I’ve Got Parsnips!

Traveling has been a big part of my world these days.  When I have to sit and wait in the airport, or travel as a passenger in a car, I have a need to keep producing art.  I really enjoy the process of needle felting, which is especially portable and well-suited to my waiting times.  Lately I’ve spent most of my time creating needle felted vegetables.  My current harvest will be incorporated into a piece called “My Roots”, which will be full of root vegetables.  The piece is really an offshoot of my “Fall Stew” piece.  I had so much fun making the vegetables for that piece I decided to develop a new composition that could feature only my felted roots. 

I need to step back for a little context.  The “My Roots” composition speaks to the intersection of three major parts of my life.  First, I’m preparing for a November exhibit entitled:  “From the Earth”.  I’m developing a family of weavings ideas for the project, and “My Roots” fits in perfectly.  Second, the piece speaks to my transplantation to Bloomington.  I was born in the Czech Republic and raised in Canada, but now Bloomington feels like home—my roots are really here now.  Third, much like the “Fall Stew” piece, it brings back such fond memories of my experiences at the local Farmer’s Market.  Autumn brings the bountiful harvest of roots that have been hidden and developing all summer.  Now the root vegetables are all laid out in rows on tables for anyone to buy.  I like the veggies, but I love looking at all the colors and variations on display. Plus I get to slip them into our fall meals. 

For the weaving background underneath my lovely colorful roots I need a green gradient background.  That’s coming along, encouraged by the emerging greens of spring.  Our first daffodils are complementing the crocuses and snowdrops in the yard, and poke up through the brown leaves as rich green foliage before the yellow flowers bloom.  Greens aren’t on the trees yet, but the world is coming back to life around me, and I’m channeling the rich colors into my art again.   

Of course my art life has many other demands that take me away from weaving.  This time of year means business taxes need to be completed.  I sit at the computer and sift through my year’s receipts, translating dollars into tallied categories in a big spreadsheet.  It’s a huge project that I’m delighted to have behind me now.  My costume work for Pippin is on hold for March while I get my life back on track, but April will find me back fitting the new Sounds of South members for their circus chorus costumes.   

This week I also spent some time making looms for my next workshop on June 6-7 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the Artful Dimensions Gallery.  Finding wood and brackets for the looms gave me the perfect excuse to visit the new Re-Storelocation in Bloomington.  They moved to a bigger site that, helpfully, is closer to me!  I found some paint covered 1x2s that are perfect for looms.  Of course the patina got me thinking about their previous life, because I get a lot of satisfaction knowing the histories of all the materials in the pieces I create.  Oh, and I even picked up a cheesy Hawaiian shirt that will be perfect for the Jimmy Buffet scene in Pippin!  You never know when you’re going to find just the right wacky thing you need. 

Finally, I managed to space out my cherry pie breakfasts all the way until yesterday morning.  I’m prompted to write my blog because yes, again, I’m without pie for breakfast.  Like a cat who knows there is fresh fish in the fridge, I KNOW there are bags of pie filling in the freezer.  Soon it will be the summer Farmer’s Market, with fresh rhubarb and strawberries for pies.  We can’t let local berries go to waste! 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Green Beans in the January Snow

Winter has taken hold of Indiana, bringing the first real snowfall to blanket us in white.  Besides being pretty, it’s a nice backdrop to my current focus, which is making green beans between other family activities.  My bigger-picture objective is finishing my ‘Fall Stew’ piece, which will provide a cameo appearance space for my beans.  I can’t use too many, though.  I learned this important fact when I made the actual fall stew years ago.  Because Jim really doesn’t like green beans, I had to be careful with the ratio of beans to other vegetables so I could slip them in and not have him notice.  After the beans are done I’ll make some broccoli and parsnip and I should be ready to assemble the final piece.

Needle felting vegetables gives me some much-needed thinking time.  When I made the tomatoes for my ‘Fall Stew’ creation, I got to thinking about heirloom tomatoes.  I was remembering how recognizable they are on the tables at the Farmer’s market with their yellow shoulders, which take longer to ripen.  That got me thinking about what it takes to be an heirloom.  Objects don’t necessarily need to have a large actual value, just a perceived value to the owner or family.  I thought about the things I have inherited, including some great tools from Grandpa (Jim’s dad) and family jewelry from my Grandmother.   

This summer I went to an estate sale of a person whose mother was a hairdresser, which was her whole life, and she was selling her collection of rollers.  Jim’s family fishes, so we have lots of old lures, rods and gear that have been around forever.  The heirlooms are often tools of the trade that define that person or family (and I love tools!).  Each object comes with a story, and the stories draw me in and demand that I translate the objects into art.  I have all sorts of interesting heirlooms in jars downstairs, from an old tool that looks like an ancient pizza cutter with a wonderful patina (but is really a tailor’s fabric cutting tool), to tarnished silver spoons from long-forgotten collections - all waiting for the right composition.

All that musing helped me decide I needed to make a piece called ‘Heirloom Tomatoes’.  Of course an heirloom tomato composition would feature an elegant fruit with lots of character springing up from a soil permeated with heirlooms.  We’ll have to see how it comes together!  

The other major project that looms in my future (everything in my life has looms) is costuming.  This year’s musical performance at Bloomington High School South is ‘Pippin’.  I’ve done all the sketches and I’ve been actively collecting and organizing clothing built around the color palate I designed.  All of the clothes have spent two days in the freezer, a half an hour in the washing machine and an hour in the dryer before being sorted onto racks.  I just love organization—it makes it so much easier to view what I have and then to get things done.  On February first I hope to start actually building costumes for Pippin from all the recycled clothing pieces that Nancy Riggert and I have collected.  The local thrift shops have been incredibly generous to us.  MySister’s Closet has given us all their damaged or stained formal wear.  Imperfections are easily mended and small stains mean nothing on the stage, so I can get a lot of mileage out of unwanted clothing.  The Bloomington Thrift Shop has been wonderful about sharing clothing that doesn’t sell and sharing their excess hangers.  Being able to start costuming with each of the starting materials hung and organized is hugely useful and will make the task of outfitting sixty-five kids a lot easier.

 

On the home front, hmmm, let me see.  The Christmas tree is down and the decorations are put away.  The snow is pretty, but the kitchen does not seem to be filled with the glorious scent of a freshly baked blueberry pie!  Whatever shall I do?

 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin