Walking Through Gardens…

I’m really excited about the piece I just finished.  I’m calling it “The Visit,” and it’s another piece in the series I’m creating for the Monroe County History Center’s Garden Walk Show.  I think that it’s a piece that nicely conveys the inspiration for the piece, so I’m really pleased with how it turned out.  I had been thinking a lot about two ideas that fit together in my mind. 

One aspect is the effort to see things that are slightly hidden, obscured by something in the foreground, looking through a mesh or partly closed curtains. My mind’s eye is trying to build a picture of what’s on the other side from the bits and pieces I can see.  The fence blocking the path and some of the flowers captures that essential part of ‘The Visit” for me.  The other aspect is the feeling you get when you visit a friend and leave pieces of yourself outside and step into their world.  

I tried to capture that with the abandoned bicycle at the fence, leading you to the conclusion that you’ve stepped through the gateway and into the yard beyond, something you couldn’t see clearly from outside the fence.  I really enjoy visiting with my friends, both in the physical sense of being with them and because I can step out of my world to get an idea about how they experience life. 

I had two wonderful experiences this week that helped me bring those ideas together.  Early in the week I went with my friend Dawn Adams to the SOFA gallery at IU to see the current BFA show.  It’s a completely different experience from my usual routine, and I learn a lot by paying close attention to the art – what works and what doesn’t.  One of our memorable conversations was about the concept of large areas of open space in artwork, really pushing the amount of negative space in a piece.  I tried to incorporated that concept in ‘The Visit’ through the amount of green space off in the distance and balance it with an abundance of information in the foreground.   

The other terrific experience I had this week was a visit to Jill Bolte-Taylor’s studio.  She invited me to play in her sandbox, working with stained glass, which is a medium I’ve never explored.  Her studio is a welcoming place—it’s well organized and brightly lit and she has power tools!  My standard choice for composition when I’m exploring a new medium is to create a tree.  Jill is going to fuse it for me, but for now it’s already laid out, foil wrapped and ready to assemble.  She’s really an amazing person—caring and generous, and just fun to sit and chitty-chat with.  I’m glad she makes Bloomington her home. 

This week we had what I expect is our last snow day of the year.  I could tell you we had lots of snow, but the reality is that two inches of wet snow closes the schools in Bloomington.  It was very pretty to see.  The wet, sticky snow attached to all the branches and gave a nice patina to my yin-yang piece hanging at the carport.  I made it as an installation piece, where the yin and yang are the arts and sciences.  I thought it was pretty with the branches covered in snow.  I was ready to take it down earlier this year, but now I think it’s OK to stay up a little longer.  And the really big news of the week—I got a raspberry pie!  Jim ‘discovered’  frozen farmer’s market raspberryies he had squirreled away in the freezer and forgot about.  It was under the frozen Girl Scout cookies.  Anyway, the flavor was awesome!  And spring is almost here!  The birds building nests and chirping happily outside, so I know it must be true.

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Fall is here!

Now that traveling to summer art fairs is behind me and the weather is cooling off, I know it must be fall.  The kids are back in school too!  My art studio is a much quieter place, which means I can put my full energies into weaving again.  Last week I wove and wove and wove on my giant commission piece.  I was able to complete the background weaving and crocheting.  The flat background that fills the frame came first, after which I released the piece from the loom and stretch it into the frame that Tom Bertolacini built for me.  Then I started to build the foreground soil by crocheting forward, building up in layers away from the woven background.  I used my yarns in beige, sand and taupe shades to create the path, and I used random greens that I tend not to use as the base for the forest floor.  It’s a great way to use up the blue-greens and Christmassy greens that rarely work in my pieces.   

