From stinky to sublime in my stockpot heaven

I dealt with the last of my stinky dye pots this week. The lichens I carved off the maple tree felled in my neighbor’s yard was the stinkiest. It also gave the best and most intense color. I thought I should try a second dip using some merino wool, with the hopes that I could create scarves in the beautiful golden-caramelly color from the lichens. Unfortunately, the colors were less intense the second time around. I’m going to keep an eye out for lichens on any fallen branches I encounter and see if I can repeat the experiment. My second dye pot contained oak bark, which gave a soft yellow-brown. I know it will be useful, I just don’t know what for yet! I also think that when the weather cools down a bit I’ll probably try a little more dyeing on merino using maple bark for use in my fall scarf collection.

Our vegetable garden production is booming. I’ve had the first tomato, and I see three-inch zucchinis on the vine. Of course the farmer’s market has far more, and sooner, but these are ours. Technically, Tommie planted them, and occasionally remembers to water them, but they end up on my burgers (the tomatoes) or in my cooking (the zucchini). Thoughts of green things growing on vines inspired me to create a new piece that incorporates peas. A long time ago I did a piece called ‘Pea and Friend’ with a pea vine and a ladybug on the plant. That was before I used needle felting, and now I think I could create a much richer and detailed piece by felting the leaves and peas. I pulled out some of the green fleece I bought at this year’s Fiber Event in Greencastle and carded it together with a few other lighter greens from my stores. I also discovered the extreme upper capacity for my carder! I still remember the words of advice about not overloading it from my friend Ulla. Of course without a demonstration one can’t know what that means. I just kept adding until I had a dense mat of beautiful green carpeting the drum. I had to get out a big screwdriver and do some serious lifting, rolling and ripping to get the fleece off the drum. It all turned out OK, with two big rolags of pea green fleece. The carding inspired me to weave the green canvas for the piece using my crunch green yarns, so now I’m ready to launch into making peas, pods, leaves, vines – and those cute little tendrils!

Saturday of this week was family day, and we packed in a lot of activities despite the heat. We started off at the farmer’s market, buying a big batch of heirloom and roma tomatoes for homemade bruschetta. We also picked up some fresh basil, garlic, and what turned out to be very spicy onions. My eyes watered until I remembered my protective gear (swim gogggles - what a sight!) and finished the chopping. We chopped, peeled, mixed and simmered in a ‘food only’ stockpot until we had a giant batch that ultimately filled around 20 glass jars. This has to last through the winter, but we’re going to test one bottle tonight with our traditional flatbread meal that consumes most of one of the jars of bruschetta.

After our morning farmer’s market stop we went to our secret creek bed that is littered with geodes and other treasures. Searching down in the cool, shady watercourse was a good way to spend a couple of hours. We collected rocks with holes in them, crinoids, rusty metal objects, and anything else that might look good in a weaving someday. I’m thinking about creating a piece with dirt and sky, as I have done before, but focusing on the lost bits and pieces and rusty things that turn up when you dig in the garden. I’ll probably nestle a tulip bulb underground and show the flower above. The concept is a little hard to describe, but I’m trying to capture the idea of the optimist planting bulbs in the fall for spring beauty. She breaks into the soil that has all the history and stored memories that you find when you dig a little bit. It’s always there, and the history precedes you—your world is intertwined with the people who worked the soil before you. In the end, though, you just remember the pretty tulip you see in the spring.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Swimming with the Stone Fish

After my adventure to the lake last weekend I’ve had fish and fossils floating through my mind. I felt inspired to take out my extensive collection of all things rock: geodes, crinoids, fossils and other random stone treasures. I had a very nice time sorting my collection, since that brings a sense of order to my mind and my work. It’s something like spring housecleaning, except that you don’t need to discover all the places your boys marked up the walls or left scraps of food someplace out of sight. The natural result of such an endeavor was that I decided to launch into a weaving that included various fossils and crinoids. My new Stone Fish piece is taking shape! As I sorted my crinoids based on size I really enjoyed the spectrum of colors. There’s a lot of geology happening in southern Indiana, whether you notice it or not. When it’s all laid out in front of you the range of red, brown and sand tones on the rocks is amazing. It’s kind of like people or flowers I suppose. You can start with the same basic design, but depending on much light they get, and how much rain falls on them, and who their neighbors are, you can see a lot of variation. Anyway, in my world of deciding on composition for a weaving, contrast and comparison took center stage. I pulled out my boxes of yarns in complementing colors for the project. Out came my light brown and sand tones, then my earthy greens and oranges. The stone and the yarn make the ultimate contrast: the old and the new, the inorganic and the organic, and the hard and the soft. To my husband the fisherman, one is more like a sinker and the other more of a dry fly.

With the materials and composition ideas in mind, the weaving process itself is also very Zen-like. The colors flow as they undulate into the background, very much like the layers of soil and rock in the surrounding hills. The crinoids line the layers, but now they’re wired into place instead of being deposited in an organic sea millions of years ago. Cozying up to the yarn probably reminds them of their organic origins long ago. It’s amazing what bubbles up from your subconscious as you weave! To create the stone fish I pulled out some fern fossils that Rudy Turner, a microscopist at Indiana University gave me. The fossil patterns, set on their side, look a lot like a fish skeleton set into a flesh of sandstone. I like that feature for creating the body. I’m still looking for the perfect fish head, though. I spent an hour or so yesterday scouring the Jackson Creek bed for a perfect fossil but I’m afraid I came up empty. The boys chased water striders, minnows and crayfish through the shallows, while avoiding the leeches and garter snake they came across, so it was a good day overall. For the fitting end to the day, my husband carried out my morning wish to have a fish dinner. He brought two frozen Mahi Mahi chunks back to life with a marinade of ginger and balsamic vinegar, plus a little garlic and honey. Very tasty! Thank goodness not every fish is destined to be a fossil.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin