Nest of Days

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.

A nest of days in a way.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.

someone made this wall. it is a gift with out a name.

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 cloth on the rocks.

on the garden fence

both sides now

I don't need to sign it, the fire is there.

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.

the holding

spirit cloth

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.

 

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58 comments

  2. Jean Stumpf

    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.

    Reply
  3. Kathy Atria

    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.

    Reply
  4. Dhyana

    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.

    Reply
  8. Helen Lee

    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.

    Reply
  9. Judith

    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.

    Reply
  10. Pam S.

    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💙

    Reply
  11. Corinne

    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.

    Reply
  12. Laura

    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.

    Reply
    • jude

      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.

      Reply
  13. Victoria

    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.

    Reply
    • jude

      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.

      Reply
  14. Caro

    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!

    Reply
    • jude

      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.

      Reply
  15. Jana Jopson

    The land holds it all. Place. Belonging. This is what these photos bring up for me. The land makes, too. Patient teacher. Going. Goodness.

    Reply
  20. Marti

    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…

    Reply
      • carroleb

        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.

        Reply

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