By Chance

I opened a text I have next to me on my writing desk--'Women Making Art' (Marsha Meskimmon, 2003)--I was planning to read more on performativity, as aspect of this project which nags at my mind and resists offering up even a thread to start the process of engagement. Instead I opened it at the start of a chapter entitled, 'The Place of Time' (p168) and before me I have another thread for which I had been searching...I am all too aware that I need to 'spend time' developing this blog which has sat dormant after the first heady sensation of setting it up!

My excuse is that I need to sit and talk to Pamela as I think I have a series of hers which I hope to explore for this project but without her permission and with only a glimpse of the series to work on, I need to ask her first.
But 'time' sits at the centre of her work, it is, and of, the essence. And 'place' as well. Mersha M uses a quote at the start of her chapter by Moira Gatens which I will shorten slightly: ...by questioning past practices and by revaluing past practices, one causes a shift or a tremor in the web. A comment I feel appropriate to an exploration of quiltmaking as well.

It also says much about Pamela's work, its subtlety and lingering beauty.

The chapter looks a hopeful place to start. It starts out to explore both linear and circular concepts of time.

Pamela's work touches on geologic time, beyond human thought, while her life is surrounded by time in the natural world, a circular time.

There is also time lost and passed. There is also 'doing time' and 'making time'.

Image: taken while walking and talking with Pamela.

Reference: Marsha Meskimmon, Women Making Art (2003)