Sunday, February 10, 2013

Hard work pays off!

This week was full of weaving like a madwoman, which resulted in a couple of completed pieces.  I have been juggling five ‘in progress’ pieces.  I didn’t have any evening meetings this week, which gave me lots of weaving and needle felting time.  Plus, both boys were healthy, so I really got to focus on my projects in the art studio, pushing projects forward.  I completed the last of my commission pieces, which was a revisitation of ‘Winter Birches’.  That piece is complete and on its way to Chicago.  I turned my attention to my ‘Spring Treasures’ piece.  It features a crocus bulb and a clump of emerging flowers, which are now planted in their new home.  Buoyed by my successes, I put the finishing touches on the feature piece for my upcoming garden walk show. 
As I was working on the piece, I was reminded of some advice I got from Mary Hambly, a local paper quilter I met when I was starting into my art career.  She wanted me to think carefully about the relevance of materials that went into the art, choosing fabrics for their relevance to each piece.  The ‘Garden Walk’ piece features a flagstone path made from fragments of Grandpa’s army blanket.  I needle felted raw washed wool over the blanket to create the stones.  This was my first synthetic stone piece, because I usually enlist my family to find stones for my weavings.  Grandpa’s blanket opened up a whole new path for me, and like so many other materials in my creations, will always have fond memories for me when I think of them in my art.  I also really enjoyed making all the flowers along the path.  I was channeling some of our still-sleeping garden beds, especially the color combinations.  We have some beautiful tradescantia, with their vibrant purples over blue-green foliate.  I was imagining deep red roses, which we don’t have because the Japanese beetles eat them, over intense, dark, rich green foliage.  Nobody eats that, so I have plenty to channel.  The tree in the piece was actually a leftover from a previous commission.  It turned out that I had one too many trunks and it seemed to fit perfectly here.  The whole composition was a very organic process that just came together beautifully at the end. 

I still have some other works that will come along shortly, but the upcoming week is Re-shirt week.  The Bloom artist showcase is coming up on the twenty-fourth of February.  I want to have plenty of shirts for that show, and I promised some new ones to people who said they’d visit the show.  The Garden Walk show, which will hang at the Monroe County History Center, will go up on April first.  That’s my big wall art push, to have all the garden-themed pieces ready.  I also want to give a shout out to my gallery out in Laramie Wyoming.  It’s called JenyOriginals, and they have a new website and will be carrying my Sweater Petals.

The rest of the week’s news is all family-oriented.  The boys earned their red-with-a
-white-stripe belt in Tae Kwon Do on Friday.  I like to think of it as the Canadian belt.  After illnesses the previous week, they puffed a little but got through it just fine.  Oh, and I must be doing something right—a peach pie appeared on Monday and I had slices for breakfast all the way through Friday.  Yippee! 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

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