Weaving in the Park 2

Saturday was a big day for me—I coordinated an outdoor community weaving project at McCormick’s Creek State Park. This project has been in the planning stages for a long time. I’ve been collecting materials and thinking through how I could make weaving fun and accessible for people who dropped by. I arrived at the park early to an absolutely gorgeous morning. I set up the five foot wide loom that I built for my giant commission pieces, and I was delighted to be able to use it again. The organizers set up a few tables for weaving materials. I quickly covered them with the funkiest objects I could assemble. I spread out highly textured yarn cords, rope, turkey feathers, sea shells, hair from the mane of a pony (thanks to Mary from the recycle center!), a feather boa, leather strips, Jim’s aunt Lois’ old nylons (well washed), braided belt materials (thanks to Abby Gitlitz for taking those apart!), old coasters, raw sisel, cheesy synthetic plant parts, flax roving, lots of lace scraps and more. The people who came by were just inspired and the final product looks amazing. I enjoyed watching people taking it all in and then coming up with their own ideas. One woman had a great idea to make a weaving that incorporated materials from her wedding from twenty years ago. She thought about weaving together treasures such as fabrics, ribbons and materials into a memory piece. Another couple said they own a coffee shop in Stinesville, if I remember correctly. They thought it would be fun to set up a weaving project in their shop and let their patrons create a piece using a box of scraps. I’m told they have a big brick wall that needs an art piece—I’d love to see what they come up with.

During the day I did my best to include everybody who wanted to weave. I used my standard weaving approach, which is to attach my loom to an adjustable easel. This let me lower the project to be accessible to the three year olds and raise it back up for the tallest of adults to weave. Combine that with a diverse selection of materials and I found that I could accommodate all the people’s needs and influences as they created the piece. I think the biggest surprise to most people was the appearance of giant seashells in the weaving. I say—why not? I was impressed with the people who selected some scraps of materials and created an art piece from them, then incorporated their piece into weaving. I even had artists, who were showing their own art that day, stop by to do some weaving. When sales were slow wove a little, then headed back to their booth when the traffic picked up again. I was really pleased to see park visitors drop by to weave a little, go away to do something else, then come back later to add a little more. They got to see the beginning, middle and end of the process. At the end of the day I felt really good to be an active part of the fair.

Over the rest of the week my efforts were intense but distributed over several projects. I spent a lot of time trying to finish up some pieces while moving others forward. I completed by BFF piece, which I really like. To me it’s just a set of mismatched friends, which brings back memories of my high school days. We didn’t quite fit in to the world as individual entities, but together we were pretty good. I did a lot of work on my Summer Salad piece, which meant a lot of needle felting. I laid it all out this week to see how much more I need to create. I’m wondering if I just might need some asparagus, or perhaps something else. I haven’t quite decided—maybe some cauliflower, or maybe some peppers to top it off.

This week I’ve also been admiring the lilies in the back yard garden as they come into full bloom. A trip to the compost pile brings out an intense, pleasant fragrance (from the lilies, not from the compost pile). It’s been such a rainy year that everything in the garden is doing well. We’ve even attracted a family of rabbits, much to the detriment of Tommie’s backyard lettuce patch. In our future I see either a small fence or more trips to the farmer’s market.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Weaving in the Park

Saturday was a big day for me—I coordinated an outdoor community weaving project at McCormick’s Creek State Park. This project has been in the planning stages for a long time. I’ve been collecting materials and thinking through how I could make weaving fun and accessible for people who dropped by. I arrived at the park early to an absolutely gorgeous morning. I set up the five foot wide loom that I built for my giant commission pieces, and I was delighted to be able to use it again. The organizers set up a few tables for weaving materials. I quickly covered them with the funkiest objects I could assemble. I spread out highly textured yarn cords, rope, turkey feathers, sea shells, hair from the mane of a pony (thanks to Mary from the Recycle Center!), a feather boa, leather strips, Jim’s aunt Lois’ old nylons (well washed), braided belt materials (thanks to Abby Gitlitz for taking those apart!), old coasters, raw sisel, cheesy synthetic plant parts, flax roving, lots of lace scraps and more. The people who came by were just inspired and the final product looks amazing. I enjoyed watching people taking it all in and then coming up with their own ideas. One woman had a great idea to make a weaving that incorporated materials from her wedding from twenty years ago. She thought about weaving together treasures such as fabrics, ribbons and materials into a memory piece. Another couple said they own a coffee shop in Stinesville, if I remember correctly. They thought it would be fun to set up a weaving project in their shop and let their patrons create a piece using a box of scraps. I’m told they have a big brick wall that needs an art piece—I’d love to see what they come up with.

During the day I did my best to include everybody who wanted to weave. I used my standard weaving approach, which is to attach my loom to an adjustable easel. This let me lower the project to be accessible to the three year olds and raise it back up for the tallest of adults to weave. Combine that with a diverse selection of materials and I found that I could accommodate all the people’s needs and influences as they created the piece. I think the biggest surprise to most people was the appearance of giant seashells in the weaving. I say—why not? I was impressed with the people who selected some scraps of materials and created an art piece from them, then incorporated their piece into weaving. I even had artists, who were showing their own art that day, stop by to do some weaving. When sales were slow wove a little, then headed back to their booth when the traffic picked up again. I was really pleased to see park visitors drop by to weave a little, go away to do something else, then come back later to add a little more. They got to see the beginning, middle and end of the process. At the end of the day I felt really good to be an active part of the fair.

Over the rest of the week my efforts were intense but distributed over several projects. I spent a lot of time trying to finish up some pieces while moving others forward. I completed by BFF piece, which I really like. To me it’s just a set of mismatched friends, which brings back memories of my high school days. We didn’t quite fit in to the world as individual entities, but together we were pretty good. I did a lot of work on my Summer Salad piece, which meant a lot of needle felting. I laid it all out this week to see how much more I need to create. I’m wondering if I just might need some asparagus, or perhaps something else. I haven’t quite decided—maybe some cauliflower, or maybe some peppers to top it off.

This week I’ve also been admiring the lilies in the back yard garden as they come into full bloom. A trip to the compost pile brings out an intense, pleasant fragrance (from the lilies, not from the compost pile). It’s been such a rainy year that everything in the garden is doing well. We’ve even attracted a family of rabbits, much to the detriment of Tommie’s backyard lettuce patch. In our future I see either a small fence or more trips to the farmer’s market.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Celery stalks, strawberry shortcake and big walleyes

I spent a delightful week in Michigan with my family. The weather was cool, even cold at times, but we had a great visit. We brought some fresh blueberries and Jim made us a pie. Luckily, we also found some just-ripe Michigan strawberries. Add some fresh-baked biscuits to the week and we had two fine shortcake desserts—yum! But my biggest success was—wait for it—on the waters of Saginaw Bay fishing for walleyes. We took out the Lila Mae, my late father-in-law’s boat, on a trip to look for walleyes. Over Jim’s pooh-poohing I picked out a red and silver lure with a spider on it at Frank’s, announced that it was the perfect lure for the day, and proceeded to catch a huge 24.5 inch (62 cm) walleye on it. It was the only fish of the day, and boy, I reveled in that victory. Jim turned it into a tasty fish fry, supplemented with Grandma’s homemade coleslaw. Everyone feasted!

All week long we generally just spent a lot of time doing things we don’t normally do at home. We all played mini-golf (and Jacob beat everyone), the boys did a lot of archery in the back yard, and we did a little shoe shopping between feasting. It was just a great vacation all around.

I may have been on vacation, but don’t think for a moment that I didn’t spend some quality time creating art. During conversations and quiet times I did a lot of poking. I was focused on making small vegetables for a piece I’m doing called Summer Salad. I finished off the tops of some radishes, carrots and broccoli and I created my first celery stalks. The stalks tend to have a thick center rib and are thinner on the outer edges of the curved arms. The progression of stalk creation was interesting to watch. I laid out the fleece as a unit that was three times as long and wide as the final stalk. After I started poking I eventually shaped it down to the size I wanted and I’m pleased with how it turned out. I also made a few dandelion flowers for a different piece – those still need a haircut to transform them into well coiffed lawn flowers. The pressure is on to get some art pieces completed in the run up to the Art Fair on the Square in Madison, Wisconsin. Sadly, I wasn’t able to participate in the show of the same name in Bloomington Saturday due to booth and art damage from the Columbus show. I’ve heard that it was fabulous – congrats BPP on transforming it to a well attended show – and look for me next year! And fortunately, the replacement booth frame pieces I ordered arrived in the mail while we were in Michigan. Hopefully by the end of this week I should have a workable booth.

I do have a few other newsy things to tell you about… First, I’m the facilitator for a community weaving project out at McCormick’s Creek State Park this Saturday. I’ll be warping my five foot loom and organizing all sorts of natural materials to use in the project - all in organic, earthy colors. When I do a project you never know what materials will end up in it—this time I’m including some rope I got from Grandpa’s barn while we were in Michigan. I’m also gearing up to do some dyeing this week, or at least getting ready to dye. My photographer, friend and frame maker Tom Bertolacini brought me some Osage orange wood chips. He said that he had heard about dyeing with them and wondered if I was interested. What? Something to experiment with? Sign me up! That got me reading about Osage orange dyeing, which led me to dyeing with bark. Grandma had a lot of trees come down during the windy spring. Normally these get chopped up and burned, but there was quite a backlog of materials. I picked up a couple of bags of maple and oak bark to experiment with. These even have some bonus lichens on them, which is supposed to enhance the colors. I’ll soon set up some soak pails and see what I extract from the bark. I’m hoping to dye some Merino wool for natural color scarves this fall season. Time to get busy again!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Getting back on my feet

I got home from my disastrous show in Columbus Ohio last week and set to work assessing the damage. One common problem was dye from the yarns leaching into the silk thread used to stretch out my pieces in their frames. Unfortunately, silk picks up colors beautifully, so I ended up having to restring several pieces. I also found a lot of damage on the frames, although most of it was minor. I’m lucky there, but I will need to re-sand and freshly paint some of them. I did some aluminum frame bending and re-shaping, but for the major structural pieces I just couldn’t trust the integrity of the repaired pieces. I called up a very friendly and helpful artist representing Light Dome Canopies and ordered a few replacement pieces. I also bought some new bars to enhance the strength of the structure and a vinyl repair kit. Things are looking up!

After a couple of days of triage and repair, though, I really felt the need to create some fresh art. I continued working on a piece I decided to call BFF (best friends forever). It features a beet, a carrot and a yellow onion sitting on a cross-section through dirt. That translates into working with my chocolaty brown yarn. The dirt sits beneath a cloudless, rainless, windless blue sky! I spent some time needle felting my friendly veggies for the piece. I had just the right color for the yellow onionskins, a fleece that I dyed using—you guessed it—onionskins! That really made me smile, and onion-dyed onion gives the sense that I’ve completed a circle.

This week marked the end of the school year. That means I need to transition into my summer mode, and I have two friends to play with each day. Yesterday we went to the Monroe County Historical Society’s garage sale, an annual event for the three of us. It’s the biggest garage sale in all of Bloomington and serves as a major fundraiser for them. I go looking for treasures and it never lets me down. My big find this year was a Singer steam press iron that’s in excellent shape. I’ve been eyeing them for a while. I’m thinking that when I needle felt a bunch of leaves I can press them all at once, or I can press my scarves without the ironing board. I can almost hear the big shhhhhhh! as the top comes down and steam pours out! Summer mode also means time at the pool, so I spent time with the boys and their friend Claire at the Bryan Park Pool this afternoon. I swam a little, but I spent most of my time needle felting broccoli florets. I decided that after I sold my ‘Fruit Salad’ piece at Columbus I needed to create a vegetable salad. Broccoli is something new for me, but I’m pleased with how it turned out. All my vegetable creations remind me that I haven’t been able to get to the Farmer’s Market for a while, a problem I hope to resolve Saturday morning bright and early. I read in the paper that it’s blueberry time, and blueberries make a great pie! I bet if I just buy waaay too many to eat and put them in the fridge in front of the milk - Jim will have no choice but to bake me one!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Goodbye Columbus

The week started off well enough. I got back to work in my art studio after a delightful vacation and started weaving. I was channeling cool days and clear northern lakes. There’s a kind of calmness and serenity that fills you when you’re gazing over a clear northern lake—you just realize the power of nature. My efforts translated into a piece I called ‘Birch by Grebe Lake’. At the risk of revealing secret family information, Grebe Lake is a real lake in Michigan. However, it’s also the name my husband and his father used when they wanted to talk about a fishing lake in polite company without saying the actual name. Very craft folks, I say. Anyway, I was very pleased with how the piece turned out.

On Wednesday I put everything else on hold, packed up my art in a rented trailer and prepared to head for Columbus Ohio and the Columbus Arts Festival. We got an early start on the drive Thursday morning. That let us check in early and park the trailer right next to our site. My whole crew (Jacob, Tommie and Jim) were there helping and everything ran smoothly. Everyone associated with the show was friendly and helpful. My hats are truly off to the organizers and volunteers that helped us at every step along the way. We finished early enough to enjoy a relaxing pizza dinner in Columbus, get to bed early and pop up refreshed and ready for the show Friday. Columbus was my first art fair of the season and the days are long, running from 11:30 a.m. until 10 at night, so I took along lots of needle felting for the slow times.

Everything was going along swimmingly until Saturday evening around seven when a severe storm popped up out of nowhere and descended on the show. Artists often get a little warning from the organizers, but this storm just materialized out of a green, hazy sky. Winds estimated at sixty miles an hour attacked my corner of the art fair. There just wasn’t much to do except batten down the hatches and head for cover. All the artists watched in horror as the winds kicked up and objects started flying through the air. By the time they gave the ‘all clear’, my area on Ninth Street was a pretty sad sight. Despite having two hundred pounds of weight strapped to the frame, my booth and all my art was crashed over and twisted in a wet heap, dragged 15 feet from the curb where I had set it up. It was simply devastating. I really pour my heart and soul into my pieces—they almost become my children. It’s hard enough to sell them sometimes, but to see all my pieces in the wreckage of my booth was just too much for me. I felt so powerless. There was just nothing I could do. The response of the show organizers and volunteers was beautiful and they saved a lot of my art. While I could do little but stand and watch, they picked the art from my booth and carted it to the festival headquarters. They just took charge, and I’m forever grateful for their actions. A little later my husband and sons appeared and I could feel myself starting to rise. My boys were just amazing at rescuing the situation, asking: “Mom, what should I do”, without hesitation or complaint, until we had taken the remains of my booth inside to join the art. The booth was ripped, the display surfaces stained and marred, aluminum structural members were bent and light fixtures were broken. Still, we assembled all the pieces and agreed to drive to our motel home, get some food and see how it all looked in the morning. After an early start we loaded everything into the trailer, again with the help of the volunteers. There was even a woman helping who lived nearby who walked over to see if she could help after seeing the devastation on TV. At my corner of the fair, I counted eleven booths missing first thing Sunday morning. To make a long story more manageable, we drove straight home and brought everything inside to dry out and evaluate. We had kluski and Martino Malbec for dinner. That helped a little, but it sure is good to be home. There’s a lot of repairing in my future and damage to resolve, both to my booth and my art, but I can do it. It is what it is, and there’s always tomorrow. The sun will rise, I’ll keep on weaving, and Jim will bake me a pie. What more could I ask for?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin