The House With The Golden Windows

made in 1993, first exhibited at Thunder Bay Art Gallery that year

east wall exterior
Glossy Magazine papers stitched to artitst canvas, procion h dye painted roof, metallic hand quilted window, 1993,   approximately 6 feet high excluding fringe

From January 31  2007

To discover the conscious mind in a world where intellect is held to be valuable requires solitude - quite a lot of solitude.   We have been very strenuously conditioned against solitude.  To be alone is considered to be a grievous and dangerous condition.  Most people have never been alone enough.
I suggest that people who like to be alone, who walk alone, will perhaps be serious workers in the art field.                                                                                                                

 Agnes Martin

south wall exterior

Glossy Magazine papers stitched to artitst canvas, procion h dye painted roof, metallic hand quilted window, 1993,   approximately 6 feet high excluding fringe

west wall exterior

Glossy Magazine papers stitched to artitst canvas, procion h dye painted roof, metallic hand quilted window, 1993,   approximately 6 feet high excluding fringe

north wall exterior

Glossy Magazine papers stitched to artitst canvas, procion h dye painted roof, metallic hand quilted window, 1993,   approximately 6 feet high excluding fringe

From January 12 2007

This blog gives me an opportunity to explain how quilts in general and my quilts in particular fit into the critical discourse of contemporary art.  Quilts are usually made by women and almost always refer to life in some way.  Quilts are considered craft by art galleries, and because of that they are often dismissed as a decorative triviality, and not given exhibition opportunities.  Quilts, because of their connection to the bed, provide a vehicle that is rich with metaphor about major life passages.  Quilts need to be understood and they need to be critically defended.

millennium journal details

Winter Solstice 

Most of November

Winter Solstice

from June 26, 2006

I believe that my work in textiles reaches others on a more emotional level than painting or drawing ever can.  The reason for this is the materiality of cloth and stitch. Cloth has a most intimate connection to the human body.  Babes are wrapped in cloth within minutes of emerging from the womb.  Cloth is fragile and wears out with age, as does the human body.  The hand stitch is a slow method of making a mark and seems to hold time and make it visible.  The time repeatedly spent touching the piece expresses a thoughtful caring and tenderness.  There is power in cloth that has been stitched by hand.

Winter Solstice

Zen Ecstasy

from June 22 2006

Do all your work as if you had a thousand years to live, and as if you are going to die tomorrow.
A Shaker idea.

millennium journal

inner sonnet

lucky me

personal language

quiet myth

zen ecstasy

most of november

winter solstice

from March 14 2006

This project is an attempt to record and recognize each day of the turn of the millennium between November 1998 and February 2001.

It was empowering and meditative to invent a personal code for those three years using an alphabet of symbols. Three pieces of cloth acted as a base for the others; a large red square for the calendar month, a blue or gray square representing the weather and thirdly, a smaller one dyed the colours of a human body. On top of these constants are a variety of fabrics in torn or cut shapes that vary with the daily events. For example, a leaf shape is the symbol for a perfect day. A triangle shape represents time spent parenting one or more of my 4 children, each a different colour. A sheer piece of fabric tells me that the ice was in.