Summertime travel, with art packed in the crevices…

It has been a jam-packed month since I last posted.  This is likely to be the summer pattern until I make it through the summer art fair travel season.  On the bright side, my days have been filled with family time, enjoyable workshops, work on commissions and preparations for travel to art fairs.  First came the family time.  At the end of the school year we made our annual trek to Topsail Island in North Carolina.  I thoroughly love people and interacting with them to share ideas, but at some point I just need some down time with my wonderful family.  This year we opted to spend two wonderful weeks relaxing on the beach.  

 It was exactly what I needed to recuperate and regroup before my busy summer schedule begins.  We ate fresh ocean fish (grilled amberjack was a very nice surprise), walked in the surf, collected fossilized shark’s teeth and found seashells. Jim made three glorious pies while we were there.  One was a blueberry-strawberry pie from local fruit and two were peach pies, baked together when Jim realized he had way too much filling for the available pie plates.  The time off was just what I needed.

On the drive home from Topsail the boys dropped me off in Richmond Virginia for my workshop.  One of the organizers is a long-time Facebook friend, Elizabeth Woodford.  She met me in Richmond and brought me to Fredericksburg.  We had a fabulous hour-long drive where we finally got to talk one-on-one and bond.  I think we must have been sisters in a previous life.  She’s an amazing person and I’m so glad to have finally connected with her to share a big hug.  After dropping boxes of workshop supplies at the Artful Dimensions gallery, Elizabeth delivered me to my hosts, Barbara and Bobby Posey.   

What amazing people!  They were gracious, generous, fun and interesting.  I just can’t even come up with enough positive adjectives to describe them.  We had such wonderful conversations.  I’m just delighted to be part of their world. 

I arrived in Fredericksburg early enough to be a tourist for a day.  I had the opportunity to visit some interesting local sites, some historical and some artistic.  I was as struck by the cannonballs embedded in a church since the civil war as I was exploring the local galleries that featured contemporary artists.   

That includes some fiber artists using synthetic felt and heat guns to create sculptures and textures that almost looked aquatic.  I have stored away some ideas that I’m sure will influence future pieces of mine.  We walked and had a wonderful time, but I was jarred into some of the realities of the civil war era.  The slave auction block in downtown Fredericksburg stands in stark contrast to the quaint charm of the historic southern town. 

The next day, Monday, was the beginning of the workshop.  Fifteen participants arrived, bringing a very high level of enthusiasm.  Working with them was somewhat intimidating because most were accomplished artists in their own right.  

 They embraced my ideas of weaving outside of the conventional structured methodologies and incorporating non-conventional materials into the weave structures and the weavings.   

We all had fun pushing the envelope of creating art in unexplored areas.  I truly enjoyed seeing the pieces that were created at the workshop and the sharing of ideas among the participants.  

 I’m looking forward to seeing how their workshop experiences influence their subsequent pieces.

On Wednesday I flew home to Bloomington for a day and a half.  That was just long enough to do laundry and re-pack my suitcase for a trip to Michigan.   

At Grandma’s house in Kawkawlin we overlapped with Martha and Dave from Mississippi and Haley, Kris and Arya from New Mexico.  It was a full house, including one giant family dinner with the Gibsons from next door and Aunt Lois from Essexville.   

Dave and Kris each got to spend a day with Jim and Tommie on Saginaw bay fishing for walleyes.  This was the first venture of the new boat onto Michigan waters.  They were very pleased with the boat and the fishing, resulting in a delightful fish fry and a freezer full of walleyes to bring home. 

During all my early summer adventures I have been working on my commission piece, which involves needle felting of a large number of leaves.  I have a mountain of sweet pea leaves completed as well as leaves for a lily plant and a blueberry bush.  Now that I’m home I can start assembling the pieces I created on my travels.  I can’t rest for too long, though, because I’m scheduled to travel to the Des Moines Art Fair next weekend.  

 I picked up my weavings from my exhibit at the Bloomingon Bagel Company and I’m beginning to pack the rest of my weavings for the trip.  I’m looking forward to my first art fair, but there hasn’t been a pie for breakfast since North Carolina.  On the bright side, we caught the tart cherry pie season yesterday morning at the Farmer’s market and bought enough tart cherries for three pies later in the season.  Tart cherries make my favorite pie, so I know I’m in for some treats.   

When I get home I’m imagining that I might get a blueberry pie as a reward for a successful trip west to Iowa.  Bring on the art fair!   

Until next week, or sometime soon,

Martina Celerin

I’ve Got Parsnips!

Traveling has been a big part of my world these days.  When I have to sit and wait in the airport, or travel as a passenger in a car, I have a need to keep producing art.  I really enjoy the process of needle felting, which is especially portable and well-suited to my waiting times.  Lately I’ve spent most of my time creating needle felted vegetables.  My current harvest will be incorporated into a piece called “My Roots”, which will be full of root vegetables.  The piece is really an offshoot of my “Fall Stew” piece.  I had so much fun making the vegetables for that piece I decided to develop a new composition that could feature only my felted roots. 

I need to step back for a little context.  The “My Roots” composition speaks to the intersection of three major parts of my life.  First, I’m preparing for a November exhibit entitled:  “From the Earth”.  I’m developing a family of weavings ideas for the project, and “My Roots” fits in perfectly.  Second, the piece speaks to my transplantation to Bloomington.  I was born in the Czech Republic and raised in Canada, but now Bloomington feels like home—my roots are really here now.  Third, much like the “Fall Stew” piece, it brings back such fond memories of my experiences at the local Farmer’s Market.  Autumn brings the bountiful harvest of roots that have been hidden and developing all summer.  Now the root vegetables are all laid out in rows on tables for anyone to buy.  I like the veggies, but I love looking at all the colors and variations on display. Plus I get to slip them into our fall meals. 

For the weaving background underneath my lovely colorful roots I need a green gradient background.  That’s coming along, encouraged by the emerging greens of spring.  Our first daffodils are complementing the crocuses and snowdrops in the yard, and poke up through the brown leaves as rich green foliage before the yellow flowers bloom.  Greens aren’t on the trees yet, but the world is coming back to life around me, and I’m channeling the rich colors into my art again.   

Of course my art life has many other demands that take me away from weaving.  This time of year means business taxes need to be completed.  I sit at the computer and sift through my year’s receipts, translating dollars into tallied categories in a big spreadsheet.  It’s a huge project that I’m delighted to have behind me now.  My costume work for Pippin is on hold for March while I get my life back on track, but April will find me back fitting the new Sounds of South members for their circus chorus costumes.   

This week I also spent some time making looms for my next workshop on June 6-7 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the Artful Dimensions Gallery.  Finding wood and brackets for the looms gave me the perfect excuse to visit the new Re-Storelocation in Bloomington.  They moved to a bigger site that, helpfully, is closer to me!  I found some paint covered 1x2s that are perfect for looms.  Of course the patina got me thinking about their previous life, because I get a lot of satisfaction knowing the histories of all the materials in the pieces I create.  Oh, and I even picked up a cheesy Hawaiian shirt that will be perfect for the Jimmy Buffet scene in Pippin!  You never know when you’re going to find just the right wacky thing you need. 

Finally, I managed to space out my cherry pie breakfasts all the way until yesterday morning.  I’m prompted to write my blog because yes, again, I’m without pie for breakfast.  Like a cat who knows there is fresh fish in the fridge, I KNOW there are bags of pie filling in the freezer.  Soon it will be the summer Farmer’s Market, with fresh rhubarb and strawberries for pies.  We can’t let local berries go to waste! 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin