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

Holiday week 2, the sequel...

What a full week! The holiday season is winding down, with only one houseguest left. Grandma and Aunt Lois flew home on Monday, and Vojta heads back to LA tomorrow afternoon. We tried to fatten him up a little on Kluski, flatbread, salmon and American beer and chocolate, but it’s hard to see the effects. He and I drove out to Sheep Street this week to bond a little and pick up my new drum carder. I’ve been borrowing the Spinner’s and Weaver’s Guild carder, but it’s clear I needed my own when I got into my big-format commission piece. It was a win-win situation: he got to take a lot of pictures of the Indiana countryside for his picture-hungry grandfather Pepik, and I got my shiny new carder with all its teeth. We shared a nice conversation in Czech on the way. I’ll christen the carder with some carrot orange fleece—I can’t wait to get carding! I even managed to sneak down to my art studio a few mornings and evenings when the world was quiet and do some weaving. I laid down my browns yarns and did some serious dirt creation to grow carrots and beets. Oh, and I enlisted Tommie to help with a big year-end yarn organization project. His brother got a Beyblade for Christmas, and he wanted one too. To earn a little extra cash he offered to organize a giant bag of mixed yarns. I couldn’t imagine when I’d get around to organizing it, so I beyond delighted to have the help. It feels great to start the New Year off with an organized art studio.

Wednesday was a big day in our house, since it was my birthday! I turned 35, again. I got a nice pan-seared tuna dinner with a spinach salad and a special bottle of wine. And since I got to pick the kind of cake for dessert, which is a family tradition. I chose—you guessed it—pie! Jim made a delightful apple pie for me from frozen Mutsu apples we got at the farmer’s market last summer. Yum! He’s really got the oil crust recipe down. I’ve had a slice of pie and an espresso for breakfast the last couple of days after Zumba. Life is good! The only down side was that the photographer for the Herald Times was scheduled to stop by Thursday morning to take a few pictures. That meant a lot of cleaning and picking up after a big dinner and wine—we should have planned that out better. In the end, just about all the pictures Pete the photographer took were taken in the art studio and the surrounding storage areas. All that work cleaning in the kitchen, living room and dining room were misdirected, although we do have a clean house. On the bright side, Jacob did ask if Pete would take some pictures in his newly cleaned up room. We got a family portrait, including Shadow the hamster, on Jacob’s bed at the end of the shoot. The article and pictures should appear in the February Home and Living magazine that is published by the Herald-Times newspaper, so watch your mailboxes. In my case, I’ll watch the puddle at the end of the driveway where our delivery person aims every time it rains.

The last stories I can think to tell involve Vojta, our 20-year-old cousin and guest from Prague via Los Angeles. We had pleasant Skype conversations with grandparents Pepik and Mila, and later Renata (his mom), this week. They all wanted to know what we’d be doing for New Year’s Eve. In our house New Year’s Eve usually means going to bed early. They were shocked! Shocked I say! Renata said they stayed out to seven a.m. last year, yikes! If there’s any reward to being, um, 35, it’s that you can go to bed early if you want to. Renata said that that Vojta was expecting fireworks, and he injected ‘giant fireworks’. I magnanimously offered him a sparker. Heck, I’d have given him two if he’d asked. Instead, for fireworks we went to the IU women’s basketball game against Northwestern. Unlike the last men’s game, when we sat so high up that the little oxygen masks dropped down during emergencies, we got to sit in the third row near center court. It was like we were in the game. The finish was intense, with IU pulling out a hard-fought and well-earned win. We even won a free Buccettos pizza in a give-away at the game, so a good time was had by all.

That’s enough for 2010, I suppose. Vojta flies back to LA today and the boys head back to school tomorrow. The Christmas tree ornaments went back into storage today and the tree hits the recycle truck on Monday morning. And then I become an artist again!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Yellow

If you’ve ever driven through a neighborhood where the lawn was a solid, lush monoculture of well-bred grass seeds, well, that wasn’t our neighborhood, and it certainly wasn’t our lawn. I sometimes wonder if the lush lawn society harbors a certain paranoia that the weeds are watching them. The dandelions would take the lead in filling yards with yellow monitoring devices. After a while they turn into communications devices, spreading seeds to all the neighbor yards. It’s especially hard to infiltrate lawns laced with pesticides and patrolled by curmudgeons with bludgeons, but dandelions are fearless. I’ll admit it—they’ve won me over. I love to see them in lawns. They’re such a pretty yellow, and spring is such a yellow flower season. And they really are determined and fearless, ready to establish and prosper anywhere. Those are admirable qualities in anyone. I took a few pictures this week to show some of my favorite yellow friends to show what I mean.

Of course if you know me at all, you know that what captures my imagination in life ends up in my work. I decided this week to work on a piece called ‘Lawn Flowers’. I’ve done a similar piece that was popular and the composition made me happy, so I decided it was time to re-imagine the dandelion as beauty in the lawn. I pulled out my wonderful crunchy spring green yarns to start. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I should weave or make a salad. I’m envisioning a thick green base, as if you’re looking at the lawn from an angle, with three clumps of dandelions flowering. In a perfect coincidence, I ran into my friend Bonnie Gordon-Lucas at Bloomingfoods this week and had a spontaneous lunch date. The lunch was good, but she was concerned that I should be incorporating some reds and yellows into my green grass. We also bonded on the wonderful spring green colors that you can only see this time of year. If you look closely at the emerging foliage you can see the rich, iridescent greens that seem to darken as the summer goes on. We science geeks know that the leaves start to produce anthocyanin pigments to absorb the intense sunlight of summer, and those “non-green” pigments mask the spring beauty. Enjoy it while you can!

Speaking of yellow, I’ve been working on the fourth salamander for my ‘Salamander Salsa’ piece. Perhaps it’s subconscious, but I decided to make a Barred Tiger Salamander. He’s bright yellow with a black barring pattern, kind of like a tiger, only less orange and feline and more yellow and amphibian. So far I’ve only made the body, so he isn’t much of a threat to run away until I can add his legs. The ones I’ve made are more mobile, so I have to keep a closer eye on them. I don’t dare take them anywhere any more. So now I’m sitting at four-salamander salsa and waiting for two more guests.

The last big news is that this week was the Fiber Event in Greencastle. I carpooled there with Ruth Rives, a sweet friend with firm opinions. She recently started weaving and is really enjoying it. Overall, we had a delightful drive through the country on a warm and sunny spring day. We ended up spending several hours at the fair, longer than we expected, poking around in all the piles of fleece and yarns. I couldn’t wait to get home to start mixing green fleece with the drum carder I borrowed from the Spinners and Weaver’s guild. I’m trying to get just the right dark green for the dandelion foliage. And speaking of pleasant drives through the country, I also went to a reception for the recycled art show hanging the new Hotel Indigo in Columbus Indiana. The show looks great (stop by if your in the neighborhood!) and the reception was nice…thanks, Marilyn. It was followed by a fun visit to the recently re-opened ice cream parlor, Zaharakos. I got to see the massive musical instrument, the Welte orchestrion and sit at the marble bar. It felt like you were in a 1950s movie to see all the little spigots for soda. I had some nice conversations over a grilled cheese sandwich and a fruit cup. I forced myself to try and ignore the most amazing banana split walking past me, as well as all the other old fashioned ice cream treats. The good news is that I have two boys who will accompany me there in the summer to help me decide which to try first.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin