I’m pleased to announce that my hand stitched coif – created for The Unstitched Coif project – is now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum Collections. So far 78 of the coifs have been documented and images will follow later in 2025.
Catherine Hill Coif – Victoria and Albert Museum Collections
The project is a collaboration between the V&A and curator Toni Buckby a PhD student.
Unstitched Coif Project
The project is based on an original 17th century coif in the V&A archives in London. This coif was partially stitched and then unpicked, but the pattern is still clearly visible consisting of hand drawn flowers and whimsical bugs.
Around 130 needleworkers from across the world took part in the project.
To see more about the story behind this artwork, please followthis link.
A new exhibition at the House of Smalls called ‘Childhood Interrupted’ prompted me to create a new piece of work called ‘Disowned’ for the Dollhouse gallery.
The exhibition takes place at The House of Smalls, 103 Henderson Row, Stockbridge, Edinburgh EH3 5BB from the 30th January – 1st March 2025.
‘Childhood (noun): The condition of being a child; the period of life before puberty. Interrupted (adjective): Broken, discontinued, or hindered‘ ~ House of Smalls.
Artists taking part in the Dollhouse – Childhood Interrupted exhibition
Disowned
Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, with each piece representing our experiences, relationships and our family – but what happens when a sibling is disowned or renounced by a parent and suddenly those we hold dear are missing from our lives.
Disowned
The child is no longer welcome in the family home, not invited to family events, and for the siblings there is a wider impact.
They have to be forever cautious in conversations, they omit names for fear of further tension or conflict, and contact with those estranged requires deception for fear of being discovered.
Disowned – detail
In my own family it’s happened over two generations leaving a legacy of family rifts that decades later, still exist.
Size 11.5 x 11.5cm. Hand and machine embroidered cotton cloth, Aurifil embroidery thread, vintage Sylko thread, tea dye.
This piece forms part of a series of small works created for the House of Smalls.
Update February 2025:
Thank you to Amy, curator of The House of Smalls for sharing these images of my work in the Dollhouse gallery.
Judith E Martin creates large, poetic, hand-stitched quilts that combine circular drawings with the tradition of North American bed quilts. In her work, she makes visible the profound feelings that rise up within her while stitching. The artist lives and works on an island in Canada and stitches with a hoop while seated near a large East facing window where her view takes in both sky and water.
In this video Judith shares the stories behind the quilts in her solo exhibition – Softer and Dreamier.
Judith E Martin
Materials take the lead for this artist. Many of the fabrics she chooses are old, soft, damask table linens, full of time and ritual. She also uses colourful silks and block printed cottons from India, organza or wool that she dyes herself, or references her Finnish roots with a Marimekko print. She uses both sides of her quilts, with a different title for each side. This body of work is about the process of making it, and the stars and the clouds that she represents in the finished pieces are Judy’s attempt to share her interior world.
Quilt by Judith E Martin
In this solo exhibition, Canadian artist Judith E Martin explores the cosmic circles above us and the dream world within us.
Judith made her first quilt at the age of twenty and soon became inspired by the quilt’s connection to the important life passages that occur in bed. During the 90’s, she made hand-stitched story quilts using the poetic code she discovered in traditional quilt patterns and world embroidery. Martin holds two BA degrees in fine art, (1993 Lakehead University [Thunder Bay, On] and 2012 Middlesex University [London, UK]). Currently, her most important work is about touch and vulnerability and about the relentless passage of time.
Quilt by Judith E Martin
Judith e Martin’s work has been widely exhibited across Canada as well as the USA, Europe, and Asia.
Her stitched artwork was featured in the book Slow Stitch: mindful and contemplative textile art by Claire Wellesley Smith (2015) and is supported by the Ontario Arts Council. Filmed at the Festival of Quilts 2024.
