Veggies are high in fiber...

I was in major vegetable construction mode this week. I have been working on the big ratatouille piece this week, and I completed all the structural elements needed for the vegetables. I even laid them out on the woven background. To my great relief I see that the design will work! The scale is right and the number of pieces is right. I still need to create the herbs to season it, which means felting some basil leaves and thyme branches to fill it out. For now, I just feel really good about completing all the ingredients. The art construction parallels preparing ratatouille, where the secret to success is sautéing each of the ingredients separately. Combining them as the final step ensures that the veggies retain their crispness and individual flavors.

My plan for creating the vegetables was based on an art piece I saw on a recycled art website. It was a table made out of cardboard, created by cutting and combining circles with increasing diameters to sculpt the 3D shape. For my vegetables I harvested cereal boxes out of the recycle bin and cut out the shapes I wanted. I used these as templates to cut layers out of wool blankets and old sweaters. These were stacked and stitched together to create the vegetable slices and cubes. I’ve needle felted a skin layer to the zucchini slices and have launched into skinning my tomatoes. The last phase is to get the intricate design and color palette right for the interiors. I’ve gone through three different zucchini models from Bloomingfoods, each of which went into a family meal. I carded and created three different colors of fleece for each of the inner colour regions of the zucchini, and so I’m ready to start needle felting the patterns. A ripe red tomato sits frightened in the fridge, ready to be dissected for its internal color and design.

Monday was the Spinners and Weavers Guild meeting. They’re trying something new, which might become an annual event—the paper bag exchange. Each person puts four ounces of a fiber, yarn, wool or roving into a bag. The bags are exchanged, and you have until September to create something out of the material and return it to its original owner. You can add materials as needed, but the base of the piece is the exchanged fiber. I’m excited to see how the person uses the yarn I contributed, and I’m always up for a challenge to see what I can do with the beautiful deep blue-green roving I received. Unfortunately it’s a superwash material so I can’t wet felt with it, but I like the fact that it pushes me out of comfort zone into new creative directions. I’m thinking a needle felted bowl…

In other news of the week I have a new show going up at the Orchard Gallery in Fort Wayne. It’s called Small Squares, and I contributed some of my felted tile pieces. I’m excited to see all the pieces together. The opening is this Friday, and I’ve heard the opening reception is nice. The postcard for the show makes me think it will be quite eclectic. I love Cappi’s mosaic chicken tile.

In local news, after the warm days this week I’ve noticed that the tulips leaves are peeking out. The first snowdrops and eranthus are appearing in the garden beds, which is a sure sign of spring. As the spring comes on I’m hoping there’s a rhubarb pie in my near future. There’s a tradition that we have rhubarb pie on Mother’s day, but I’ve decided that when you’re a princess and a mom you can have pie when you want it. I’m on the lookout!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Madison

Wow, what fabulous weekend in Madison! The end of last week was crazy as I was trying to finish pieces for the show and pack at the same time. I finished my ‘water’ pieces with the blue yarn combinations that I really liked (and wrote about last week). They now have new homes in Wisconsin. I’m planning to expand on the technique and visit a river theme that introduces an old maple tree hanging over a river. I sketched the scene I’m imagining, with grassy, weedy banks and a rocky streambed. I dug into my dark brown box and found a beautiful deep coffee color wool. Then I dug into my yarns and found three that I blended to approximate the color and texture of the trunk. I’ve started wrapping wires with these to create the branches and I’ll start crocheting leaves for the trees soon. I’m scheduled to do a show at the By Hand Gallery here in Bloomington in early August that explores fibers and Nature so I have to get busy again!

Anyway, back to the Madison Art Fair on the Square adventure. I rented a 15-passenger van, cleared out my pieces from local galleries, packed up the family and set out Thursday afternoon. The major complication was the fact that it was my seven-year-old’s birthday, but we took candles for the trip, had presents in a restaurant and a pool party at the hotel. The Webkinz were a big hit, and the picture of the bike in the basement kept him excited the whole trip. I was worried about the forecast for an 80% chance of showers or thundershowers during set-up, but instead we drove through the rain and had a perfectly clear, cool evening to set up. The boys rode their scooters on the paved walkways around the state capitol while the HoA (husband of artist) and our friends and hosts Wendy and Duane helped with set-up. We packed it up late Friday and headed to their country house well after dark, led on by the unflappable Victoria (our fearless Garmin set with a British accent). She’s more patient with the HoA’s driving than I am, but we got there safe and sound.

The deluge came in people on Saturday morning. The show officially started at nine, but the traffic started much earlier—I sold my first piece at 8:30. I heard that the crowd was around a quarter million people, which is hard to imagine until you see the crowds. I decided that the people in Madison were a lot like their counterparts in Bloomington—warm, friendly and eclectic. I didn’t get to sit in my chair too much because the crowds were too thick and my booth was too full, but that was terrific. I had so many delightful conversations and compliments that I felt a little taken aback and honored to be there. At one point on Saturday I was visited by a very nice group of people from a company called Epic, which is located in Verona, WI. Many people in the expedition sported identical red shirts, and I sincerely hope that they made it back to the mother ship. I was very pleasantly surprised when the leader of the group started pointing out pieces that she wanted to buy for their headquarters, which included “Breakfast in Bed”, my piece with the mama robin feeding her babies in the nest. That piece took first prize in the Tree City Art Competition a couple of years back, and it always evokes special emotions for me as a mom.
After a beautiful weekend of cool, sunny weather I’m back in my art studio, inspired and ready to weave. Many thanks to Wendy and Duane, who took such good care of us while we were there, including feeding us grilled salmon, raspberry pie from the garden, and wonderful Wisconsin beer. I still have the comical sight in my mind of driving the quarter mile down their driveway into the wilds of Nature and seeing the two old dogs sleeping in front of the house as a family of six rabbits bounced around them in the yard. What undoubtedly used to be a ferocious chase scene is now one of mutual acceptance and peace, so I guess there’s hope for the world.

Until next week…

Cool Lakes and Hot Soup

This week has been for finishing projects and starting new ones. I completed my piece from last week featuring birches standing next to a northern lake. I’m delighted at how it turned out. To me the water looks cool and inviting, and it came together so well I’m going to start on another water piece. I’m already combing through the blue yarns again.

This is also a preparation week. Next Saturday I’ll be showing my work at the Art Fair on the Square in Madison Wisconsin. I asked a lot of my friends about the show, and everyone seems to think it’s a great show. The sentiment was best summed up by Chris Busch, who urged me to “TAKE EVERYTHING”. I’m planning on taking pieces currently on display at the Wandering Turtle in Bloomington and Gallery by the Green in Nashville in case three-dimensional fiber art turns out to be popular in Madison. I also rented a full size van for the trip, which has to haul my booth, all the art, and the whole family support crew. This is our first art show far from home and we’re hoping it will be a big adventure for everyone. The HoA (Husband of Artist) has booked hotel rooms along the way with big breakfasts and indoor pools to help break up the travel. Happily, he learned that indoor pools are essential after booking us a nice hotel with a pool in Canada in the winter. We all took our bathing suits and ended up with sad faces staring at the frozen outdoor pool.

Last Saturday I did a workshop at McCormick’s Creek State Park, and one of the participants offered me some snake skins from her collection. They’re naturally shed and I’m big into recycling so it seemed like a good idea. When I saw them I was really surprised—some were as long as nine feet and they had beautiful patterns. They might end up on frames or they might end up in the weaving, but I’m sure I’ll find a home for them.

Speaking of making use of everything, I made a new and tasty soup this week. We got a lot of greens from the CSA group (community supported agriculture), and we don’t eat them green. They did go nicely into a fresh soup with sweet potatoes and quinoa that had freshly crumbled feta cheese on top. The melting feta made for an unusual taste and texture combination with the soup. This week Hungarian dumpling soup is back on the menu because I got a nice head of cabbage in our basket. I love summer!

I know I’m straying from art a little, but Tuesday I cycled with my boys to Blu Boy in Bloomington. They have the most delightful treats, especially after you’ve exercised a bit. One boy had ice cream, another had a cupcake, and I had the most amazing vanilla cheesecake. I’m sure it’s the best I’ve ever had. The boys did have to get past eating big treats with little tiny desert forks and spoons (savoring treats is something we’re still working on). On our way out we picked up three chocolate dainties to go, and that topped off the visit. Blu Boy is definitely one of Bloomington’s hidden treasures.


Until next week…

Reach for the sky...

At long last she’s finished—and I’m delighted! I completed my ‘Tree Woman’ piece this week, although I’m still trying to come up with a more fitting title for her. It’s been a hectic week with the boys in the art camp at the John Waldron Arts Center in the afternoons and the HoA (Husband of Artist) visiting the GPUs (grandparental units) in Michigan for a few days. I’ve been running around like crazy this week, but I just decided it was time to start attaching the branches. Then came the leaves, which was exactly what I needed to bring a measure of control and completion into my life. I’ve been scavenging little windows of time to get things done—a little poking here, a little grass-making there—until things came to a head Friday afternoon. Jacob had his friend Claire over and I convinced all the kids to come into my art studio and work on projects. That let me focus on my piece at the expense of the art studio floor turning into a disaster zone. I gleefully finished the grass and flowers at her feet. These were a composite of linen yarn, jute, cotton, fake evergreen boughs from a Christmas wreath and latch hook rug remnants. Everything finds its own niche around this place. When I called it done I showed it to the kids for an opinion. After a brief refocusing of three engrossed children (what—you mean you were working on something too Mom?) the consensus response was ‘wow!’ I’m really savoring having her hanging on the wall, and I’m patiently waiting for her to tell me her name. Every time I look at her I’m reminded that my favorite feature is her belly button, even if she does have a little wool in there.

It’s good to have the HoA home again. The boys have been a little sad, especially at bedtime. The world is set straight again, though, as the HoA triumphantly returned with cheese from ‘The Cow’ in Linwood, Kluski from Kryziaks, walleyes from Saginaw Bay, and Spatz’s hot bread from the bakery in Bay City. He even brought a few Tim Horton’s doughnuts home for his Canadian expatriate spouse. We’ll eat well this week!

The experience without the HoA in the house gave me a newfound respect for the trials of single parents. Life was full and boisterous, and herding 2 to 3 kids for meals, cleaning up, art class and bed is quite an adventure without any help. The week did have its highlights, though. At the boy’s art camp, one of the teachers was Rob of Bloomingfoods fame. He brought a wonderful fresh outlook on art to the camp. Rob introduced them to many new artists, techniques, and ways to think about creating art. He inspired Jacob to write a book entitled ‘How to Draw Aliens’, who told Rob he’d be willing to sell him the book. Always the entrepreneur, that boy. Jacob also made a beautiful vase, although the fact that it isn’t watertight will limit its applications. Tommie made a very nice dragon sculpture in the section with Jan Arbogast. It was a great two weeks, capped with an art reception to which we brought many brownies and brought home none.

My last big discovery of the week was the Monroe County Historical Society ‘garage sale’. I called my friend Cappi Phillips to ask her if it was worth going as she trundled off to the Talbot Street Art Fair. She recommended it as huge, fun and loaded with treasures. She didn’t need to tell me that twice! It is held in the old RCA storage building behind Cook Pharmaceuticals, and it was indeed huge, fun and loaded with treasures. I brought home a new dye pot, a basket for my cards and some very useful wire. I also just had to bring home a little nutmeg grater with a storage space on top and a cute little lid. It even had a hole on top to hang it on the wall! How could I ever leave such a special little thing at a big, impersonal place!

Until next week…

Back to Work!

This week it's back to work. My focus has been on my "Tree Woman" commission piece. The trunk is filling in nicely, the arms and legs are in place, and the branches are now wrapped. I struggled a bit with matching the trunk color, which is a rich warm brown, with the branch color. I was sure I'd have a good brown yarn to match for wrapping the baling wire branches, but digging through my stash of yarns convinced me that I had a problem. I did come up with four close colors, and close counts in fiber art if they combine effectively. So the branches are wrapped with four different browns, and I find that the subtle color differences bring out elements of the trunk and earth. The remaining parts of the weaving, such as the green foliage and the dimensional crocheted background, are in place. Next week the Tree Woman will emerge!

I also had a great time this week at the Indiana Recycling Coalition's annual conference at the Bloomington Convention Center. Marilyn Brackney put together a show of recycled art to go along with it, and I'm grateful to her for all the work she did in bringing the show together. I know firsthand what a chore it is to orchestrate an event involving artists. I met a lot of interesting people from all over Indiana, including the fellow who runs the company that makes the baling wire I often use for structural support in my needle felting creations that reside in my weavings. You can bet I'll pay him a visit to collect more scraps! I sold one piece to Therese from Valparaiso (The Offering–see the March 21st and 28th posts). They're big on composting, and I know the piece will have a good home. That makes me feel good. It was also fun to hang a show with my friend Cappi Phillips, who's always a stitch to hang out with. I did have to give her my angry face when she tried to use her big, rusty upholstery hooks that would have ripped big holes in my nice new fabric display panels. Grrrr--rufff! I loaned her some of my shiny thin hooks and peace was restored.

This week Franklin Indiana hosted the Fiber Art Fair. Last year the severe flooding in central Indiana literally washed it out, but this year I made it back to pick up supplies. I dropped the boys off at the summer art camp at the John Waldron Arts Center, picked up a wallet full of cash from the HoA (husband of Artist), and got his agreement to pick up the boys at four. I headed for Franklin and didn't look back! I found beautiful Mohair, dyed to vibrant purple, deep sea blue and electric lime colors. The intensity of the colors is amazing. I also snagged some nice rayon dyed purple from Robin Edmunsen. I have a great idea for that as part of a wet-felting project I want to do this fall to make another scarf. I was also shocked to see how much her girls have grown up–they were off demonstrating spinning (one-dimensional weaving) while Robin was teaching a workshop. Time flies when you work with fiber, I guess.

Until next week…

Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean

It’s finished! “Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean” is at Wonderlab to hang for the rest of May and the month of June. It has been a long swim (see the April 25, March 2 and March 16 entries), but the school of gold fish has been united. The fish really are gold, with every last scale a piece of jewelry, beads, button or coin—some are real and some are pirate booty that washed ashore. They’re attached with white glue, which is kid friendly, and the final fishes are coated with two thick layers of polyurethane to help hold it all together. The can says ‘fast drying’, but that was just to get me to buy it. So even though the piece was scheduled to arrive at Wonderlab on the 20th it took an extra day.

The piece itself is quite a mosaic. The weaving is built from ties, socks, lanyards, and cords in a pattern that only a kid could create. The gold fish protrude mightily from the piece, with big eyes built from a small black bead on a big white button. I struggled with how I was going to attach the two, wondering what kind of glue might be best, when I realized that, well, they’re buttons, and I can sew them! I grow as a fiber artist every week. The other big structural issue was the problem of gluing the stretcher frame that holds the woven background to the seashell-encrusted frame that Tom Berolaccini made and the kids decorated. All the wood screws I had were too big or too small, so off to Bloomington Hardware I went early one morning. I had to get to the store, find the right screws, and drive to the Creek-Love classroom (where the weaving was made) in time for their musical performance day. My younger star performer, who is a teacher at heart, demonstrated and explained his Tae Kwon Do forms to the class in lieu of a musical performance. Others did amazing things on the piano, violin, harmonica, drums and guitars, among other instruments. We celebrated with ice cream after school that day, just as we celebrated the performance of the ‘six of spades’ in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in the Binford music room the day before. I recommend investing in Jiffy Treet and the Chocolate Moose as my kids get older.

This was also a full week on the working artist front. Last weekend was the Broadripple art fair, which started out rainy and cold on Saturday. The people were damp and grumbly and it wasn’t much of a day to sell art. Sunday’s weather was just the opposite, with sunny, warmer weather bringing out the beaming art fair participants. I always have delightful and unexpected conversations, such as one with a man who used to work beside felting machines. The temperature around the machines was 106° and he lasted one week. It’s amazing to me to think about the thousands of needles at work on the wool, in contrast to me with a single needle working on art projects. My dandelion piece sold on Sunday (see the March 7 post). Many admired the piece, but some offered me a trowel. I’m sure they’re the people with the monoculture lawns that get watered every night.

The Spinners and Weaver’s guild art auction was this week too. I came home with a huge box of yarn for not a lot of money. I mercilessly put all the yarns in the freezer to kill off any unwanted little bugs that might try to invade my art studio. I also ended up bidding against Ulla for an enormous kit to create a Rya weaving. We sat on opposite sides of the room and kept bidding up the price. Finally I hollered her that I just wanted the yarn! She said she just wanted the fabrics, so a bargain was struck. We split the bid and the materials and everyone was happy. Now I have a box full of fabulous wool in a rainbow of colors. She got an enormous box of materials I would have recycled. But that’s how the world works, isn’t it!


Until next week…

Tree Woman Emerges...

This is the weekend of the Broad Ripple Art Fair in Indianapolis. My booth is waiting for us, packed with the new pieces of the season. Set-up was a little different this year—my photographer, frame-maker and friend Tom Berolaccini rode shotgun in the van and helped me set up. Friday was a beautiful day to set up, warm and dry with little spurts of sun through overcast skies and good company along the way. Tom’s son Mark is visiting from Louisville, and Mark helped Tom make the stretcher frame for the ‘Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean’ piece I’ve been describing over the past few weeks. That piece is nearing completion—I had my last session with the kids this week. They glued more gold scales on the fish, and now I’m ready to assemble the whole thing by attaching the fish to the blue background at different angles and gluing the shell-encrusted outer frame to the stretcher frame. It has been a fun project with the Creek-Love classroom and my younger son Cubbie.

I also made a lot of progress on the ‘Tree Woman’ piece I sketched in the April 25th posting. The pictures show the finished background, which has a gradient of blues to create the sky. I used a sumac weave to create the green grass, then used a dimensional crocheting technique to build it up even further. I need this to establish the roots of the tree trunk and body form. I’ve included a scan of the body, which came out a little flattened because my two-dimensional scanner isn’t so good at capturing my three-dimensional pieces. It’s kind of like looking up at someone lying naked in the bottom of a glass-bottomed boat. I still need to finish the head and arms that reach up, and I need to detail the feet a little more. But I really like how she’s coming, and I’m especially fond of her belly button.

The week wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. About three weeks ago I found a pill bug in my basement art studio. They’re the cute little bugs with a lot of legs and a grey shell that curl up into a ball when your kids try to pick them up. I opened the only window in my studio to let him out, but the window didn’t seal shut when I closed it. When the torrential rains came Wednesday, you guessed it; a lot of water came straight into my workspace. I was out at a Fourth Street meeting, the HoA (husband of artist) was off a Tae Kwon Do class, and the boys were playing with a friend as water coursed through my window and onto the carpeted floor. If there was a bright side, I’ve been through this before and knew what to do. It was a long, frustrating evening, but my little piece of the world is drying out. Someday, someday I need a ground-level art studio! I suppose then I’ll have to worry about falling tree branches and tornadoes.

I hope to see you at Broad Ripple, in the field (shocking pink signs), booth 69!


Until next week…

The Greens of Spring

Someone once told me that in order to really appreciate Indiana, you had to appreciate all the subtle shades of brown. But if you want to appreciate springtime in Indiana, you really have to appreciate all her shades of green. The progression began almost two months ago, which we noticed on our trip to Michigan over spring break. We left Bloomington guarded by skeletons of brown trees, spent a few days in Kawkawlin, and came back to the soft, timid greens of earliest spring. Her arrival isn’t like stepping into a new world of color, like Dorothy did in the Wizard of Oz. It’s a gradual process that most stop following until the whole spectrum of greens is on full display. All the textures, colors and variations are enough to keep an artist busy for a lifetime!

Maybe you’ve guessed that it’s been a green week for me. I’ve been thinking about the ‘Tree Woman’ commission piece and working on her leaves (see the sketch in the April 25 post). To begin I got out my big storage containers of green yarn and my crochet hook. That scared the leafy green colors and set them quivering, which is how I create the effect of a breeze (OK, OK, I’m just kidding!). To get the textured effect and colors I wanted I mixed three green yarns. Two of these I bought but one I created—you never know what you’ll find in my artwork! Here’s the story of a yarn’s mid-life crisis:

The yarn was raised as a pretty blue bouclé with a wonderful texture. She had every advantage in life and was well cared for, but no one really loved her. Even the person that cared for her most knew she wasn’t happy, and that a great career in the arts, admired by many, was her true destiny. I happened to be attending the Spinners and Weaver’s guild annual auction, one of my favorite events, elbows out and bidding on yarns in the midst of the shrewd and seasoned local fiber artisans. The auctioneer was Cheryl Johnson, a local spinner, and she was desperate to help her blue friend. “Martina, you need this yarn!” she implored, but I think she knew the yarn needed me. Blue just isn’t a color I work with a lot, so I grudgingly bid a dollar and brought home the blue bouclé. After puzzling over what I would do with it, I got out my yellow RIT dye and over-dyed it. Out came a magnificent, lush green (the upper right yarn in the panel of three yarns). She quickly made friends with the other greens and is heading for a dual career in the arts and home decorating. There’s always a happy ending when people bring fiber into their homes.

I have truly enjoyed the greens of spring this year, scootering or biking in to school with my boys and watching the lush foliage emerge. The highlight of this particular week, though, was going on a fishing trip in our canoe with the HoA (husband of artist) and elder son (aka the fishing machine, Tommie). I really enjoy paddling in the canoe—maybe it’s the repetitive nature of the paddle strokes that remind me of weaving. It was a beautiful evening on Tuesday, in between days of heavy rains. The water was glassy but not flat, and the partly cloudy skies let enough sun light in to see the glory of the lake and all the surrounding greens. I caught the first AND biggest fish, which usually wins you small sums of money in fishing bets in our family, but I haven’t seen the financial reward as of yet. I did enjoy the fish fry, with 25 modestly sized crappies (OK, there were a lot of small ones). But they were tasty! Especially with some heavy bread, some French fries and a bottle of Pilsner Urquel. Now that’s a fish fry!

Until next week…