Way back, almost at the beginning of this journey. 2004? Quiltmaking. I began to put some words together to describe how I was feeling about "the quilt". Loose thoughts. On a loose page somewhere. I was not blogging then. I come across them now and then. The quilt as a documentary. These thoughts, also sprinkled throughout my old blog.
This is this morning, from the hill in the back of the property. I walked along the path I keep cleared ( to avoid ticks) up and past my the sitting rock. To the stone wall that sits at the top like a ridge.
If you follow this wall (not an easy task) it borders the biggest land here and leads to a little spring, water comes up out of the ground and flows to a small river that forms a boundary on one side of the property. Hop over it... just forest.
I went out for a photo shoot. But found myself rethinking. Nest of Days. How all the larger cloths, they might be part of a series called that.
A Nest of Days, here, a small quilt, started way back, well am not even going to try to check when, it doesn't matter. When I think about quilts, they take time. So they inherently contain the time it takes, took. I often think about that. They are evidence of that. I think I often rest in that. And I think of that.
If I make a large cloth and give it to you. That is enough to say I was here. It makes me light as air. But there.
A nest of days. I hold them, they hold me. They hold you. And we go on. The best we can.
I planted more grapes yesterday. Eventually I hope they cover the far side of the fence. Some for us, some for the deer and still the vines will not shade the garden.
Why do I make? I make to give form to my thoughts, so I can share them. I make because I feel it can be a way to kindness.
Still and always an adventure in gift giving.
“I make…” yes! At a slow to medium pace it is possible to become…thanks for those two words❤️
thank you for considering them…
Thank you for all your generous online offerings. I found the blog and your work about 6(?) weeks ago. It’s lead me in a direction I never imagined. Instead of my usual FOMO life pace, well, lately I have been sitting in acceptance. Waiting and looking for something. In the meantime I have enjoyed my Jude Hill YouTube and internet binge sessions. You exude peace with your words and pictures.
there are so many ways to go.
I love your first sentence. “Why do I make?” I was talking to my adult son today about a slow stitching project I just finished. I was my first and like all type A personalities, I felt the need to finish it quickly. Everything I make has a purpose. I make quilts for new babies in our family and for those I love. I make sachets to give to friends at luncheons, etc. etc. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the slow stitching spirit cloth I made, but as I told my son, maybe I’ll just put it in a box and take it out to look at when I feel like it. Thanks for your inspiration.
A gift to self! Over and over!
I don’t need to say any thing,
I am happy.
I don’t need to say any thing,
I am happy.
FaBulous to see your land space ! I romanticize this scene – it has been with me for decades. Now that I’m old I can see it won’t happen for me; but I must have lived there in a previous time because my longing is to go back to it.
Enjoyed your quilt making thoughts very much.
LOve.
What an interesting circle you have drawn with your words
Beautiful pictures
On a beautiful day
By a beautiful person.
Ditto!!
It was one beautiful day…
Home, fire, wall-the glow of these gifts, and how giving is a gift for all involved.
Isn’t that so true?,…it’s a bit like another dimension.
What a lovely setting. And thoughtful musings.
April charms me.
When I get an idea to make something as a gift, the creativity flows in such a happy making way. It never happens that way when I have to think about making money from it. It’s a different energy somehow.
Yes. Totally.
When something you made is still around then so are you. A kind of immortality.
I love the glow of that quilt.
I used to waste time wishing for more money; then I found that I already had everything I need.
Yes, I think even an anonymous immortality. I often imagine disappearing without a trace might be a beautiful thing.
Poof…
Exactly!
I can never explain it well the need to make quilts or cloth pieces… it’s just me, and gifting them is sharing a part of myself that I rarely let out to many.
Your words touch deeply Jude💙
Yes, you are a good example of how I feel.
❤️
You make life beautiful every day in so many ways. Thank you. “Making….a way to come out” and everything Marti said. “Making gives us a part of ourselves that perhaps we did not know resided in us.” Resonance.
it’s an folding. what is already there…
I have always felt that your works were gallery worthy. (I would have flown to NY just to experience them in person.) Your desires are more ‘of the spirit’, symbolic and heartfelt– storytelling in the most personal way. I can’t thank you enough for your blog, classes, and generosity.
You are a true artist.
Your place looks ready for Spring, and your quilt seems to be taking it all in! Beautiful.
In truth, I am not much of gallery person. Artist has never been a goal. Even art school did not do much for me. Something just needed to come out and it took me a while to realize what drives that. I do enjoy the attention though, ha!, who doesn’t?
I am more ready that ever for spring, I could just look and it could be enough.
How lucky you are to have a stone wall, a sitting stone, a spring, and a river. Wow! So much—–you are rich in many ways.
I am.
I think about that more lately.
How I could want to be richer. How there is no point really. How the selling part is now only to help others. How ridiculous it is to bitch about anything. How some others may think I am poor in relative terms. How did people get their priorities so mixed up? There is enough to go around really. We don’t need much we just want more, more, more.
So beeing that the fire is visible does that mean this blanket/ cloth is one layer? And is the back “raw” and you quilt it like that?
Your words touch something deep inside of me. Gifting, leaving a mark, continue through that.
Thank you for these thoughts!
No, it is two layers, no batting, I try to use cloth that is thin enough to see through. You can see the reds on the other side through the front. You can see both sides at the same time when the light comes through. From either side. It is a different kind of composing. The alignment of layers. it also symbolizes depth for me. Haven’t talked about it for a long time. I should.
The land holds it all. Place. Belonging. This is what these photos bring up for me. The land makes, too. Patient teacher. Going. Goodness.
Making is bigger than us.
Beautiful Being.
Aliveness.
I love the “fire” too, that’s what caught my eye the most. Gifts…yes. 🙂
Making to give is so different really. The time it can take without the thoughts of time spent in terms of worth. So so different.
A lovely day, with lovely kindness, words, views, and quilt(s)…love the fire that quilt holds 🔥🙌
Love you, Jude, and your Giving Self.
Isn’t Spring grand!? 💚
season is a great reminder.
one of the things i miss most about my Place in N. Mex is the
big windows. That incredible experience of Looking Through
Windows would be the only other change I would want here. But when porch weather comes, I just forget. good enough…
Looking through jewel colours 😍 ❤
gosh I love to look through cloth.
Making gives us a part of ourselves that perhaps we did not know resided in us: it has been this way for me. For in creating my dyed landscape collages, I have found an inner landscape that has formed and given me another language, a way of sharing who I am, what I see, what matters to me and how this sharing connects in such singular and universal ways…
a gift to ourselves yes. a way to come out.
mice nests…our own nests…weaving it together this morning.
I have not seen any chipmunks,
Beautiful Spring photos, complemented by your creation…nest building, yes.
this season makes us open
I love your space in the woods. So content looking in the landscape.
The quilt on the stone wall. Beautiful softness in a hard place.
I must confess to wanting to see your work all sitting together, the journey so far.
There is something that happens for me in a show of work. There is an exchange between the viewer and the viewed. There is also a wonderful feeling in seeing work all together, talking between themselves.
yes, but I just don’t belong there, I cannot articulate why.
Beautiful work. Gorgeous colours.
thank you
This is truly beautiful, Jude. Xx
I love everything today