Breaking the Blocks
Hi!
Thanks for stopping by! Life is tough, and I think this podcast might offer you some relief. My aim? To inspire you to overcome some of your own blocks through the inspirational, honest, and at times, downright raw conversations with some wonderful guests, not huge celebrities, regular people like you and I. Let’s see how they have overcome the difficulties in their lives and offer you some advice and more importantly hope.
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Breaking the Blocks
The Art of Imperfection
Rachel Pierman sits down with textile artist Judy Martin for a profound conversation about creativity, mortality, and finding healing through art. They explore the spiritual quality of handmade quilts and how creative work can become a sanctuary during difficult times.
• Judy describes her childhood in rural Canada where solitude and art supplies fostered her inner creative world
• The transition from painting to quilting as Judy raised her four children while maintaining her artistic practice
• How quilting became therapeutic during periods of depression and global anxiety
• The deeper meaning behind Judy's "perfectly imperfect" quilting philosophy
• Judy's candid discussion about her fear of being forgotten and using art as a form of immortality
• The generational trauma patterns that influenced Judy's emotional landscape and artistic expression
• The symbolism of quilts - "the front is what we present to the world, but the back is where all the actual beauty happens"
• Judy's relationship with time and her comforting mantra: "I have all the time in the world"
• The yearning to return to painting while balancing the comfort found in quilting
• Finding inspiration in nature, particularly the sky, as a source of spiritual connection
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review or share it with a friend who might find inspiration in Judy's story. For business inquiries, contact rachel@breakingtheblocks.com.
Follow Judy here: @judithemartin
https://www.judithemartin.com/
This is Breaking the Blocks and I'm your host, Rachel Pearman. There's something underneath there, Judy. There's something within you that I feel is a sadness. Is any of that making sense to you, and can you? Is there anything you could say to that weird thing that I've just come out?
Speaker 2:with no, you know, you're very, very intuitive.
Speaker 1:Now I was about to say for today's interview I met, but I don't think this was an interview. In fact, I kind of feel with this show that so often it's not an interview, it's a conversation. I don't plan the interviews. I don't write down questions. Sometimes I ask a guest is there something specifically you want to talk about With my lovely guest today, judy? There wasn't anything particularly that she wanted to talk about, but when I met her in Birmingham last year and asked her if she would come on the show, the reason I did that is because I felt that there was something otherworldly. There was something there with Judy, something almost spiritual. I just wanted to know what made Judy tick, and I think I did today. There was definitely a pervading emotion running throughout the interview and it took me to the end to try and find out what that was, and I won't spoil it for you. But it really was a fantastic conversation, one of those life-affirming ones that, if you're lucky enough to have, will stick with you for some time. So sit back, relax, as always, let's listen to what Judy has to say and let's see if she gives you any words of wisdom that might help you to overcome a block in your life. But we are ready, ready to talk to the lovely Judy Martin in the studio today. And it's so nice to see you again, because the last time we met I can't believe it. Can you believe how fast time goes, judy. Can you believe it? Because we met at the Festival of Quilts, which is almost here again, isn't it? Beginning of August? That was when I saw you and your beautiful, beautiful work. So, hello and welcome. It is lovely to finally get you in the studio. Hi, rachel, nice to see you again.
Speaker 1:So the reason I got you on the show today you know, judy, I never know anything really about my guests. When I approach people, I don't sort of go deep into their backgrounds and see what I can try and find out about them and think, oh, there's a great story there. I just always go with my gut instinct. If I meet someone or I see something they've done, I just think, okay, let's have a conversation and see where it goes. And it's usually because something is telling me that there is a story there, that there's something. And when I saw your work at the Festival of Quilts last year, it really moved me. It is such beautiful work that you create. People need to go have a look at it. I'll put some images over the top of this interview so for anybody watching on YouTube you'll be able to see.
Speaker 1:Your work is so ethereal, and that's what I said to you. I said, judy, your work is so ethereal, it's spiritual, it just ebbs and flows, and I love it. When you said to me it's perfectly imperfect, Nothing should be perfect. Yeah, and that's what I really liked, because we've all heard of the quilt police and we don't want any of that. So this is what I absolutely loved about your work. So I am very intrigued now to know more about you, judy. This is why I brought you on the show, because I think to create work like that, there has to be something going on underneath. So would you agree?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think I'm just a normal person with a normal life with lots of ups and downs, and my work is really, really healing for me, and I think a lot of people would be healed by spending so much time with something so soft and tactile in their life.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you know, Judy, I actually did a post on Crafty Monkeys recently about discovering this for myself for the first time, Even though I've run this company for five years, and I'm really encouraging of people trying to find their in-artist. I actually picked up my first quilt that has been made by six amazing artists and I was in the garden and I'd picked it up and it's got all sorts of different types of piecing all over it and I said, oh, it's getting a bit chilly. And I said, oh, it's getting a bit chilly. And I wrapped it around me and I am not exaggerating when I say this kind of wave of emotion hit me and I've never had this before. So I absolutely agree with you. There is something healing, isn't there, about quilts or fabric or just pieces of art that have been lovingly made Well.
Speaker 2:I think it is the sense of touch. Right, Touch is the most powerful of the senses. It's more powerful, even though we don't realize it, than the sense of sight, actually, because you know, when you kiss somebody, you usually close your eyes, don't you, and stroke their back or whatever. And so I think touch and that's what quilts are, handmade quilts especially that's touch and it goes straight to the emotional spirit within the other person and I think it is spirit to spirit. A quilt, a hand-stitched quilt so that was what you saw in the Festival of festival quilts was hand-stitched quilts and they were not perfect and people would come in from the other shows to my show and say, oh, these aren't perfect, kind of how did you get to have a?
Speaker 2:show when you don't make perfect work, and I, I don't know, did they really say that, not in so many words? But they also were relieved to see it, because they were trying to be perfect themselves and they couldn't seem to do it. And they saw that I didn't do it and I didn't care about being perfect and they thought what a what a permission slip we've just gotten here, kind of because they were realtters who went to that shop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you see, I mean, I don't think that anything can ever be perfect anyway, but I think when people are striving for perfection, it becomes quite dull. I think that we shouldn't strive for perfection. I think we should strive for creation and creativity and feeling and emotion, because life's messy. So why can't quilting be messy? I don't you know, why can't art be messy? I don't think anything should be ever really finished.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you think it's authentic. Yeah, sometimes it is perfect and sometimes it isn't. You know, I think there's a mix, don't?
Speaker 1:you think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. Well, I think your work is absolutely stunning, as I say, and it really drew me in. But let's talk a little bit about you then, judy, and your quilting history. I have read your blog and I've read your various bits and pieces on your website. You haven't got just one degree in fine art, you've got two degrees. Yes, that's amazing. So you are, you know, yes, you are a fully qualified fine art artist. But tell me before that, were you always creative as a child? Do you always have this inner artist within you, or was it something that you discovered later in life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I have thought about that because I'm actually trying to write a memoir and I keep going back to my childhood so much. So it is something I've been thinking about a lot and I did have a very nurturing childhood as far as art supplies and books and solitude. I grew up on a kind of a farm and my mom didn't drive and she provided us with lots of literature and lots of magazines and lots of fabric and lots of paints and all kinds of stuff and just said go go entertain yourselves. And I did stuff and just said go go entertain yourselves. And I did and I really enjoyed um, having that just uh, um, I guess, lush, uh place to find my inner world. And then, because I lived on this kind of flat area, I had the sky and I had the fields, so I grew up with a lot of emptiness and, like I said, I lived on in the country, so a lot of solitude and those things are I'm they're still the best things to have for me as an artist.
Speaker 2:I've come back to that now I'm an old lady. I love to look at the sky and the water and have solitude, yeah, and work with this inner interiority that is so huge in all of us and that is my main subject. So maybe that's what you feel when you say you feel some spirituality is my working with my inner world and trying to, I guess, bring it forward and enjoy being in it when I'm doing the stitching, just enjoy being in there. Your inner world is full of dreams like what you might do tomorrow, or maybe when you're older or when you grow up, or maybe it's about memories. I don't know that inner world. You know we all have an inner world. I asked my husband so what's going on in your inner world? He says I don't have an inner world. And of course he does. You know, of course we do.
Speaker 1:When you were that child and you were being encouraged to be creative, I mean, were you a big dreamer? And if you were, what dreams did you have as a child? Where did you see your future life going?
Speaker 2:now, that's a good question, because my growing up was in a very isolated area of Canada. It was in northwestern Ontario and certainly no cities, and we could go to Winnipeg to buy our our school clothes which we did once a year, but generally pretty isolated. So my dream was to go to a bigger city. You know, so I'm. I guess if I was dreaming about anything, I thought I would love to be in a bigger city, maybe go to Europe. Yeah, get out of. Get out of that solitude place. So I married a guy from Toronto. I thought he would take me to the city, but he really loved the fact that I didn't come from the city. I think it was the main attraction. So we've never lived in Toronto. We've always lived in either Northwestern Ontario or Northeastern Ontario, which is where I live now.
Speaker 1:And how do you feel about that? Then, judy, if that was a dream to live in the big city and travel and do all these amazing things, I mean you've done amazing things and you have traveled, but you haven't lived on a full-time basis in the city, and so how does that feel for you? Do you feel any disappointment?
Speaker 2:or I certainly did feel disappointment about that for quite a while. Yeah, and yeah, that's good, good to bring that up. But I turned it around and I thought, well, here I am, I'll just do my best and continue to make artwork. You could still make artwork wherever you were.
Speaker 2:And I had four children, children which also, I found, isolated me away from, say, going to an exhibition in a city because I would have to worry about child care or so, uh, those kinds of things might have held me back, but they didn't really, because I used my children to not use them, but I painted them, you know, and everybody loved to buy the paintings of them. So I I sort of found a way to um, get through that particular problem of being a mother by really enjoying it, like turning it on its head and saying the heck with you, I'm going to take my kids to the beach, I'm going to photograph them when they're at the beach, and then I'm going to go home and paint them in the sand while they're sleeping and then find my creativity that way. So that's what I did.
Speaker 1:Were you able to be a full-time mom. Then your husband was the worker and you were a stay-at-home mom.
Speaker 2:Very lucky yeah, it was very important to him and I it was just starting to be that it was rare Like now. It's very rare. Hardly anybody gets to have that kind of idyllic stay-at-home mom kind of life. So I did have a stay-at-home mom life and we have four amazing adult children now who have their own families and they're all close to each other. It's really beautiful.
Speaker 1:And are they creative?
Speaker 2:Oh, super yeah, All creative yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you do anything differently to what your mom did? Because your mom was obviously the stay-at-home mom and encouraged you to go off and find your creativity. Your children are all creative and I'm sure there was a lot of creativity in their childhood, but was there any difference in the way that you brought your children up compared to your mom?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I gave them a lot more freedom. But I gave them freedom to go to parties and go to dances and have friends over, but I did want to live in the country with them. I didn't want them wandering the streets of any small town. I wanted them to be able to know where they were. So we live in the country, which is the same as what I had, and then your parents have more. They pick you up from parties or they. So I think it was kind of, um, I wanted to be more free but also still rein them in a certain amount, I guess your, your husband's, called Ned, isn't he?
Speaker 1:is it Ned? It is Ned, yeah, and obviously you're. You're still together.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are.
Speaker 1:Amazing, how many years is that now?
Speaker 2:Oh, 52 coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, okay. So I mean, as with any marriage, I'm sure there's been lots of ups and downs and roundabouts, and but you are still together.
Speaker 2:I got married at 22 22, so I was very young to be married. I didn't realize it at the time. I thought I was old because my mom got married at 20. So she told me, hurry up, get married.
Speaker 1:But um, so I did do you know, I'm going to say something now and this might be really, really weird, judy. So and I'm not I'm not at all, I'm not casting aspersions or anything, this is just what's come to my mind, so I'm going to say it to you, just in case you've seen it and you go. Yeah, there is parts of that. First of all, the way that you talk and the way you express yourself. You've just reminded me of Meryl Streep. Okay, I find her so beautiful in the way that she speaks and there is something so just lovely about her. And I'm listening to you. And Meryl Streep came to my mind. But then a film came to my mind that she was in, called the Bridges of Madison County. Have you seen that film, judy? I love that film. So do I. That's why I called my daughter Madison, because I watched the film two days before she arrived. I didn't know what I was having girl or boy but I said if it's a girl, she's going to be called Madison. And it was because of that film. And it's such a beautiful film, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I'm not suggesting that you've met Clint Eastwood along the way, but I'm having visions of you being a bit like Marilyn in that film that she has this marriage. She loves her husband dearly. She loves her children dearly, although they drive her mad, but they are a kid's driver's man. She loves her life, but there's this part of her that didn't get to go to Italy. She was in America and she was in the middle of nowhere in America. She didn't get to do the travel that she wanted.
Speaker 1:And obviously Clint Eastwood comes in and she has this moment where she thinks, oh, I could disappear, have this life, but then she knows that her place is in that house. And it's quite tragic and it's interesting because as I've got older and I've got older and I've re-watched the film, my mind changes. Because many years ago I said she should have got out of the car, she should have pulled that door handle, and now I understand why she didn't get out of the car. So is any of that making sense to you and can you do? Is there anything you could say to that weird thing that I've just come out?
Speaker 2:with. No, you know, you're very, very intuitive, because a lot of my work is sort of like that. The reason I chose quilting, the reason I knew that quilting was so good for me, is because of the code in the patterns. Because of the code in the patterns, they have all these ways of putting triangles together and they all have these names and ways of meaning certain things. And I found within the quilt medium that I could tell my secret stories in these, my yearnings or my romantic ideas or actual events, you know, in the quilts as a secret code, and I think people understood them, like you understand me just by listening to me talk.
Speaker 2:Some people understand things and other people don't need to. But it's good for me to be able to have that kind of a journal that I was using my quilts for when I was bringing up the kids, when I was more I don't want to say trapped, but more in the sort of life of being a mom working. I also did a lot of teaching of my quilt techniques and also music, piano music and made these story quilts I guess you'd call them. But yeah, and so then at the end of that period it was I don't know, I think that that Madison County movie is very a good analogy for me. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, but can I ask you, do you wish that you'd open that door?
Speaker 2:the door to leave. Well, as in any marriage, I think you sometimes think that you're going to do that, but um, I'm sure glad I didn't. Yeah, I, I'm so glad that we stayed together through it all and I just am grateful for being married to this guy now. I don't want anything to change. We're at the ages now where friends are starting to get sick and die, you know, and I just want to. Let's just hold on, let's wake up each morning and keep going. Normal life, ordinary stuff, stuff. I just love it.
Speaker 1:So it feels to me like if there was any kind of sadness there, as we've talked about. There was. There was a sadness, there was a regret over perhaps lost dreams at one point, but, as we said, there was tremendous happiness. So that that was what you put into your quilting and your making. Can you describe that process of how you translate that into your work? I mean, I don't know if there's anything else that you can say other than what you've said, but I'm just interested as to how, because when some people are feeling so sad, it can turn, I think, into depression, despair, this feeling of being stuck in glue, this I can't do anything. But you haven't done that. You've used those emotions and created these wonderful pieces. How have you unstuck yourself, how have you been non-human in that way? You know, in terms of you've gone the opposite way and you've created these beautiful, inspirational pieces.
Speaker 2:Good question the opposite way and you've created these beautiful, inspirational pieces. Good question. I think, um, a lot of my work has in the past maybe still does start with an emotion like um, when, um, the iraq war was going on and the weapons of mass destruction war was going on and I had kids who were getting into the adulthood, I just was very depressed, very sad, and the quilts that I was making then, that I decided to make, were these very traditional Amish quilts. I don't know if you're familiar with an Amish quilt which has a lot of empty space in it that's filled with stitching and so they don't look very complicated, but there's a lot of time to sit with them and put in the hand stitching. And that is when I discovered it was to actually stitch into these big empty spaces was in 2001, 2002, 2003,.
Speaker 2:Right after September 11th, I was so upset and I was going through the menopause also and just but poured it into this quilt. One of the quilts is called Each Stitch is a Prayer and it's very pale colors, very pastel colors, and I stitched that and I realized, oh, my God, I feel so great when I'm doing this. It's funny, it's ironic, it's something I'm making.
Speaker 2:This is a huge quilt, 100 inches square right, big for a big bed, Something that I'm making to comfort someone else gives me such comfort. It was like a light bulb, and I guess it was around then that I discovered the healing aspect for myself of doing the stitching. Before that I had worried about the stories that I was putting into the work, but now I came into this new revelation of the emptiness and not really having a pattern, being more kind of abstract and using the archetypes like circles and triangles and diamonds that are very large but empty and filling them with stitch. So my newer work is much emptier and full of I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember what we had at this World of Threads that you might have seen. There probably wasn't anything really empty there.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I feel like there were. I mean the striking piece for me. Well, they were all striking. There was a beautiful piece when I walked in and it was hanging in the middle and it was wavy and it was sort of curled in on itself. I remember that and I was with Russell Barrett at the time because he was the one who said I really want to see Judy Martin's exhibition and I just went along with him. I'm so glad that I did. I do think we're all led to the right place and somehow I was led there with him. But yeah, I saw that curling in and we were both talking about how as well.
Speaker 1:What's really interesting about your work is that it's both sides are beautiful. So it's like you've thought about both sides, which you know for anybody who's quilting, a lot of the time it's the front and then on the back you put on the backing, and the backing of course it's thought about, but it's not thought about as much as the front. But I feel like with your work it's it's coming full circle, I think. I think that's what you do. It's it's a full, it's a full circle piece. It's not half the story, it's the full story. Absolutely it's not half the story, it's the full story.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and that's another revelation that came to me that you know, when we get ready to face the day and say we do have a 9-to-5 job, we have to go out and do it. We have to put on our lipstick and get out there. And so there's this outer shell that we present, and I can do it too, I can talk to people. But, as I said, there's this inner side that's a little bit more interesting, perhaps more honest, more authentic and, um, so I've. That's why I thought well, the front is the outer way that we're presenting to the world, but the back, that can be where all the actual beauty is going on.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. That's such a great statement about life in general. Yeah, that's where the authenticity is, isn't it? It's what's below, it's what's at the back, it's what's hidden, because so often we all wear masks and that's what's behind the mask and that's what's behind the piece. Yeah, let me pick you up on what you said about your work is becoming emptier. So now I wonder if that's because you're?
Speaker 1:I was just about to say your life is becoming emptier. It's not. But what I mean is you know, the kids have gone. I think, as we get older, we start to lose the baggage, don't we? I mean, I'm 56, but I'm already looking at the friends that I've left behind and the things that are changing. And you start to. I mean I don't want to get morbid, but you do start to. I mean I don't want to get morbid, but you do start to think what am I going to do with my last 30 odd years on this planet, or 40? Do I want to carry on being this person that I was? Do I want to have these fake friendships? You start to strip away the layers of the onion, and that's what I feel with you. You said that your work is becoming emptier. I feel with you. You said there that your work is becoming emptier and I wonder, judy, is that to do with you?
Speaker 2:yeah, clearing out the closet, maybe that's a good point, certainly, um, like I was um this morning because I knew I was going to be talking to you, I thought okay let me just think about my own life, as if I was making a plan, and I said so.
Speaker 2:She starts out in an isolated space as a baby. She's born and she's got art books and she's got art supplies, and then she gets really busy. She gets this guy. They go to Europe we did go to Europe on bikes, by the way, for a year and then we come back and we have all these kids and we live and we work and we raise them and we're so busy and Judy makes her story quilts and that takes about 20 years. And then 2005,. It's empty nest, right, and so, oh, unless you think, well, everybody has an empty nest. It's not a big deal, get, get through it. But it was quite a big change. And I went back to school. That's when I got my second degree in from England. That's when the internet came into my life and I started writing my blog and I became this other person completely. Actually, once I had an empty nest and once the internet said hey, judy, you don't have to live in Toronto, you can live wherever you like because we can see what you do.
Speaker 2:And so I really think the internet and the empty nest and the degree from the UK in embroidery. That's what it majored in. They changed me and I. They said what do you really want to do with your work? How? What are the paintings that you love? And I love Rothko, right? So I thought I'm going to make the quilts that I love looking at. Why am I not? It's not that I didn't like the story ones, it's just so I have had a big change. So now I'm in this period, but I think I might be going into my late work, which I it is not that I'm going to stop working, but it's going to have a little more color, maybe it's going to be a little more gentle, but again I'm just with the solitude and the art books and the paints. So it's sort of come around.
Speaker 1:And you know, when you said that I don't know, you're pretty intuitive oh wow, you're very good at this, this interview thing it's funny because I I was on a show, um, recently. One of these my quality friends said can you come on my podcast? So I said, yeah, you know. And I just sat here and I was being asked the questions and he said to me okay, so I'd like to know when you got your therapy degree, which I don't have. And he said, because clearly you, you know a qualified therapist or you act like one. He said how do you do it in your interviews? I mean, I did have therapy many years ago, um, but I don't know where it comes from, judy.
Speaker 1:I just I'm really fascinated by people and I'm interested in people and their stories. I've become way more interested in later life, but also learning a lot about myself as well and my you know, as I did a reel the other day and I said I am not a perfect person. I've made so many mistakes in my life. You know, I've hurt people in my life, acted out, you know all sorts of things. So it's just about recognising those changes. Really, what do you think, judy, in terms of the world? Because I really feel there's something else going on there that we do not know about. I don't know. I feel like we're all connected and it's just whether you want to tap into it. It just whether you want to tap into it. So, whether you want to listen, if you're just quiet and you listen, you'll hear the voices.
Speaker 2:I guess I do struggle with, with what happens next, I don't know um. I have always been so fearful.
Speaker 2:My whole life I've been afraid of losing people, or losing, you know, death. Death is such a such a thing and that is the real tragedy of being alive is that we die, you know, and we continue on as if we're not going to. But we are going to and, yeah, it actually really bothers me a lot that I'm going to die and I'm trying to not die by making these quilts, I think, you know, by making objects that maybe people will love to have around them, and I don't know.
Speaker 1:Now, that's interesting. Okay, I've got to delve a bit into that. Because that's interesting? Because when you say I'm afraid to die, I understand that totally, because I think we're all afraid of dying. I mean, some people are afraid of dying because they're afraid of their death. What's that going to be like? Is it going to be a heart attack? Am I going to stop breathing? What's it going to feel like? Is it going to be a heart attack? Am I going to stop breathing? What's it going to feel like? Am I going to choke to death? Am I going to have some horrendous accident? So the death is frightening. And then, of course, what comes after.
Speaker 1:But it was interesting. You said I'm afraid of dying, which is why I make so many quilts, so that I'll live on. So is there a sense there that you're, is there a sense there that you're afraid of dying and that you haven't made your mark in this world, that you will be forgotten? So it's not so much about you dying and you not being here anymore and you worrying what's after this life, it's more about that you'll die and there'll be no trace of you. Nobody will remember you. So where does that come?
Speaker 2:from's really interesting. Yeah, well, I think it is very true and I don't know. Yeah, I look around and especially women of my age who are artists a lot of them don't have the web knowledge that I have and they don't never made a website and they still make beautiful work, you know. And when they die, it goes. Their family takes it to the local thrift store. And I mean, when I was home in Fort Francis one time, this famous artist from my childhood, millie Gladue, who my mother idolized and went to art classes from Her pencil drawings were all in this thrift store.
Speaker 2:I bought them all because I was so upset that this well-thought-of, creative person was forgotten even by her family. That would do that. And was forgotten even by her family. That would do that. So I am trying to make it really easy for my kids to figure out where everything is, and I'm really sorting myself out so that nobody has written a book about me and I think I'm going to have to write my own book and then maybe I don't know just what's wrong with me. I just it's um, not wanting to be forgotten. You've got it, yeah that's that's interesting.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I I have never heard anybody say that. I think it's refreshingly honest and I think it's very intuitive. I have never heard anybody say it's because I don't want to be forgotten. And that's not to say that nobody else thinks it, because I think a lot of people think it, but I don't think that they realize that they're thinking that about themselves when they think about their death. That's not the first thing that's coming to them, but maybe that is very deep underneath. I want to know about this fear with you as well, judy, because you said I've always been afraid of losing people, and either people dying or people going away, or now. Where's that come from? Because usually when people are afraid of that, it comes from an abandonment wound, which, of course, is caused usually in childhood uh, you know, with by, by parents maybe leaving. Where is that coming from for you, do you think? Because it seems to me like you had quite a stable childhood unless you didn't um, well, my, I don't, yeah, I think, does it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, childhood well, my father was abandoned. So there is this idea of generational trauma and my grandfather was abandoned on my mother's side and my father on his side. So there was this abandonment going on in the backgrounds of the families and my mother would sometimes go into a place where we couldn't reach her. You know, she's a very creative intellectual woman and sometimes she just had to shut her door and say go play amongst yourselves. So I don't think it was. It didn't happen all the time, but it happened enough that as a child I probably felt abandoned. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But yeah, my father came from Finland and he couldn't live with his mother. Then he had to live with someone else and he grew up to be the most gentle person. But I think he always felt he had to really extra love somebody so that he would be sure that they loved him back. And I think I'm the same way. I kind of extra love somebody so that he would be sure that they loved him back. And I think I'm the same way. I kind of extra love everybody to make sure I get love back. And you know there are boundary issues and I know I have them, but I put a lot of it into the quilts. I love my quilts.
Speaker 1:And they love me back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. I think, as you say, generational trauma is passed down and I think it becomes genetic. I mean, there's been all sorts of experiments done, haven't they, with rats and things, where they've looked at, you know, generational the braids of the rats with generational trauma and seen what's happened.
Speaker 1:I do think that we do carry these generational traumas and I do believe as well. I think, particularly at the moment, there are lots of conversations and debates around people breaking those ancestral traumas. That's definitely happening at the moment. I think the whole COVID situation was fascinating. Yes, you could look at it from a science perspective and say it was a virus and the world had shut down, but I think on a spiritual level, there was something about us all being made to stop and reflect on our lives really in that time, and I think that's when a lot of people started changing and perhaps breaking these ancestral traumas. Do you feel like you've been able to break any of those patterns for the generations going forward from your life now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I read something, I listened to people. I actually do not study psychology, I have never had therapy. I have a fear of that perhaps, and my sister's the same and my brother's the same, and I think it was because my mother, who I've talked about a little bit, did teach herself how to speak French by reading novels in French and studying French and she got a psychology degree, even though she lived on this farm, through Waterloo University, in psychology and she practiced while we were growing up, at the dinner table all these theories, you know, which was really good for us in a way, because we had therapy all our lives, because we were, you know, we learned about Freudian slips and all kinds of stuff like that when we were just 10 years old. But I've been hearing about the mother wound right, yes, oh, the mother wound.
Speaker 2:We have to heal the mother wound or we'll never move on. And I start thinking I think I know what they're talking about, but I don't really want to know. So, do I have the mother? Did I get the mother wound? Am I passing on the mother wound? Have my daughters got this mother wound? Now, like, ah, what's going going on? I get really kind of nervous about it and I suppose, I suppose I should go to therapy about it.
Speaker 1:But I do my quills yeah, it always comes back to the quills, doesn't it? I do my quills, I'm doing my quills, I'm doing my quills. I love it. What is that bell? That's our cuckoo clock.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, our dance. Mother clock Lovely.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you're not passing down the mother wound. I think you've probably been a fantastic mother.
Speaker 2:No, I think I have been a really pretty good mother too, and I did not have really a mother wound. I don't think, unless you know, I don't really know. I guess I should not have brought up that term, because I don't really know what it is.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be so deep and meaningful. What exactly is the mother wound? If your mom was locking herself away, you know to be in her own space and her silence and telling you that she needed that time by herself, even if it was done in the nicest way possible as a young child, that is going to affect you. So there is some wounding there and and and you know, of course, wounding can be on many different levels, because you can have someone who's from a deeply traumatic, uh, background with lots of physical and emotional and sexual abuse, and then you can have other people who've just had something like that where their mama said I, I, I, I'm having one of my episodes, I need some space. That is going to affect you as a child.
Speaker 1:So I think you're perfectly entitled to have the feelings that you have and, in fact, one of my reels on Instagram was, if anybody ever says, well, there are much worse things that happen you just say no, actually, my pain is relative to me and I'm entitled to feel it. So I think there is something there that's affected you definitely, but you're recognizing it and that's fantastic and you're able to work through your art with it when you got your success because you've had, you know you've been successful really for many years now. Judy, did your I mean, I don't know when your mum died did she see your success?
Speaker 2:Good question. My mum oh that's, she died in 2007. And I went back to school in 2006 to do that UK degree and got my blog going and everything. So she did glimpse it and she really loved my watercolor paintings. Like I told you, I made quilts when the children were little. I also painted them and everybody loved those watercolor paintings of children and I became a little bit famous where I lived and also my mom loved them and when I started making the quilts she said why are you changing? Why don't you stay painting? Don't you do such beautiful paintings? And who wants to look at quilts? And anyway, she didn't really agree with the quilting thing. But then I got this website and showed her my website and so when she was getting sick in 2006 and 2007, she would say to the nurses in the hospital my daughter has a website, just write in.
Speaker 2:Google Julie Martin artist, and it'll come up, and so she was proud enough of me to uh, to have seen, seen, uh, and and recognized that the quilting was important to me.
Speaker 1:So and that's lovely. That's, that's really lovely. Do you think she would like to have been a full-time artist herself? Because you said she was very creative? But I'm guessing in that time, I mean, there were all sorts of things going on in the world, but it would have been very difficult for her to have become a well, it was the 50s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was a 50s wife and, uh, she did paint. She painted oil paintings all the time she painted. And then, after she got her psychology degree, she started writing murder mysteries and she had, she wrote three. I've only found two. One of them is finished and the other one is halfway done and she said she had three, but maybe she just had the title, you know, in an outline. But uh, it is one of my plans to try and get that first one out there. You know, it's actually pretty good. I've been reading it and typing it into the laptop to put it into a document that could actually be sent out to publishers. Because, yeah, she was a writer and she was a reader. Her favorite author was virginia wolf and and stream of consciousness kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:It's so strange you mentioned that Virginia Woolf, because I was just reminded of another film, judy, when I was thinking about your mom, and that was is it called the Hours? And that had Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf, but it had the other two ladies as well, and one of them was the 50s housewife, um, yeah, who felt that she, she, was living in the wrong life, but that was a different story. But, um, I just had a vision of your mum and then you mentioned Virginia Woolf. That's so strange. Yeah, um, I wonder if, as well. Interestingly, judy, you want to get your mum's work published, which is lovely. I wonder if that ties into when you said you didn. You want to get your mum's work published, which is lovely. I wonder if that ties into when you said you didn't want to be forgotten. Maybe you don't want her to be forgotten as well, because when you pass on, it's like well, that work really will, if it's not published, will be gone, won't it? It will be, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Better get on it.
Speaker 1:There's definitely a theme here of wanting to make your mark on this world. There's definitely a theme here of of not of wanting to make your mark on this world, I think. So there's two things in my mind. Okay, I feel it's interesting because you know, talking about your mom, and she had these periods of solitude and you certainly have had these moments of sadness within your life where you've, as you said, you've quilted to help you with those periods.
Speaker 1:I do feel like there's a kind of a tortured artist theme that's running through your family. There's definitely I mean, I think artists anyway are quite tortured actually, because I and this leads me into what I was going to say about you and then ask a question I feel like you are a very gentle soul on the outside, idyllic upbringing, but then we've just heard there were difficulties. I think this has really made you into the person that you are. You know, this very artistic, creative, imaginary, dream-like person with all these wonderful artistic capabilities. But then you've been obviously touched by your mother's depression and solitude, your father's abandonment issues, which then have created this, maybe this fear within you. But I really feel you are this gentle soul.
Speaker 1:But my question to you, judy, is how do you cope in this world now, where you are now on display? As you've said, you want your work to be out there, you want to be remembered, but that means that you have to put yourself out there to the world wide web. To people who walk into your quilt show and go, hmm, it's not perfect. To people who walk into your quilt show and go, hmm, it's not perfect. I mean, seriously, how do you cope with this, judy, because I think you are very I wouldn't use the word fragile. I would say very gentle, but I could imagine that you could be quite easily bruised and it could become quite heavy.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right on that. I have said no to going out and speaking anymore or teaching anymore. I do some Zoom lectures to people, but I don't interact with real people very much. Take care of myself that way. On the other hand, I am trying to do that more, to get out and really talk to people on a level.
Speaker 2:I don't think that was what you asked me. You asked me how I cope with being fragile, and especially in this world where it's so fearful all the time anyway, and especially in this world where it's so fearful all the time anyway. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I do stay home and I look at my sky. I'm having a show in Sudbury, which is the closest city, in the summer, and I'm calling it the sky and it's all going to be quilts and things that are going on out there in the vast large space, because I'm just such a little thing and realizing that there is this big, big space and that I don't know there's all kinds of things going on that I can't see and don't know, and yet looking at the sky helps me to know, know that somehow I get the answers. So the sky is so important to me right now.
Speaker 1:So and what answers do you get from the sky?
Speaker 2:what answers? Well, the biggest one is that tomorrow is another day. Right, you know it's gonna. That sun, it goes down in the night and it comes up again and it just gives you this feeling of eternity. And you know, you realize you're mortal, but that sun isn't immortal, it keeps coming up, and so I think it's just this cosmic world that we're in and the answers that those sun and the moon the moon also has its cycle and the stars that you can't see, and they all come out at night. There's so many of them. It's okay, you know, it gives you a feeling of reassurance. Look at the sky.
Speaker 1:How do you think you would have coped in the city? Looking back now, judy, because when you talk about you know your, your life, and looking at the sky and and being, you know near water and um nature and things like that how do you think you would have coped if you had got your dream and lived in the city?
Speaker 2:I don't know um, when I I did take my work to um, the Toronto Outdoors show one year in 2006, just one of the kids that left to have the empty nest and said okay, we'll do it, we'll go and show your work in this Toronto Outdoors exhibition. So I stood with my work and everybody loved it. They just loved it. You know, I thought they just loved it. But one lady said to me she said you would never be able to do this work if you lived in the city. It's obvious that you live on an island or you live in Northern Ontario. Oh, come on, I didn't understand what she was talking about, but she's probably right. You know, I don't know if my work would have been the same or if I would have been the same if I had to live in a city. I really hate living in a city. Now, when we go, our kids live in cities and when we have to go to Toronto, it's full of cement and wires. I don't know traffic. Don't like it.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting. I believe that we end up where we should be. I just think there are many different routes that we can take to get there, but I think we probably end up in the right place somehow. And you've ended up, I think, in the right place, even though you maybe didn't want to be in the early days. Is there anything, looking back now, judy, that you wish that you could change? Or are you just completely philosophical where you say, nope, I've learned from everything and I am who I am because of it, and good and bad, that's how it should be.
Speaker 2:I don't know what I would change. I'm so happy to have had a family. I grew up in the Cuban Missile Crisis right, and we had bomb shelters and stuff like that and I really didn't think I was going to be this old. I didn't think I thought I was going to, you know, get blown up. And now I still think we're going to get blown up. But at least it didn't happen when I was only 12. You know, it happened, it hasn't happened yet and it might never happen. So I guess I just I'm so glad that I had the kids and that they're having kids. I just I'm really my family is very important to me and I'm just a normal person with a normal life, you know. Yeah, but just a normal person with a normal life, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but just a very intuitive person. What is there anything that you still want to do? I mean, obviously we've talked about you, you're still going to keep working, but is there anything else that you still have that you want to do before the end, which hopefully will be in many years? Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I did want to go to India. You know, I thought I'm going to go to India. I'll go on one of those buses, I'll go, but I don't have the urge anymore. I just want to get my work done and do my stitching. I don't really want to travel anymore, but I am going to. We will. I don't need to see the whole world, like I did before why is that?
Speaker 1:do you think what's changed within you?
Speaker 2:uh well, my mobility has really gone downhill. I broke my leg in 2016 and, um, I don't know, I find it very hard to even look at an art gallery for very long. I am, I'm turning 74.
Speaker 1:That's not that old, but it's not that young either, you know, yeah do you have any sort of pervading sadness within you, though, judy, or do you think you've kind of worked that out of your system now? Because I sense that there's still? There's still something there with you, there's still a. I can see lots happiness. I can see lots of love and joy in these wonderful quotes and the success and the affirmations and a beautiful, long, lasting marriage to Ned, who sounds like a lovely man and I know there's been ups and downs along the way. There will have been, but I can see all of that is glorious. It's a life well lived. I'm sure you live in a beautiful place and you look at the stars. There's something underneath there, judy. There's something within you that I feel is a sadness.
Speaker 2:Probably. Yeah, I would like to be a painter, would you never? No, I, I was a painter. I went into quilts. Every day I wake up and say I'm gonna paint and I don't. So I guess because I really love my quilts and I I think it's the touching, it's the tactility of them, it's the comfort, but I want to sort of break out of my quilts and paint. But then it's also fearful, because everybody loves my quilts right. So it would be like doing something that is not my comfort zone anymore and I have confidence that I could do it, but maybe it would take longer, or maybe it wouldn't be as accepted, or maybe I'm comfortable being liked for the art I do already. I don't know if it's a sadness, it's a longing, perhaps a yearning to be a painter, but we'll see.
Speaker 1:Maybe I will now talk to you about it, put it out there. Well, I think that comes from a pressure within yourself, because, as an outsider, it's really interesting, because this morning I was just going to do a little piece my Instagram and I didn't. But I was actually going to do a little piece of my Instagram and I didn't. But I was actually going to do a piece this morning about if you need to take time off today, take that time. If you're in the middle of something with a deadline, but you just feel like everything inside of you is itching, saying I need to go for that walk, then go for that walk. I sometimes feel that we have to do what we. There's something in our souls that's not sitting right, so you have to follow what it's telling you. And if I feel like with you, if something is saying you want to do that painting again, give yourself that time, because what's the deadline for the quilting, unless there's like not some huge show that's coming up or a book deadline or something, then give yourself permission to um to paint again. Judy, I want you to, I want you to paint. I'm going to give you permission, but it's really interesting that you say now, you see, you've talked so much about your quilts and and we've we've almost had a joke about it that you know, oh, you know, the pain is fine because I've got my quilts. I take away my pain with my quilts.
Speaker 1:But you just said there that it is, the quilts do give you comfort. So I don't think it's about oh, but if I don't do my quilting, then I'm known for the quilting. I think it is as you say. It's worrying about losing that comfort that painting doesn't give you but the fabric does. So it's finding that inner comfort within yourself, isn't it? Maybe that's one of your lessons to learn is to find that comfort. Rather than some people find it in drinking, you find it in quilts. But it's finding that inner strength and comfort to go right. I'm gonna branch out now and try this. Just try it.
Speaker 2:Have a day, have a day of painting well, I was painting, uh, in the early spring and I I was painting, um, oil paints, sketches of that I had done when we first moved here. I was so fascinated by the colors of the sky and of the water that I was just painting these sort of rudimentary from the sketches. I would just write violet, gray, silver, sparkles. I would just write these little sketches in my, my journal, and then so I was translating those sketches which were not from real life, they were from words and kind of shapes into paintings and I was so happy. It just made me feel kind of giddy. So they're not very good paintings, but I was feeling really good when I so I think it's really exciting to to try this new medium for me.
Speaker 2:But then what do I do with them? You know they're not good enough to be real. You know, like, where my quilts can count on them. I can count on them being real. So it's, it's uh, and I think a lot of people don't make quilts because then what am I going to do with them all? You know they stop, they don't think it's good enough, unless it's actually a baby gift or a tea towel that they've woven. They don't just want to do it for the heck of it, which I make my quilts for the heck of it, you know, just because they are art. So I don't know if I'm really going to paint or not, I'm just it's good to talk about it. I have this internal thing going on all the time. Thanks for the permission.
Speaker 1:I gave Judy Martin permission to paint. Look at me, go. No, but it's really. You know what's really great, though? I think as well for anybody listening, judy, because I do get emails from people saying that they have listened to one of the podcasts and it's really blown their mind, or they've looked at their own issue and realized that somebody else has felt it.
Speaker 1:What's really great to hear is that someone as talented you is saying what if my things aren't good enough? What if my paintings aren't good enough? And I always say in the classes that I run good enough for who? Good enough for what? It takes us back to your amazing course in the beginning perfectly imperfect. Good enough for who? Good enough for what? It takes us back to your amazing course in the beginning perfectly imperfect. Good enough for who? So I don't think.
Speaker 1:I think whatever you do will be good enough, judy, for yourself, and that's all that matters. I think, when it comes down to it, you'll look at them and you'll be giddy at them and you'll find them beautiful, and that's all that matters. They're good enough for you. So please don't let that be a. So please don't let that be a block. Please don't let that be a block. I would love to see your paintings.