They serve as a placeholder yarn that I’ll cover over using my grasses and plant materials.  The goal is to create a realistic forest understory adjacent to the path that moves through the trees.  When I step back and look at it, I realize that the piece that has consumed an amazing amount of yarn.  I’m estimating that I consumed close to a twelve-gallon tub of yarn scraps just to finish the base for the trees.  That’s a good thing, because now I can close the lids on my storage tubs and they fit in my wall racks again!  To finish the base, I picked out the exact sand, taupe and cream colors I wanted to use for the path and layered them on top of the crocheted yarn.  I then needle felted the components together to get the mottled look I wanted.  It was very satisfying to see it all completed.  With the background in the frame, I moved on to creating the tree trunks and forest canopy.  I finished needle felting the free-standing tree trunks, so they’re ready to plant.  This week I’ll extend the trees by constructing the branches and launch into making the leaf clumps.  After my last round of dyeing, I have plenty of the crunchy greens available to create the leaves.  It’s a huge project, but I’m delighted to see it coming together. 

 

My life is never quite as simple as it should be, so lots of other things are going on as I weave.  I’m deep in the throes of writing a grant to help support advertising for the Fourth Street Festival.  It isn’t glamorous work, but it has to get done before the October first deadline.  It helps make the show better by drawing in crowds from accessible markets such as Cincinnatti, so I know it’s worth the effort.  On the home front, Jacob is finally emerging from a long and nasty respiratory illness.  It’s something like whooping cough, but it didn’t test positive for the actual disease.  He sure has the ‘whoop’, though.  After three trips to the doctor and a messed-up digestive system from all the antibiotics he’s finally looking like Jacob again.  It’s so good to have him back!  Friday night turned out to be a big night for the family too.  We left the boys to guard the house (OK, to play Minecraft all evening as their treat) while Jim surprised me with an elegant dinner at Finch’s Brasserie.  I had the grilled swordfish, which was excellent, and a wonderful calamari appetizer. 

 Jim planned it so we could have a bottle of wine and walk over to the opera afterward on a pleasant fall evening.  We had excellent seats, right down in front with all the long-time subscribers, to see DonGiovanni.  I’ve seen it many times, and I really enjoy a lot of the music.  Of course the production was excellent, so it turned out to be a wonderful evening.  It was a dry walk back to the car, but we missed a torrential downpour while we were watching the statue claim Don Giovanni.  The boys were sleeping in bed (for how long I don’t know) when we got home so all turned out perfectly.  Saturday brought the farmer’s market, which meant lots more tomatoes for sauces, cucumbers for lunches, raspberries for pies, and hot chocolate (or espresso for me!) along the way.  I should also mention that with the cooler weather my enthusiasm for baking came back.  I made babovka (a traditional Czech cake), muffins (with healthy stuff packed in) and “co dum da” cookies (which translates into ‘what the house will give’).  This week the house gave a few chocolate chips, white chocolate chunks, some peanuts, oatmeal, wheat germ and ground flax seed.  Fortunately, the kids only noticed the chocolate.  I even made my famous cheese filled slugs on Friday!  All that baking took a lot of effort, but I think I inspired Jim to make another raspberry pie.  Hooray!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Ratatouille Arrives!

Finally—‘Ratatouille’ is complete! I’m delighted with how it turned out. I even feel as if I’ve taken the first step toward being a grandma by carrying around pictures of the completed piece and showing the people who have watched me along the way. I received so much support and encouragement as I felted tomato slices, eggplants, zucchini and herb leaves into existence over the past few months that I felt I needed to share the finished product. It has been fun to watch their responses to seeing the finished piece. The people who actually saw the size of the tomatoes have the best sense of the overall magnitude of the finished piece, which is huge 5' X 2 1/2 '—the tomatoes are the size of dinner plates. Even though I like the tomatoes, my favorite part of the piece is the basil leaves. I feel like they really enhance the cohesiveness of the piece, and I just like how they turned out. I can almost smell the piece!

