Monday, October 27, 2014

Great people live in Indianapolis too!


My life in the art studio has been dedicated to commissions.  I’m excited to have so many requested pieces, but now I have to bear down and create the art.  At the top of my queue is my “Summer Salad” revisitation.  Because the composition features a compilation of many small needle felted vegetables, it’s the perfect piece to take along as I patiently wait for the boys at their various activities.  Right now, that means Taekwondo, hip-hop dancing, and voice lessons.  Happily, I now have the full complement of cherry tomatoes, olives, mushrooms and all of the radishes (except for their little white tails).  
 I’ll be finishing those soon when I can wet felt again.  My finger just needs to heal a little more from the cut.

Hmmm.  You might not have heard about my exciting trip to the emergency room at the Bloomington hospital last week.  I was working on part of the set for the “Phantom” performance and I severely cut my left index finger with an Exacto knife.  It took several hours of waiting, but they finally declared me to be functional and glued the wound back together.  They gave me a tetanus shot, patted my bottom and told me to be more careful as they discharged me four hours later at 12:30 a.m.  I’ll be back at full strength shortly. 

Injuries give you a moment to stop and take stock of your life.  As I looked around me, I decided that the color of my current season is orange.  It just feels like there is a wonderful orange glow around the neighborhood right now.  At the farmer’s market I saw lots of orange pumpkins (one of which came home with us), and the orange helped inspire me to work on the orange carrots for the “Summer Salad” piece.  We have had some beautiful sunny weather and the changing leaves are striking—just more orange in my world.  The orange motif was reiterated as I drove to Indianapolis last week on a mission to look for a new camera.  I got to see lots of trees changing color along highway 37.  One of the best parts of that adventure was a long overdue visit to the Indy Upcycle store on Guilford Avenue in Indianapolis. 
 It’s a recycled craft supply store, which is the kind of place where I find all sorts of treasures for my work.  I systematically went through every bin that the proprietor had and found silver cord and thread, green felt and yarns, wire scraps and tiny little objects that will work beautifully in my underground scenes.  I found the cutest little pair of scissors and some scrabble tiles, which seems especially relevant since I spend a fair bit of time playing Scrabble with friends online and Tommie at home.  Yesterday morning developed slowly after a late night due to the cast party for the “Phantom” performance Saturday.  We sat, talked and played scrabble in front of a fire while Jim baked a cranberry/apple pie in the kitchen.  Yum!  Anyway, I had a delightful time in the store and enjoyed interacting with the proprietor.  I was delighted when, on Saturday morning, I received a package in the mail from Indy Upcycle containing two tufts of green feathers!  It was one of the things we searched for, and the person there mailed me some feathers she discovered after I left!  I would say she should move to Bloomington, but I’m glad she’s there when I visit. 

On the drive home from Indy I got into some crazy traffic on 37, which prompted the thought that I should take old 37.  I got into more beautiful oranges on the old highway, and I was able to stop in at Musgrave Orchard.  I reconnected with the orange-haired (!) Hamiltons, whom I haven’t seen in a very long time.  I was amazed at how big the children there had grown while I wasn’t watching!  I picked up four big jugs of apple cider, one of which didn’t survive the day when my boys came home from school.  I also brought home a nice selection of apples and squash for my family.  The whole trip left me feeling very happy. 

My family life has been extraordinarily busy, as usual.  I’ll summarize a bit to say that the Sounds of South performance of “Phantom of the Opera” held their penultimate performance last Saturday night.  Tommie did a stellar job in the chorus and handling the props and stage.  He just handles everything on stage with a quiet professionalism.  I had to smile when Tommie, during the auction scene, bid on the monkey I created using an auction paddle that I also made for the show.  He didn’t get the monkey, but he started the group bidding on the piece—way to support your Mom’s work!  Jacob ran the lighting, as he has for the whole show, and threw in a few of his own creative touches to make the performance richer.  I served as an usher while Jim stayed home and rested after hours of wood cutting and splitting followed by Taekwondo and sparring.  It was great to usher and meet people from all over the community coming together to support the SOS group.  Everyone went away impressed with the extraordinarily high quality of the performance. 

I will be out and about in the community with my art a few times over the next few weeks.  First, I’ll be at Spring Hill Suites on College Avenue on Wednesday the 29th from 5-7:30 p.m. for ArtNight, a one evening exhibition of my weavings, along with two other artists.   You can see my latest tomato piece with the myriad tomatoes I needle felted over the summer on my travels.  Spring Hill Suites has started carrying my notecards and Sweater Petals as well.   Next, I’ll be present for a reception for the new bigheaded ant exhibit at Wonderlab on November 7th from 5:00 to 8:30 p.m.   
My final show of the calendar year will be at the combined Artisans Guilds show at the Convention Center on November 14th and 15th.  My ‘Looking at Water’ exhibit will still be there in the Rogers room, so stop in to see my new Re-Shirts at the show and my weavings nearby!
 

It’s been a long blog, but I can’t get by without mentioning the delightful Mutsu apple and cranberry pie that Jim made yesterday morning.  The next time he makes it, which better be soon so we can still find more Mutsu apples, he needs to know that the filling needs more cranberries!  I’ll have to do the experiment and see how I like this one a few more times, with espresso, to be sure!


Until next week,

Martina Celerin

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