Much accomplished, little finished…

I thought this week I would begin by talking about costumes I’ve created for the Sounds of South production of Pippin.  That project has taken over most of my week.  One of the big tasks I moved forward, with the help of Nancy Riggert of course, is making Charlemagne’s costume.  In the spirit of full disclosure, Nancy’s son Will and my son Tommie portray the king, so Nancy refers to us as the queen mums.  We worked on the king’s regal cloak, which I wanted to make as rich and ostentatious as possible to reflect his character.  I found a blood red velvet curtain at the recycle center (Materials for the Arts program) months ago, and this became the starting point for the costume I envisioned.  If you’re a person of my generation, there’s a hint of Carol Burnett in the costume, without the curtain rod.  I also found bits and pieces of costume embellishments at the Recycle Center, including a formal red table runner and trim from fancy pillows.  

I added used black fake fur from the hoods of jackets we collected at the Hoosier to Hoosier sale last year, as well as the last bits of a black vest I used to make the headdress for the beast in Beauty and the Beast.  I even found a use for some rings from an old purse, a gold hair barrette, black trim that we harvested from a different red curtain and gold fringe that we got from the Bloomington Thrift Shop.  If that wasn’t regal enough, we added lots of harvested gems to give it sparkle as well.  I love how it looks on the hanger, but I think it looks even better on the actors!  Now I need to create a crown worthy of the cloak.

A second project that we’re tackling is completing an arsenal of swords for the chorus army.  I created a sword design to complement the armor and helmets of the warriors.  The real challenge is repeating the process for seventy swords!  Bret Rothstein cut over 140 hilt halves from rug padding that wasn’t used for the armor.  Charlotte Appel cut out my swirl pattern from craft foam and Bill Riggert cut the lengths of PVC pipe from scraps we found in the theater woodshop, the Re-store and Alice Lindeman’s backyard.  We also cut out blades from leftover corrugated plastic recycled from last year’s Beauty and the Beast costumes.   

Misti Hayes glued the handles all together, including attaching plastic ornaments I collected from the Recycle Center on the handles.  Nancy Riggert is attaching all of the silver fabric to the blades.  Finally, we’ll need to paint the handles silver and attach them to the blades, then -- ta da!  Seventy battle-ready swords for the stage. 

I also spent some time at South working on the sculptural piece needed for the performance, a duck puppet.  For the body of the duck I used a deflated, oversized volleyball that I got from Brian Shepherd at Binford Elementary.  I cut a hole for the actor’s arm to fit in and filled the inside with remnant quilt batting that great Aunt Lois gives me.   

The arm entry passageway is crafted from a stocking of Meredith Burnham that she no longer wanted.  The head I carved from a cylindrical piece of foam from the Recycle Center and the whole thing is covered with felt remnants, also from the Recycle Center.  I began attaching the final layer of feathers, which are leftovers from Babette’s feather duster costume of last year.  It’s so fun to know the history of each little piece of my creations—nothing is cookie cutter when I get rolling. 

On the weaving front I did manage to release the water and sky background from the loom for the willow commission piece and stretch it out into its frame.  It is a small step, but the process is moving forward.  Next I will use my dimensional crocheting technique to build the water forward and create the land mass from which the willow will emerge. 

On the family front, the first week of school is behind us!  It was a long week, even though it had only three days.  As school moves into full swing, the boys will keep training in Taekwondo and weapons as they move toward their second degree black belt.  They will add twice weekly evening rehearsals for Pippin from now through the end of October.  

 It’s going to be a busy fall!  On this Sunday morning, though, after a restful Saturday, they were catching up on their electronic gaming.  This afternoon when the homework clock struck one, all games ended.   

Hmm, and did I mention there is no pie?  We had visitors from Ann Arbor Friday and Saturday night, who generously took us out for a leisurely brunch.  Unfortunately, we missed our Farmer’s Market trip, so at this point there are no peaches for pies or watermelons and cucumbers for the week!  Hopefully the Tuesday market will come through for us.   

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Less Wall Art, More Costumes…

My art studio time was limited this week, primarily because I blocked off April for costume creation to support next fall’s performance of Pippin.  More on that later.  It seems appropriate that I devoted some time to completing the last little corner of my piece called ‘My Roots’.  I chose to make some white radishes as the last root vegetable to connect to my childhood.  I still remember when I was little and thought radishes only came in round and red.  That’s what always went into our salads.  My stepmother brought home long, white radishes and told me that they were just like the red ones.  I was confused by the shape and color yet trusting, so of course I tried them.  They were so spicy I vowed never to eat them again!  Of course one should never say never, and now I love white radishes.  One of my favorite spring treats is a radish sandwich on rye bread with cream cheese.  Slice the radishes thickly and top them with salt and it’s a perfect sandwich.  Yum!

Most of my time this week was devoted to costume design and creation.  The number of the week is seventeen, which is all of the new Sounds of South members who needed a vintage circus costume for the chorus.  Some of the outfits are completely finished.  Others still need some loving touches by the hands of my sewing and gluing faeries.  When I was done the studio was an absolute mess.  One day around midweek, Nancy Riggert came in and saw me sitting in the middle of the chaos, which means piles of blue, green and purple everything (trim, ribbon, lace, fabric, sequins and more).  She looked at me, and in her sweet voice asked if a raccoon broke into the studio and made this mess?   

