Taking a break for Thanksgiving

I got a little bit of a break over the Thanksgiving holiday from my commissions and feverish show preparation.  The long drives did give me many hours to needle felt peppers, and now I have a colorful little mound of them.  I still have many more to make.  Fortunately, I have several meetings this week where I can quietly listen and poke away at peppers.  I just have an internal drive to keep moving the process forward, whatever projects I’m working on. 

During some quiet times in Michigan I also created more sweater petals.  These are for my display at Bloomingfoods and the upcoming Unitarian Universalist Holiday Bazaar and Art Fair.  The ‘UU show’ is the last holiday season show and it starts at 10 am on Friday and runs till 7 pm and then on Saturday from 9 till 5.  After that I go into full commission mode, completing the last two commissions I took on over the summer and fall.  Then I quickly have to switch back into summer art fair mode.  My booth needs a little replenishing after a successful 2012 season.  It’s all good (just busy)!

We had a delightful trip to Michigan.  We arrived in time for the big IU/Georgia basketball game.  Tommie and I stayed up while Jacob and Jim went to bed.  We tried to be quiet—really we did!  It’s hard when IU’s team comes up with some big shots or big plays.  I’m afraid we woke up the sleepers a time or two with our enthusiasm.  At Grandma’s house I noticed that the boys are getting bigger relative to Grandma’s furniture.  I have memories of great pictures when they were little, sitting side by side in Grandpa’s big armchair.  Now, when they want to play computer games together, they can’t fit!  

 Jim and Tommie got in a little fishing time, although no dinners came out of it.  Tommie was trying to do a science project based on comparing fishing variables, but the weather got in the way both times.   

The best we could do was baked steelhead for Thanksgiving dinner and a trip to the Oasis with Aunt Lois for perch.  On top of that there was homemade pumpkin pie at Grandma’s—with all the whipping cream you could fit on top.  Now that’s what I call a vacation.

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Arts Fair on the Square, revitalized.

The big news of the week is that I’m closing in on completing the big commission piece—the last pieces should be in place by the end of the week.  I’m just delighted with how it’s turning out.  On the drive back from Michigan I made a bunch more leaf clumps for the forest canopy.  I was sure I had plenty and a few to spare.  This week I attached them, and lo and behold, I was still shy a few clumps.  Some days my husband thinks I’m a few leaf clumps shy of a canopy, but I still love him.  A few afternoons watching the boys do Taekwondo (actually, not watching) and I had enough clumps.  I completed the canopy, stood back, and thought: “wow!”  The dimensionality and density of the greens is really dramatic in person.  I just need to attach the greenery to create the forest understory, which is in progress, and add some rocks and sticks along the path.  Now I’m mentally in completion mode so it won’t be long now.

Saturday brought Arts Fair on the Square back to Bloomington.  This year I decided to participate again because Chad from the BPP took over advertising and marketing.  Chad is just an awesome, energetic individual, just the right person to be in charge.  The show truly was revitalized, with big steady crowds passing through all day.  Set-up and take-down were smoother, easier and safer this year with the adjacent roads closed off.  Chad just did everything right, except for not having a ‘Best-in-Show’ award.  He set that right by making me a special star for my booth—thanks Chad!  You’ve nicely revitalized a Bloomington tradition. 

At the show itself I ran into a lot of interesting people.  I saw two sets of kids that were classmates of Tommie and Jacob at Hoosier Courts years ago.  They’ve changed so much I wouldn’t have recognized them out of context—wow have they grown!  I guess my boys have changed a little too.  I was thrilled that Tommie volunteered to get up at 5:30 am and help me set up the show.  He turned out to be an amazing assistant.  He lugged the four fifty pound weights up the hill to my booth location, as well as all the really heavy stuff I needed to set up.  He never complained at any point, always asking instead what needed to be done next for both set-up and take-down.  Tommie was just incredibly competent and helpful—thank you so much!  Oh, and I have one more funny story to tell.  I was off on a break and Jim was booth sitting for me when a senior IU official came walking by.  He recognized her but doesn’t know her well.  She walked past, looked right through Jim and pointed out to her friend that Martina had “just finished the turtle piece.”  Sometimes Jim feels like everyone in town knows me and everything I’m doing.  He couldn’t understand how she knew that I was even making a turtle piece, but I’m sure she must have come through on the open studios tour when it was in progress.  It is finished now, and I’m delighted with how it turned out—my little turtle friend has a nice shady home in the garden understory. 

A last good note from the week:  after the fair set up, Jim and the boys ventured to the Farmer’s Market Saturday for their usual treats and vegetable stock-up.  They came home with three quarts of blueberries for a giant pie that I’ve been enjoying all week long.  The berries are a little tart, which makes for a very flavorful pie.  The summer is off to a good start!  Is peach pie next, sweetie pie?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Back from Michigan!

This week I have to start with some vacation news from a delightful trip my family made to Michigan.  We visited with Grandma and shared the house with cousins Dave and Martha, who drove up from Mississippi.  Dave was born and raised in the Saginaw Valley, but Martha is a true southern belle.  We had a wonderful time traveling around, shopping and just hanging out and talking.  Martha is a true storyteller!  I spent a lot of time laughing.  Another highlight was going on a fishing trip on the Lila Mae with Jim and Tommie to find some walleyes for dinner.  

Saginaw Bay is very shallow where we launch north of Linwood, so the first and last part of the ride involves a slow trip through tall cattails and marsh grasses to reach the bay.  We passed a lot of turtles, some egrets and lots of other wildlife along the way.  At that point we could power up and enjoy a ride on the waves to reach the Black Hole.  Really--that’s what it’s called!  We drifted to the secret spot and managed to catch a mess of walleyes.  Of course I had to be different, so I also caught a huge catfish (he went back safely, a giant white bass (very tasty!) and a freshwater drum. 

 Tommie caught a few walleyes and Jim did most of the netting, unhooking and managing the boat.  I got choose exactly the right colors of lures for the day.  To Jim’s surprise, black with red spots was exactly what the fish wanted. 

The long drive to Michigan meant I got a lot of time to needle felt.  The boys were focused on their electronic devices, Jim was focused on the road, and I was able to make many of the carrots, radishes and cherry tomatoes for an art piece I’m calling “Eat your Veggies.”  It’s going to be similar to a piece I did before called “Summer Salad.”   

After a seven-hour drive each way I’m doing pretty well on the veggies.  Also, before we left for Michigan I attached all the crocheted leaf clumps I had been working on for my giant commission piece.  I only managed to leaf out one tree, so I spent some time in Michigan crocheting the rest of the tree canopy.  I’m looking forward to attaching the leaf clumps this week.  Of course I actually have a bunch of projects going on that I’ve started and I’m determined to finish before the summer art fairs.  One of my current themes has been pieces involving bicycles.  I’ve been creating a big batch of bicycle wheels for different projects.  Fortunately, Friday was the History Museum’s annual garage sale.   

The boys and I both found treasures, but mine included bangles for bike wheels and silver cording that’s perfect for wrapping the bangles to mimic the chrome rims of the wheels.  I’m envisioning a new composition that involves riding bicycles along a path into the sunset.  It will features an orange-to-yellows gradient path and bicycle wheels of different sizes winding their way along a trail. 

Looking forward, this Saturday brings Bloomington’s Art Fair on the Square.  It’s my first summer show and I’m glad it’s in town.  The weather looks perfect right now, so check out the show around the courthouse square - after you visit the farmer’s market on Saturday.  Since I can’t be there, I’m thinking I should slip out to the Tuesday evening market this week to pick up some blueberries.  It’s never too soon to start thinking about another pie!  I’m sure Jim will make one if the berries appear.  I will need to get a bunch of stuff done before then, and I’m hoping the humidity will stay down low enough so I can paint frames for my new pieces.   

