Fourth of July traditions, old and new…

Yesterday was the farmer’s market, blueberry pie, the Fourth of July parade and fireworks. What more is there to say! I suppose there’s still art, so let’s start there. I made the tenth piece in my ‘Pieces of Life’ felt tile series. I tried to create a tropical jungle flavor within the same color palette, using a hint of an animal print and a large tropical leaf. I’ve met my goal for the series, but I’m still having fun with the design and creation phases of the project, and so I suspect that more will come…. I’m finishing both a dandelion and a fossil-fish piece for the Madison art fair this coming weekend. The dandelion piece is another tribute to the hardy, ubiquitous and sometimes beloved lawn flower of today, while the stone fish piece contains fern fossils from my friend Rudy Turner. Maybe ferns were the hated plant in lawns during the Jurassic, even if there weren’t people around to be upset about them. The piece has crinoids in the background that really determine the color palette for the piece. They have lots of ambers to rusty reds and orange tints, which gives it a warm feel. I also like the contrasts in the piece, such as between the soft fibers and unforgiving stones, or the new fibers versus the ancient rocks. I’m really excited about taking all my art to Madison, since it’s kind of like Bloomington on steroids. The people are just fabulous, the show is well organized and run, and I feel very comfortable there. And finally on the art front, I have work on display in Valparaiso, Indiana. I shipped off a sub-collection of ‘Shhh... the Trees are Sleeping’ pieces and a load of notecards to the rTrails gallery. It’s having a soft opening this weekend and I’m happy to be a part of it. My Columbus show “Touching Summer’ will migrate there on August first, so stop in and check it out if you’re in Valparaiso.

I’m a day late in posting this week—it was the Fourth of July weekend, after all, and there’s so much to pack in! My sweet husband got up early and baked me a terrific blueberry pie (did I say I like pie?). I got to have it with freshly ground espresso and vanilla ice cream, since we were out of whipped cream. The only down side was that when he turned the oven on, it still had a piece of flat bread in it that jumped off the tray the last time he baked. The kitchen filled up with smoke, but far more importantly, the smoke came upstairs to the bedrooms and woke me up. So the pie wasn’t as much of a surprise as he wanted. Then it was off for a quick trip to the Farmer’s market to get corn, new potatoes and peaches for dinner. That’s always a summertime treat that everyone in the family enjoys. From there we scampered to the Fourth of July Parade and watched the town go by. The hula hoop group was entirely unexpected, and we’d never seen anything like it. Their passing show was talented, fun and even artistic. To pass the hot afternoon, Tommie patrolled the back yard for butterflies for his photo collection. The garden is in full display and the butterflies are plentiful, even if the weeding has fallen behind. From a distance though, it just doesn’t matter. I’m really proud of Tommie for not harming the butterflies—he catches them, takes a picture, and sets them free to go about their business of brightening up summer. I’m also proud of Jacob for spending a couple of hours reading his book on dragons, which is presently a big thing. After dinner we headed for the Fairgrounds to catch the fireworks. They moved the display out of town this year due to construction on campus. Sadly, it wasn’t the best decision for us. We left early, but ran into traffic backed up on 2nd Street far past 37 towards Bloomington. We crept along and watched most of the fireworks through the trees as we inched toward the show. When we finally got into the fairgrounds the finale was going on. We managed to get just inside the gates when all the traffic turned to leave and we got stuck there too! We made it home right at midnight, carried Jacob to bed, and everybody crashed. We never even got to enjoy our sparklers! I guess I can’t complain though—it was still a wonderful Fourth of July weekend!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin