Transition week

Since my last post I’ve been shifting gears. I’m exiting my summer art fair mode, which is built around traveling to fairs in the Midwest to sell my weavings. I have a few administrative projects to take on, such as documenting the success of the Fourth Street Festival and writing grant proposals to help make it a better show next year. I’ll also be giving a talk and putting on a three-day workshop in Cincinnati in a few weeks, and then I’ll focus on making scarves for the local fall shows. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t time for a new art adventure!

Two years ago I participated in the Trashionista fashion show. I had a lot of fun designing two gowns out of reclaimed materials and some ethereal shawls out of used dryer sheets. I’m excited about contributing to this year’s show at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. In addition to the main show, which is a worthy fundraiser for the Center for Sustainable Living, a smaller group interested in making clothes from recyclable materials appeared this year. They’re called Discardia, and this weekend they held their first show. It was held alongside the Simply Living fair in the Third Street Park behind the police station. I wanted to participate, but with all my responsibilities to the Fourth Street festival I didn’t think I’d have time to make any clothes. Then I realized I still had few days to pull something together—and I love a challenge! I leaped into action and created a pattern for a loose-fitting tank top. My thought was to piece together scraps of fabric from clothing that was popular in a previous incarnation. I decided to call my new line ReShirtz, and off I went picking color and pattern combinations I liked from my collection of retired clothing. My son Tommie loves this sort of project so he picked several combinations for me, including the first one to sell at the Discardia show. It’s been a lot of fun cutting apart beautiful silk dresses and batik pants from dated clothing styles. The change of pace from needle felting vegetables has been nothing short of refreshing! I’ll show the clothes at some of my fall shows, including the upcoming Déjà Vu Art Fair in Columbus.

On the family front, today marks my twelfth wedding anniversary. We celebrated last night with a delightful flatbread dinner and a bottle of Mollydooker Shiraz (our current favorite wine). I was surprised with a beautiful bouquet featuring a dozen red roses when I got home from the show takedown. This morning I smelled the crowning celebratory food, a raspberry pie featuring fresh red raspberries from the farmer’s market. I can’t wait to try it! The top crust is a little funky, as usual, but beauty isn’t the hallmark of a good pie. Even if I overdo it a little bit with pie I know that Zumba starts up again tomorrow at Windfall Dancers—hooray! What more could I ask for?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin