Dimensional Weaving - Martina Celerin 3D fiber art

Flowers on my brain…

2012-01-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

It has been a busy week of art creation this week, but not much on project completion. I took a few big steps forward on my ‘Hilly Hundred’ piece—I wove the entire green background. I wasn’t sure about the color palette that I wanted to develop for the bicycles, but while I was reading art magazines at bedtime I came across an image that solved my problem. It features a clock tower and a green pathway. I want to emulate the feel of the color combinations by featuring the green hills of southern Indiana and splashing on the colorful bicycle bodies. To create the bicycle wheels I’ve been collecting a bunch of old bangles from various garage sales and places such as Opportunity House. I’ll wrap these with silver yarn and wrap a black shoelace on the outside of the ring to create the bike tires. I like making bikes – it reminds me that spring is approaching!

On another front, I’m now fully committed to creating my ‘brain’ piece as part of the ‘brain art’ installment series around Bloomington. The project is being organized by Jill Bolte-Taylor and will feature embellished six-foot wide fiberglass brains at selected sites. I’ve been felting soft flowers for one side of the brain, and now I have four trays ready to attach. They’re all made out of scraps of wool and commercial felt bits that I’ve been collecting. I’m quite partial to a series of marigolds I’ve been creating and having fun with. I made a few of them at my art-associated meetings where my colleagues are used to watching my ‘voodoo’ art. That’s how they often describe my intense and incessant poking of small objects with felting needles. More recently I’ve been cutting fringes into strips of felt about a foot long. Then I roll them up to create the yellow marigolds. I always seem to learn something new when I start down a new road in art, and the marigolds are a fun offshoot of my ‘brain flowers’, and they blossomed from my holiday ‘Sweater Petals’ project.

The third piece that’s almost done now is my poppy weaving. I have been featuring the flower parts over the past few weeks (scroll down to see them) and I had hoped to complete it this week. My busy meeting schedule got in the way, however, so this week’s the charm for bringing the elements together.

In family news, my crew went to see Stomp! at the IU auditorium on Friday evening. It was wonderful to watch the boy’s reaction to the production. Tommie especially was engrossed by the percussion dance performance. He was bopping and tapping in his seat right beside me. And last night I was off to the ‘Art of Chocolate’ exhibit at the IU art museum. I juried two pieces into the show, so I got a free ticket to sample the special chocolate goodies they’ll have. I did manage to snag a few treats to bring home for the boys – Ooo, were they pleased !

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Hard to believe, but…

2012-01-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

It was ten years ago and I was pregnant with my second son, Jacob. I had just received permanent residency status and I was ready to concede that I might be living in Indiana for a while. Now it’s hard to imagine living anywhere besides Bloomington. So last week I filled out the forms and mailed my application for US citizenship! I’m excited to move through the process, and I’m imagining a big party at the end of the process to celebrate. The food will be catered and Jim will be in charge of organizing it! I’ll let him in on the details when we get a little closer to party time.

I’m on full art creation mode these days, trying to re-stock my studio for summer art fair adventures. The outline of my poppy piece appeared in the blog last week, and more recently I created the leaflets and forty stamens per flower that I needed for accuracy. Each stamen is an individually wrapped copper wire, so they’re pretty energy intensive. I’m really pleased with how the flowers and the elegant seed pods they leave behind have turned out. I also finished my daffodil and the leaves that go with it. To finish them I pressed the leaves in my big steamer. I’m so enjoying using it—it’s such a useful tool, saving me hours of tedious ironing. Soon I’ll start on my next weaving, and I’m channeling the Hilly Hundred bike race. I’m imagining hordes of colorful bicycles rolling through the Indiana countryside. That should be a fun piece to create.

In town, I dropped off two art pieces to Options for Better Living. Next week begins the Art of Chocolate fundraiser for them, which also features a juried art exhibition. Two of my pieces were accepted for display: Six Salamander Salsa and a peacock lattice scarf. I’m looking forward to seeing them at the reception on Sunday the 29^th.

And last, on Friday night my boys tested for their brown belt with a white stripe in Taekwondo at Monroe County Martial arts. They’re moving along! After the test we headed for Mother Bears. They were pretty busy, but they found us a table and we had some great pizza. When we came out the rain was just starting to fall and freeze, which produced a slick Saturday and a lot of ice scraping before the boys could get out to Taekwondo for their classes. Sorry honey, but only one car fits in the carport at a time!

2011-12-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

The boys, out of school as of Friday, are my new daily companions as I weave through meetings and my art life. They are usually delightful to be around most of the time, but they take good cheer to the next level in the holiday season. Together we brought a big, lush tree from Bloomingfoods into the living room and started decorating it. The room has a fresh smell and it’s a great treat to pull out all the ornaments. As we hang them I get to remember how each piece is associated with my family history, from pre-wedding gift ornaments to pieces we got when the boys were born to special ornaments that Grandma gave us over the years. It’s a walk down memory lane. The boys are now deep into their advent calendars and are awaiting the arrival of Grandma and great aunt Lois on Thursday. That meant we had to launch into major cleaning mode to prepare the house so it doesn’t look like an artist with two kids lives here. The aptly named jungle room will become Lois’ bedroom so we picked up and sorted all the toys, games, legos, videos, and everything else a kid could accumulate over the years. We’ll be delivering care packages to the Recycle Center, Opportunity House and any other worthy place that will take the second hand games and toys.

Of course all the family activities exclude much time for creating art this. That’s OK, even artists need a week off. I did make a few sweater petals, and I did re-stock my sweater petals at By Hand Gallery and the "Bike the B-Line" t-shirts at the Downtown Visitor's Center at the Buskirk-Chumley theater. Fortunately, the theater is right next to Blu Boy Café and Cakery. We had to stop in to fortify ourselves before heading over to Lennie’s for celebratory pizza. At the noon BEAD meeting we ran into Chad Rabinovitz from the Bloomington Playwrights Project and we chatted about the grand reopening of the BPP in January. It will feature two commissioned art pieces (including one of mine!) and coincide with a new play called The Boy in the Bathroom. Chad says it’s an excellent production, so Jim and I will check in for an afternoon matinee. We’re also excited to see the Cardinal Stage production of Annie on Christmas Eve. It features two friends of the boys, Marlena Wagschal (our former neighbor) and Joelle Jackson (a preschool contemporary of Jacob).

On a final note, where art and life coincide, I was briefly banished from Target as the boys wanted to do some Christmas shopping without me. A woman who was a total stranger to me walked up and asked where she could buy my sweater petals! Maybe she saw me in this month’s issue of Bloom magazine—did I mention that I was one of the "7 Artists that Inspire" ?!? Well, why yes, I am! The answer is that you may stop by By Hand Gallery, Wonderlab, or you can find them online at Sweany Artworks online. Jaime Sweany was the owner of the Wandering Turtle Art Gallery downtown, and now she’s off on her own art endeavors. She’s a good friend and I like to support her. Oh, and speaking of supporting friends, local artist extraordinaire and truly tireless supporter of the Lotus Festival, Deborah Klein, is packing up her bags and moving back to Australia. We went to a delightful reception Sunday to say goodbye. Local artists each contributed a quilt panel to make a beautiful going away present for Deborah to help her remember her time in Bloomington. We all wish her the best down under.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Christmas waits around the corner…

2011-12-14T08:06:00.001-08:00

I know this because, sitting just out of sight on the veranda, is a Christmas tree with its back against the house, waiting to come inside. We got it from Bloomingfoods a few days ago but the traditional tree corner was filled with Legos and card supplies. Tonight for sure it comes inside! The boys will do their homework right after school so we can start trimming later in the evening. It’s here, it’s here!

Of course this skips right past the frenzy of the week. We’re looking for a new Saturday routine since the Farmer’s Market closed down. The hardest part might be not getting the hot chocolate from Le Petit Café first thing in the morning. The charming lady who enabled our habit calls us ‘la famille chocolat’. Saturday morning we skipped over to Sweet Claire’s on Third Street to check it out. I got a tart with custard and cherry jelly that was delightful. The boys tried the hot chocolate and rated it a 9.5 out of ten, versus a 10 from Le Petit Café, so that speaks volumes.

In between holiday adventures I’ve been focusing on making my new sweater petals. To find the materials I’ve been zipping around to all my favorite re-sale shops looking for more wool sweaters in different colors. I was delighted to find a lovely orange men’s sweater at Opportunity House and some good strong red ones at the sorority thrift shop on Third street. Oh, and by the way Mom if you’re reading this—I found a really cute black and white striped shirt that I can’t wait to show you in person! I told the person behind the till that I’m going to show you and say that it’s MINE. Hee hee hee hee!

As I transition from art shows to marketing at retail outlets over the holidays, I spent some time restocking cards at my venues around town and distributing my sweater petals. I dropped off a big batch at Wonderlab and within a day or so I got a call asking if I could bring them more! They were closed Monday so I re-stocked them on Tuesday. I also sold a few at the last of the holiday art fairs this weekend at the Beth Shalom center. I shared the Discardia booth with Jean, Jeanne and Laurel so I could hang out and chitty chatty with my recycled art friends. The organizers did a nice job promoting the show, bringing in a very happy crowd for the art and a cookie sale. Oh, and while I’m on sweater petals, I discovered a new kind that looks something like a cross between a rose and a brain. Maybe Jill Bolte-Taylor will want one! I made them out of old suit jackets, especially the kind with the big padded shoulders that give you the eighties flashbacks. I see my job as a community service, ridding the community of all the old clothes that shouldn’t be rediscovered (like the men’s orange sweaters). Anyway, I’m also thinking that the new flower designs should also find their way into a weaving that I’ve been dreaming up. It will feature an hand holding out a bouquet of flowers over a background of sweater petal flowers.

Finally, on another family note, Jim’s birthday was Sunday. He didn’t want to have a cake with all the other goodies that have been available, so we made frozen yogurt parfaits with fruit from Bloomingfoods. I think everybody liked them! For his birthday I got him a bunch of new shirts, which he also seemed to like. Little does he know that every time he adds a new shirt to his closet I get to sneak out some of the old ones that I don’t like to see him wear any more. They’ll become part of Re-Shirt art tank top, so everyone wins!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Holiday Season, Here We Are!!

2011-12-04T16:45:00.000-08:00

It was a jam-packed week for me, culminating with the Unitarian Universalist Art Fair and Bazaar over the weekend. I had to keep focused all week with meetings planned for Monday through Wednesday. I managed to make a few scarves each day in the days before the show. I was pleased and impressed to see all the yard signs advertising the show and the ads in the Herald Times—the organizers did a great job promoting the show. Thursday evening my set-up crew came to help me at the church. The boys and Jim did a wonderful getting the booth set-up in a new spot this year. Just about everybody was shuffled around, which freshened up the show. My Sweater Petals were a big hit, as were my Re-Shirts. This show was the first chance I really had to display them both. It was good to see people trying them on and moving around, which gives you a much better sense of how the fabric moves when you put on my wearable art. It’s a lot like seeing fashion come down the runway, where the movement of the fabric helps bring each piece to life.

The show ended at 7 on Friday, which let me sneak out to see Jim’s brown belt test at 7:15. I got there just before it started with a package of dark chocolate brownies from Galaxy Gourmet to match the new belt. We usually celebrate with ice cream after a belt test, but this time we went home to have some fresh-baked apple pie. I don’t think anybody minded.

After the show on Saturday we packed up the art and the booth, headed home and collapsed. With each boy doing Taekwondo and sparring back-to-back before the takedown my roadies were ready to relax. We had a fire in the fireplace, a little wine with a Peppered Salmon dish from the freezer, and everybody went to bed tired but satisfied. Of course Sunday just brought a new set of adventures, beginning with St. Nicholas day. On the Bloomington Celerin calendar it falls on the Sunday after the UU show. Each family member found a big stocking stuffed with treasures, ranging from chocolate to toothbrushes and bubble bath. I even got some Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea (I’m really tight with the Jolly old fellow). Oh, and when I came downstairs I found a note from St. Nick next to an espresso and a stollen filled with marzipan that I suspect came from Sweet Claire’s bakery! It’s a nice low-key introduction into the holiday season. Now I’m eyeing Christmas trees at Bloomingfoods and planning for the candy house. I just have to remember Jim’s birthday next weekend! Shhh, don’t remind him…

Oh and one more holiday show - next weekend is a Discardia event at the Shalom Multi-Cultural Bazaar (3750 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN) on Sunday from 11 - 3pm

Hope to see you there!!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

Before I tell you about my travels and discoveries from this past week, I wanted to share some more about the Déjà Vu show. It was held in the Columbus Commons two weekends ago, which is a wonderful venue for the show. This week Marilyn Brackney sent me a few pictures that show off the space and my booth and so here they are…

My last ‘new’ project was creating noodle scarves by cutting up felted wool sweaters and repurposing them. As I played with the process a little I realized I could take the process in new directions. I started creating wool flower petals and combined them with small felted balls I had in my collection and came up with a pattern I really liked. About then it was time to head for Michigan to see Grandma for Thanksgiving, so I packed up my felted materials in a bag with threads, scissors and my new thimble for the trip. During the drive I made a bag full of ‘sweater petals’ (thanks, Grandma!), my name for the new creations. They’re fun little bright spots to go on jackets, sweaters or hats. I just know that the gloomy weather is coming and a little bright spot can go a long way to brighten your day. I’ll display these at the Unitarian Universalist Church Holiday Art Fair and Bazaar this weekend (the UU show) if you’re interested in seeing them in person.

It was nice to travel to Michigan for the holiday to hang out with Jim’s mom, the Gibson’s next door and Aunt Lois. I got to just relax and spend time with everybody, although I did have to help with Thanksgiving dinner preparations. Jim made the crusts for the traditional pumpkin pies and prepared steelhead and salmon for one main course. These are the fish that he and Tommie caught in October so it was a real family effort. After Thanksgiving the whole crew spent a day at the King Tut exhibition in Midland, which I hadn’t seen since I was living in Toronto before moving to the states around thirteen years ago. Has it really been that long? I enjoyed seeing the Egyptian alabaster carvings and other art pieces, the gold work and liked the whole atmosphere. On Friday I helped Grandma transplant seven trees away from her barn, which made her happy and me sore. Jacob got into that project with me while Jim and Tommie were off fishing again. They did come home with a bucket full of perch from the pier at Tawas, so Saturday brought another nice fish fry. The whole family ate very well over the long weekend.

Now I’m back in Bloomington, back to Zumba to work off the holiday food, watching the first snow settling on the tree branches and gearing up for the UU show this Friday and Saturday. I’ll have all my new scarves—lattice, ruffled and noodles—along with my new sweater petals. Of course I’ll bring some art pieces for the display too, but I’ve been focusing on making scarves and commissions rather than new pieces to display. Stop in and say hello, see what’s new in my booth and don’t forget to pick up some cookies from the cookie walk!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Seems like déjà vu…

2011-11-20T10:29:00.000-08:00

This week marked the arrival of my brand new deep dish pie plate! My friend Jan Arbogast, a local clay artist, made us a beautiful replacement for our broken pan. To my great delight, it’s bigger than the last one - I’m telling Jim that means we can have healthier pies—they’ll have more fruit! Jim got right to work and made a mixed apple pie Thursday morning. It was yummy! Everybody got two pieces, and I have enjoyed pie and coffee for breakfast since Thursday. I’m guarding the last slice for tomorrow morning after Zumba.

In the art world, I spent the week preparing for the Déjà Vu art fair. Because the show features art created from reclaimed and recycled materials I decided I couldn’t show my ruffled scarves. They’re made from new merino wool and have no recycled content—unless you consider the sheep are recycling material for their coats. To fill in I launched into another new project that involves up-cycling old sweaters. The project came upon me when Cappi Phillip’s husband Bud had the vision to wash and dry her beautiful alpaca sweater she got on her trip to Peru. Cappi was very sad, but knowing that I could do something nice with it helped ease the pain. At least that’s what she said. I played around a bit cutting up felted sweaters and sewing them on to strips of felt. That wasn’t quite what I wanted, so I came up with the idea of making crocheted noodle scarves. I begin with a sweater, felt it, and then cut it into a continuous strip that I crochet to form the spine. Then I attach strips of felted sweaters onto the crocheted spine and felted the whole thing again. I think the resulting texture is really interesting. It’s a bold statement scarf and I really like them! I made some with black noodles and red spine, then red noodles with black spines before I went off playing with new color combinations. I’m basically riffing on what I learned when I made the ruffled scarves. In some strange way I see them as similar. The only major crash I had came when I tried to felt in the washing machine and the whole project fell apart. By the time I scooped all the tangled fibers out of the machine and onto the basement floor it looked like a giant eagle had swooped in and eaten a huge black sheep, leaving only the scattered coat remnants. That’s probably why we haven’t had mice in the basement this fall.

Saturday morning I packed up all of my latest creations and headed off to the Déjà vu show in Columbus Indiana. It was great fun. The Commons is absolutely the right place to hold the show—it’s airy, spacious and the layout supports a good traffic flow of fairgoers. Plus there’s a huge play space for kids next door, separated by a big, glass. sound-proofing wall. Thanks to Marilyn Brackney who did an amazing job of organizing the event and making it happen. I got to see people in Columbus that don’t make it to the Bloomington shows, including some of my friends from the Cincinnati workshop who made a long drive. Everything new was well received, including the noodle scarves and my line of Re-shirts I’ve been showing at the Discardia events. Next up is the UU show (the Unitarian Universalist Holiday Art Fair and Bazaar) in two weeks where I’ll show all my scarves, shirts, cards and wall art. Stop by(Fee Lane and the bypass) to see what’s new and buy some cookies from the cookie walk! Everyone goes home happy, guaranteed.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

2011-10-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

I’m sorry I was so slow in writing my blog this week, but I’ve been catching up from my big trip to Ohio. I did a three-day workshop for a group of terrific and supportive group of fiber artists in Cincinnati over the weekend. That means that much of my early week was spent making sure everything was in order for the event. I color-coded my bags of materials so I knew which stuff went with each day. To be sure I had the best possible selection of materials I even made one last circuit of the thrift shops and recycled materials outlets like the recycle center. Since this was my longest trip away from my family I also made a trip to the grocery store to make sure they’d be able to eat reasonably well without me. Then I packed up my trusty Matrix that always seems to fit everything—it’s just incredible that way—and told Victoria (aka the Garmin) where I wanted to go. She led me through a gorgeous countryside of changing leaves, light traffic, and blue skies. I even surprised my hosts by showing up a little bit early.

The first evening I gave a talk to the group to introduce my art and myself. I brought copies of the talk on two separate flash drives, just because I like to be prepared, and the technology didn’t let me down. I was delighted to have lots of smiling and nodding faces in the audience during the talk and lots of questions at the end. Later I went to the home of my host, Gun-Marie, who is just the most wonderful, colorful, enthusiastic and knowledgeable person. I wish she lived closer! The following morning the group launched into ‘day one’ of the workshop: weaving with reclaimed and recycled materials. I built fourteen nail looms for the class so each person had a high-quality loom. I dumped out bags of materials such as leather strips, feathers, rocks, sticks, seashells, flax roving, lanyards, and a bunch of conventional yarns. I felt that I was able to push the individuals beyond their comfort zone in a really good way. I got one person who always weaves in straight lines with purple yarn doing undulating, uneven weaves using earth tones. I felt that they all just took the opportunity to explore aspects of their art and creative selves that they haven’t yet tapped into. I kept them moving too—every hour I made them get up and stretch. I’ve learned plenty of good stretches from Zumba and Jazzercise so I was ready for them. I also made them get up and wander around to see what their peers were doing, which I think was also a fabulous source of inspiration.

The second day brought new challenges, but we kept on having a good time. We embellished the weavings using techniques such as dimensional crochet and wrapping to make structures like trees and branches. I even took them outside to do some wet felting on another gorgeous day. We set up tables and had trays of warm soapy water to make small balls and noodles that could be incorporated into the pieces. The building we were in stands on a hill overlooking a valley covered with deciduous trees that all seemed to be changing colors. It’s about as close as fiber artists get to the plein air experience. That evening I got to visit a few of the studios that are part of a complex in an old schoolhouse converted into artist spaces. About thirty artists have studios there, and it was wonderful to wander around the different artists zones. On one stop I walked in and saw a jacket on display and knew I had to have it. I asked the Charlotte the artist if I could try it on, and when it fit, I informed her that it was mine—and how much was I paying her for it! Luckily for me she purchased it at a Goodwill store for eight dollars so I got a great deal.

The third day of the workshop covered needle felting. We poked till the cows came home! Actually, till about four o’clock, but I’m sure the cows were ready for happy hour and had begun to head for home. We started off making needle felted ornaments, but then I got them needle felting embellishments onto their weavings. Everyone seemed to have a grand time as we poked away and discussed various structures that they could make. I had some more really nice conversations with Gun-Marie, and I enjoyed hearing stories about her family. She was born in Sweden and emigrated to Venezuela, but with the current political regime it was time to move again. I could bond with her on that front because of my life upheavals caused by political crises in Eastern Europe. She has a wonderful family with four kids, including a daughter who is a gifted artist with training as a biologist. Our lives have a lot of parallels. The entire group of people just opened themselves up and I feel like I made a lot of new friends. I was very pleased and proud that they were willing to experiment and not be constrained by their own techniques and habits. The group included Teresa, an experienced needle felter who does amazing sculptural pieces, and in some ways it feels a little strange to try to teach someone so experienced. I feel like we were able to develop some new ideas and places she might take her art, so I’m hoping she got something valuable out of the experience.

The whole story ends happily, too, because at four I loaded up the car and headed for home. I zipped back to Bloomington to a wonderful dinner of kluski and a bottle of wine (an amarone—they did missed me!). There was even apple pie in the fridge! Now I have to transition quickly to scarf mode, because the holiday art fairs are speeding up rapidly. More about that next time!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Re-Shirts re-invade the dining room

2011-10-03T06:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a busy week, but my efforts have been more practical than artistic. I put on my Fourth Street hat and submitted grant proposals to the CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau) and BEAD (the Bloomington Entertainment and Arts District). We’re trying to secure funding to expand advertising "beyond Bloomington" for the show. We get a lot of visitors from Cincinnati, for example, and they tend to spend more at local restaurants and hotels. So now I’ve completed all my administrative tasks except the demographic analysis for this year’s festival.

On the arts front, I’m launching into projects that will support the fall art shows I do. I have that luxury because I’m all sorted, organized and packed for my workshop in Cincinnati this coming weekend. I leave Thursday and leave Jim in charge of the kids for four days. It’s the longest I’ve ever been away from my family, and I’m sure I’ll be ready to come home on Sunday.

On the arts front, I got out my sewing machine and threw myself into making more of my Re-Shirts. I’m excited about showing these at art fairs and Discardia shows. The Discardia movement is picking up steam locally, and they intend to have pop-up events in town this fall so I intend to have some tops to contribute. I began by going through my closets twice, pulling out all the clothing I’m sure I’m finished with. I also went through all my boxes of saved clothes with worn areas or stains that make them unwearable. The piles of clothes and scraps that I cut up threatened to take over the dining room, but by the end of the week I was back in control and had everything sorted and put away. Now the dining room table has been expanded by two extra leaves and raised off the floor by four encyclopedia volumes. Raising my work surface helps my back when I get into wet felting scarves for the fall shows. In between major projects I’ve been plugging away at my needle felted ornaments, finishing one and bringing a second well along the way to completion. I even took advantage of the nice weather to wash some of the fleece I got in the spring of this year. I need to finish this project before the frosts come. There was a little funny whitish stuff on a car in the driveway this morning. I just can’t think what it could be.

Thinking of chilly weather, it was downright cold at the Farmer’s market this Saturday. We were forced to start off (again) with some delightful hot chocolate from Le Petit Café along the B-line trail as we walked in to the market. Spinach is coming back with the cooler weather, so I bought some fresh greens for a salad later today. We also found some Mutzu apples, which I think make the best pies, so I’m looking forward to another fall treat. I’m afraid it will have to wait until after Cincinnati, though—maybe as a welcome home present? The weather inspired me to bake a little, making some foccacia, pizza and a couple of loaves of bread for the week. Jim even put the heating pad back under the mattress in our bed! I’m set for the winter. Wait! I didn’t mean that! I’m really enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Heading for Cincinnati

2011-09-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

My focus this week was on preparing for a three-day workshop I’m giving in Cincinnati, Ohio. Plus I’m giving a talk the evening I arrive. I’m very excited about the whole prospect as I busily prepare to make it as intense and fulfilling as I’ve envisioned. I have an outline set for the three days that has helped guide me in the preparations. In the past I’ve made cardboard looms with bamboo skewers in the top, but because this is going to be so intense I decided to make a class set of wooden loom with nails to hold the warp for each participant. Tommie has been nailing looms to earn a little extra cash and I’ve done the rest. I’ll bring a set of cardboard looms just in case, though. I spent a little time making a full set of shuttles and batons out of yardsticks that I made into footsticks and cut into the appropriate shapes. You might think it was a lot of work, but I got to use a new belt sander from Grandpa’s garage so I had fun. Thanks Grandpa! You know I love power tools.

In between writing grants and reports this week I’ve also been making felted balls for the inside of ornaments. To do this I consumed my entire bag of wool scraps, including pieces of yarn, remnants of felted wool and cut-off pieces of knitted wool. I vowed that I was done with ornaments, but there is a person from Vincennes starting an art-gift shop over the holidays in the visitors center who asked me if I’d contribute some of my work. I’m always up for helping new arts adventures. I ended up agreeing to supply six ornaments and six scarves by the end of October. I’ve completed three ornaments so far… Basically I just keep plugging away as the boys do their Taekwondo or I just have some quiet time.

Speaking of the boys, they have had their own adventures this week. They started their clay class at the John Waldron arts center downtown. I just love the fact that they’re budding artists who use some of their free time to explore their own ideas and create their own pieces. Our house is just full of art, by the way. I’m also grateful to Ivy Tech and the city for bringing this all together and helping the Waldron prosper—it’s such an important community asset. In addition to Taekwondo, sparring and art projects, both at the Waldron and at home, they had a Yugioh tournament at our house on Sunday. It was a rainy weekend, which only deterred them a little from playing outside on Saturday. Badminton was the popular sport until it finally rained just a little too hard. Saturday morning we did get in a trip to the farmer’s market, which translated into the last raspberry pie of the season—yum! We got the last of the basil, some late corn and watermelons, and a big basket of peaches that are either eaten or frozen away as pie filling. They’ll make a delightful memory of summer on some bitter winter day. Or sooner if I can’t wait that long!

Our trip to the farmer’s market now has a new stop at Le Petit Café on the B-line trail for hot chocolate. It’s incredibly rich and dark, and it’s the perfect start-up for a cold morning at the market. All in all, it has been another wonderful and jam-packed week in Bloomington!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

A quiet week

2011-09-18T14:26:00.001-07:00

I’ve had a bag of unused wool in the back of my mind for a while. Actually, it lived in my art studio in a brown bag, and this week it needed some attention. The Spinners and Weaver’s Guild members held a secret fiber exchange at a meeting before summer break. Each recipient was tasked with making something out of their secret material. I received a bag of superwash wool in a beautiful blue color with hints of purple and green. The premise behind superwash wool is that it can be put through the washer and dryer because it doesn’t felt (and therefore won’t shrink). I didn’t know if I could needle felt with it but I wanted to try. I decided to try to make an object I’ve never done before, so I set off to make a bowl. I began with an old blanket and cut it in the shape of a doughnut, two layers thick. If you imagine the doughnut as a pie (I think of everything as pie) and cut out a generous slice, that’s what I did to the material. I stitched the edges back together to create the basic bowl shape and started to needle felt the wool. It worked out surprisingly well. I did the inner surface first, then I needle felted a swirly pattern on the surface using a soft lavender yarn. I’ll be working on coating the outer surface last so that I don’t have the pattern showing through. I’ll see if I can complete it before the first guild meeting of the fall on Monday.

The weather was just gorgeous this week in Bloomington, so I took the opportunity to do a little work outside. That meant puttying, sanding and painting the oak frames that my friend Tom Bertolacini builds for me. It’s nice to be outside when it isn’t too hot (most of the summer), or too cold (a few days the week before), or too wet. Now I have twelve black frames ready to be filled. I know it’s time to start weaving again, but I need a break after a long summer of creating, traveling and selling. My family and I went to the farmer’s market Saturday for our usual stock-up on fruit and veggies, which was also a nice break. It’s a great time for the market with all the late-season goodies. We found watermelon, corn, raspberries, cucumbers, apples and a big bag of peppers for a peppered salmon dish. I also got an inspiration for a new piece when I chatted with Sarah at the volunteer fair. She is involved with the Bloomington orchard project. I thought they had mainly apple trees, but I learned that they have a huge variety of fruits. I’m excited to tour the grove and see what’s going on. I did learn that they’ve been preventing the trees from bearing fruit until they become bigger and well established. The concept of a huge new harvest of all different kind of fruits got me thinking about and sketching a whimsical tree covered with all the fruits in the orchard. I need to think a little about the structure to get the scale right, but now I’m excited again to start a new piece.

I went on lots of little forays this week—I went back to Auto Heaven to forage for rusty car parts and came back with a big bucket of stuff. Tommie and I went to the train racks by the B-line trail and came home with a big bag of treasures, including some old spark plugs, which I think are cool. Everything is carefully washed and dried and waiting in a big plastic jar and so I’m ready to begin a commission similar to my ‘Tread Lightly’ composition that sold quickly at Fourth Street.

On Thursday the boys and I went to an exhibit at the John Waldron arts center to see an exhibit of Turkish textiles put on by George Malacinski. The exhibit, entitled "Woven Treasures: Near- and Middle-Eastern Textiles" was amazing, featuring a combination of interesting techniques, materials, colors and effects. Perhaps the most amazing was a horse bridle that had a felted structure stitched onto a woven fabric with an embroidered surface. I saw a wedding dress that was both beautiful and sad. It featured an extraordinary silk fabric embroidered with silk—you could see that it represented a phenomenal amount of work. The mixed feelings come from the knowledge that the marriage was arranged for a young girl whose body was not allowed to show. Her arms were bound underneath and covered with the beautiful dress, and she was married as a commodity and not a person.

Oh, a couple of quick final notes. My two big commission pieces were shown in Saturday’s Herald Times Homes section when Carol Krause wrote a piece and photographed them for an article about the homeowners renovations. That was nice to see. And even though we got raspberries, there won’t be enough for a pie this week. I’m still optimistic that something with a crust will turn up soon! It’s fall apple time, and there are still plenty of peaches around! Is anybody listening? Jim?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Transition week

2011-09-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

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

Fourth Street Festival 2011!

2011-09-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

The story of my week centered around the Fourth Street Art Fair. During the week leading up to the fair I was racing to get things done to make the show run smoothly. I finished one last weaving that I called ‘Letters from Home’. The story behind the piece comes from the visits of my Grandmother from Czechoslovakia to my childhood home in Canada. She would fly to Ontario every few years and stay three to six months and then fly back. In between she would write long letters on onionskin paper that had a blue tint. In those days you paid for every ounce of weight in airmail letters so the incredibly thin paper was important to save money. Those letters made a strong impression on me. I remember a conversation at last year’s Spinner’s and Weaver’s Guild show discussing the lost art of writing letters. Everything today seems busier and faster; now we communicate more electronically. All my memories of my Grandmother, including the late nights playing canasta late into the evening and exchanging letters on the thin blue paper came flooding back to me last week. I transformed the emotion into a weaving with a blue background to represent the airmail paper and letters pouring out that spelled a memory. On the piece I wrote about remembering the time we danced, but the concept was all about celebrating and exchanging life in an earlier time. I told the story to an IDS (Indiana Daily Student) reporter at the art fair and I was surprised to find the story in the paper and on-line! In a strange twist of fate my Czech relatives today can read and share the story faster than I could ever mail it to them in a letter.

The reality of the approaching show was a little less personal and warm, however. Electronic communications were flying among the show organizers. I checked my e-mail ever few hours to read about the latest complication or fire to stomp out. There are always a few holes in the show layout to fill as late cancellations come in. Friday finally came and the committee assembled to mark the streets and get the show started. After all the illegally parked cars were towed and the streets marked we invited the artist to set up their booths in 95-degree heat. Everything went smoothly, but Saturday turned into another scorcher. We reached a local record with a 102 degree first day of the show and I was worried about the turnout and the patrons. This year we set up free water carboys around the show to make sure everyone stayed hydrated and that was a hit. The crowds came out early, and within the first hour I sold all of my new bicycle pieces. Fortunately, the patrons allowed me to keep the pieces on the walls throughout the first day so I could share my new work with all my local friends. By late in the afternoon the weatherman tripped up and the zero percent chance of rain turned into a brief thunderstorm that cooled off the show around five. The last hour of the show was still quite pleasant, as was the celebratory dinner held this year at the First United Methodist Church on Fourth Street. It was a wonderful setting for the reception. The food was incredibly good this year and the ceremony came off without a hitch. I’m so pleased—and relieved!

On Sunday morning I arrived at the show early with a sense of impending doom, since the weatherman called for a 70 percent chance of thunderstorms throughout the day. When Jim came I asked what the weather map looked like, and he told me I didn’t want to know. It turns out there were bands of rain all around us and for hundreds of miles to the south, all heading our way. In a welcome twist of fate, however, all the rain skirted Bloomington and we had a cool, pleasant, and even awesome day for the fair! People were happy, joking and buying art like the old days. From a sales perspective it turned out to be my best show ever, with nine pieces finding new homes and two more commissions put into motion. I’m so fortunate to be in this business and in this town! We tore down the booth and packed our neighbor Emily’s van, borrowed for the show, in record time. I drove it all home, had a nice chat with Grandma (Jim’s mom) about the show, then headed back to make sure that everything was cleared away and the artists were all safely headed home. I’m sure glad I’m not doing the Penrod show next weekend! When I got home Jim had a nice Kluski dinner with an Amarone opened to celebrate. I feel great about the show and all the hard work of the committee. I’m really proud of us for pulling off such a good show this year despite all the weather surprises. Of course now the planning starts again for next year! Oh and if you are interested, there's a great video of 2011 Fourth Street Festival that an IDS reporter, Margaret Ely has posted.

One last note that needs a mention is that I launched into another new venture last week. With the opening of the B-line trail in town I decided to create T-shirts using my weaving dedicated to the trail. The shirts were well received at the show, and now I’m working hard to market them locally for the opening of the biking and hiking trail. It’s a new venture for me, but I love a new challenge! Who knows what will be next!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Less than a week left till Fourth Street!

2011-08-29T05:36:00.000-07:00

As the Fourth Street Festival on Labor Day approaches my days are jam packed. I’m moving art pieces toward completion and stomping out the organizational fires that inevitably arise as the show nears. In the world of art composition, I still have bikes on my mind. Last week it was the “Meet me by the Willow” piece, and that got me thinking about bicycle wheels. I needed some materials, so I took my family to the ‘Junk in the Trunk' community yard sale at Bryan Park. There I found some useful bangles that immediately became bicycle rims. To make wheels of different sizes I used wire I brought home from Grandpa’s pole barn (thanks again, Grandpa!). Wheels of all sizes ended up floating over the B-line trail in my mind, so the background of my latest weaving ended up forming a meandering trail using recycled yarns. I like the idea of the wheels of bikes, unlike cars, treading lightly over the path without leaving a strong impact on the world. All the elements came together in a piece I’m calling “Biking the B-line.” As I finished the piece I couldn’t help thinking that the design would make a really cool T-shirt. That got the ball rolling on a whole new project that I really don’t have the time for right now - but of course I started anyway! I asked my photographer Tom Bertolacini take pictures of all my latest weavings, including the B-line piece. I dropped the image file into Photoshop, played with the filters a little and added some graphics, and out popped a nice T-shirt design. I contacted my friend Janis, a freelancer for a local printing company, X-Printware, who is my contact for printing the T-shirts for the Fourth Street Festival. To make a long story short, I’m on track to make a first run of kiwi-colored T-shirts that I think will appeal to the Bloomington audience on many levels. It’s got art, biking, local design and printing, and it commemorates the opening of the B-line trail. Because the T-shirt is a reproduction of my art I feel justified in selling them at my booth, plus I’ll try to stock them at a few stores in town. I’m really excited about this new art and business venture.

The whole concept of the importance of bikes as a viable transportation alternative in town is big on my brain too. Of course that means I want to make another bike piece. This time I’ll make a bike floating on top of rusted car parts in the soil. I already have a good collection of rusty car scraps from my family trip to Michigan, as well as from a trip with the boys to the local junkyard and of course, I have PLENTY of rust coloured yarn! I’m really hoping the piece comes together by Fourth Street. I’m well on my way, so as long as nothing dramatic pops up that concerns running the show I think I’ll make it. You’ll just have to stop by my booth to see all my latest art - and pick up a T-shirt!

In between art there’s still a ton going on. I put down my needle felting long enough to watch my boys test for their brown belts in Taekwondo on Friday evening. They had a great test along with a bunch of excellent, more senior students. Friday was Tommie’s birthday, too, although we couldn’t celebrate much beyond ice cream after the test. We had flatbread for a birthday dinner Saturday, which followed an absolutely glorious afternoon at the Binford school field. The boys, along with friends Claire and Lara, spent several hours chasing, catching and ultimately releasing butterflies. They caught all the buckeyes they could ever want, plus a few monarchs, swallowtails and a few other species. I needle felted and supplied the water and snacks in between screeches and sprints after butterflies. I also was the beast of burden for the nets and soft cloth containment devices. We passed an older gentleman on the way home who smiled knowingly at me. I told him the pack mule always travels in the back of the caravan. I came home to a delightful dinner with a nice bottle of wine—how could I better spend a Saturday afternoon. Today, both boys team-celebrated summer birthdays by having friends for a movie with kettle corn from the farmer’s market. I had a couple of quiet hours while they watched Pirates of the Caribbean, then I dished out cake and ice cream to wind them back up. They were too full for dinner so they traveled to Bryan Park to play some soccer. That meant a little more evening weaving time for me. I’m telling you, my days are just packed!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Only two weeks till Fourth Street!

2011-08-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

My artistic trajectory has been a mad dash to complete a set of new pieces for the Fourth Street Festival on Labor Day weekend. I had the good fortune to sell a lot of my big pieces at the Madison show, but that meant my booth was pretty empty. This week I brought three new pieces close to completion.

One piece that I’m really excited about is my ‘Meet me by the Willow’ piece. I was channeling all the great bike trips the boys and I had this summer. I just had a great time discovering how to make a bicycle out of yarn, thread, wire and shoelaces. For the ‘Willow’ piece I created the bike wheels and frame out of used baling wire. At the last Spinners and Weaver’s Guild auction I bought some shiny silvery string that’s a little hard to describe. I wrapped it around the inside of the spokes and gears to get the metallic look I wanted. For the rubber tires I used some puffy black shoelaces, washed of course, that turned out to be perfect. The bike seat and pedals needed to be comfy, so I needle felted those into existence out of soft fleece. I’m just delighted with how the bike turned out!

My ‘Willow’ piece also needed some green, flexible hanging branches. I began with the tree trunk I made on the trip back from Michigan and felted branch extensions onto the main trunk to support the green hanging shoots. I made use of some thin wire from a recycled spiral notebook to make the actual branches, then added some raggy looking green chenille that was perfect for the hanging branches. I just wrapped and felted everything until I was happy with it. When I added the bike it looks like a beautiful miniature scene. I even angled the front bike wheel forward a little, because when you lean your bike against something it never lays perfectly flat. I also like the feel of the piece because it tells a story. It makes you wonder about where the rider is and whom she’s talking to. To me it’s like opening a book in the middle of the chapter to read a passage without knowing what comes before or after.

If that weren’t enough, still more art is racing toward completion in my studio. The lemon piece was officially declared finished this week. While watching the boys do Taekwondo I’ve been needle felting pea pods. I have the set I need finished, so I’ll be attaching pieces this week to the now-completed completed pea plant. I’m hoping I can finish the projects in time to have my photographer, Tom Bertolacini, come to town nearer the weekend to take pictures of everything for my portfolio. It always bugs me when I sell a piece before I have it photographed, and I now have a bunch of pieces ready to go into the booth so I have to get cracking.

With so much art happening I have to think a little about what went on with my family this week. Friday will be the big Taekwondo test when the boys test for their brown belt. Then Jim (and others) will officially have to address them as ‘sir’ when they’re on the floor, something they’re excited about. I’m really proud of the years of work they’ve put in to reach this point, and I’m pleased they’re still going strong with TKD and sparring. We did also get to the farmer’s market on Saturday as a family. I put ten pounds of tomatoes in the freezer for wintertime sauces and cooking projects. We got fresh corn and a watermelon. Best of all, we got a big basket of peaches and I got—you guessed it—a peach pie! Yummm! Now that the boys like pie I don’t get as much, but I think I’ll manage at least one more breakfast pie with espresso.

Life is good, if busy!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Lemons, beaches and family…

2011-08-15T05:43:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since life gave me lemons. The problem is that she didn’t give me enough, so I’ve been poking away at lemons for the past few weeks. I finally have enough for my “When Life gives you Lemons” piece! The last piece of the puzzle was finding just the right fleece for the lemon pith, the white material between the zest and the fruit. Luckily, my friend Ruth gave me some white fleece two weeks ago and it was just what I needed. I also discovered I was short on the yellow I needed for the rind. Unfortunately, my never-ending supply of every possible color failed me this time and I had to resort to web shopping. The problem is that you never know exactly what color you’ll get in the mail because the screen rarely does justice to the color. The fleece I got was a little too bright, but when I carded it with some yellow fleece I created by dyeing with dandelions a couple of years ago I was back in business with two big rolags. It felt great when I was able to lay out the lemons and sections on the background and saw that I had an abundance of my citrusy friends.

This week I drove with my family to Michigan to meet the newest member of the family, my brother-in-law Tim’s new bride Bobi. I don’t mind the drives because I get to poke while Jim drives. That’s how I finished up the lemons. On the way home I started poking on the trunk of a willow tree. I know that’s a bit of a leap, but last week I envisioned a new piece I’ll call “Meet me by the Willow.” The inspiration for the piece flows from all the bike-related things I’ve been doing lately. The boys and I have been biking to destinations when we can, including on geocaching adventures. I’ve also had my eyes peeled for bicycle wheels for the Fourth Street Festival children’s booth this year, which I described in last week’s blog. Bikes on the brain translated into a desire to make a scale model for the ‘Willow’ piece this week when the boys are in school. This year it starts on Tuesday the 16^th! I can’t believe the school year is already here! Anyway, the piece imagines meeting a friend after a bicycle trip, leaning my bike against the willow while we talk. I wove the background between cleaning the house and trips to buy school supplies last week, so that part was ready. It was nice coming home to pieces in progress, which makes me feel all the more productive after slower week in Michigan.

If you’re reading this because you’re interested in family news, you’ll note that I glossed over some big stuff. Jim’s Mom had a big family reception for Tim and Bobi, and it was a big hit with everyone. There was lots of good food and drink. Kathey Gibson made her famous carrot cake, Naomi brought brownies, and lots of people brought different salads. All the cousins, spouses and families came and a good time was had by all. Bobi handled it all well, but she seems more comfortable in intimate settings than big parties. She and Tim Yu-gi-oh dueled the boys several times over the weekend and, I’m somewhat surprised to report, were able to defeat my boys in every duel. They don’t give up easily, however, and will undoubtedly be better prepared, perhaps with more powerful cards, before they meet again. Bobi was graceful in victory, and we’ve decided we’ll keep her.

We had a full visit, as usual, including a delightful trip to the beach at the Tawas Point State Park. We swam in Lake Huron, walked along the beaches to explore and find treasures, and watched the kite boarders do their thing in the wind and waves. It’s definitely a place we have to visit again next year. We went on a fishing trip, which was more of a boat ride, although Tommie caught one walleye and Jim caught a perch with Captain Ryan. I got to sit in the ‘pass me a drink’ chair and try to detect bites that never came. A few might have slipped past, because I put up my feet and enjoyed the blue skies, happy and relaxed. That made it a good trip. Tonight it’s late and time to call it a day, though, because I went back to Zumba this afternoon and made every muscle I own sore. Thanks Trish! But I’ll be back.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Finding Rusty Things

2011-08-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about my latest piece that incorporates rusty found objects into garden soil. The more I thought about the concept of memories and history under the ground, the more I wanted to expand the series and develop new compositions. That meant it was time for a treasure hunt! The boys and I first went to BIM, or Bloomington Iron and Metal. Sadly, they changed the rules since the last time we visited. The boys were no longer able to rummage through the piles of scrap with me. Due to insurance issues, even I had to wear a hardhat and gloves. Tommie and Jacob graciously agreed to give me five minutes of free time to look around. I saw and collected a lot of cool things, including six old bicycle wheels for the community art project at the Fourth Street Festival. This year the kids will be weaving into the spokes of old bike wheels. After the fair the creations will be displayed at Wonderlab along the B-line trail, which is heavily used by bicyclists (including us!).

Our next stop on the rusty metal summer tour was Auto Heaven. There we all searched in the front parking lot and turned up all sorts of treasures. We found hood ornaments, springs, nuts, bolts, and other small metal objects, plenty of which were rusty. These were packed up and taken home for a good wash, which turned out to be a bad idea in some cases. To my surprise, a goodly number of the pieces were stainless steel and cleaned up nicely. Never fear, though, because we’ll keep looking.

My main focus in the studio this week was to finish my first rusty object piece. That meant creating the tulip (neither found nor rusty) and attaching it to the bulb I made last week. I pulled the elements together and framed the piece, which means I’m a step closer to having a collection to display at Fourth Street. I will keep on the theme of making pieces containing forgotten treasures trapped in the ground, although they’ll most likely appear in next year’s collection as I develop new ideas. Right now I’m feverishly poking at lemons to complete my ‘When Life Gives You Lemons’ piece, and my pea leaves need some attention. On the bright side, my life will change next week when—wait for it—school starts again! There will be a big hole in my day when my boys are off at school. Tommie starts the sixth grade at the youthful age of ten, but he’ll quickly turn eleven. This year he gets to have different teachers for each subject and have a lot of moving around between classes. Jacob will launch into the fourth grade, hopefully following in Tommie’s path with regard to excellent teachers. I’ll have an extended work day in the studio, but I’ll miss all the summer adventures we’ve shared. It’s been a good summer!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

2011-07-12T09:46:00.001-07:00

I’m settling in at home after a truly delightful trip to Madison Wisconsin. The people I met at the art fair there are just so… Bloomingtonian! That’s the best compliment I can give. They really appreciate art, and fiber art specifically. An enthusiastic crowd turned out this weekend and made the whole trip worthwhile. Twelve of my pieces found happy homes in Wisconsin, which made take down substantially easier. It was almost a sad sight to see the few pieces that didn’t sell nestled in one half of a big plastic tub. That definitely sounds wonderful now, but on the way back the realization that my next show (the Fourth Street Festival here in Bloomington) is less than two months away! I have to get my creative juices moving and start weaving like the wind.

I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself. In the last hours before we loaded the U-haul and drove off to Madison I desperately worked to finish my ‘Summer Salad’ piece. I’ve been really excited about this piece as new elements came together at the very end. I was poking away at tomato slices until the afternoon before we left. It wasn’t until that evening that my world slowed down enough so that I could attach the vegetables. A day or two earlier I still had a rectangular hole that I struggled to fill until I decided that button mushrooms were the missing piece I needed. I really like them, and I’m proud of how the whole piece came together. The composition feels like it has movement, which makes me happy too. Jim thought it was the most attractive piece in the booth and was sure it would sell quickly. A lot of people showed a strong, immediate connection to the piece when they saw it, which was fun to watch. At the end of the show, however, with more bare wall than art in the booth, ‘Summer Salad’ was still there! I’m secretly pleased, though, that the piece will be available for display for Fourth Street—I really wasn’t ready to give it up. Plus, I really want to show it off to my peeps here in town.

I had lots of wonderful interactions with fair goers this year. One woman saw my ‘Vine Ripened Tomatoes’ from last year and really wanted it. She said she regretted not buying it all year, and luckily it didn’t sell during the year. She was delighted to be able to buy it this year. Another couple came in and clearly wanted a piece. The wife couldn’t decide which to get, so the husband sent her out of the booth and picked out the piece he was sure she really wanted. It was just an incredibly confident thing to do. They ended up with ‘The Harvest’, one of my recent pieces with a hand pulling a carrot from the earth. Another couple was looking for a wedding gift for their niece. She was an Indiana University grad with a job in a local food co-op, and they chose my ‘Best Friends Forever’ piece. It features a carrot, onion and beet in an earthy background. I think they were delighted by the name and theme of the piece, which seemed to be a perfect match for the occasion.

While I was off selling art, Jim and the boys were exploring rural Wisconsin with Wendy and Duane, our hosts for the weekend. They were just terrific, making us a wonderful grilled salmon dinner with garlic scape pesto—very garlicky and tasty! The meal was followed up with a dark chocolate bread pudding. The pudding was superb warm and tasty cold the next day. Their help and care made everything about the show easy and fun. I even made a new friend in Buddy, the large white guard dog at the front of the house. And while I was busy during the show, in the morning before I got to explore a little bit of the countryside with my boys. One stop was for lunch at the Viking Café in Blanchardville. Everybody found something they liked and we all left happy. And the boys used their drink straws wrappers to channel the true Viking spirit.

Thanks Wisconsin, Madison, Wendy and Duane, Buddy and Jamie, puppy friend of Buddy! I hope to see you all again next year.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Madison, here I come!

2011-07-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

I’m gearing up to travel again, this time to one of my favorite art fair destinations—Madison, Wisconsin. The fairgoer have diverse and eclectic interests, and my friends Wendy and Duane take great care of us while we’re there at their beautiful home well outside Madison. Preparations this year have been a little more challenging than usual, however. I spent a lot of time this week repairing the damage to my canopy walls. I ordered a repair kit from Creative Energies, although I quickly used the entire kit. I started calling around town to find repair tape specific for vinyl. J.L. Waters downtown came through for me and saved my tushie. Two more rolls of tape and I should be watertight again.

In the wake of my Columbus disaster I decided that I needed to keep making new art as I worked in repair and recovery mode. I’m excited that I’m close to finishing my ‘Summer Salad’ piece, although I think it might become ‘Summer Veggies.’ I’ve been poking away at little green onions to finish the piece. I knew I was on the right karmic track with my art when, on Wednesday, I drove to Musgrave Orchard to pick up this week’s CSA vegetables. I arrived a little early and I was poking away at my onions when Andy drove up with a big bushel basket of freshly picked green onions! I still need to make a few more, but I’m sure the piece will come together before Madison. In my near future I’m also thinking about making a ‘Lemons to Lemonade’ piece. It will have whole lemons and sliced wedges presented at various angles. After Columbus, it’s my answer to the old adage, ‘When life gives you lemons…”. On the other hand, you could take my friend Miah’s suggestion, “When life gives you lemons, just return them for some nice jewelry.”

As I prepare for Madison, I have a secret project cooking just outside of the veranda. I collected maple bark, lichens from a fallen tree, oak bark pieces and was given osage orange shavings. Each material went into its own big covered pail to steep in warm water. The pigments are extracted over a few weeks, and right now the maple bark has the richest colors. It’s good, stinky, messy science fun that will translate into some uniquely dyed fleece. It’s fun to think that when I get back from Madison I’ll have some buckets of natural dyes to experiment with.

Finally, now that summer is here, the CSA has injected its vegetables into my life. I’ve been getting weekly infusions of greens and onions, more than we could possibly eat in a week. This is my time of the year to make freezer meals for the long, cold months of winter. Over the past couple of weeks I managed to make huge batches of three kinds of soups with greens to freeze away. I made ‘Lois Soup’ with mixed greens and veggie sausage and a lentil soup with greens. On Saturday I made a nice sweet potato corn and kale chowder. I got the idea for this at the Unitarian Universalist art Fair last December. They have a lunch kitchen window open, and while I was trying to decide what I wanted, my friend Julie Lawson told me about the soup that she had made. It sounded warm and comforting and just perfect. I remember enjoying it so much! As I was trying to decide what kind of soup to make with the kale I had, I thought of that experience. And whom do you think I ran into at the farmer’s market, right after I after I walked past some sweet potatoes? To make a long story more compact, Julie sent me the recipe and I have another big stockpot full of soup ready for the freezer!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Weaving in the Park 2

2011-06-28T11:23:00.001-07:00

Saturday was a big day for me—I coordinated an outdoor community weaving project at McCormick’s Creek State Park. This project has been in the planning stages for a long time. I’ve been collecting materials and thinking through how I could make weaving fun and accessible for people who dropped by. I arrived at the park early to an absolutely gorgeous morning. I set up the five foot wide loom that I built for my giant commission pieces, and I was delighted to be able to use it again. The organizers set up a few tables for weaving materials. I quickly covered them with the funkiest objects I could assemble. I spread out highly textured yarn cords, rope, turkey feathers, sea shells, hair from the mane of a pony (thanks to Mary from the recycle center!), a feather boa, leather strips, Jim’s aunt Lois’ old nylons (well washed), braided belt materials (thanks to Abby Gitlitz for taking those apart!), old coasters, raw sisel, cheesy synthetic plant parts, flax roving, lots of lace scraps and more. The people who came by were just inspired and the final product looks amazing. I enjoyed watching people taking it all in and then coming up with their own ideas. One woman had a great idea to make a weaving that incorporated materials from her wedding from twenty years ago. She thought about weaving together treasures such as fabrics, ribbons and materials into a memory piece. Another couple said they own a coffee shop in Stinesville, if I remember correctly. They thought it would be fun to set up a weaving project in their shop and let their patrons create a piece using a box of scraps. I’m told they have a big brick wall that needs an art piece—I’d love to see what they come up with.

During the day I did my best to include everybody who wanted to weave. I used my standard weaving approach, which is to attach my loom to an adjustable easel. This let me lower the project to be accessible to the three year olds and raise it back up for the tallest of adults to weave. Combine that with a diverse selection of materials and I found that I could accommodate all the people’s needs and influences as they created the piece. I think the biggest surprise to most people was the appearance of giant seashells in the weaving. I say—why not? I was impressed with the people who selected some scraps of materials and created an art piece from them, then incorporated their piece into weaving. I even had artists, who were showing their own art that day, stop by to do some weaving. When sales were slow wove a little, then headed back to their booth when the traffic picked up again. I was really pleased to see park visitors drop by to weave a little, go away to do something else, then come back later to add a little more. They got to see the beginning, middle and end of the process. At the end of the day I felt really good to be an active part of the fair.

Over the rest of the week my efforts were intense but distributed over several projects. I spent a lot of time trying to finish up some pieces while moving others forward. I completed by BFF piece, which I really like. To me it’s just a set of mismatched friends, which brings back memories of my high school days. We didn’t quite fit in to the world as individual entities, but together we were pretty good. I did a lot of work on my Summer Salad piece, which meant a lot of needle felting. I laid it all out this week to see how much more I need to create. I’m wondering if I just might need some asparagus, or perhaps something else. I haven’t quite decided—maybe some cauliflower, or maybe some peppers to top it off.

This week I’ve also been admiring the lilies in the back yard garden as they come into full bloom. A trip to the compost pile brings out an intense, pleasant fragrance (from the lilies, not from the compost pile). It’s been such a rainy year that everything in the garden is doing well. We’ve even attracted a family of rabbits, much to the detriment of Tommie’s backyard lettuce patch. In our future I see either a small fence or more trips to the farmer’s market.

Until next week…

2011-05-30T04:43:00.001-07:00

I didn’t get a lot of art done this week, but I got a lot of art thinking done. That translates into developing ideas for pieces and planning how to execute them. The location had a lot to do with that—my family spent the week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I feel completely rejuvenated after a week of sand and sun! I took a lot of pictures of the waves, surf and sand to help jog my memory as I get back to work. I also did some material acquisition, collecting shells with holes in them from the beach. That happens to be one of Tommie’s favorite activities. We planned our mornings around low tide when the best collecting occurs. After one night of thunderstorms and wind we found a treasure trove of collected shells, sand dollars and beach glass just under the surface. What a haul I made for a few beach-themed weavings! Unfortunately, we packed so much stuff in our suitcases on the trip out that we didn’t have any weight to spare for packing shells. Fortunately, the post office has big boxes, and ‘if it fits, it ships’. About five days of beach treasures fits, along with a pair of jeans and some leftover rice to fill in the cracks. I’ll look for that to arrive on Tuesday.

Most of the week was spent in rejuvenation mode after a long winter of doing commissions. That meant eating fresh seafood as often as possible. We had fresh flounder, tuna, mahi mahi, and mako shark, plus a small black drum that Tommie caught. The shark was the surprise meal of the trip. Its texture was distinct from most fish and its flavor was mild and delectable. Along the boardwalk to the beach we found wild blackberries ripening nicely in the sandy soil. Tommie took the lead in berry collection and by the end of the week we had enough for Jim to bake a nice pie. Warm from the oven and paired with caramel frozen yogurt it was delightful. It was worth every bite, but I can’t wait to get back to Zumba in the mornings!

My family found lots of activities to keep them busy. The ocean was the major attraction. Jacob was the boogie board champion, riding the breaking surf all the way up onto the beach. He named his board ‘dragon slicer’, and they were together at every possible opportunity. Tommie got a board too, but decided he’d rather body surf. That left the second board to Jim, and he and the boys spent a lot of quality time riding the waves. The only downside was the ocean temperature on most days. It was occasionally so cold on that I couldn’t get much past my ankles, which made me the beach documentarian. On a few days I did swim, and it was wonderful to be in the ocean and feel the power of the surf. Besides the beach, we went to Jockey’s Ridge State Park where we hiked to the top of a few huge sand dunes. Jim and I sat and had pleasant conversation while the boys rolled down the steep dunes. We enjoyed the panoramic view of both the ocean and the sound while the boys ran up and down and finally buried each other in the dunes. The discomfort of having sand in your hair was removed by a stop at Logan’s ice cream in Nags Head.

The return to Bloomington means the return to art. The upcoming weekend (June 3-5) I’ll be in Columbus Ohio for the Columbus Arts Festival. I’m scrambling to finish a new piece before I go. This year I’d like to avoid the severe thunderstorms that trapped me in my booth for a while. I hope to see you there!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Little lost frog...

2011-05-20T14:09:00.001-07:00

Completing projects is good, and I was able to finish another commission piece this week. It will be my last for a while because my summer shows are coming up and I need to turn my attention to making some fresh pieces for art fairs. I was commissioned to create a new version of one of my earliest popular pieces called ‘A Walk in the Woods’. I pulled out my big box of green chenille thrums, most of which my husband had tied together and rolled into balls. I think the greens look very crunchy and leafy, like you’re looking into a bowl of fresh lettuce for a salad. I pulled out the combinations that worked well together, blended them in different combinations, and worked to create more depth than I had in the original piece. More recent pieces have taught me that by crocheting some of the green leaf clumps I can bring forward the canopy and move the tree trunks deeper into the background. On the forest floor I added some flowers because, well, the person who commissioned the piece wanted some! I was channeling a pleasant dog walk I had with my friend Dawn Adams last month. The dog enjoyed the freedom while we took in the emerging green and delicate spring ephemerals.

Delighted by my success with my ‘Walk in the Woods’ piece I turned my creative momentum to completing my Red Gum piece. Unfortunately, my frog seems to have been awakened by the recent monsoon-like rains and hopped away. I made him a couple of months ago, and I know exactly where I left him. When I reached down to quickly capture him (he’s a good jumper even without his skin) he wasn’t there! I did have a flood in the art studio and everything got moved around. Maybe he’s still hiding down there somewhere, pining for fresh water. I should probably look around the sunken window where the waters flooded in. If he doesn’t turn up shortly I’ll have to make a new frog and find him another home when he does get hungry and turn up. Thinking about all the water has me remembering my sketches of a cool lake in northern Ontario. My next piece might just need some deep, glistening blue yarns to capture northern waters.

I couldn’t write about the week with out mentioning Jacob, aka the Dodo bird from Alice in Wonderland. The performance was Thursday and Jacob was the star of the show. For me, anyway! The school sent home an ugly looking costume that was a cross between a gigantic, overweight chicken (think Foghorn Leghorn) and a University Professor (complete with a pipe for contemplation). Jacob rejected the image and came up with his own. Our journey started out at Once Upon a Child, where we bought a gray long-sleeved t-shirt for $2.50. We pulled out a bumpy feather pillow from Grandma and repurposed the feathers. Jacob used about ten hot glue sticks to lay down rows of feathers from his hands to his elbows. The outcome was very realistic. He made a big yellow beak and a tricorn hat (they were in the original instructions) to go with his feathery wings. I convinced him that wearing a long-sleeved yellow t-shirt upside down would give him the needed yellow legs (Dodos have yellow legs he noted—thanks Google!). He pulled a pair of shorts over the shirt to cover the unused neck hole and he was ready to lead the Caucus race! He acted and sang like a champion, as did all his friends in Mrs. Bland’s class. It’s enough to warm a Mom’s heart.

Until next week...

Martina Celerin

Strawberry Shortcake for Breakfast

2011-05-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

The highlight of my week came early - the culmination of months of work when my two extra large commission pieces were hung in the spacious kitchen of my generous patrons. They hired a professional with two assistants; they showed up with ladders, stud finders and laser levels. Toss in the artist and we had an unbeatable team. I have to say that when I stepped back to admire the pieces I thought they looked very nice. The rewarding part for me was seeing how well all the untested elements ultimately came together—the new large formats, the necessary large scale of the vegetables and hands, and my new strategy for attaching the heavy piece to the frame.

My next stop was in Indianapolis on Wednesday morning after a harrowing trip through rush hour traffic to the north side of town. My vision of pleasant driving through sleepy Bloomington neighborhoods, where people wait at four-way stops until you go through, are not shared by Indianapolis drivers. I was showing my weavings and Re-Bead-ery jewelry at this year’s Indiana Recycling Coalition meeting, held at the Hilton North and organized by recycled artist coordinator extraordinaire Marilyn Brackney. The hotel support people were wonderful, helping me haul all my stuff to its spot. The meeting people were enthusiastic and positive. My art was well received, even if sales weren’t the best, and I had a nice time chatting with the participants. The only downside was driving back home, again through rush hour traffic on 465 around town. I am sooooo happy that I’m not commuting to Indianapolis on a regular basis!

The last part of the week I did my best to hide myself in the art studio and try work on my latest commission. I completed the trail on my piece based on ‘A Walk in the Woods’. I really like how it looks. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside to pull out the warm coppery tones that I haven’t worked with in a while. I even found an old coaster that had one layer in a coppery tone. Nothing in my materials bins are safe! I incorporated a lot of different fibers that I wanted and I think it looks really nice.

The rest of the news is all family stuff. My three boys tested for new belts at Monroe County Martial Arts. The younger boys got their blue-with-a-black-stripe belts, one level below brown. And my more and more agile hubby Jim got his blue belt in the same test. He was the junior belt, and with his long reach many were a bit worried that he’d spin out and accidently kick someone near him, especially the parents of the little girl to his right. It was Friday the 13^th, and 13 people were testing. Luckily, lightning didn’t strike, no one was hurt, and everyone went out for pizza or ice cream at the end. Hooray! Saturday morning brought the first round of strawberries at the farmer’s market. Jim made biscuits, I cut up the berries and added the sugar, and the boys requested the fat-free vanilla ice cream for the top. That’s Sunday morning breakfast at it’s best.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Mixed Fresh Greens on Mother’s Day.

2011-05-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

This week was such a mixed bag—a little of this and a little of that. I was tying up loose ends on a bunch of art projects, not all of which were expected. The most exciting news on the art front was that I was able to re-launch on a weaving I started last fall. It requires beautiful red gum leaves with a deep wine-red color. I had needle felted the leaves months ago, but this week I found just the right yarn and some nice thin steel wire to create the stems. I think they look delightful! Months ago I began to create a toad to live in the piece, but I never gave him any skin. This week I’ll focus on toad skin, trying to resist the temptation to lick it. And even though I spent huge blocks of time and energy on commissions this winter, I still managed to launch on the next request on my list. It’s based on an early piece I did called ‘A Walk in the Woods’. I began a search of my cord boxes to find just the right material. I was looking for some specific thrums that I know work well for the tree trunks, and luckily I found enough of the material. Trunk creation involves twisting one really interesting cord to give the look of bark I want. If you’re a regular blog reader, it may seem as if I always have just the right material for a project. My husband Jim can’t decide whether I’m great at choosing which materials to save (everything) or whether I decide that what I find is just what I needed. The answer is—both! To create my path through the woods I did some digging to find just the right copper and light brown yarns. And yes, I had just the right colors! This week I’ll start the actual weaving, a phase of each project that I really love to do. Because this piece lacks needle felting, I needed something to keep my hands busy while I watch my boys during their Taekwondo and sparring classes. I decided to begin yet another project that does involve a lot of felting. It’s based on a photograph I saw in a Turkish cookbook. The picture shows grouping of vegetables that are being prepared for a salad. Everything looks so crisp and fresh that it makes my mouth water. My version will involve sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, whole carrots and radishes, and chopped broccoli. And whatever else occurs to me that I think would look good! I invested a little time this week putting the outer skins on my cucumbers and tomatoes as the boys trained under the watchful eye of Mr. Scott at Monroe County Martial Arts. This Friday will be a big day for all my boys there as they test to advance in rank. The younger boys will be blue belts with a black stripe, the last belt before brown and Jim will advance to blue belt.

The diversity of my art projects was matched by the diversity of other family events that culminated in a special Mother’s Day. Sunday afternoon was our spring egg hunt, which brought bunch of kids to the house to search for eggs and screech happily as they ran around the back yard. Dinner was Atlantic salmon with a ginger-orange glaze. It has a little balsamic vinegar and a touch of honey and I really like it. We opened a nice bottle of wine, had some red new potatoes boiled to perfection, and topped it off with a rhubarb pie still warm from the oven. I received an elegant watch from Jim and two sweet handmade cards from the boys. It’s good to be a mom!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Under the weather…

2011-04-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

I was sick…which means I completed less than I had hoped this week. I even missed Zumba for two days. The good news is that even when you’re sick you can still needle felt. I spent a big chunk of time creating aggressive writing pens for my BPP commission piece, and I had a pretty good time doing it. I was again reminded that there is nothing to watch on daytime television. Oh, and if being sick wasn’t enough, it rained much of the week. I feel as if we’ve been soggy for months, even though it’s only been a couple of weeks. I slogged through my soggy days, though, and I diligently finished the hand for the piece and its big yellow letters. By late in the week I started assembling the piece. The exciting part was when I could see that it was really coming together. The finishing touches involved needle felted the logo onto the background in cursive text, followed by attaching the 3D yellow BPP letters I made last week. They were connected using wires that allow the letters to float over the piece. The finishing bit was attaching the aggressive pens and the writing hand. The final piece is very dimensional, so I decided to make a movie of the piece that captures the topography. A flat photograph is just too flat! When my health started to return I delivered it to the BPP to warm reviews. Check it out in its new home sometime!

The skies on Saturday morning broke clear and blue. I woke to sunshine and knew it was time to make our first trip to the Farmer’s market this year. I thought that if I could find rhubarb there would be a pie in my future. Sadly, though, I had to settle for a nice breakfast and a flat of vegetable seedlings that Tommie wanted to plant in his garden. To my surprise, Tommie volunteered to read one page from the book “James and the Giant Peach” as part of the library’s project to read the whole book over a span of four hours using hundreds of local readers. He did a great job and made his parents proud. I’m looking forward to reliving the experience when it’s broadcast (and rebroadcast on CATS).

In the afternoon we stopped in at the Sahara Mart wine tasting event. Jim drove, I sampled and he took tasting notes. If the wine had some special characteristic I let him take a tiny sip, but not too much. I ended up trying 24 different wines! It really only amounted to a glass or so, with a sadly large amount thrown away. Jim decided that I must have looked knowledgeable at the table of a French wine importer, because he pulled out a bottle of Chateau neuf du Pape from underneath the table for me to try. Yum! We ended up picking up a few extra bottles for the wine cellar. That made Jim happy. Two of them even came from Slovakia, which made me happy. One was a Muskat Moravsky 2007 Reserve, a white wine that I really liked. We’ll have it with a mild fish under a garlic topping sometime soon. The second was called Frankovska Modra (2003), which was an earthy red wine. I think it will be nice with spicy food that has some strong character. We vegetarians don’t get the benefits of having wine with grilled meats. I’m secretly hoping that some of my Czech or Slovak relatives will add a comment or two if they’ve tried the wines before and have an opinion. About the wines, that is. I’ll let everyone know when the wines move from the cellar to the table and I can try them with food.

That’s about it for the week. I’m remembering my father’s birthday today. His birthday flowers, the magnolias, are finished, but I saw the first poppies on First Street, smelled the first wisteria of the season, and tomorrow is our biennial spring egg hunt. It would be the Easter egg hunt, but candy goes on sale big time after Easter, so I buy it up in bulk and the boys stuff hundreds of recycled plastic eggs for the hunt. Now we just need one more day of blue sky and dry soil! Think good thoughts for us!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Ratatouille is the first to leave the sinking ship

2011-04-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

I began this week reveling in the late stages of completing my major art pieces, "Summer Harvest" and "Ratatouille." My photographer, Tom Bertolacini, came over to take photographs for my portfolio. He sets up all his fancy lights and gets out his fancy camera and takes some really nice pictures. Even better, though, is the fact that I brought the pieces upstairs when he was done! That’s important because two major storms passed through Bloomington on Friday. The second one woke us up around midnight when the tornado sirens went off. We trundled two sleepy boys into the basement studio, with blankets and pillows, and they lay down there. Fortunately, we got to see the window well filled up with water and watch the water start to pour in. By that time the tornado sirens were off and Jim ran out to scoop water out of the well. Then he used the push broom to sweep water out of the veranda and direct it into Celerin Pond which drains into Drummond Creek. That kept a lot of water out of the house, but enough came in to the storage room that I had to jump into defense mode. I cleared the wall storage units and rolled up the carpets in my art studio to let everything dry out. Nothing was damaged, but it kept us up until 3:30. Saturday we did a little drainage remodeling around the veranda and resolved to remove the stone patio that channels the water toward the house. Ah, spring in Indiana—I love it! I just love some parts more than others. A post script here—I could do without the ant invasions too.

This week I began weaving away on my BPP (Bloomington Playwrights Project) commission piece. The structural challenge was incorporating one key aspect of their logo, which is the “turning pages” at the bottom right hand corner on all their promotional stuff. Chad asked if I could somehow incorporate that feature into the piece. I imagined a strategy that I thought might work, but this week I did the experiment. Basically I wove three weavings, and into each of the first wefts I incorporated some used baling wire wrapped with yarn which also continued up the right side of the weaving. I then wove the rest of the weaving. I was able to create a tiered set of weavings and stretched them out on the frame. I snipped away the support strings on the corners and molded the wires outward to create the turning pages. During my travels I’ve been poking at the BPP logo letters. I’ve enjoyed working on crisp edges that don’t have the organic feel that my felted vegetables had. While I like doing natural things, the freshness of doing something new is welcome. To make the letters I used an old wool army blanket that belonged to Jim’s father. I cut six layers out for each letter and stitched them together. I needle felted my tumeric-dyed fleece on top of the blanket letters. Because I want to the letters appear to be suspended in front of the weaving I also incorporated baling wire into the back of the letters to create the look of floating letters. Overall, I feel really good about the progress I made on the piece, and next week I’ll should launch on to the cursive text of their logo, ‘Where theatre is born’. The piece will feature a hand holding a pen, which I’ve already completed and think it looks really good.

I’m sure I did other things this week—I’m a little short on sleep, which doesn’t help my memory. I do remember lunch with my sweetie this Thursday at Malibu Grill. I had the farmed perch from Bell’s in Muncie Indiana, which were really tasty. I had no idea that there were perch in Indiana—I’ve only enjoyed the perch from the great lakes. Jim made kluski for dinner last night, and it was especially good. Even so, after all the wetness and woe I had this week you’d think I might deserve another pie! My friend Wendy got one…but I think that she made that one herself...

Until next week…

Martina Celerin