Precious

When seeing the work of the weaver Judith Fielder, precious is the first word that comes to mind. As I look in the dictionary to see how it is defined, I stumble upon the word that precedes it: preciosity and the dictionary I'm using defines this as "fastidious refinement". This is certainly an apt description of Judith Fielder's body of work. Taken by Debbie Harris, this photograph
gives you a feel of how the morning began - very casually but it was clear that Judith had done a lot of preparation to receive us and share her treasure trove of exquisite work. She had 3 main bodies of work. They were each layed out on a different floor in the house. On the first floor in the living room, she had her earliest work, with notebooks, sketches, inspirations as well as finished garments. Here the influence of African textiles was predominant. On the second floor, her forays into overshot where we saw a jacket, scarf and dress that she created. Below is the fabric of the jacket that has been featured in Fibre Focus and Handwoven magazine in the 90s.

I first met Judith at the Ontario College of Art in the 80s (and Design University) and have known her for many years. Her endeavours have never failed to have a certain fascination for me. At art college, it was hammered into us to create studies, samples, experiment and explore the endless possibilities and potential of an idea. Judith's notebooks illustrated this methodology well.



Several of us took many pictures of the talk and studio visit and there are just too many worthy pictures to post on the blog so I will put only a few here to arouse your curiousity and awe about her work and the remainder I will put on a cd and have it available in the weaving class so that you can look at her work at your leisure. This picture is of Susan Abrams modelling a shawl handwoven and hand embroidered on the loom.






Judith has also had a thing for blankets over the years. Again they reflect whatever weave structure or textile embellishment she happens to be investigating as well as the art or cultural influence. In this particularly spectacular blanket the squares alternate between overshot blocks and hand embroidered motifs that keep recurring in her work.








On the third floor, which she uses entirely for her studio, one feels the magic of her creative sanctuary. Just being there is almost a religious experience. On this floor are her explorations into shibori as well as kumihimo that you see laid out here. It's clear by the end of the visit that one of the main characteristics of Judith's work is its multicultural influences that have always been there from the beginning of her weaving forays. She is also curious about experimenting with different kinds of fibres - notably, all of a certain quality and refinement. In addition, she aims for a certain level of excellence in her weaving that we all found breath taking. All of us that attended the studio visit on May 25 were awe struck the entire 3 hours of the visit, and felt the impact of this for days afters. We only wish the rest of you could have been so blessed and honoured to visit this wonderful weaver.

In the coming weeks I'll be featuring all the great projects that came off the loom this spring! Stay posted!