Oh, and I meant to mention that while I was in Michigan, I got to meet up with another family cousin, Terri Close.  She’s been making some really sweet garden pieces that are essentially stacks of recycled china, bowls and plates to create display flowers.  Of course we had to have one, which now sits in front of our house to make it a little cheerier.  Thanks Terri!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

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 the 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…

The November Whirlwind

The last two weeks have been an amazing blur of shows, scarves and weaving. I had dropped into one of those wonderful life patterns where I was discovering and developing my own wet felting style by making scarves. It’s really an exploration of a new technique for me that I’ll use in future weaving projects. ‘Creating my own canvas’ has always been a major feature of my work, and I feel like I’m enhancing my repertoire of skills that will make their way into my dimensional weavings. Bluebell (the family car) was packed with 19 new scarves, twelve new wreaths for the season, and all the new ornaments I made over the year. I made the early morning trek over to Columbus Indiana last Saturday to show everything at the Déjà vu recycled art fair. It’s always a little stressful when you put your heart and soul into some technique, then put it on display for everyone to see. Fortunately, I came home with a lighter load and a warm feeling inside. I can do this!

Success, of course, breeds new problems. I didn’t have enough scarves to show at the Spinner’s and Weaver’s guild show this weekend. So I re-converted the dining room table to Scarf Central and geared up to make some more. I had one scarf that was a whole bunch of ribbons and strings and just enough just enough felted wool to hold it all together. It reminded me of my youthful days in a bikini, but that’s another story. It was a glorious week because I got to sift through my thirty or so 20-gallon plastic tubs of yarns and pull out the most delightful colors and textures to incorporate into the scarves. I also had to scamper over to Sheep Street in Morgantown to pick up several more pounds of merino. Of course I couldn’t resist picking up a bunch of new yarns to use, including some delicious jewel tones that I knew I wanted to work with. I especially worked on layering different colors of roving to achieve the depth and color gradients I wanted. The only downside is that my shoulder and arm muscles haven’t quite forgiven me for all the rolling I did to felt the materials.

I did launch into another project on a whim recently. I had collected a bunch of wool sweaters, including some in delightful greens that I knew weren’t going to fit into the color schemes I was using in the scarves. I decided to cut them up to make Christmassy fir trees. Of course it isn’t a tree until it is trimmed, so I used the tiny red felted balls that I had created using the new secret technique I learned. I trimmed them with gold rickrack and set the whole thing on beige fabrics with different textures. I glued them on to a pretty mottled beige card stock and inserted into each a piece of white cotton rag with the texture of vellum. I think they’re fun and perfect for the holidays—check them out at the Wandering Turtle gallery in Bloomington, or stop in and see them at the Unitarian Universalist show this December.

Finally, I put away my scarf-making materials and reclaimed my basement art studio. I picked up all the yellow yarns I had out for making my Autumn Aspens commission piece. I also had to clear away the remnants of my boys’ giant art project. I can’t really describe it except to say that it involves small pieces of electronics, popsicle sticks, fabric scraps and a glue gun. I’m so proud of my creative boys! Anyway, I herded their project into a corner and blocked it off visually with a tower of easels and tools. Out came the vacuum cleaner and once again I had a functional workspace. It’s really great to be back in my weaving space, and this week I’ll finish the autumn aspens piece. After I get some sleep. I’m still recovering from two shows in two weeks. Tonight I sleep; tomorrow I weave!

Until next week…

Turtles and Ferns

For a working artist in Bloomington, this is the biggest weekend of the year. The Fourth Street Festival is Saturday and Sunday, and that means two things. I’m frantically working to finish a few new pieces and I’m working to make sure the show appears effortless to the fairgoers. The piece I’m working on is tentatively titled ‘Among the Ferns’ and it features an Eastern Painted turtle. I really like turtles, and I’m the person who stops to help the turtles across the roads when they set out on a quest. Everybody needs a little help when life’s traffic starts speeding all around you. Last weekend I wove the background for the piece, including some dirt. Normally I try to create the reddish brown earth tones that are common in this area (and remind me of chocolate!), but this time I wanted a mossy feel to accompany the ferns. I came up with olive brown earth tones to anchor the ferns. The fern leaflets I need were also started a while back. They’re pretty labor intensive, and it only gets worse if you can do math. I wanted 8 fronds with about 50 leaflets each—that’s a lot of cut copper flashing from my secret supply store in Michigan! This week was I was in a serious wrapping mode, consuming a whole ball of green yarn from my big dyeing project a few weeks back (the “Greens of Summer” blog from July 18th). The turtle was my good-humored travel companion (I’m always poking at him). He’s been taking shape as I watch my kids at their Tae Kwon Do class, or when I’m in the Creek-Love class at Rogers as the kids sort beads, or any place I have a quiet few moments to fill. Don’t worry though—soon I’ll be done and he’ll have some new fronds. When I get a picture he’ll join the painted turtle from “Among the Hostas” and the soft-shelled turtle in the “Summer Pond” sculpture on my website.

The other big draw on my sanity this week is tying up the details for orchestrating the Fourth Street Festival. I have a lot of wonderful friends who have volunteered to facilitate the Children’s booth this year as they create a mosaic art piece. I hope I have enough glue—it’s hard to know how far forty bottles (and 30 leftovers from last year) will go on the project. I’ll also help mark the show layout tonight with chalk on the streets, and that’s a big project. Then I have to set up my booth and put on my artist hat back on. We are extremely fortunate to have Jean Kautt acting as show manager—she organizes and directs the volunteers, distributes artist packets and information. She tells them where to park, where they can find great pizza—whatever they need. Her calm, steady temperament is perfect for interfacing with artists, who are famous for their curmudgeonly independence. They’re the kids who wouldn’t take directions in school in case you want to spot them early. She also loves to use Excel, so we bond on a deep level. With the show in her hands I can go off and set up my booth with confidence that everything will run smoothly. So if you’re in town this week, come by and meet the turtle, visit the Children’s booth, and stop in and say hello!

Until next week…

At the Corner of Fourth and Beet Street…

Ahh, the joys of late summer harvest. The refrigerator fills up with all the veggies we don’t eat quickly, waiting for the right recipe to come along. Despite my best efforts we reached the crisis point this week. That led to my pulling out the food processor and feeding it all the beets I’ve been collecting from the CSA. I washed and shredded them into fine purple strips, then I boiled them in anticipation of repeating last year’s glorious success with beet dyeing. The kitchen took on an unfamiliar odor that led my younger son to enter only with his nose firmly clamped shut. The next day I strained out the beet shards and popped in my washed wool roving and warmed it up. I had visions of the beautiful deep tint of red that emerged last year and found its way into so many of the ornaments I made. Sadly, out came an unremarkable beige/yellow blob of roving. What went wrong? Beets me!

The Fourth Street Festival of the Arts is also approaching. I serve as the vice president of the group that runs the show and things get hectic as Labor Day weekend approaches. This year the show will expand its footprint, with artists on Fourth Street all the way from the fire station to the campus. Both Grant and Dunn will close adjacent to the show this year, with all the arts-related organizations and music still set up on Grant. The additional space let us design a Fair that will be easier for everyone to navigate, with spaces between every third or fourth booth to allow access to the sidewalks and restaurants. Of course the new layout needs to be put into place and not just drawn on paper, since one always seems to encounter unexpected space glitches in practice. So David Goodrum, our inestimable president, Kyle Spears and I spent Friday morning marking out the show on the road. It’s going to work! I’m excited about the new layout and I think you will be too if we cross paths at the fair this year.

The last big news of the week relates to my schedule—it really opened up! The boys started back at school at Rogers (Jacob) and Binford (Tommie). We rode bikes or scootered in every day this week, which we all like to do. My focus has shifted back to making art and getting ready for Fourth Street. I also got to have lunch out twice this week, once on Fourth Street business and once with a friend from Indianapolis (Hi Erin!). I’ve even started to notice the garden again. The deer have munched down a lot of the HoA’s flowers, including his prized dahlias, and some critter had the audacity to chomp on the first of my ripe cherry tomatoes! The princess is not amused. The flowers, however, were not defeated. One of the sunflowers that was beheaded earlier in the year released apical dominance and set out an axial flower bud. It’s a little yellow flower full of character and determination, even if it isn’t a classic sunflower. It’s most welcome in our garden.

Until next week…

Green Grapes and Soup

What a pleasant Saturday this is! Normally I’d be showing at Art Fair on the Square today (here in Bloomington), but this year I decided to take the day off. I’ll replace the show with an adventure to Madison for their version of Art Fair on the Square, which is downtown in the Capitol of Wisconsin in early July. So instead of getting up early and getting set up I got to sleep in a little and begin my relaxed Saturday at the farmer’s market. We traditionally have part of our breakfast there. That usually means scones, muffins, cookies or croissants. It also means cheese curds, the freshest cucumbers of the season and whatever else we happen to find that fits the taste of the family. This week it was blueberries for a pie (yum!), peaches, and some flowers that needed a home. From the market we strolled over to the Square to inspect the art and engage in a little friendly artist-chat. The rest of the family played games on the cannon and the big grate on the northwest corner of the Square. The highlight, though, was finding Eleanor Broaded. She’s a jeweler based in Indianapolis and I love her work. For some reason, though, her elegant earrings somehow get caught in my clothes and fall off without me noticing. This year I got a nice brown ceramic pair of earrings that I really like. That made the whole walk worthwhile.

In the art world, I’m beginning a new project. I’m starting a still life intended to go above a mantelpiece over a fire. To begin I made a series of sketches, and the one that started to take shape in my mind is shown. I fleshed out the thumbnail layout to come up with a working composition that includes three candles, apples, grapes, cherries and lots of juicy colors. I began by creating the grapes, and of course that means a trip to Bloomingfoods to get the green, organic grapes for a model. The setback in this part of this story is that the grapes sat in the car next to the eSoA (elder son of artist) on the way home. He scarfed them down, leaving me with a good model for the stems but no grapes. So I scampered off to O’Malias, got more grapes that stayed in the front seat, and quickly got them down to my art studio. I pulled out three different green fleece to create the grape green, two of which I dyed myself last year. I carded them together and needle felted them into grape shapes. The process is very time consuming but I think they’re cute. Next I’ll create the stem parts (I’m all set on models there).

My other activity over the past two days has been converting our CSA (community supported agriculture) harvest into something compatible with freezer storage and quick dinners. On Friday I made a big batch of a soup I really like –Hungarian cabbage and dumpling soup. The HoA (husband of artist) really likes this soup too, but he doesn’t know about the secret ingredient that he would never eat (sauerkraut). Today I also made ‘Lois Soup’, named after a friend of the family (Lois Graham) who introduced it to us as a non-vegetarian friendly recipe. I made a few changes here and there, and voila! A hearty kale-based vegetarian soup. It had fresh garlic and onions from the farmer’s market, a little bay and rosemary from my kitchen plants, and a few secret ingredients I’d never put into writing. A cook has to have a few secrets!

One last bit of news—I have a new bike. At least it’s a new-to-me bike. I used to have a 1960s era English-made bike that was a hand-me-down from Grandpa. He demanded a big, comfy seat in his bikes, and that was its best feature. But after a 10-mile bike ride with the eSoA last week it was clear I needed something more than the clunky old one-speed I had. So I hopped over to the Bicycle Garage and found a used bike that needed a good home. It was hard to give up my big cushy seat, but the fellow there assured me that the seat would be equally comfy. Hmmm…we’ll just see!

Until next week…