The Mothering Bundles in Toronto

Since 2022, I have been tidying up items I've saved from my artist-mothering life by wrapping them in pieces of wool blanket.   

I call the resulting objects Mothering Bundles.

#33  

Each bundle has a number so that I can remember what is inside it because I forget what is inside a bundle almost as soon as I start stitching it shut.

Number 33 above contains:  Two maternity blouses that I embroidered, the small tea cloth that the young Brownies in Rainy River embroidered and gave me when I left my teaching job to move in with Ned and marry him.  Also contained in this same bundle are several friendship bracelets made by my daughters.

in the window, our daughter April's quilt, Spider Silk

Art is not just a respite or escape, it is a formidable tool for gaining perspective in troubled times.  Olivia Laing

I made a list of what is inside each bundle.  

So far, there are 38.  

It is an ongoing project and I hope to continue to bundle.

Sometimes, I need to open one up and retrieve an item so this list is valuable.  

(There is also a small green account book with written details about bundle contents).  

It is necessary to abolish distinction between art and life.  Marcel Duchamp  1957

the quilt on the wall is called Sunflower Sky

They are simple things, these bundles

They feel safe and calm.

They invite you to slow down and consider your own life.

They help you to connect to your inner self.

They are as mysterious as the stars in the sky.

#20

Number 20 (above) contains eleven canvas draw-string camping bags that Ned inherited from his cousin Richard.  Labelled with black ink, ( coffee, flour, white beans, rice, brown sugar, wheat porridge, candy, spices, milk powder and tea) they are in two sizes.  

from left to right:  Judy Martin's The Beauty of the Green Earth, some Mothering Bundles, and then April Martin's Neptune in Pices, Hourglass in the Sky, Same Same (above) and June Skies (below) Far right is Judy Martin's Lake Full of Stars.  

The images in this post are of the exhibition I had in Toronto this past summer with my artist daughter, April Martin.  We both exhibited hand stitched quilts.  

The exhibition was entitled Earlier and Later and it was held at the Craft Ontario gallery at 401 Richmond St, Toronto.  June 17 - July 25, 2026.

All photos in this post are professional documentation of the exhibition by Jocelyn Reynolds.

You have to follow your work even if it seeems ridiculous.  Follow your intuition.  Go with your work.  Kiki Smith

Toronto visit

Tomorrow is Another Day, indigo in linen damask, applique, hand stitching, 2024

I’m in Toronto this week.  I arrived on Friday and spent  two nights (Friday and Saturday) at the Gladstone House on Queen West.  I was able to do this fancy thing because part of the Gladstone House Award that I won last fall was one night's sleep in the room where my work is hanging for one year.  (The second night was half price).  My linen wall piece will be in room 309 until November.  After those two nights, I moved to the east end of the city where my son lives with his family.   

Our daughter April lives in the west end of the city, and on that first Saturday she took me to several commercial galleries.  First up was the Patel Brown gallery where there was a group show What We Carry.  The handmade washi paper sculptures of Japanese-Canadian artist, Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka resonated with me.  She made sewn boulders and 3-dimensional wall pieces from lino block printed paper that she had made herself.   

At the same gallery, we saw some pieces by Swapnaa Tamhane 

Bird's Eye mirror embroidery on dyed silk by Swapnaa Tamhane

Fence watercolour on paper  by Swapnaa Tamhane

I feel so lucky to have been able to see these inspirational, quilt-like pieces that reference place (her ancestral homeland) so eloquently.  

We visited the Clint Roenisch gallery next and I saw Leif Low-Beer's solo exhibition of naive sculptures and paintings done in pastels and bright colours in a variety of mediums.  

S.E.T.M. 1 2025 

In the Daniel Faria gallery, Jean-Francois Lauda's solo exhibition,  Some Exceeding Twelve Minutes, was on display. All the paintings had this as their name, differentiated by a number. 

S.E.T.M. 5     2025

Jean-Francois Lauda is a practicing musician, and the title, Some Exceeding Twelve Minutes refers to the time that performances of musical pieces stretches to be longer than usual or expected.  I liked that time is considered a material in these paintings.  The artist says that he enjoys "staying with something long enough to understand what it's doing or undoing".  

I tried to understand why Lauda's work resonated with me so much, and I think it is because his paintings are similar to my own work (in textiles).  Like my work, his paintings a) are nearly monochromatic and b) there are large areas of 'empty space filled with textural marks".

Window   2017. Oil on canvas 

The last gallery that we visited on Saturday was MOCA - the Museum of Contemporary Art.  I had looked forward to viewing the solo shows of Jessica Stockholder and Justin Ming Yong, but was not as impressed as I had hoped to be by them.  However, Margaux Williamson's extensive exhibition entitled Shoes, books, hands, buildings and cars was really good. There were a lot of paintings, several of them dated 2025.  Most were very large.  On large neutral backgrounds, she represents the familiar interiors and backyards of her life in a diaristic way.  Her compositions explore abstraction, a variety of perspectives, unfinished areas, and contemporary dailiness.  

Red Carpet (collection of the art gallery of Ontario) 2024

I've followed Margaux Williamson's career for a while, beginning from when I read Sheila Heti’s 2010 novel grounded in their personal friendship, How Should a Person Be?   However, this is the first time that I have been able to view her paintings in real life and it was astounding to be face to face with her masterly technique and the large scale of the paintings.  

The final artist I will speak about is my grand daughter, Suvi, age 4.  She used finger paint on finger painting paper in these morning paintings about the sun, but (such a rebel) she used a paint brush to apply the paint.  (except for that red finger-painted circle in the painting on the upper left.)    

Thank you Loree Ovens

Between Heaven and Earth, dyed rayon laid on cotton and hand stitched  by Judy Martin

Thank you Loree Ovens for organizing the Evolve exhibition that was installed in the Propeller Gallery from September 14 - October 2, 2022.  

It was nice to spend time with you, Loree, on the closing day of the exhibition, October 2 when we were both there for the entire time, (1 until 5:30).   

Thank you also for doing the installation of my work on September 12.   

The first thing I saw from the street was my bundle sculpture,

 "in my arms humble" , displayed on a plinth, leaning on the wall.

in my arms humble, wrapped and stitched silk, the size of a 2 month baby by Judy Martin

Thank you for receiving my three pieces in August and keeping them safe until the installation time.   

New Growth, acrylic, ink on heritage washi paper by Loree Ovens

I liked how right from the beginning  (late January 2022) you told us that we each would be given 8 feet of display space and that although the work didn't have to be new, it should reflect our endurance as artists through the pandemic.

Thanks also to your partner T C, who designed the invitation.  I printed some up and mailed them to my southern Ontario artist friends.   

I was glad to see my piece Turning Forever To The Heart hung near the entrance, next to your paintings on Japanese paper. 

Do you remember how I wrote about your work on this blog in 2015, Loree?  Click here if you'd like to read that post.

Turning Forever To the Heart, stitched taffeta by Judy Martin

Propeller is a co-operative art gallery located in the Queen West district of Toronto.

You, Loree Ovens, are an artist member.  Thank you for inviting me and the other non-members to be part of this exhibition.  

Chung-Im and Eva in front of skeleton v2 by Chung-Im

Also, thank you for leading the discussion about the title of the exhibition and the statement for the website.    

Evolve is a glimpse into the world of six resilient female artists who continue to show ingenuity and strength through their practice.  To evolve is to constantly learn, adapt and take on challenges.  Resolutions are found, perfected and the evolution continues.  Artists include Eva Ennist, Chung-Im Kim, Judy Martin, Liz Menard, Loree Ovens and Saskia Wassing.

skeleton v2 (detail) screen printed industrial felt, hand stitched by Chung-Im Kim

Chung-Im Kim and I have been curated into an exhibition before when Sandra Reford created a show of Canadian textile artists and took it to the Carrefour in France in 2012.  I wrote about that exhibition on this blog when Tradition in Transition showed in Oakville, Ontario. Sandra came to see Evolve on October 2.    

Chung-Im Kim's work in sculptural felt is fabulous.  It's fun to see how I wrote about both Chung-Im Kim's and Eva Ennist's work in 2015 when it was on exhibition with other Ontario College of Art and Design professors at the Craft Council gallery.  Click here.

Shelter series, A Sure Instinct 3, 2, and 1, encaustic and mixed media by Eva Ennist

Eva Ennist was also at the Propeller gallery on October 2 and it was great to finally meet her.  I wrote about her Nesting sculptures at the 2018 World of Threads on Judy's Journal.   

I was charmed by Liz Menard's etchings of wild plants on eco printed paper.  Those and her small pinch pots grounded the back wall of the gallery.  

On Purple Loosestrife, etching on artist made purple loosestrife paper with embroidery and pastel by Liz Menard

Two of Menard's pieces had remarkable French knot embroidery.  Thanks Loree for telling me that the paper itself was made from loosestrife fibres which was then etched and embroidered.  

It was nice to meet Saskia Wassing on Sunday.  We talked about our fine art degrees in Embroidery from UK universities.  Her degree was in Embroidered and Woven Textiles from the Glasgow School of Art and mine was Embroidered Textiles from Middlesex.  Embroidery has as much respect as painting does in the United Kingdom.

Stitched Stories, embroidered and applique silk by Saskia Wassing

I appreciated visiting with many friends and colleagues on October 2.  David Kaye came and that was especially wonderful.  So many of us miss the David Kaye gallery which closed in early 2019.  David continues to keep his website entitled David Kaye Projects live.  Past exhibitions and artists' work are on the site.  You can find Eva, Chung-Im, Loree and Judy (moi) on his site. 

Between Heaven and Earth, rayon laid over cotton and hand stitched by Judy Martin

Loree, there are a lot of links in this post and I hope that is OK.  I will provide two more.  Your personal website,  Loree Ovens and my own,  Judy Martin.

The Evolve exhibition has come down from the walls now, but it continues online until November 13.   Read the artist statements and see close ups of each piece at this link. If you scroll to the bottom there is a video and an online catalogue (downloadable)

Thank you, friends, who came to Propeller on Sunday Oct 2 to see the show and to visit me.  I treasure the selfies of us that I took.  

two things in July

One: 

At the end of June I went to Toronto so that I could stay in the famous Gladstone House in the same room as our daughter April's commissioned art.

I wrote about her art at the Gladstone on my moderinist aesthetic blog.  

 April took me to one of her favourite galleries, Cooper Cole.

We saw the Father Time exhibition by Daniel Rios Rodriguez.

There was something about his archetypal body of work that resonated with me and I couldn't put my finger on it until I read the gallery text.  "He does not separate his role of father, partner, and artist.  "a father can be an artist, a home can be a museum, a studio can be a home."      

Also on view at Cooper Cole were Laurie Kang's large film pieces in the exhibition New Document. 

The large pieces of unfixed film are suspended from the ceiling and continue to change because of exposure to light.      

I found this moving and also just plain beautiful.

left: molt (oakville, los angeles, toronto) , right molt (los angeles, toronto)
both by Laurie Kang

We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. 

On display was the work of one of my favourite artists, Felix Gonzales Torres.  

His simple pieces are installed differently in every gallery they are shown.  I've seen his work before and it appears on this blog here and also here.  

Untitled (Golden) by Felix Gonzales Torres looking through it from the main part of the gallery

Untitled (Golden) by Felix Gonzales Torres looking at it from the window side

I spent two nights in Toronto. 

Two:  

Underfoot The Earth Divine / Overhead the Sun has been shortlisted for the Fine Arts Textile Award which is an international honour.

I invented a way to make a sleeve that was incorporated into the artwork and will allow both sides to be viewed.  

I approached this task not knowing exactly how to do it or what I even wanted. 

It took the better part of a week.

I really don't mind spending this kind of love on my work.

It's what I do. 

princess or mermaid?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this recently, but I've been working on my archives.

stitching in car on highway 69 south bound

My archives include photos and papers and actual quilts but this post's text is about my journals.  

(the images in the post are of my recent stitching and grand daughter collaborative drawings)

My journals are 'my book' and I have been writing it for 37 years.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom 

A few years ago I started to type selected journals into the laptop.  

In the beginning,  I bundled up the books and put them back on the shelf.  

See here.  

by 5 year old maia and grandmom

However, that wrapping only added to the 'journal clutter' 

that I worry about leaving  behind.  

stitching in car on highway 69 north bound

So now I am giving them to Ned to burn one by one.

I will never finish going through all of them,

but the project remains fascinating to me and I do it an hour each day.

Maybe some year I'll use the notes that are organized chronologically to help me  

write a memoir or an autobiographical novel about being a mother artist.