When the weather turns cold I start thinking about the Bloomington holiday art fair season. It has been a full couple of weeks as I prepared for the Fiber Arts Show held over the past weekend. The Spinners and Weavers Guild puts it on, and this year we had a record turnout. I heard that the concurrent Clay and Glass shows that are also held in churches along Third Street were packed as well. I brought forty-five of my new Re-shirts to the show and came home with less than twenty. With the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Holiday Art show coming up in early December, and Talia's "Gathering" pop-up store opening in Fountain Square Mall later this month I have to get busy again! With the weekend behind me I took over the dining room, pushing the table out of the way to make the floor into my palette. The boys will just have to find somewhere else to eat for a few days!
My Re-Shirts are
my project to give a second life to great fabrics trapped in old
garments. I collect and cut up
shirts, skirts, dresses, curtains, and any interesting materials I can get my
hands on. Sometimes I include
a fabric panel "chest plate" I created by block printing.
Over the summer, in anticipation of this season, I made my own blocks
and created some prints to which I’m partial. I also experimented with a cross-section of a Nautilus shell and used that as a ‘block’ to print. The result isn’t as bold as I intended, but the pattern has
a delicate quality and lots of detail that I find appealing. I’m planning to incorporate it as a
centerpiece in some of the new shirts for the UU show.
Weaving hasn’t been a mainstay of
my efforts lately, but I did finish one of my commission pieces, a version of
Tap Water. I excitedly finished
the piece and packed it up into a big box to ship today. And now I’m launching full force on my
next commission piece, which will be similar to my recent ‘Sitting with Grandpa’. It will feature a park bench
overlooking a pond, but this one will have a secret message carved into the
bench to celebrate the couple’s anniversary.
My family life has been packed, as
usual. Jacob has been practicing
with his Hip Hop group at the Panache dance studio. With extra practices in the evening to tighten things up,
along with Tommie’s Science Olympiad and Jacob’s assistant teaching at Monroe
County Martial Arts, we were a bit oversubscribed. Last Friday night was the showcase and Jacob did a fabulous
job with his two pieces. I think
he also had a great time dancing with his friends, so this might become one of
his regular activities. Panache is
such a great studio, filled with enthusiastic and supportive people.
And as for the report from the kitchen - lots of baking has
been happening in the house, with bread, muffins, but no pie. I used up all the summer apples from
Grandma’s house that we had frozen in July. I incorporated the rind of three oranges into a nice recipe
I found that uses whole wheat flour and lots of cut oats. I made variations with cranberries and
just got the OK from Jacob to include toasted pecans. Hmm, did I say that there was no pie over the last TWO
weeks? Even though I called on the
Pie Fairy in my last blog? I am
not amused.
Until next week,
Martina Celerin
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