River of Softness

River of Softness   Strips of silk velvet that were coloured with natural dyes are sewn to commercially embroidered linen and then pleated with hand stitch.

The piece is as heavy as an animal's fur pelt and just as soft.   22 x 49 inches (56 x 124 cm)  2025

River of Softness reverse side, block printed heavy silk satin from India, hand quilted, 

detail 

River of Softness is part of The Sky exhibition on display the summer of 2025 at the Art Gallery of Sudbury.  174 Elgin Street, downtown Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.  On view until August 30, 2025.

Prayers for the Twenty-first Century

 

Prayer for the twenty-first century:  Courage        silk thread on linen, mounted on wool, wood frame 12 x 12 inches, 2025

Prayer for the twenty-first century:  Family    silk thread on linen and wool, mounted on wool, wood frame, 12 x 12 inches, 2025

Prayer for the Twenty-first century:  Freedom    silk thread on linen,moutned on wool, wood frame, 12 x 12 inches, 2025

Prayer for the Twenty-first century:  Understanding        silk thread on linen, mounted on wool, wood frame, 12 x 12 inches, 2025

freedom, understanding, courage, family
silk thread on linen, mounted on wool, signed with embroidery on front
each 12 inches by 12 inches, 
framed in wood frames 
2025

These four small red-thread embroideries will debut at the Perivale Gallery for the 2025 season.

Inspired by a poem that John Marsden from Australia wrote in 1997.

 Prayer for the twenty-first century

May the road be free for the journey

May it lead where it promised it would.

May the stars that gave ancient bearings

Be seen, still be understood.

May every aircraft fly safely,

May ever traveller be found,

May sailors in crossing the ocean

Not hear the cries of the drowned.

 

May gardens be wild, like jungles,

May nature never be tamed,

May dangers create of us heroes,

May fears always have names.

May the mountains stand to remind us

Of what it means to be young,

May we be outlived by our daughters,

May we be outlived by our sons.

 

May the bombs rust away in the bunkers,

And the doomsday clock not be rewound,

May the solitary scientists, working,

Remember the holes in the ground.

May the knife remain in the holder,

May the bullet stay in the gun,

May those who live in the shadows

Be seen by those in the sun.

The four Prayers for the twenty-first century will debut at the Perivale Gallery for the 2025 season.  Opening weekend is May 16-17-18 2025 🙌

Your Fragile Life / Intimacy

Your Fragile Life   

naturally dyed vintage table linens, bordered with hand woven silk from India, hand pieced and hand quilted, 175 x 172 cm or 69 x 68 inches, 2024

The fabrics were sorted by value, light to dark.

Beginning with the lightest value in the centre, rows of hand pieced squares were added in turn around all four sides until the that particular colour ran out.

Some of the old fabrics were quite fragile, but the hand piecing and hand quilting strengthened them.

The more that you use linen damask, the softer it gets.

Using them up until they ran out seemed a metaphor for our own mortality.  We do not know how long we have.  

The grid of hand pieced squares were then quilted in the seamlines ( in the ditch) and also with a secondary grid.  The appearance of a safety net and the softness of the fabrics reads as loving strength.

Intimacy

The second side of Your Fragile Life, the fabric is hand woven silk from India that was given to the artist by a textile artist in Italy who was decluttering her own studio.  The size of the hot pink silk determined the finished size of the quilt, and was used in its entirety.  

hand quilted, 175 x 172 cm or 69 x 68 cm

The title is Intimacy because it is the back side of the quilt, and when you pull a quilt over you, the back side is the side that touches your body in an intimate way.

This is a quilt about touch and time and care.

Premier showing at The Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK, in Judith Martin's solo exhibition, Softer and Dreamier.

Far Away Stars / Cloudy Day

Far Away Stars, detail

velvet, silk, cotton, natural dyes, cotton thread, hand quilted to two layers of wool 2024

233 x 132 cm or 91 x 52 inches 

Far Away Stars:  Full view

This piece was started around 2011 when I was teaching myself about natural dyes.  What you see here are my small beige learning experiments that I made while using plants from my yard.  The fabrics are joined together in horizontal rows.  Since those first days, I have added more three-dimensional horizontal tucks to catch your eye and that refer to the horizon line.  

The horizon line is our constant friend that gives a place to look beyond and enter a reverie.  

Cloudy Day, full view

Cloudy Day, cotton and velvet shapes attached with cotton and wool thread to the wool backing cloth.

Hand stitched and hand quilted.  233 x 132 cm or 91 x 52 inches  2024

Cloudy Day is a surprise on the second side of this quilt. 

It is one of my two-sided quilts.

There is a horizon line on this side too.

In progress for 13 years, Far Away Stars / Cloudy Day had its first public showing in 2024 in the UK at the Festival of Quilts.   Part of the solo exhibition:  Softer and Dreamier  

This two-sided quilt was then part of Quilts = Art = Quilts at the Schweinfurth Art Centre, Auburn New York from October - January 2025   

Tomorrow Is Another Day / Mercy

Tomorrow Is Another Day  linen damask, indigo dye, natural plant dye, cotton threads, 48 x 82 inches or122 x 208 cm, 2024

An applique of a dark and stormy sky has a title that calmly and hopefully references the future:  Tomorrow Is Another Day.

Mercy  plant dyed damask table linen, cotton thread, 48 x 82 inches or 122 x 208 cm, 2024

The reverse side of the piece is made from three smaller pieces of different-hued damask and is entitled Mercy.

The three pieces of the second side receive the stitches from the first side as if a single original and courageous drawing.

Quilts have two sides and teach us that everything is connected.  This piece encourages kindness, forgiveness, courage and hope in dark times.  

When you are worried, remember to look at the sky.  The answers are there.

Have compassion.  Tomorrow is Another Day.

This quilt had it's premier showing in Judy Martin's solo exhibition at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham England August 2024.  The title of her show is Softer and Dreamier. Softer and Dreamier. 

Currently on display in room 309 until November 2025 in the Gladstone House Hotel in Toronto, Ontario as part of an award from Craft Ontario.  Read more here.

Lamentation / The Good and the True

Lamentation   dyed and painted cloth, hand pieced, hand quilted, then hand stitched with red cotton sashiko thread.  57.5 x 58"  146 x 147 cm  2022

detail of Lamentation by Judy Martin

I used up all the green fabrics I had on hand to make this piece when my niece died of cancer age 38. 

The Good and the True  white wool whole cloth quilt, hand quilted, and then hand embroidered, (This quilt is the second side of the above quilt, Lamentation).   57.5 x 58"  147 x 146 cm  2022

Red thread is used in all cultures and has taken on meaning depending on where you live and what you want to believe.  Sometimes it means happiness, some times it means protection.  It also means good luck.   Red thread is the most powerful.   

White fabric most often refers to purity.  Liturgical embroidery uses white for celebration cloths.   

Exhibitions:  

 

Inside Out:  Judith e Martin's solo show in Kitchener Ontario in spring 2023. 

Stardust:  Martin's solo exhibition Gore Bay, Manitoulin Island, summer 2023.

Softer and Dreamier:  Judy Martin's solo exhibition at the Festival of Quilts Birmingham, UK in  August 2024.  

In private collection:  Ottawa, Ontario

The Ceremonies

ceremony for innocence  2010 photo, wax, ink on paper, red thread french knots, this is a detail 

About the above image:  The photo transparency in Ceremony for Innocence is of Judy's first grandchild.  The artwork has hung in her home studio for over ten years.

ceremony for mystery 2023  embroidery on vintage linen with red thread knots, this is a detail

The first embroidery:  What is the celebrant holding in his hands?  

ceremony for memory 2023  embroidery on vintage linen with red thread protection, this is a detail

The second embroidery, the image is from an art history book.  The silk thread is used to draw with as if it were an ink or pencil drawing.  Red thread means protection in many world cultures.

ceremony for wildness 2023, embroidery on vintage linen with red thread, a detail

Milk weed grows wild in the fields of Manitoulin Island.  The lace is hand made.   

The Ceremonies series premiered at the Stardust exhibition in the Gore Bay museum (2023).
Above: "Earth and Air" wool and linen quilt 94 x 82"
"Ceremony for Wildness, 35 x 26.5" and Ceremony for Memory, 40 x 20" 

Ceremony for Mystery, with its own stand and ten bundles.  
Each bundle is made from wool wrapped around leaves from the artist's garden.

ceremony for innocence, shown in its metal frame.  23 x 19 inches.

 2023:  all four ceremonies were exhibited in Stardust, a solo exhibition of Judith E Martin's work at the Gore Bay Museum July 7 - September 15 2023 in Gore Bay, Manitoulin Island, Ontario.

Ceremony for Innocence is in the collection of the artist.

The other three ceremonies are available for purchase.