I’m wearing three hats this week! The first is my needle felting hat. I had so much fun last fall creating the
needle felted vegetable and fruit collage pieces that I decided to scale down
to make individual felted pieces. Each
fruit and vegetable really is its own mini artwork full of visual information,
detail and interest. Some are
symmetrical, others are not, and often the subject brings vibrant colors. I’m now thinking about my fruits and
vegetables as small tiles that can be combined for display.
The project fits with my fall life because Saturday
mornings revolve around trips to the farmer’s market—yesterday was a three-bag
haul, with lettuce, apples, garlic, peppers and more. There is such a bounty of the harvest on
display in rich, warm fall colors. The
vegetable haul mirrors the social experience, seeing lots of friends and
regulars. Marina at Le Petit Café becomes
a regular fall connection with special hot chocolate and coffees for the
family, and Maria from Piccoli Dolci often provides a special treat. The man who sells us jam and jellies knows
that our teenage boys eat through whatever we buy (and hence will be back). The farmer who saved a huge bag of onion
skins for me thought I was a little crazy, but they proved to be the perfect
source for the dye to create an accurate onion skin color. The whole Saturday morning adventure just
fits so well with my art.
My second hat is a wet felting hat. Not that I’m felting
hats! I had a fabulous experience a couple
of weeks ago in Fredericksburg, starting with a workshop by Pamela MacGregor
and continuing with Elizabeth Woodford, that started me thinking about wet
felting vessels. I’m now playing with
different fibers and experimenting with new techniques. I really want to be able to create textures
and then embed objects into my vessels, much like my weavings where I create
underground scenes. That way you’re encasing memories and stories in the
vessels. At this point, though, I need
to sort out the techniques first. That’s
about the time when my science background kicks in. I started by creating flat felt circles and
embedded various yarns (synthetics, wools, sisal and felt balls). I learned a lot from my first piece and
launched into creating a few simple vessels.
My third hat is maintaining and tweaking costumes for Pippin
costumes and props. The big performance
at Bloomington High School South starting October 15th and running
for two more weeks on Saturday nights.
You can order tickets here. The costumes themselves are finished, but those darn kids keep
growing! Final adjustments are in order
so the costumes fit perfectly on the night of the performance. Watching the rehearsals over the summer has
been revealing, because socks slowly appear as legs grow longer while the pants
do not. Come see Tommie, who is
Charlemagne in the first two performances (October 15 and 22), while Jacob is a
magician in all of the shows. I’m
looking forward to seeing the visual spectacle as my art pieces dance around
the stage! Oh, and I’ve heard that the
kids might sing too :)
The big news in my workshop world is that I'll be doing another workshop - next month - in Crawfordsville, IN. If you are interested in participating, please contact the event organizer, Jessica Madsen at jdpmadsen@gmail.com It will be a one day workshop on Saturday November 12, from 9:30am - 5:50pm.
And on the family front, we’ve been taking in some theater of late. Last Friday we saw BPP’s ‘30 Days of Mourning’ that featured Steve Scott (aka the boy’s taekwondo instructor) Paul Kuhne (an amazing actor and friend) and Aubrey Seader (a fabulous actress and Sounds of South alumna). It was amazing! The interactions were believable, intense, and powerful. The actors embraced the roles such that you were immersed in the situation and rooting for the characters. On Friday night we saw Cardinal’s performance of Baskerville. What a fun production! The staging was phenomenal. They brought the Hound to life, even if it didn’t end well for the sheep in the performance or the spectral hound who attacked the Baskerville clan. The pacing was fast and the costume changes constant, which made for a very entertaining evening. I love having two such strong theater companies in our town. As I started to write this on Saturday, I wasn’t sure there was going to be a pie for the report. Fortunately, Jim found some gold rush apples at the farmer’s market. He got up early to make a pie this morning! It looks great, but I won’t know for sure until dinner tonight. I’ll provide a report when I can.
And on the family front, we’ve been taking in some theater of late. Last Friday we saw BPP’s ‘30 Days of Mourning’ that featured Steve Scott (aka the boy’s taekwondo instructor) Paul Kuhne (an amazing actor and friend) and Aubrey Seader (a fabulous actress and Sounds of South alumna). It was amazing! The interactions were believable, intense, and powerful. The actors embraced the roles such that you were immersed in the situation and rooting for the characters. On Friday night we saw Cardinal’s performance of Baskerville. What a fun production! The staging was phenomenal. They brought the Hound to life, even if it didn’t end well for the sheep in the performance or the spectral hound who attacked the Baskerville clan. The pacing was fast and the costume changes constant, which made for a very entertaining evening. I love having two such strong theater companies in our town. As I started to write this on Saturday, I wasn’t sure there was going to be a pie for the report. Fortunately, Jim found some gold rush apples at the farmer’s market. He got up early to make a pie this morning! It looks great, but I won’t know for sure until dinner tonight. I’ll provide a report when I can.
Until next week
Martina Celerin
Love the mini fruits and veg!! They should fly! The vessels are wonderful!! After this week I am going back to the vessels with carving and embelishments!! Need to chat with you about resist placement on the vessel. Did you wrap parts of resist around layout "edge" to avoid a cracked mud seam?
ReplyDeleteThanks!! I didn't on the cracked mud, because I only did one side, but I did on the vertical slits. I held them down with coins until I got a layer of wetted merino on top and then carefully pulled the coins out before I put the second layer on the side.
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