Did I say I had a great show in Madison last week? I’m still reeling from the experience. The harsh reality of selling twelve pieces is that my booth walls looked pretty sparse by the end of the show. With two more shows coming up this year and a traveling exhibit I’m thinking: ‘Yikes! I need more art’! I decided to calm myself by visiting the beach. For me that means pulling out my two boxes of yarns in all the variations of sand colors. Then I pulled out my sea creature collection and did a little sorting and planning. I started with a beautiful sea star to use as the centerpiece of a weaving. Then I laid out a collection of sand dollars and seashells around it to fill out the piece. I incorporated these into a weaving, then the little kid in me popped up again and I just sprinkled ALL of my ‘shells with holes’ collection over the pattern I
created. I sewed these onto the piece to finish the creation. If you look carefully you can still see the structured shells underneath the chaos, which I like to think of as a metaphor for my life these days. When the weaving was complete I stretched it out into one of my sand frames. This is one of my wood frames that Tom Bertolacini makes for me, drilled with holes to allow presentation of the piece, but coated in beach sand to give it that extra ocean feel. It’s been a steamy week here, which makes weaving in my basement art studio very comfortable. I did get in a little pool time with the boys at the Bryan park pool this week. My younger son Jacob made some major advances in his waterbug training this week. He’s always been a little skittish about the water (that didn’t come from me!). Even after lessons he wouldn’t put his face in the water.
This week he not only put his face in the water and did floats, but he dove down to the bottom to retrieve things and even sat on the bottom for a while. It was so impressive I invoked the ice cream reward system, so we’re going out to the Chocolate Moose for a cold and refreshing treat this week to celebrate. The other big news of the week, at least in my world, started Wednesday with our delivery from our CSA (community supported agriculture). We got a big load of green Lodi apples. They’re a little tart to eat, although we did try a few. Friday night Jim peeled 20 apples for pies. Some went into the freezer, but a big batch ended up in a deep-dish pie that was baked in the cool hours of Saturday morning. Yummm! I even had some for breakfast this morning with a cup of tea. How delightful! Yesterday was farmer’s market day, but I felt I had to keep weaving so Jim and Tommie went on the mission for more vegetables. They came home with corn, new potatoes, cucumbers, peaches and a yellow watermelon. We feasted on local vegetables last night, which was a real treat. The yellow watermelon isn’t as satisfying to my palate as the red version, but the summer peaches and corn were first rate.
Some of my crew is still asleep, but I’ve read the paper, had my pie and tea, and it’s time to leap into action and, as my husband advises, ‘weave like the wind’! I hope you’re in a cool spot today, but if you’re out and about, stop in at Bloomingfoods, the By Hand Gallery, or The Venue to pick up one of this year’s t-shirts for the Fourth Street Festival. It’s only a few weeks away. Yikes—I’d better get to weaving!
Until next week…
Martina Celerin
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Nice shout out on the T shirts!
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