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   

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. 

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.  

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.

Memory of Wikwemikong

Memory of Wikwemikong

2008, dyed rayon and cottons, layered and hand quilted with embroidery thread, 74 x 25"

In honour of the blue moon that happens tonight, August 31, 2023, I am posting Memory of Wikwemikong, a quilt that I made in 2008.

It is one of the first pieces I made having to do with cosmic imagery and the night sky.

I live on Manitoulin Island and am humbly aware of the great spiritual presence of this place, the ancestral home for thousands of years of the ojibwe peoples.

I look out over Manitowaning Bay towards the Wikwemikong Penninsula.

I laid out the layers of fabric that make up this piece when I was not at home.  I relied on my memory of what is, when I am home, my daily view.   (hence the title)

The back of the quilt is made up of four pieces of dyed rayon.  Hand quilted.

 Memory of Wikwemikong sold into private collection this month out of Guildworks.

These are the only photos that I have of it.

Under Drifting Stars

Under Drifting Stars

2022, very light weight cotton with a silk batt, 86 x 91 inches.

A world of spirit thinly veiled, a secret mystery.  Our cosmos, our day and night, the sun and the moon, and also the stars.  Childhood and also eternity.  Also emotions.  Also dreams.

I make quilts that are large enough to cover a family.

The cotton was first treated with tannin (sumac leaves) and then dot-painted with water that had a little iron powder in it.  Judy painted the fabrics on her birthday in July 2020, during the height of the pandemic.  In the spring of 2022, she arranged the fabrics and hand pieced them.  Over the summer, she hand embroidery-quilted the large quilt in a hoop.  

The upper half of the quilt has shapes that resemble a moon and some suns, or maybe all of them are moons.  

The dots were outlined with quilting thread and pulled tightly so that they would puff out.  Some of them are so puffy, they look as if they are appliqued, but they are painted.

A thicker wool thread was used to outline the larger shapes.

The lower part of the quilt also has painted dots, but this time the artist embroidered over each dot with embroidery floss to make rough satin stitch dots.

The lower half of the quilt was quilted with pink silk thread, while the upper half was quilted with white silk thread.  The subtle change of colour of thread is noticeable.

Yes that is a seam that joins the upper and lower halves of the quilt and it has been made into a tuck to create a wavering horizon line.  

The back of the quilt is also marked with the same dots, but not with paint.  Just the threads are used and you can see how they are actually a way of quilting the two sides of the quilt together, while also making a pleasing image on the back.  The pink fabric is cotton dyed with avocado.

Under Drifting Stars made its premier in the prestigious Quilt National 23 exhibition in Athens Ohio in May of 2023.  

It was awarded the Handwork award.

A video of Judy speaking about making this quilt can be viewed here.  

The exhibition of Quilt National continued at the Dairy Barn until September 11. 

After that date, the 80 quilts are split into three smaller groups and go on tour for two years.  Under Drifting Stars is in Group A .  Group A shows at Canton Museum of Art in Canton, Ohio November 2023 - March 2024 and in July - September 2024, it will be on view in Morehead, Minnesota at the Historical Society of Clay County.

 

Where There Are No Storms

Where There Are No Stars

watercolour and thread, 2023

framed under glass in wooden frame, 20 x 20" framed size

Premiered at Perivale Gallery, Spring Bay, Manitoulin Island.

Available through Guildworks, Prince Edward County, Ontario