Raccoons can make a good mess of things, but if you want true chaos you’ll find me sitting in the middle of it.  In the end I spent four hours on Friday just reclaiming the costume studio.  I rolled, folded and reorganized all of my materials into bins, drawers and containers.  Now the studio is ready for the next stage, which will be to make the armor for the war scene.  With seventy cast members, or as many as seventy chest plates, helmets and swords to fits kids of different shapes and sizes, the task at hand will be enormous. 

I’ll design templates for the outfits in small, medium and larges and hand them out as take-home projects for the parents to do during their down time.  A fun sidelight of this project is that my friend Dawn Adams has been diligently taking the filters out of all the Starbucks Keurig coffee units that her husband drinks.  She has been washing and saving them for me.  I see them as just perfect as rivet establishments, so I might have to crowdsource a coffee filter collection project among the group.  I’m going to need a lot.

The big excitement for the upcoming week, and the reason there won’t be a blog next weekend, is because I’m one of the chaperones for the Sounds of South trip to NYC this week.  Jacob is coming along as well, but Jim is going to stay home and turn up the heat before we get back.  I suspect the trip will be an amazing experience, since it’s already jam packed with tickets to Wicked, a dinner cruise on the Hudson, Opera tickets at the Met to La Boheme, and tickets to NEWSical.  The SOS choir will even sing at ground zero as part of the trip.  And oh, fingers crossed, I’m hoping to sneak off for my first ever trip to Mood, the mecca of fabric stores to see all the goods and meet Swatch the dog.  Last, you’ll be pleased to learn that my happiness is not going to depend on the appearance of a pie upon our return.  I plan to indulge at every pastry shop I can in downtown New York.  I’ve heard that there’s an amazing cheesecake place in Times Square.  The struggle will be to decide which piece to choose.  And if there should be a pie when I get home, I’ll still be genuinely thankful and surprised!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Back to the Studio!

I’ve said this before, but it’s been another busy two weeks!  I have three major work fronts that I need to pop in and out of:  finishing commissions, making costumes for Beauty and the Beast, and keeping my family happy.  Of course the family includes me, so making sure more pie appears is a priority. 

On the commission front, two pieces are moving along.  One features a white picket fence with a bicycle propped up against it.  The weather has been very cold, but the warm breaks we had allowed me to bring out Grandpa’s belt sander.  I set up on the veranda with the sun shining and the temperature in the mid-forties and donned my facemask and safety glasses.  I plunked myself into a comfy chair and sanded popsicle sticks to make fence slats, a process I love.  It brings back memories of the time I learned to count.   

My teachers, Mrs. Kirk and Mrs. Logan had bundles of popsicle sticks that were supposedly in bundles of ten, fifty or one hundred sticks.  I was fascinated by the bundle of one hundred because it didn’t look to me like it could have that many sticks.  I started to count it and she gave me the teacher’s “No, no no!  We just pretend there’s one hundred sticks in there”.  I remember my certainty that there couldn’t be one hundred and I was very frustrated that I wasn’t allowed to count them.  It just wasn’t right!  I was a good kid who did what I was told, but as soon as I couldn’t trust that there were one hundred sticks in the ‘hundred’ bundle I started to question how many there really were in the fifty bundle.  Perhaps that’s what turned my life toward science at an early age.   

Anyway, I’m forgetting the commission!  I do love the color, texture and size of popsicle sticks.  As I sat sanding the end of sticks to form a pointy end I counted them and put them into piles of exactly ten or fifty sticks.  And I basked in the satisfaction of knowing how many stick were in each pile!  I made enough for the fence commission but the weather was so nice that I made enough for another commission that won’t be completed until the end of April.  It also features a fence so I bundled a stockpile of forty fence slats.  On my current work Ive glued them into a gate that will open on wire hinges strong enough to bear the weight.  

 It looks like it might be a while until I can get outside again to paint the wood so that part of the project is on hold.  I did finish weaving the background, using my dimensional crochet technique to build forward the foreground.  The weaving is stretched out on its frame so I’m ready to start planting the flowers once the painted fence is attached. 

At Bloomington High School South I’ve had lots of help from the students in the choir programs, both Sounds of South and the mixed choirs.  Together we’ve moved a lot of the costume projects forward.  It’s been amazing and heartwarming to see the enthusiasm of the students.  As soon as they come into the classroom they ask if I have anything for them to do, and my answer is always “of course”!  

 I feel good about introducing many of them to potential life skills, such as seam ripping and sewing on snaps and poppers.  Most have done very little sewing and the outcomes can be unexpected, but it all works out in the end.  The most fun is when I can get a student working on is or her own costume so they can connect with their contribution.   

Nancy and I have been working in parallel cutting and pinning lace, ribbon and trim to what we’re referring to as base costumes.  We have scrounged a lot of outfits that need to be embellished to look like village people from the eighteen hundreds.  We’re just about finished with the women’s racks of clothing.   

The process is thoroughly organized such that a person can pull out a list of things that need to be completed on each remaining costume.  The volunteer then checks off whatever tasks they have completed and returns the costume to the rack.  I’m imagining that the process will take a couple of months to complete.  With Nancy’s keen oversight this should roll right along until it’s done. 

On the home front, Jacob made his first homemade pancakes last Saturday morning, which turned out very nicely.  The dark news:  it’s day 17 and still. no. pie.  I’m holding out on healthy food, espresso and wine, but I not sure if life still has meaning.  I saw what looked like a crust in the refrigerator this morning and a bag of frozen fruit, but then it just sat there.  Cautiously optimistic, I move forward with my life!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin