhibitions, there is more information about the bus.

World of Threads 2018 'solo shows; Judy Martin

 "Today we're featuring a few more of our solo shows.  In these exhibits we enter a world where variety, innovation and a sustained vision have the upper hand.  All the exhibitions in the festival are curated by Gareth Bate and Dawne Rudman..

Judy Martin solo show
above photo
left to right  Bidwell  165h x 139w cm ,  The Cloud in Me  152h x 275w cm
and My Open Heart 147 h x 123 w
Photo by Gareth Bate

Judy Martin Manitoulin Island Ontario Canada
My art practice is informed by the aesthetics of time, touch and labour.  The materials that most inspire me are used domestic textiles which I deconstruct and then resconstruct and embed with dense hand stitching.  Cloth is a metaphor for the human body, and the softening and wearing of thin places in the cloth through use and repeated laundry is an eloquent reminder of this.

above  Bidwell
Cotton , Linen, hand pieced, reverse applique, hand embroidery, hand quilting
169 h x 139 w cm
photo:  Gareth Bate

My Open Heart   detail

The festivals are held in Oakville Ontario, every two years.
The next festival is October 24, 2020 until December 30, 2020.

The call for submissions will come out in April 2020.

The Cloud in Me - a successful exhibition

All the pieces in the show were completed in 2017.

Judy Martin's first solo exhibition at  the David Kaye Gallery.

longing cloth  9 feet x 2 feet

longing cloth showing red interior
side b

The Cloud in Me was Judy Martin's 28th solo exhibition.  Most of her other exhibitions have been in government supported public galleries in Ontario.  The David Kaye Gallery is a commercial gallery.  Two pieces sold.   Longing Cloth and Basic Goodness   If you are interested in ownership of any other pieces in this body of work, please contact the David Kaye gallery

basic goodness 3 feet x 3 feet

This exhibition was well attended.  Some of the many visitors wrote in the artist's guest book and what follows are just some of the beautiful comments:

thank you for the inspiration and beauty
wonderful work, inspiring
awesome, so many hours spent - beautiful
so beautiful, connected to spiritual peace
wonderful
gesture and energy and the time it takes to stitch and dye
a steller exhibition
sensual, deep, the risk of revealing and allowing the unconscious world to radiate

earth and air  9 feet x 6 feet

absolutely stunning
touches me
beautiful
beautiful show, incredible work
feast for the soul
fantastic, elegant, thoughtful and warm
extremely interesting
congrats, beautiful work, your true voice
transcendental
a wonderful milestone
love the way I feel when I'm in this room.  So nurturing and healing

the cloud in me  5 feet x 6 feet

fantastic, I love the rnage of depth in the texture of white thread and white cloth, soulful and serene
amazing work
heart wrenching
quiet and intense and draws you in
beautiful work, speaks volumes
inspiring exhibition, love the option of touching the work
glad I had a moment to spend looking
wonderful, heart warming
spectacular
very inspriting
lovely to see them in person.  inspiring
thank you for allowing us to touch Sisu.  I was amazed at its weight.  Looking at all the stichting in your pieces gives me tranquility
beautiful and very moving

my open heart 5.5  feet x 5 feet

so lovely
I was blown away, great work
beautiful stitching, thank you for sharing Sisu - such an intimate quilt
gorgeous exhibition, structure with playfulness
a beautiful touch
awesomeness
so inspiring
most impressive
intricate textiles, holes, overlaps, and blush of pink
such a large idea rendered in such a meticulous and minute way

cloud of time 7.5 feet x 9 feet

thank you for sharing your work and your sentiments
absolutely stunning
amazing, intricate work
great and inspring work
poetic cloth indeed
seeing the works in person is another experience altogether, it's wonderful
such a gentle joy
elegant and original
gorgeous show
satisfying on so many levels
I feel so fortunate to have seen this work in person

bidwell  5 feet x 5 feet  aprox

all photographs in this post by Frank Myers
(except for Basic Goodness- Nick Dubecki)