Did I say I was pleased with how it turned out? That’s true, but I am sooo ready to move beyond creating vegetables. At the end of the week I devoted big blocks of time to my next piece, a signature piece for the Bloomington Playwright’s Project. If you’ve seen their aggressive writing tools on the attack you know the basic design. In my version the background is purple and the BPP letters are a bright yellow. That means I spent some time digging through my yarn boxes to find just the colors I needed. I was on a spring and birth mind set (their motto is "where theater is born") and so I chose a purple that reminds me of the Johnny Jump-Up violets in the lawn, mixed in with their shockingly bright yellow dandelion friends. I bought the yellow fleece at the Fiber Arts show from Donna Jo Copeland last November. It was dyed with tumeric to produce a brilliant, almost neon yellow, which is amazing considering that it comes from a natural dye. The yellow letters have a crispness that I’m enjoying, especially after focusing on organic vegetable shapes for the past few months. And weaving, finally weaving, in my art studio has been a delight. While I enjoy needle felting, there’s a certain rhythm to weaving that I’ve missed. The piece will feature a hand, which I’ve completed, holding an angry pen, ready to create a great play. I just need to adjust the length of the wrist, and make the pen.

The fact that it’s officially spring means the dandelions are commandeering the local lawns. I had the boys out collecting dandelion heads for dyeing later this summer. I even spent fifteen minutes this morning mowing down the yellow flowers in the strip of lawn between the sidewalk and road. I should have enough for a good dye pot. I’ve got to replenish some of my color stocks, which also led me to the big Fiber Event in Greencastle this past Friday. It’s one of the highlights of my year. I went with my friend Ruth, which made for a delightful trip. We chitty chatted the whole time, making it feel as if we made it there in ten minutes. I had a wonderful conversation with a weaver and natural material dyer from Nashville who sold fair traded spun banana silk yarn—that will probably make it’s way into a scarf this fall. We talked about some of her recent adventures in dyeing, and she showed me some yarn and fleece that she had dyed with wild rose clippings using iron mordant. It got me eyeing the wild rose in our back yard that I don’t really like because it scratches the whole family as they bring bikes through the gate into the back yard. We talked about using invasive plants for dyeing, which made me wonder about using euonymous as a green dye. That evil vine has taken over big parts of the back garden beds, and it’s heading for a major haircut this summer. I’ll do some experiments with added alum and varying conditions, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for any material that survives the dye pot.

The last bit of news from the week has to do with one of my favorite foods—pie! A rhubarb pie appeared yesterday morning. Although it came from frozen rhubarb because no fresh stalks could be found, it tasted great and the crust came out as a crumbly delight. Yippee! I’ll have pie and espresso for breakfast after Zumba all week!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Seeing red as Valentine’s Day approaches

I’ve been seeing red all week long. Unfortunately, instead of red wine and red boxes of chocolates, it has all been tomato sauce for my Ratatouille piece. I started off with a huge pile of red yarns on my art studio floor and I’ve watched them simmer into the background of the piece. I need to create about thirty vertical inches by five feet wide. So far I’ve managed eighteen inches and burned out every red light receptor I ever had. I have a sudden urge to run down a matador and gore him. On the bright side, I love to weave, so it’s still been great to be in the art studio all week.

Of course ratatouille requires lots of fresh vegetables. I started creating some giant onion slices out of some little felted rectangles I got from my friend Cappi. We think they’re rejected brake pads for some device. Cappi picked up a huge box of them at the recycle center a few years back and they’ve been searching for just the right project ever since. It came to me that by connecting them I could create onion rings. They project is still at a stage where the untrained eye might not see them as onion rings, but I know it’s going to work out. I stitched them together on a skeleton of remnant baling wire scraps. It’s all I can do to keep from crying.

As I’ve zoomed ahead on my second commission piece, I’ve still been working on completing the first piece. I finished the last of the vegetables – the three onions – and with three art-related evening meetings this week I’ve had plenty of time to needle felt the oversize hand I’ll add that’s pulling out the Alice in Wonderland-sized carrot. I’m delighted with how that’s coming along, although I need to lay it out on the piece to make sure the scale is right. The size is based on sketches done on grid paper so it should be good. Still, it has to look good in place or it isn’t right. Tomorrow is the day I finally take a deep breath and lay out all the elements together on the background.

