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.

red thread hearts

 red thread hearts 2019, a two sided piece (detail side b above)

red thread hearts side a
sixteen women's handkerchiefs, damask table cloth, cotton and silk threads
hand stitched, 76" x 76" or 193 x 193 cm

the women's handkerchiefs are edged with red thread and then appliqued to 20" of damask
the damask squares are then hand sewn together, each sam is hemmed

The central whirl is made with a running stitch and appears the same on both sides of the fabric

 red thread hearts side b, reverse applique, red cotton thread couched with silk thread

circular motifs made with red thread are protection symbols for the mother in  many world cultures

Earth and Air

 

Earth and Air   2017  plant dyed wool, linen damask, machine and hand constructed, hand stitched
94 inches high x 82 inches wide  (238 cm h x 208 cm w) 

Exhibition record;

a key piece for Judy's solo exhibition "The Cloud In Me" at David Kaye Gallery in the Queen West area of Toronto, month of October 2017.
included in Fibreworks at the  Queen Square Gallery in Cambridge, Ontario, October 2018

Earth and Air is currently in the collection of the artist, available for purchase.

My Light Green Heart

 My Light Green Heart    22.5" wide and 29" high  (57 x 74 cm ), 2017  old linen damask, procion dyes, cotton and wool threads,  Tucked, stitched and quilted by hand

how she submitted, 

loved,

loved her interior world

her interior wilderness

the primal forest inside her where among decayed tree trunks

her heart stood

light green

Rainer Maria Rilke

(using the female rather than male pronoun)

Exhibitions

2017:
Craft Ontario 17
1106 Queen West Toronto

Perspectives From Here   Northwestern Ontario artists about Canada 150
Thunder Bay Art Gallery
Thunder Bay Ontario

2018:
January 11 to March 30
Quest Art High Craft Juried Exhibition
Midland Ontario
AWARD  (second place)

2019:
Perivale Gallery summer season, sold into to private collection

large emptiness, small marks: a portfolio of sketches

 Large Emptiness Small Marks  2016  silk, cotton, rayon, linen damask fabrics stitched with cotton, silk and metallic threads.  36 pages within a hand stitched taffeta folder, each page is 33 cm x 33 cm.

A portfolio of sketches for large-scale (2.5 m or 90" ) square quilts.  Each 33 cm square cloth page is an idea for a larger cloth construction that will be filled with hand stitched marks.  A large square grid is formed when all thirty-six sketches are displayed at one time that measures 200 cm x 200 cm.

The squares are each filled with horizontal lines or large circles and are made from layers of lush, calm fabrics.  Each page is a complete idea and can be displayed singly or within a larger group.  This artwork encourages close physical engagement and considered viewing over time.  The slow actions of undoing buttonholes, opening the folder, and lifting each page encourages contemplation.   Unconscious memories are unlocked by the sense of touch.

Cloud of Time

Cloud of Time
7.5 feet high x 9 feet wide
Artist Canvas, damask and silk fabrics, cotton embroidery floss, hand stitched
Part of the exhibition The Cloud In Me - October 2017 at David Kaye Gallery in Toronto Ontario Canada

This piece was reconfigured in 2017.

previously, the work had been a continuous strip.  It was exhibited as part of The Mended World exhibition in this earlier format.

Cloud of Time 2014
re-claimed linen damask and variety of blue fabrics
cotton floss, artist canvas, hand stitch    33 cm x 1806 cm   (13" x 711")

A measurement of one year of time.  (365 days)
One complete skein of embroidery floss is used to represent one day.

exhibition record:
2013  Mended World exhibition, Thunder Bay Art Gallery  September-October 2013
2014  Mended World exhibition, Art Gallery of Sudbury  January - February 2014

and
2015  Mended World exhibition, Homer Watson House and Gallery, May -June 2015

Studio photograph of Cloud of Time by Nick Dubecki, Sudbury
Gallery photograph of Cloud of Time reconfigured
installed at the David Kaye Gallery is by Frank Myers, Burlington

Cloud of Time will be exhibited twice more in its new configuration,
(photo of Judy Martin by Frank Myers)

at Mary E Black gallery in Halifax
as part of Cloth of Time exhibition with Penny Berens  July 13 - August 26 2018
and
at World of Threads festival in Oakville
in a solo exhibition   October 13 to November 25 2018

available for purchase: please contact David Kaye

Lake

Lake  Indigo and hand stitch on silk, 2014  Judith e Martin

168 cm h x 133 cm w   (66" h x 52" w)

Materials: re-purposed linen damask, hemp silk blend fabric, indigo dye, cotton embroidery and quilting threads  (bamboo batt)

Techniques:  paste resist, hand embroidery, hand quilting.   (Entirely hand stitched)

the tuck that seams the two pieces of indigo dyed cloth together creates a horizon line.

2015  Perivale Gallery Spring Bay Manitoulin Island.  May 17- September 15 2015
2015  Quilts=Art=Quilts  Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center  Oct 31 2015 - Jan 3 2016
2016  World of Threads Festival, Oakville Ontario  Oct 29  - November 27 2016