Commissions, cows and candy…

This week it was more commission work for me.  My focus was on my pepper-themed piece.  I need to create my own canvases for each piece, which in this case must support peppers across a range of colors and sizes.  For the background layer I combined lots of fall colors, including red, orange, yellow, purple and plenty of green, which will contribute to making it a vibrant piece.  Most of that layer will be covered underneath the peppers, but patches will slip through and enhance the pepper layer.  Because it’s a custom sized piece, I went to my frame maker Tom Bertolacini to put something together for me.  The frame is now finished and I stretched out the background on the frame before I stitch it on.   

Now I need to felt a flat of finely felted peppers (it was too late in the season to pick a peck).  I have all my colored felts picked out to cover the pepper shapes, which I’ve been making out of old men’s wool suits that I collect in my travels.  People probably think they’re selling me a suit that I’ll bring home and make my long-suffering husband wear, unaware that I’ll carve it into little pieces, run them through the dryer and use needles to jam little pieces of colorful felt onto the shapes until they look like peppers.  Bwa ha ha!

My other project has been making more sweater petals.  I have plenty of time to work as I watch my boys do Taekwondo, so I get a lot done during those times.  I have a new display of them up at Bloomingfoods if you want to check out how they are evolving.  I also set up a scarf display for November at the Bloomington Bagel Company.  I’m low on scarves, so I had to pull all my traditional scarves from By Hand Gallery.  I replaced them with a set of my Lion’s Mane scarves, which is a new line I brought out last fall but haven’t displayed much.  This week I’ll launch into a serious scarf-making frenzy to replenish my stocks, but I’m running low on enthusiasm for making a lot more scarves.  This might be the last year they’ll be on display around town. 

This was the week of Halloween, which means I spent one night handing out candy to all the neighborhood kids in my cow costume.  If you can’t imagine me as a laughing cow (no, not a little triangle of cheese) here I am!  I don’t think I scared a lot of kids but I did have a good time.  Fortunately, there is a modest tax for handing out candy all evening, so I rewarded myself with some hundred thousand dollar ‘fun size’ bars, ad libidum.  On Friday night my family went to see the preview of 39 Steps, the latest Cardinal Stage production.  I bought tickets, but I also found one of the free tickets hidden around town.  That meant we could also invite one of the boy’s friends.  We all went to the Runcible Spoon for dinner, over the Blu Boy for a pre-show cookie, then on to the John Waldron for the performance.  As usual, they did a phenomenal job.  With four actors and a limited but highly creative and ever-changing set, the whole story just flowed beautifully and came to life.  Everybody had heard about the plane crash on stage and it was well done.  The character changes were managed beautifully, so hats off to the cast and Randy White for bringing it all off. 

Finally, last night we had friends over for dinner.  Jim made salmon and boca negra, which is a Julia Childs creation of a flourless chocolate cake.  It was amazing!  The best part, though, is that there’s enough left over for dinner tonight!  I can’t wait!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

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

Gearing up for the fall season

November marks the start of my busy holiday season of shows and events. That means last week was spent trying to get ready. I felted scarves like a fiend so I’d have plenty of pieces for all the shows, including the Déjà Vu show in Columbus on Saturday. I was feeling so good about my progress that I put away the table risers and left my special felting tablecloth in place. I figured that one meal with the kids and it would be covered in ketchup and butter stains and thereby earn a trip to the washer. I also reclaimed my art studio to do a little weaving. This was a bigger project than I imagined because the boys decided it was the perfect place to do a little whittling. They did ‘clean up’, but I still spent a huge amount of time picking up all the little wood chunks left behind. I pushed everything else to the walls and got out my old friend the easel. I loaded up a loom and warped it with some brown polypropylene yarn. I filled my work area with my yummy chocolaty red/brown earthy yarns. I sorted them into a color gradient, and tomorrow, by golly, I’m going to weave! "Baby Carrots" your home is on it's way...

When Friday came I was feeling pretty good about my progress. Off I went to the opening reception for my show at the John Waldron Art Center. What a fun time! My boys were delightful, having learned the ‘Mom’s having a reception’ drill. They hung out with me and made origami Greek gods (Tommie) and fortune tellers (Jacob). They entertained themselves beautifully until Jim came to whisk them off to Greek’s Pizzeria for dinner. I had a delightful time chatting with people—I even got a few compliments! It was great to see one of my Zumba instructors, Liz, from Bloom Zum who gets up with me at 6:30 a.m. to keep me in shape. It was interesting to see her out of context—nicely dressed and looking sharp. I’m guessing I look a little different too when I’m not gyrating and dripping sweat. The best news was that one of my pieces, ‘Out on a Limb’, found a new home. There was no time to rest when we got home—I loaded up Bluebell with everything I needed for the Déjà Vu show and went to bed early.

Saturday morning I popped up out of bed early, ready to go. I drove to Columbus, set up the show with a few weavings, a lot of scarves and cards, and a few of my ornaments from last year. I had a really fun time. Part of that came from the happy and enthusiastic crowds we got—kudos to Marilyn Brackney, who is making the show into an impressive, artist friendly annual event. I was also fortunate to be set up next to Ann, an artist friend from Muncie, and across from Cappie, my good friend from Bloomington. Ann is just hysterical, and the three of us made jokes and laughed all day. I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all! The show sales went well too. I sold a weaving—“Stone Fish” found a new home. I sold a lot of ornaments (I’m down to about 18) and cards too, so I was busy all day. The big mover this show, however, was my felted scarves with ruffled edges. I even sold one scarf to three people! That’s too complicated a story for the blog, but ask me in person someday and I’ll tell you the tale. My proudest moment, though, was when I ran into a regular blog reader. She asked for some history around some of the felted tiles I designed in North Carolina. As I told her the story she kept filling in details! She knew about the rice paper I bought on the Outer Banks and the sketches I made. When it was time to take down, Jim and Tommie showed up to help. Jacob was playing at a friend’s house and having cheese pizza for dinner. Things went so smoothly we weren’t the last ones out, which is a rarity. By the time I got home I was ready to set the clocks back and go to bed, secure in the knowledge that I earned that extra hour of sleep. Tonight, though, I’m slipping back into stress mode. I sold so many scarves that I need to put a few more together for the show this coming Friday and Saturday (the Spinners and Weaver’s Guild’s Fiber Art Show). I have a few commissions to put together too—it’s the whole problem of selling one scarf to three people again. I dashed out to Sheep Street today to get more merino and I spent my post-dinner hours laying out some more ruffled scarves. Christmas just can’t come too soon this year! In all seriousness, though, it’s good to be busy creating new things, and I really enjoy meeting new people and talking about my art.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin