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

all the lived emotions

A couple of years ago I wrapped up some textiles that I had saved for a long time as a way to tidy things up.  I called them Mothering Bundles and took 42 of them to local curator Nicole Weppler in 2023.  She hung about 20 of them up in the Gore Bay museum.  See here.  

I like the unusual combination of nostalgia and minimalism that the mothering bundles embody. Wrapped in wool blanket cloth and numbered because without a list, it was impossible to tell what was inside each one.   

They had become little still points.  Separate sacred mysteries.

I re-wrapped 25 of them this past May with fabrics from failed online clothing purchases and unfinished quilt tops.  They became more individual, more interesting. 

They are each different from one another, yet retain the minimalist aesthetic I prefer. 

However, it's still impossible to remember what is inside them without a chart. 

 

This teaches me that our inner world is secret and can never be known just by looking at the surface. 

A few of these newly wrapped bundles make up a two-part sculpture.  "All the Lived Emotions".

(To give you an idea of what I've wrapped, the bundle at the top of this post contains the t-shirts that I wore in the 70's when we biked through Europe.  The next one contains the mermaid costume I made our 7 year old.  The last one holds fabrics from close friends who have since died.)  

dream, earth, luck, moon, soul

dream

Beginning again.  

Beginning in the middle.

Here is my sewing.

earth

Art is about relationships.

earth (other side)

Art may seem as if it is about nature or beauty, but it is about love.

luck

The more I study art, the more I realize this.    

luck (other side)

Because love is caring.  

moon

Some call it wonder.

patience

 Some use the term 'unselfing'.     (here is a link)

patience (other side) 

In order to do my own unselfing I take risks with materials.

And then I make things from what has become wrecked.     

rose

It helps me make sense of being alive.  

rose (other side) 

I have so many things to say right now, that I am not able to say anything.  

That's why I am beginning in the middle.  Here is some sewing.

Here are some of the small wool and velvet bundles I made during July.     

soul

I've been to Great Britain. Lots to say about that.  some of it here.

I'm going to Nova Scotia.  The reason is an exhibition, mentioned here.

Women sew as a substitute for words. 

Conversation with Susan Sontag in my mind

Me:  When I think about my work, I can't think of any reason to do it. 

         I can't think of any meaning to what I'm doing in it.

Only when I don't think about the meaning of it, or the value of it, or the importance of it, can I enjoy my work.

And I do enjoy my work.

Susan:  When we ask ourselves a question for a long while without getting a satisfactory answer, there is usually something wrong with the question.

Humans didn't ask art to justify itself until the late 19th century.  We didn't ask art to be useful or practical. 

Useful, necessary activities are different from voluntary, playful, dreamy ones.

Let's say that  practicing an art is the second type of activity.  Let's say that is why we are drawn to it.

Then it is a mistake to be demoralized because we can't justify it for not being the first type of activity..  It fails to be a number one type of activity, but it is not supposed to be.

The qualities of being voluntary and being free are what drew us to making art in the first place.  When we try to make art a number one activity we start to doubt our worth.  The worth of the activity and also our own personal worth.  It's demoralizing. 

Vagueness is not only a condition for art and for literature.

Vagueness is a condition for any life of the mind.

Vagueness is necessary for humanity.

As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh:  Journals and Notebooks 1964 - 1980                                                                                                          of Susan Sontag edited by her son David Rieff. 

Magdalena Abakanowicz: Soft Strength at the Tate Modern, London, England

Every Tangle of Thread and Rope, Abakans by Magdalena as installed at Tate Modern until May 21 

magdalena's brown abakan 1969,
 ball point pen sketch on opened note book, 6.5 x 8 inches

magdalena's embryology bundles circa 1980,
ball point pen sketch on opened note book, 6.5 x 8 inches

We visited the Tate Modern last week because I wanted to experience the Magdalena Abakanowicz exhibition.  While there, I borrowed one of those folding portable stools so that I could sit among the Abakans and draw them.  I wore my grey knit dress for these visits, because it had great pockets for my phone and little notebook.  My shoes were comfortable and I wore black tights, just like all the other pilgrims.  

embryology  1978 - 1981, burlap, cotton gauze, hemp rope, nylon, sisal, dimensions variable,
by Magdalena Abakanowicz

embryology, there are approximately 800 pieces in this body of work, 1978-81,
burlap, sisal, cotton gauze, hemp, stockings,  etc

When I sat close to the burlap wrapped bundles of the Embryology grouping, I could differentiate the wrapping materials:  brownish cheesecloth, grey and brown cotton stockings, twine, sisal, but I couldn't always tell what was inside them.  

Magdalena did not self-identify as a feminist yet her work is seen by many as emblematic of a powerful female imagery.  One can't help but think about birth and vulnerability while sitting with her work.  And sex.  And decay.  And nests, and wombs, and eggs.   Her work is about LIFE and its connection to fibres. 

mature woman sketching Magdalena Abakanowicz's Embryology
 at the Tate Modern, London, England

sketch of Magdalena's embryology,
 ball point pen on opened out notebook, 6.5 x 8 inches

By drawing them, I touched them slowly with my eyes.  I was touched by them.  They are hand made monuments to human labour and creativity.  The connection to the body and all its functions is so strong that I am finding it hard to express in words.  It's incredible.  The inspiration I felt when I was near them was deep.  I was pulled by heart strings into her spaces and even now, at home, I remember the experience as something holy. 

It was a privilege be so close to them.  I was in awe the whole time.  

Drawing the soft sculptures helped my mind and body absorb them. 

Sitting rather than standing helped my wobbly legs. 

mature woman in front of
Magdalena Abakanowicz's Abakan Orange 1968
at the Tate Modern exhibition, Every Tangle of Thread and Rope.

There's a new post on modernist aesthetic dedicated to Magdalena Abakanowicz's Abakans.   Click here

Haptic Vision

I just read an essay by Victoria Mitchell that I found in  Textile volume 19, issue 3.

It is entitled  Judith Scott: Capturing the Texture of Sensation and analyzes Leon A Borensztein's famous photo of Judith Scott hugging her own sculpture.  Why does this photo have such emotional power?   This photo was chosen for the cover of  Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy and Performativity by  Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick. 

The borders between interior and exterior, between subject and object, between imaginary body and sensed body are activated through this photo of Judith Scott and her work.  Scott's body presses against her artwork with all the windings and bindings, embracing it as if it were alive.  Her face penetrates its surface and this exchange comes to us through the membrane of the photo.  Victoria Mitchell 

The article was about how photographs can elicit strong emotional response within the viewer.  

Reading it, I considered my own blogging and how I try to make my photos reach out and touch the reader by including my own hands at work.  

Some words used in the article:

Affect:  the effective mobilization of feeling which is non-conscious and pre-verbal but also relational and active  

Haptic:  an experiencing of touch that we feel not only with our skin but also inside our bodies.

Haptic Vision: The eyes function as an organ of touch.  

Texture rich photographs of textiles are transformative of that which they capture.   

Textiles have such tactility that they rub uneasily against the eye.  

Smooth surfaced photographs of textiles act as a mediator.    

When the flesh of a human body engages with textiles and is captured in the smoothness of a photograph and then the cornea, it's affective.

When arms and hands are caught in the act of touching cloth, the texture of the cloth can be felt through the photo.  Better than if the body is absent from the photo.    

There is an affective moment when we feel we are being touched through the photograph.

The viewer becomes bound emotionally into the image.

All images are of a new piece made from a re-configured wool blanket.   

I'm couching one side of it like a drawing, and I like how the reverse side is like a carving.