Speaker 1:I think you have so much within you, I think you have so much life, so much imagination, so much creativity, so many more things that you want to make, that maybe there is a feeling of you're running out of time. And that's not to say that you know you're about to pop off. But you know, as we go through our lives, we become aware, don't we? We're not 20 anymore, we're not 25. How many more years do we have left on this planet? And I think, for you it's like I have so much to do and I don't want this to be taken away from me. That's right, that's right. You're so passionate about what you want, what you do, yeah, and it's not wanting to lose that passion, is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it is. I wish I was younger. I guess someone could have another 50 years ahead of me to get all the stuff done that I want to get done. I think that's very intuitive.
Speaker 2:Again, I spent last week with these storage units that we, we have stuff in we and I've kept my um plastic boxes. There's three plastic boxes of archives of all the shows that I've been in when I, when they before the internet, you know, when I didn't have your contract now comes in the email, but it used to come in in the mail. And then there's the, but it used to come in the mail. And then there's the invitations that used to come in the mail and all that stuff. So, anyway, I've been putting all those archives into order in these binders. And, yeah, it's very interesting to look at your own life. Go by oh, this is 2002, and this is is 2010 and this was 1991 and ah, and so all the things I did. I think it does make you sad when you look at what you've done and how, how beautiful and much it was, and that time is running out. You got it.
Speaker 1:That pins it down, yeah yeah, yeah, and you would get there somewhere. Yeah, I can see that and I understand that. Yeah, a friend of mine rang me a couple of weeks ago actually, and he was going to clear his mother's house out. She'd sadly passed on and he lives in Jakarta and, uh, he was back over here in Yorkshire and he's. He rang me and I've not spoken to him for 16 years but we, you know, we occasionally connect and he said I found some photographs of you when you were 20, because I was, when I was with him when I was 20 and he was much older than me, he was 36 at the time and he said it was so nice seeing you you know your face again, and we sort of talked and we had this wonderful catch-up.
Speaker 1:And then he said I'm flying back to Jakarta, but what should I do with these photographs? And I said I don't know. And he said, well, I'll post them onto you. And I didn't really know what they were, so he sent them to me and then I got them in the post and I was like 20 years old and they were my first professional headshots that I had done because I wanted to be an actress and I went I did go to drama school. But I looked at this photograph studio and it was like I don't recognize that girl. She was kind of angry in the pictures. I could see this almost sort of anger and bitterness about how things had turned out for me when I was younger, was younger, so I had a sadness within me that I looked back and thought, oh, I had all that going for me and I couldn't see it, because I was so angry, so I had a sadness, in almost the opposite way, about the lost years.
Speaker 1:It's a tough one, isn't it? Life is a tough one, but it's also beautiful. Yeah, well, before we go, judy, is there any motto? I mean, obviously, we've talked about a couple of beautiful um lines there. What else is that? I wrote down as well. Oh, yes, yes, I've got it, because, isn't it interesting? We're ending now where I was going to begin, and I didn't begin with this phrase, but I was going to begin the interview the relentless passing of time. And I'm paraphrasing there. But what interested me in that phrase was the relentless passing of time, and that was the word. That was the word I picked up and I thought, okay, that's a big word, relentless, and that's everything we've just said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I think you're talking about the piece called not to know but to go on. Yes, and it's um, it's about the relentless passage, the daily whirl of it. All that just goes past and beautiful. Each day is beautiful, but but, not beautiful, but it still goes by.
Speaker 1:So motto, do you have a motto or any phrase that has kept you going in your life through dark times or anything?
Speaker 2:I have to remember that I have all the time in the world. I tell myself I have all the time in the world and if I didn't tell myself I don't have all the time in the world, I wouldn't make anything. I have to actually take it inside me and so, again, we're talking about relentless passage of time and my denial of it, in a way, by telling myself I have all the time in the world Because a lot of the pieces I make are very time, they take a lot of time and you think you don't even want to start it because it's going to, you're not going to finish it. So that is I guess it's still a true model motto. It's my motto.
Speaker 1:I've had all the time in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is your comfort blanket? That is your, that's your comfort blanket. That phrase, that's your comfort blanket. That phrase that's believing it, you know, believing it to give yourself that peace, because if you don't, you could easily slip into that anxious side of things, couldn't you? The anxiety and the fear. Yeah well, judy, I am so glad that it was near closing time and Russell Barrett, who I just bumped into in the corridor, said to me oh, I really want to see Judy Martin. Oh, my goodness me, the show is nearly over. Come on to you, will you please do a podcast interview with me? You didn't know me from adam and yet, strangely, you said yes, and here we are, and I'm so glad that I saw your work, I'm so glad that I've got this chance to talk with you today, to have this conversation, um, and I hope you've enjoyed it I actually did enjoy it.
Speaker 2:I'm I. I found the conversation very deep and real and authentic and thank you for your good questions.
Speaker 1:You are welcome, and that's what life is about. There's no point being not deep and authentic because, as you say, we're here once We've got to live our lives and get the best out of life that we can. And that's the way to do it by being real. Yeah Well, thank you. Thank you, okay, just before you go, lovely listener, can I ask you a favour? If you have a friend who you think would enjoy listening to this podcast, would you mind please telling them about it? It helps me to spread the word and you never know, they might get a life lesson out of it or, at the very least, just have a lovely 40 minutes of relaxing time for themselves.
Speaker 1:The second thing to say is that, if you have enjoyed this, it would really help me if you would give me a little quick like or a comment, especially if you're listening on one of the podcast platforms. It just means that when anybody lands on the page, they can see that people have reviewed it, they've liked it, enjoyed it and got something out of it. So if you wouldn't mind leaving me a review, that would be amazing. And the final thing to say is that if you are a business and you're thinking, how do I get my message out there? Well, you could do it on this podcast. All you have to do is reach out to me, rachel, at breakingtheblockscom. The details are below in the box. Thank you so much to everybody for listening and enjoying and saying the lovely things that you're saying.