My social schedule this week was overwhelmed by meetings, but Wednesday at noon I did go to the SOFA gallery with Cappi and Dawn to see the current MFA/BFA exhibits. I even managed to avoid getting a ticket this time! I really love going to these events with my artist friends because they can recognize and articulate elements in the work that I can’t. I love being able to compare it to what I see and feel about each piece. Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the pieces really lets you appreciate your own weaknesses as an artist. We saw one piece that was incredible structured and detailed with orange geometric shapes on a gray background. The crisp shapes were twisted into an extended structure that had a very organic feel. But then the artist put a layer on top that felt like graffiti. I just couldn’t imagine having the strength to invest all the time needed to create the beautiful, detailed work and then cover it with graffiti. Still, it was very powerful. I also got to see some of Sara Nordling’s woven pieces, which I thought were very striking. The most powerful piece had three long horizontal stripes with structures that looked like translucent mushroom gills along the length. The viewer’s eyes just roll back and forth along the gills, bringing a three dimensional aspect to a two dimensional weaving. It was a beautiful, powerful and captivating piece.

That’s probably enough for one week. It will be Valentine’s Day soon, though. What kind of pie is red? Hmmmmm, cherry?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

The ice storm cometh.

Did I say something about linking five straight school days together? That’s not what happened this week. The great ice storm of ’11 started on Monday night and locked out school until Friday. Fortunately Jim is from Michigan, and nothing will stop a Michigan boy from accomplishing his mission. The roads were cleared well enough by Tuesday night that we ventured out to see Blue Man Group at the IU Auditorium. I thought that they were great—a cross between Cirque du Soleil and the old Saturday Night Live. You just didn’t know what they were going to do next. I just love drumming and percussion, and they pounded out a blue streak. On the way home, Jacob wished for the power to go out so we could have some family time, and boy did he ever get his wish! The snowstorm of Monday night turned into the ice storm of Tuesday night, and the combination of high winds and iced trees took out the power for thousands in Monroe County. We readied the candles, flashlights and hand-crank radio and went to bed.

We woke to a cold house Wednesday. We did our best to get by with no heat, lights, or internet connection. It was enjoyable to sit in front of the roaring fire that consumed much of a fallen big apple branch from the back yard and listen as the IU basketball team beat the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. Nobody wanted to get into the frigid beds that night, but luckily, later that night the power came back on! We woke to a partially heated house and resumed our routine, albeit without school. They did manage to hold a second day of school for the week on Friday, so I guess they deserve a little credit.

Sandwiched around trying to stay warm (I don’t do cold well) I did manage to get some art done. My most important accomplishment occurred when my patrons for the two large commission pieces came by to approve the second colored sketch—and they did! It will be called ‘Ratatouille’. I launched into the project by re-warping my big loom, this time with a deep red warp. I started creating some of the fleece colors I will need to create the giant tomato, zucchini and onion slices. Luckily, my nude models are all organic, and they come in little piles in the produce section of Bloomingfoods. To create the zucchini skin, I pulled out my deep green and speckly highlighed fleeces and fed my new drum carder. I’m ready to launch into the second big piece. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, though, because I still need to make a giant gardener’s hand to pluck the giant carrot in the first big piece. But it’s all coming together!

In other news, Lee Hadley wrote a delightful piece about my work in the Home and Lifestyles magazine of the Herald Times. I really like his writing style—it’s concise and the verbs really bring the piece to life. He should write more! You can check out the story and the wonderful pictures at the H & L site. The accompanying photos are very flattering, taken by Pete Scheiner, who spent a morning capturing my studio. My son Jacob wanted to have a picture taken in his bedroom with his hamster, Shadow, which Pete graciously did. That turned into our family photo! And everybody looks nice—I really like it. The pictures also show off my new physique, now that I’ve lost 21 pounds—hooray! Thanks Liz and Cera at Bloomzum(ba).

The week culminated in a date this afternoon with my sweetie pie. We went to see the play ‘Kissing Frogs’. It’s a collaborative effort between the Bloomington Playwrights Project and IU Theatre. It was such fun! The staging, music and choreography were creative and professional. We recognized several of the actors from ‘Rent’—they are incredibly talented. The BPP setting allows a much more intimate experience than the traditional, larger venues in town. I’m so glad that Chad is in charge. He’s just doing many fabulous things there, and it’s exciting to witness the rebirth of the Project. Now I’m really excited about doing a commission for them, but it has to wait until I can complete the big commissions in progress. Could we just have school for a whole week? And maybe a pie?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Bloomington in the Hot Summer

Summer in my town means many things. This week it means art camp for the boys at the John Waldron Arts Center. The place has been taken over by Ivy Tech, and the place is a beehive of artistic creation each weekday morning. There’s kind of a school year feel to the mornings at home—everybody has to get up, dressed, fed and have a snack basket put together. At the camp, the boys have had both teachers before. Both are well liked, so it’s a good experience all-around. Tommie started off making a bowl that expanded into a serving platter, so in a proud-mom-sort-of-way I’m looking forward to having another addition to our collection. On the down side, the morning weather approached steamy last week, with morning ‘lows’ in the eighties. But that doesn’t deter an artist! Down in my basement art studio it’s cool and comfortable, and I got three glorious hours to myself each morning to focus all my energies on weaving.

Did I say weaving? I’ve thrown every spare moment at making new art pieces. I started weaving a piece that was commissioned at the Columbus Arts Festival. A woman there liked my chameleon piece, but she preferred the red-eyed tree frog among fern fronds that I made and sold last year. I got to bring the chameleon home, although he found a new home in Madison... To make the fern leaflets, I got out my brass flashing and started cutting. I snipped out more than I’d care to count, but they sound nice and jingly when you pour them into a pile. I think the leaflets even look quite cute before they’re covered and assembled into ferns. They seemed a little naked, though, in comparison to the lush jungle setting of our backyard—it’s been so hot and wet that everything is overgrown. To cool off a little and reconnect with my Canadian roots, I also finished a piece I’ve been working on called, at least for now, “Four Birches by the Lake.” I think the heat wave has gotten me yearning for a cool northern lake to sit by. I really like the depth and sparkliness of the water that I was able to achieve. As for the name, we have a running family story, where when I finish a piece I often ask my family to help me name it. For example, when I made a piece with a single tree next and a lake, a very young Tommie wanted to call it “Lake by the Tree .” He’s a literalist when it comes to naming art, and the trend has continued.

The weekend routine has been a little disjointed, with Jim and Tommie going on a road trip to Lake Erie to do some fishing. Jacob and I spent some quality time together, and he even made me breakfast one day! He’s such a good fellow. We went to the Farmer’s market to supplement the container of blackberries that we got from the CSA. They’re juicy and tasty, and the berries would be WONDERFUL in a pie. Are you rested up yet, sweetie? We’ll see. While they were gone, Jacob also discovered a new art form called ‘Pixos!’ They’re tiny balls you arrange in a pattern and then mist with water. The surface liquefies and the pieces fuse with their neighbors. Given a little time, the pieces do harden and can’t be manipulated. Or perhaps more accurately, they don’t fall apart when you try to play with them too soon. This ‘waiting’ element in the process is a key factor that Jacob has slowly come to accept, although grudgingly. The pieces seem like they’ll make nice Christmas gifts and tree ornaments…watch out Grandma! The fishermen came home late last night, so completeness was restored and perch dinners are in our near future. Hmmm, I wonder how perch goes with blackberry pie?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Madison 2010—the aftermath

Did I say I had a great show in Madison last week? I’m still reeling from the experience. The harsh reality of selling twelve pieces is that my booth walls looked pretty sparse by the end of the show. With two more shows coming up this year and a traveling exhibit I’m thinking: ‘Yikes! I need more art’! I decided to calm myself by visiting the beach. For me that means pulling out my two boxes of yarns in all the variations of sand colors. Then I pulled out my sea creature collection and did a little sorting and planning. I started with a beautiful sea star to use as the centerpiece of a weaving. Then I laid out a collection of sand dollars and seashells around it to fill out the piece. I incorporated these into a weaving, then the little kid in me popped up again and I just sprinkled ALL of my ‘shells with holes’ collection over the pattern I created. I sewed these onto the piece to finish the creation. If you look carefully you can still see the structured shells underneath the chaos, which I like to think of as a metaphor for my life these days. When the weaving was complete I stretched it out into one of my sand frames. This is one of my wood frames that Tom Bertolacini makes for me, drilled with holes to allow presentation of the piece, but coated in beach sand to give it that extra ocean feel.

It’s been a steamy week here, which makes weaving in my basement art studio very comfortable. I did get in a little pool time with the boys at the Bryan park pool this week. My younger son Jacob made some major advances in his waterbug training this week. He’s always been a little skittish about the water (that didn’t come from me!). Even after lessons he wouldn’t put his face in the water. This week he not only put his face in the water and did floats, but he dove down to the bottom to retrieve things and even sat on the bottom for a while. It was so impressive I invoked the ice cream reward system, so we’re going out to the Chocolate Moose for a cold and refreshing treat this week to celebrate.

The other big news of the week, at least in my world, started Wednesday with our delivery from our CSA (community supported agriculture). We got a big load of green Lodi apples. They’re a little tart to eat, although we did try a few. Friday night Jim peeled 20 apples for pies. Some went into the freezer, but a big batch ended up in a deep-dish pie that was baked in the cool hours of Saturday morning. Yummm! I even had some for breakfast this morning with a cup of tea. How delightful! Yesterday was farmer’s market day, but I felt I had to keep weaving so Jim and Tommie went on the mission for more vegetables. They came home with corn, new potatoes, cucumbers, peaches and a yellow watermelon. We feasted on local vegetables last night, which was a real treat. The yellow watermelon isn’t as satisfying to my palate as the red version, but the summer peaches and corn were first rate.

Some of my crew is still asleep, but I’ve read the paper, had my pie and tea, and it’s time to leap into action and, as my husband advises, ‘weave like the wind’! I hope you’re in a cool spot today, but if you’re out and about, stop in at Bloomingfoods, the By Hand Gallery, or The Venue to pick up one of this year’s t-shirts for the Fourth Street Festival. It’s only a few weeks away. Yikes—I’d better get to weaving!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Yellow

If you’ve ever driven through a neighborhood where the lawn was a solid, lush monoculture of well-bred grass seeds, well, that wasn’t our neighborhood, and it certainly wasn’t our lawn. I sometimes wonder if the lush lawn society harbors a certain paranoia that the weeds are watching them. The dandelions would take the lead in filling yards with yellow monitoring devices. After a while they turn into communications devices, spreading seeds to all the neighbor yards. It’s especially hard to infiltrate lawns laced with pesticides and patrolled by curmudgeons with bludgeons, but dandelions are fearless. I’ll admit it—they’ve won me over. I love to see them in lawns. They’re such a pretty yellow, and spring is such a yellow flower season. And they really are determined and fearless, ready to establish and prosper anywhere. Those are admirable qualities in anyone. I took a few pictures this week to show some of my favorite yellow friends to show what I mean.

Of course if you know me at all, you know that what captures my imagination in life ends up in my work. I decided this week to work on a piece called ‘Lawn Flowers’. I’ve done a similar piece that was popular and the composition made me happy, so I decided it was time to re-imagine the dandelion as beauty in the lawn. I pulled out my wonderful crunchy spring green yarns to start. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I should weave or make a salad. I’m envisioning a thick green base, as if you’re looking at the lawn from an angle, with three clumps of dandelions flowering. In a perfect coincidence, I ran into my friend Bonnie Gordon-Lucas at Bloomingfoods this week and had a spontaneous lunch date. The lunch was good, but she was concerned that I should be incorporating some reds and yellows into my green grass. We also bonded on the wonderful spring green colors that you can only see this time of year. If you look closely at the emerging foliage you can see the rich, iridescent greens that seem to darken as the summer goes on. We science geeks know that the leaves start to produce anthocyanin pigments to absorb the intense sunlight of summer, and those “non-green” pigments mask the spring beauty. Enjoy it while you can!

Speaking of yellow, I’ve been working on the fourth salamander for my ‘Salamander Salsa’ piece. Perhaps it’s subconscious, but I decided to make a Barred Tiger Salamander. He’s bright yellow with a black barring pattern, kind of like a tiger, only less orange and feline and more yellow and amphibian. So far I’ve only made the body, so he isn’t much of a threat to run away until I can add his legs. The ones I’ve made are more mobile, so I have to keep a closer eye on them. I don’t dare take them anywhere any more. So now I’m sitting at four-salamander salsa and waiting for two more guests.

The last big news is that this week was the Fiber Event in Greencastle. I carpooled there with Ruth Rives, a sweet friend with firm opinions. She recently started weaving and is really enjoying it. Overall, we had a delightful drive through the country on a warm and sunny spring day. We ended up spending several hours at the fair, longer than we expected, poking around in all the piles of fleece and yarns. I couldn’t wait to get home to start mixing green fleece with the drum carder I borrowed from the Spinners and Weaver’s guild. I’m trying to get just the right dark green for the dandelion foliage. And speaking of pleasant drives through the country, I also went to a reception for the recycled art show hanging the new Hotel Indigo in Columbus Indiana. The show looks great (stop by if your in the neighborhood!) and the reception was nice…thanks, Marilyn. It was followed by a fun visit to the recently re-opened ice cream parlor, Zaharakos. I got to see the massive musical instrument, the Welte orchestrion and sit at the marble bar. It felt like you were in a 1950s movie to see all the little spigots for soda. I had some nice conversations over a grilled cheese sandwich and a fruit cup. I forced myself to try and ignore the most amazing banana split walking past me, as well as all the other old fashioned ice cream treats. The good news is that I have two boys who will accompany me there in the summer to help me decide which to try first.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Can you patch me through?

My highlight this week was the Heritage Quilt Show. I was recovering from a particularly nasty bout of the flu that my younger son generously shared with me. My best art buds were either out of town or unavailable, so I headed over to the Bloomington Convention Center all by myself. I quickly got lost in my own thoughts as I enjoyed the pieces, until I ran into Monika Bonner. Monika is a fellow Spinners and Weaver’s Guild member, and she had on an extremely cool jacket. The latest trend in the quilting world is to repurpose an old sweatshirt by patch quilting pieces onto it to make a jacket. I snapped a couple of pictures and caught up on the latest news, but as soon as I wandered along I ran into a woman wearing another sweatshirt jacket that was embellished with lace. Wow! Then my brain started to work—hmmmm, there must be a way to use that technique in one of my pieces. I think I broke a couple of cogs off the main gear wondering about that, all the while enjoying some fabulous quilts that were on display. This isn’t your grandmother’s quilting!

The rest of my artistic energy, left over from getting better, was directed at my latest weaving. I’m working on a fern-based piece that features a panther chameleon. I finished wrapping the leaflets, which I described a little last week and created the fern fronds. I arranged the fronds in the weaving with just a little opening for my new friend, Ms. Chameleon. I had a lot of fun this week choosing the species of cameleon pardalis (little lion) from among several I found in library books. I admit that I’m forever fascinated by what I can learn. Give me a library book and I’ll find something cool, and the chameleon books were a rich source for new ideas. I learned that the Malagasy people of Madagascar have a charming expression that involves chameleons. They say that wise men are like chameleons: they have one eye in the future and one eye in the past. That sounds a little like motherhood, although often both eyes are in the back of my head to make sure my kids don’t injure each other or burn down the house. That also reminds me what I learned about reading the color of chameleons. For my Ms. C. there is a spectrum from green (calm and peaceful) to tan (sleepy) to yellow (surrender) to black (angry) to black with lots of orange spots (pregnant) to black with stripes (really angry). I know a few women who seem to progress through the same sequence of emotions as they enter parenthood; next time I’ll have to sneak a peek at their back and belly when I think events are heating up. Anyway, for my chameleon, the colors are going to be fun to do, as will the curly tail that looks like an emerging fiddlehead on a fern. It’s as much fun as a fiber artist can have in the winter!

On the bright side, the weatherman says we’re clear to have a week above freezing and some clear sunny weather. It’s time to break out the bicycles and spray paint and get ready for spring! The eranthus and snowdrops are up, the crocuses are ready to burst, and the first tulip leaves are peeking up through the ground. I can’t wait!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin