Sunday, December 13, 2015
Four Exhibits and a Slice of Tomato
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Scarf season begins…

This week I was caught in a whirlwind of ruffled scarf creation. Last week I designed and wet felted a large collection of lattice scarves created from reclaimed and recycled materials. I combined novelty yarns, ribbons, and lace from my collections with ultrasoft merino wools to make my art scarves. I then decided I needed more ruffled scarves for the Fiber Arts show so I launched into creating black and red scarves from merino wool. I developed a strategy to make the outer scarf edge undulate, where the undulation is part of the actual scarf structure. I really liked how the red and black colors worked together, so after a few of those I made some of red, purple and black.
That led me to two different shades of purple and black and then two tints of indigo and black, then on to scarves with tints of turquoise and black. By the end of the week I was looking for something different to do so I incorporated some shiny red Angelina fibers to give the scarves a little bling. I made so many that I was ironing scarves right up to the start of the Fiber Arts show. The good news is that the ruffled scarves were a big hit again this year. The bad news is that I don’t have many ruffed scarves left for shows later in the year! I guess that means I’ll be laying out more ruffled scarves before the December Unitarian Universalist Holiday Art Fair & Bazaar (Fee Lane & the bypass).
The Fiber Arts show
itself was a huge success and a lot of fun for me personally. This year three local guilds put on their shows the same weekend, which was dubbed by the BEAD folks as the ‘Craft Crawl’. People could easily move between the local clay, glass and fiber guild shows at three nearby churches. Plus it was the weekend of the Handmade Market downtown. I think people enjoyed visiting all the venues—it was just a local art shopping weekend. For me, it was nice to see people I don’t get to chat with often enough. The Fourth Street Festival is always jam packed so I don’t get to visit with everyone. The Fiber Arts show is a little slower paced. I ran into my friend from Argentina, and I spent Friday and Saturday hugging people, laughing and catching up. I only stopped long enough to sell scarves, both ruffled and lattice, every so often. Now I’m looking forward to the Déjà Vu show this weekend in Columbus Indiana. I won’t bring my ruffled scarves, since they don’t have any reclaimed and recycled content,
but I’ll bring a selection of my lattice scarves and my new upcycled sweater scarves. Even if I don’t sell a lot of art I’ll have a lot of fun with my art friends and show-neighbors Cappi Phillips and Pat Hecker. I’m sure that we’ll laugh the whole time. I went there with Cappi and Dawn Adams on a reconnaissance mission a few weeks ago to check out the space so I have an idea how the Commons will be laid out for the show. We had a great trip then, including lunch at Bistro 304—I’m looking forward to having a box lunch from there this weekend. Thanks to Marilyn Brackney for organizing the show, and I hope to see you there to show off my Re-shirts, scarves and a few weavings.
On the home front, when I have a successful art show my family makes me a celebratory dinner. This time things were a little hectic so I pulled
some peppered salmon out of the freezer for dinner. Jim baked some bread and a boca negra (black mouth) cake, both out of the ‘Baking with Julia’ cookbook. It was sooo… good—Jim just nailed it. Just what I needed after a full weekend of chitty-chattying! I guess the last bit of news is that in the background of my life I’ve been working my new poppy piece, which is very labor intensive. For two months now I’ve been creating leaflets for the plant and I wanted to lay out what I had and see how many more I needed. I think it looks really good but I still have a lot of work ahead of me. I need more leaflets, plus poppy buds and flowers to finish the piece. I’m sure it will be ready for the first spring show! Oh, and if you’re in Bloomington and want to see some Scarf Art, I have several pieces hanging at the Bloomington Bagel Co. (on Dunn St). Stop in, have a bagel and enjoy the art (and the bagel).
Until next week…
Martina Celerin
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
The fall show season begins…

I promised myself that before the fall show season began I’d complete the two commissions I agreed to do at the Fourth Street show. I just finished the second piece, called ‘Low Tide’, and I’m pleased with how it turned out. I was channeling the beach, specifically the receding surf as it deposits little pools full of shell fragments, drift wood, and other treasures. There’s always something for an explorer to find, which is why the beach is so great for kids and artists. The whole process of sorting shells takes me to a special place, and this time I remembered sharing my hunts for sand dollars with Tommie on the beach. Between a powerful surf and a parade of collectors what we found was more like sand quarters and dimes, but we snatched them out of the surf with gusto and glee. I’ll probably have to make another beach piece when the snow starts to fly and I feel cold again
.
This year I added the Chamber of Commerce show at the convention center to my fall circuit. It was combined with a runway show, which was fun. One highlight of the show was when the sweet little boy, who couldn’t have been more than five, came down the runway dressed in a stylish vest. He was moving and posing and the crowd went wild. His mom had to come on the stage to give him the hook. The best part of the art show was sharing a booth with Terry Taylor-Norbu, one of my Fourth Street friends
. She does beautiful dichroic glass jewelry. She let me have half her booth and together we kept the show lively all evening. It was nice to interact with a different group of people.
This coming weekend is the Fiber Arts Show and Sale put on by the Spinner’s and Weaver’s Guild. It will be at the First United Church here in Bloomington on Friday from 5-9 pm, then Saturday from 10-5—twenty four hours of pure fiber fun! It will be nice to seeing some old friends at a show that’s so close to home. Stop in if you’ll be around Bloomington. And if you're around town, stop in at the Bloomigton Bagel Co on Dunn street and see my ArtScarves exhibit - it'll be up until the end of November.
The family news this week begins with putting Halloween to bed for another year—we picked up all the decorations from the front yard. We even put a few more display things in the closet when they went on big discount the following week. I finally got a window to get the boys room clean (they did most of the work and all the complaining) and then I vacuumed the house. That’s a sign for me that the seasons are changing. Then we all went to the African American Arts Potpourri show on Saturday night. We really enjoyed the dance group segment and the boys really liked the chorale ensemble, and the soul review segment was fun and full of energy. The shows are always very well done, and I enjoy the diversity you see in the performers. They come on stage big and small, tall and short, hailing from countries and cultures all over the world. What they share is talent and a passion for performance, which is what makes the shows special. Now we’re looking forward to the spring show. I guess that means it’s time to get busy making more scarves for the fall shows and start some new weavings for next summer!
Until next week…
Martina Celerin
Sunday, September 26, 2010
From Frog Toes to Fall Cooking

My week started off with frog toes. I needed eighteen fresh ones for my red-eyed tree frog piece. Fortunately, I had lots of art-in-the-community meetings this week, plus my usual afternoon slots watching the boys do Tae Kwon Do at Monroe County Martial Arts. I started off by cutting copper wire pieces create the toe structure, then I searched out just the right shade of peachy pink for the sticky orbs. A little wrapping here, a little poking there, and before I knew it the little toes emerged. They’re so cute! They even get cuter when they’re attached to the red-eyed tree frog. The whole project was made all the more satisfying because I had a support section at MCMA that watched the whole
thing come together and encouraged me at every step of the process. Except for poking the frog eyes, anyway. The frog is done—Oh happy day! Soon it will be hopping into the fern background before snuggling down in protective packaging for the trip to Ohio.I also hung a show at the Bellevue Gallery at the Bloomington Playwright’s Project (BPP) front foyer. This fall exhibit is called “Reduce, Reuse and Re-weave.” It's part of this year's Aware-fest: A Greener World and happily, I was the recipient of a BPP/BEAD (Bloomington Entertainment and Arts Districts) grant to create the show. The exhibit is actually spread out over two venues, the BPP and the downtown Bloomington Bagel Company (BBC). I spent my time at the BPP
today and on October 1st I’ll set up the rest of the exhibit at the BBC. The opening night reception will be on Friday, October 1st from 5-8 pm—please come! I can’t promise a lot of excitement, but I will bring some nice bruschetta from Trader Joe’s and a fresh baguette from The Bakehouse to
contribute to the finger food spread.
My new art endeavor for the week center around a dimensional forest piece that features a secluded walk. I started with some dark brown yarns that I’ve been using to wrap around a core of shoelaces, used packing cords and old lanyards to create the tree trunks and reclaimed copper wire to create the tree branches. For the trees in the background, I’ve been mixing in some lighter brown yarns together to create the illusion of depth. With plenty of meeting this week I had ample time multitask and crochet leaf clumps using my suite of freshly dyed green yarns from last week. The piece construction has been moving right along in hopes of having it ready to hang at the BBC location on October 1st.
I finished the woven background a few weeks ago and the piece has hung on my art studio wall in a place where I could see it every day. Sometimes the composition takes a while to develop, and seeing the unfinished background stimulates my ideas about which direction to take the piece.
We had a noticeable weather change this week with summer temperatures in the mid nineties giving way to the first hints of cooler fall weather. That got me into a baking mood; today I whipped out fresh bread, peanut butter cookies, and a big batch of peppered salmon using loads of peppers from the morning’s Farmer’s Market adventure. A lot of that will go into the freezer. I even planned out a recipe for pumpkin and red pepper fall soup to make soon. And so the choice becomes cook, felt, or weave, which should I do first!?
Until next week…
Martina Celerin
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Hello, it’s the beach calling…
I’m officially jealous this week. I have a few friends who spent part of the holidays much farther south, while I’ve been in Bloomington freezing my toes through a cold snap that finally broke this week. When I hear their wonderful stories about the beach and warmer weather I’m taken back to an earlier life when I spent the school holidays around Christmas in the Bahamas. I got a lot of prime toes-in-the-sand time, a few sunburns, and all the sights and sounds of a different culture. So in a melancholy moment I decided to pull out my box
of ‘sand’ yarns and my collection of seashells. I have a ton of shells that I’ve either collected, or that others have collected on their trips and donated to me. It’s fascinating to me how, over and over, I can collect the most amazing shells on a beach trip. Each one seizes your imagination as you hold them, dripping seawater on the beach. They seem like an integral part of how you’re going to remember that moment in time. But, months later, when you view the collection of shells in your living room the moments are lost. You even wonder why you brought so many shells home. Then a little tinkling of sand comes out of the box and you wish you were back at the beach. Anyway, I started work this week on my latest beach piece. I pulled out my shell collection and realized that I’m a sorter at heart. I like my collections organized, not only to view and admire, but to make some biological sense out of the phyla I collected. I started by laying out the larger shells in a pattern
I liked that I thought created some visual movement to the piece. Then I reach
ed for my two big boxes of ‘sand’ colored yarns. Yep, I’ve got a lot of boxes of yarns! Best of all, they’re all packaged in big plastic boxes to keep them dry when the tide comes in. In Bloomington Indiana that translates into when the power goes out during a rainstorm and the sump pumps fail to keep the water out. When I started to weave I incorporated the big ocean
pieces into the warp and wove the yarns around them, kind of like the sand filling in around the shells when the tide comes back in. I also decided that every good beach piece needs some real sand, so I decided to make a sand frame. I have a little experience at this when I made the ‘Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean’ piece in the Creek-Love classroom last year and I was pleased with how it came out. Exactly how I do it is a closely guarded secret, but it involves repeated application of diluted wood glue and beach sand.In Scarf News, I opened up the Herald Times this morning to see the bright red image of one of my scarves.
I’ve got a show up called ‘Warm and Cosy: Scarf Art’ at the Bloomington Bagel Company. It’s one of three exhibits that are up around town right now, (the other two are at the Waldron and Wonderlab) and all three are mentioned in the Sunday paper. Take a brief pause and imagine the haughty look I’m putting on for you right now. I managed to sell three scarves this week, and one of them set off an unexpected chain of events. I got a call from someone at BBC that was waiting to buy a scarf
. I hopped in Bluebelle (my trusty car) and sped downtown. Did I say sped? Actually, I was going about the speed limit, and I was even using my turn signals. I don’t recommend doing that any more—it just draws attention to you. Anyway, Mr. Policeman noticed that I didn’t come to a complete stop at the deserted four way stop. He asked if I knew that I wasn’t in full compliance with the law, whereupon I launched into a full-bore defense of the arts (and my participation in supporting them in the local community) and he let me off with a warning. If you’re reading this, thank you! I promise I’ll do better. I made it to the sale on time and all was well. One last note for the week: no one noticed, not even me, but last week was my one-year blogging anniversary. I wrote my first entry on January 10th, 2009, and last week “Tomatoes in the Snow’ was my 52nd entry. I offer my sincere thanks to everyone who reads and follows my work, whims, travels and family exploits.
Until next week…
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Keeping warm…
What a cold snap we had this week! If you have kids, you know that winter signals a whole new level of complexity in life. You’ve got to break out the warm boots and get them to take their shoes in their backpack for gym class. Or, as we did on Thursday, you have to drop the shoes off at the office to the ever-friendly Binford secretary. Pairs of gloves become singles with maddening frequency, and the cycle of drying them is constant. But the most maddening thing for us is…drum roll please…we have another raccoon in the attic! We thought we had pounded down every
entry point, but this guest broke through a different soffit. We know it’s a chunker, because we can hear how hard he has to work to squeeze in. And with the cold weather, this fellow has been up all night, every cold night, rearranging the insulation. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Arrrrgggghhhh! Must. get.
more. sleep!On the brighter side of things, my mannequin arrived this week. I want this for shows, but I also need to document my scarves with high quality pictures before they’re all sold. Just as I was opening the box, my photographer Tom Bertolacini called. I had just finished making two more commissioned scarves and the buyer was coming that afternoon to pick them up, so I asked if Tom was coming into town. He was, so I raced out to my local venues and picked up a selection of scarves to photograph. I stopped in at th
e Bloomington Bagel Company first, then off to the Wandering Turtle, where I also borrowed my latest turtle piece (Among the Ferns). Tom came with his fancy lights, stands and his camera (mine stayed in its case and whimpered). He makes everything ‘just so’, AND he brought me two dozen eggs. The chickens, either oblivious to the cold snap or lacking anything better to do, have been laying eggs like crazy. Maybe the raccoons just stopped bothering them. Tom also is also a wood worker and builds all the frames for my weavings. His latest venture is making wooden weaving equipment—shuttles,
batons and maybe even looms. It will be nice to have them made locally, although I don’t mind shipping a little cash to Canada, the vast and beautiful country of my youth. They know about cold snaps.The real highlight of the week, though, was our trip to Cirque Dreams: Illuminations at the IU auditorium. The day was hectic enough as it was, since it was my loving spouse’s birthday. That meant baking birthday pizza and making a chocolate
cake. Men named ‘Jim’ are so easy to please (yes, he had a beer, too). I must say that the rich butter cream frosting that flowed in thick glaciers down the sides was the best part. I even got cake and espresso for breakfast this morning—wow, can my life get any better! Back to the Cirque—you can’t really call it theatre, ballet, or comedy, but it was all of those together. It’s the creative combination of constant movement and color on the stage that really brings a whole new perspective on the acrobatic techniques. In my own work I try to combine techniques to come up with something new, and at art fairs I get a lot of comments like: ‘what do you call those things you make’? It’s weaving, but a whole lot more. Anyway,
we saw things like an amazing trapeze piece where the artist was repeatedly lowered into a large wooden tube of water. As he was lifted out into his gyrations, water flew everywhere. It was like a dance in the air where the light reflected off the arcs of water flying and curling through the air. In the background, people in colorful costumes walked by with umbrellas. The
overall effect was just magic. At the end, the trapeze artist was handed an umbrella with the panels removed, which somehow seemed to fit. The show was a dramatic climax to a great, if very cold, week.Until next week…
Monday, November 30, 2009
Potato peels in Grandpa’s chair…
Last week started calmly enough. The boys and I visited the Bloomington Bagel Company on the east side to check out my ‘Scarf Art’ display. It’s an easy sell to get them to go to a place that sells food they like, especially after their Tae Kwon Do class with Mr. Scott. They snurfed down a couple of bagels, which we consider to be travel tax to art destinations.
This coming Friday and Saturday is the holiday art show at the Unitarian Universalist church on the bypass, and you can bet that there will be some serious art show taxation at the cookie walk when my support crew brings me lunches. I always look forward to this show because it marks the end of the art show calendar for the year. That’s when I burrow into my studio and weave until May and the Broadripple Art Fair. If I come out with some nice weavings it means six more months of traveling to art shows. Anyway, the ‘UU’ show is a great chance for me to do some Christmas shopping, plus I get to chitty chat with my fourth street buds and the regular attenders. I’m also hoping to say goodbye to the last of my ornaments, since I’m not going to make any more. As you might have guessed from the last few posts I’ve been exploring scarf making (three-dimensional wet felting) with a newfound passion.
The big news of the week, though, was the trip to the GPUs (grandparental units) for Thanksgiving and hugs-all-around. Of course there was a big dinner with the extended family. There was lots of chitty chatting around the kitchen table, and every evening there was a happy hour around the bonfire. It may have looked like candle at the start of happy hour, but it was a bonfire by the end, just like on all the old family camping trips. Of course that was Jim’s family, but I know a thing or two about bonfires. For fun we traveled to Frank’s big outdoor store to pick up a few fishing supplies for the cold-hardy fishermen, and I got to pick up a few treasures for weavings. Frank’s sells feathers for fly tying, but I just mumbled ‘hackles’ and ‘secret brookie stream’ and bought all their deep green and jewel tone feathers for my weavings. Will they ever be in for a surprise! On the way back I discovered a little used bookstore just down the road. I told the owner my criteria for books: no violence, no blood and gore, no mushy love stuff. I ended up with six new books in the queue and I set off reading the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It’s a story told through a collection of letters, which is great because it’s full of stopping points to pause and emotionally regroup when things get too intense. It bought me a couple of afternoons in Grandpa’s big comfy armchair with the sun streaming in. I almost finished it on the drive back home as the boys created monster cards in the back seat for three straight hours. I hardly missed traveling without my faithful needle felting needles, poking away at ornaments!
So now I’m back home, gearing up to create more scarves. I’ve got a little unpacking ahead of me, plus a little cleanup to recover from the whirlwind of preparing to travel. The boys are bathed and ready for school today, with only lunches to make and a little fire to light under them to get them out the door on time. They still don’t seem to get that bare feet and crocs for shoes doesn’t work any more. And who needs jackets?
Until next week…
Saturday, November 21, 2009
A very busy week…
Hooray, a Saturday at home! The last two weekends have been taken over by shows, first in Columbus and last week in Bloomington. This week was devoted to getting the rest of my life back under control. Monday I zipped all over town on errands, went to a BEAD meeting, bought some red velvet muffins from the Bakehouse for the boys and ferried them between school and their clay class at the John Waldron Arts Center. I also stopped in at the Bloomington Bagel Company and thought, hmmm, wouldn’t it look nice to have some of my new scarves hanging on the wall! They are great about hanging the work of local artist so I thought I’d ask. I spoke with Dawn, who’s in charge of the art displays, and she set me up with an immediate show at the Eastside location in
The Shoppes on College Mall Road. I hung fifteen scarves on a clothesline, secured by wooden clothes pegs—stop in and check them out if you can. If that goes well I’ll be showing downtown soon as well. Tuesday brought the celebratory dinner for the Fourth Street Art Fair committee. This year it was a potluck and it was organized by Robin Halpin. It was great to sit around and bask in the glow of another successful show. My personal basking took the form of chatting with my friends while sipping a nice Shiraz that David Goodrum brought. I really enjoyed the kale dish that Dawn Adams made with sesame and ginger, and Robin’s brownies from the original Joy of
Cooking were a real treat with the wine. My boys really liked the testing the individual recipes on the dessert table. My husband (as usual) ate all the treats they selected but decided were unworthy of their young palates.On Wednesday my crew went with other parents from Binford to the IU women’s college basketball game. IU edged out the Cincinnati Bearcats in a close game, three boxes of M&M’s were consumed, the boys got on the court as part of the festivities, and much screaming occurred.
By late in the week I was back in scarf-making mode. I stopped in at Yarns Unlimited and picked up some beautiful cranberry merino roving, as well as two
really wonderful rich blues that will work wonderfully in scarves. I went to Opportunity House and I picked up a big bag of novelty yarns that will make their way into scarves. Even now I still have a bunch of ideas for scarf layout, colors and materials dancing around in my head. That’s good, because the Unitarian Universalist Art Fair and Bazaar is coming up on December 4th and 5th. The art is great, but even if you just want to buy Christmas cookies by the pound it’s worth coming. As for the scarves, I’m still having a blast making them because they allow me to develop techniques that will eventually be incorporated into weavings. On a similar but sadder note, I’ve given up making ornaments. I feel like I’ve taken that craft as far as I can, and I learned a lot about patterns and color combinations that translate into scarf making strategies. If you had your eye
on an ornament, the “UU” show might be one of the last opportunities to find one.
Anyway, I hope you had half as much fun as I did this week. I have a great job! Thank you so much for all the support over the year, and I wish you all a quiet Thanksgiving break with family, friends and good food.
And a pre-PS: Here’s a shout out to the person who wanted me to make the white scarf with red dots and black squiggles—I’m really sorry, but I’ve lost your contact information! If you read this, or you know who this was, please help me close the circle.
Until next week…








