Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving means family, food and travel. Before I got into the full spirit of the weekend holiday, though, I still managed to move some projects forward. I finished most of the carrot tops for my ‘Baby Carrots’ piece. I still need to finish one carrot top and needle felt the little babies onto the background. And dig up a few treasures for the soil—perhaps a rock or some slag and a rusty nail. Just the kind of stuff you dig up when planting veggie seeds in the garden bed. When I re-launch my art career tomorrow, after unpacking suitcases and getting laundry going, I’m also going to start on a black ruffled merino shawl that I was commissioned to create. I just got a big shipment of merino wool from Oregon, and I had already purchased all the black merino within a fifty-mile drive of home. My plan is to use the wet-felting strategy I developed for my ruffled scarves and create a larger triangular shawl.

This year for Thanksgiving we drove to see Grandma in Michigan. We started off from school Tuesday after lunch and drove like the wind. The whole family was mesmerized by a book on tape: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Tommie and Jim have read the whole series, but Jacob and I were hearing it for the first time. We both guessed who the traitor was, and what parts of the prophecy meant as the book went along. Even better, we were able to drive without stopping until dinner around five. We then embraced Kawkawlin with hugs all around with Grandma and Uncle Tim. He arrived from New Mexico earlier in the week and had some alone time with Grandma before we descended on the scene. For Thanksgiving dinner, Aunt Lois drove in from Essexville and the Gibsons from next door joined us. They brought their friend Millie. Everybody contributed to the dinner, which was fun. The Gibsons brought turkey, stuffing and gravy, Millie brought scalloped potatoes, Tim made a potato and bean stir-fry dish, Jim made salmon and Aunt Lois brought cranberry salad and mom made squash. She also arranged the table and made the place look special. I was in charge of cutting bread, arranging the relish tray and keeping wine glasses full. An important task! Everything came together beautifully. Everyone had all they could eat and then we finished off the feast with pumpkin pie and ice cream. We even opened a fifteen year old bottle of Muscat as a dessert wine that we have been saving since before we were married. The dinner, like most of the weekend, was just lots of chillin’, hanging around and chitty-chatting with family and friends. It was all very nice. We got to do a little secret Christmas shopping, and I even got a stylish winter jacket from Mom that I get to wear now, but promise to keep clean until Christmas and put under the tree. The highlight for the boys was when Ben and Kathey Gibson, took them to the airport. Ben flies a jet in his semi-retirement, and he took the boys for a tour of the plane. They got to sit in the cockpit, learn about engines and flying, and even had a brownie sundae at the airport. Does life get any better than that? When they came home they were just bubbling over about their adventure and showed us all the pictures and movies they took. Today we got an early start and sped straight home in time for welcome-home Kluski dinner! As soon as I get this written it’s sure to be bedtime. Tomorrow it’s back to work and a chance to reflect on the weekend.

And now back to art... this weekend is the Holiday Art Fair at the Unitarian Universalist Church (Fee Lane and the bypass, here in Bloomington) on Friday 10 am - 7 pm and Saturday 9 am - 5 pm. Hope to see you there!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Treasures from Michigan...

Last week was a vacation week for the family. For me too, I guess, but I can take my work anywhere and so I ended up crocheting maple leaf clumps during the 8-hour drive to Michigan. The trip was more peaceful than normal, which let me focus on crocheting while the HoA (Husband of Artist) drove. This was because the crew went to the library and picked up some books on CD prior to the trip. We heard some great stories (Matilda by Roald Dahl and the first two Araminta Spooky books), but we also had to listen to many repetitions of tracks from ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ and ‘Run DMC’ that became, shall we say, distracting. Everyone arrived safe, happy and ready for fun at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

The two highlights of the trip were adventures with my father-in-law (aka Grandpa). One trip, along with the HoA and elder son, was on a fishing charter out of Ludington. We met the captain of the Hattrick at 5 a.m. at the dock, which is before any sane artist without an art fair deadline would crawl out of bed. It was a stunning trip to glide out of the harbor and leave the port lights behind and head to the pinpricks that reveal the secret fishing spots of the fishing fleet. After a while the harbor lights faded and the other fishing boats came into view. As we cruised across calm seas we watched the full moon sink slowly into the lake as the sun came up over the horizon. The gathering light brought the deep blues up from the lake. Later the dunes along Lake Michigan came into focus, as did the ferry arriving from Wisconsin and the lighthouse north of the harbor. Who needs fish? The answer, it turns out, is the rest of the crew. I caught the first fish, a big Chinook salmon, to show them how it was done. My father-in-law landed a nice steelhead later in the day, but overall it was a slow day. The captain and first mate unpacked and washed every lure they had but nothing seemed to appeal to the fish. The fish made for a wonderful meal with the family, with plenty left over for a few dinners in Bloomington.

For the second adventure I traveled alone with Grandpa. He knows the location of two top-secret supply stores. I’m sworn to secrecy on location so other artists don’t figure it out and take all the good stuff. They don’t even call themselves ‘art’ supply stores but I know it’s all a front operation. They’re so secret that we had to drive for hours through rolling Michigan landscape, through endless stands of birches, aspens and pines. Much of the land was covered with fern monocultures, which got me thinking more about a new fern piece. At one store I found the essential ingredient for stiff fern leaflets—copper flashing! I just love working with copper sheets. They’re strong and flexible, they hold their shape, and they yield to the mighty power of my Fiskars, courtesy of Big Lots. I’ve been cutting leaflets and wrapping with the beautiful green yarns I dyed a few weeks ago. The 15 shades of green come in handy all the time! I’m picturing a piece for Jaime Sweany at the Wandering Turtle that has ferns growing in front of a rock wall with a turtle resting in the shade.

Harvesting treasures in Michigan does have its down side. When you travel in a small car with lots of luggage it fills up fast. It was full coming up but I needed to pack in my treasures, including many pounds of fish, cheese from Wilson’s in Pinconning, and Kluski noodles from Kryziak’s in Bay City. Mmmmm. Luckily necessity is a playground for the creative mind, so I ended up packing stuff around and under the spare tire and other secret places. The HoA drove like crazy to make it back for the Gallery Walk, since I needed to be present at the reception held at the By Hand Gallery that was showing my work. We made it to the square at 5:01 and I ‘tucked and rolled’ with my gallery outfit and leapt into action. I’m grateful to Ruth Conway for hanging the show while I was traveling—the work stands out well at the front of the store. As usual, I had a wonderful time chatting with people about my work. I met one kindred spirit who hates the taste of beets but likes most everything else about them. I’ve discovered that the greens work well in soups and the beets themselves are good for dyeing. Everything has its place, and today I’m back in my art studio.


Until next week…

Gentle Hands

This week’s highlight was a trip to see Grandma and Grandpa in Kawkawlin, Michigan. When we left home there were no signs of green on trees, but the willows were starting to come to life. We drove through warm weather, knowing that spring would come to Bloomington soon. With the transition to spring, my mind has been developing a spring piece that shows two cupped hands planting a seedling. The long drive was the perfect time to needle felt the two hands. It took a lot of detailed sculpting, but the work has benefits: I get to travel with naked models and nobody seems to care. After two long drives the basic shapes are complete for ‘The Offering’, and now I just have to add the skin and incorporate the hands into the weaving.

We did have some exciting adventures in Michigan. One afternoon we drove to the Midland Center for the Arts where they have a big exhibit on lizards and snakes. The layout was great, with plenty of spacing to comfortably view the big glass cases and very realistic exhibits. I think the most memorable was a huge monitor lizard stalking around its habitat. A brightly colored chameleon swiveled its eyes independently for us, which was very cool, and we saw some beautifully disguised lizards hanging upside down alongside vines of similar diameter. It was all very neat and a wonderful afternoon with Grandma and my family. Of course now I have to make another lizard piece!

My dark side did come through on the trip. I had heard my father-in-law talking about the secret M-30 store. This is a big supply and surplus store in the middle of the Michigan woods. I find a lot of my treasures at places like that, so of course I had to get there, secret or not. The location was so secret that we spent a morning searching M-30 north of M-61 with no success. It wasn’t until we got to West Branch and decided it was time for lunch did we figure out the problem. Over a pleasant lunch at The Willow restaurant, with carrot soup at the start and fresh cookies at the end of the meal, did we realize that the M-30 supply store wasn’t on M-30. It’s on the nearby and parallel-running M-33. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s actually called the M-33 supply store. Like good fishermen, most artists wouldn’t divulge their secret spots, but for you…

The drive back home from Michigan to Indiana was colder, but we got back just in time for spring. The landscape went from brown and black (and dirty white snow piles) to displays of subtle reds and greens as the trees started to bud. In suburban Bloomington the forsythias were bursting into yellow, another sure sign of spring. On our first full day back the boys and I rode our bikes to Bryan Park, past the first magnolia trees with blooms and the first cherry blossoms. On the way back we stopped in to see George and Annemarie Springer, our neighbors and the keepers of ‘Chunker’, our huge, aggressive goldfish who outgrew his tank. Chunker lives a contended life in George’s backyard pond, so the story has a happy ending that didn’t involve porcelain.

Back in the art studio I’ve been pulling out my rich brown yarns to create the earth for spring weavings. That makes me think about getting into the yard to plant my precious saved Marigold seeds. I’m hoping to get out my birthday present—a new leaf blower to help clear the garden beds without raking out or stepping on my little garden babies. It’s time to clean the yard and paint the trellises to get ready for spring!


Until next week…