Madison, here I come!

I’m gearing up to travel again, this time to one of my favorite art fair destinations—Madison, Wisconsin. The fairgoer have diverse and eclectic interests, and my friends Wendy and Duane take great care of us while we’re there at their beautiful home well outside Madison. Preparations this year have been a little more challenging than usual, however. I spent a lot of time this week repairing the damage to my canopy walls. I ordered a repair kit from Creative Energies, although I quickly used the entire kit. I started calling around town to find repair tape specific for vinyl. J.L. Waters downtown came through for me and saved my tushie. Two more rolls of tape and I should be watertight again.

In the wake of my Columbus disaster I decided that I needed to keep making new art as I worked in repair and recovery mode. I’m excited that I’m close to finishing my ‘Summer Salad’ piece, although I think it might become ‘Summer Veggies.’ I’ve been poking away at little green onions to finish the piece. I knew I was on the right karmic track with my art when, on Wednesday, I drove to Musgrave Orchard to pick up this week’s CSA vegetables. I arrived a little early and I was poking away at my onions when Andy drove up with a big bushel basket of freshly picked green onions! I still need to make a few more, but I’m sure the piece will come together before Madison. In my near future I’m also thinking about making a ‘Lemons to Lemonade’ piece. It will have whole lemons and sliced wedges presented at various angles. After Columbus, it’s my answer to the old adage, ‘When life gives you lemons…”. On the other hand, you could take my friend Miah’s suggestion, “When life gives you lemons, just return them for some nice jewelry.”

As I prepare for Madison, I have a secret project cooking just outside of the veranda. I collected maple bark, lichens from a fallen tree, oak bark pieces and was given osage orange shavings. Each material went into its own big covered pail to steep in warm water. The pigments are extracted over a few weeks, and right now the maple bark has the richest colors. It’s good, stinky, messy science fun that will translate into some uniquely dyed fleece. It’s fun to think that when I get back from Madison I’ll have some buckets of natural dyes to experiment with.

Finally, now that summer is here, the CSA has injected its vegetables into my life. I’ve been getting weekly infusions of greens and onions, more than we could possibly eat in a week. This is my time of the year to make freezer meals for the long, cold months of winter. Over the past couple of weeks I managed to make huge batches of three kinds of soups with greens to freeze away. I made ‘Lois Soup’ with mixed greens and veggie sausage and a lentil soup with greens. On Saturday I made a nice sweet potato corn and kale chowder. I got the idea for this at the Unitarian Universalist art Fair last December. They have a lunch kitchen window open, and while I was trying to decide what I wanted, my friend Julie Lawson told me about the soup that she had made. It sounded warm and comforting and just perfect. I remember enjoying it so much! As I was trying to decide what kind of soup to make with the kale I had, I thought of that experience. And whom do you think I ran into at the farmer’s market, right after I after I walked past some sweet potatoes? To make a long story more compact, Julie sent me the recipe and I have another big stockpot full of soup ready for the freezer!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

There’s not much I can’t fix in my dye pot…

Except maybe the snow from this week, at least not until I get a bigger pot. The two snowstorms we had translated into two and a half school days off, with shrieking kids and pizza lunches taking up much of my days. Still, I managed to get a whole lot of art done. The big news from Andrea at Wonderlab is that the giant butterfly is officially finished. I don’t know where they got the extra wine corks, or when they painted them, but Andrea seemed quite happy. I can’t wait to stop by next week to see it! I guess I can arrange a ceremonious return of the corks back to the recycle center. I also took some steps ahead on my ‘Transplanted’ piece, weaving the dirt and the sky and stretching it out in the frame. I think the dirt ball is lovely, as only a gardener would, as is the hole in the earth. I still need to add the overgrown roots and the plant and flower, but the parts of the piece that I wasn’t sure about have come together nicely. If only I could remember where I left the trowel!

Last week I also launched a few other new projects. Beginnings are fun, because you never know how each project will turn out. And there is no Island of Misfit Toys in my world—anything that doesn’t work just goes back in the collection for the next piece. I began my next volunteer project, which is a mobile for the Edible Lotus event that will hang over one of the Edible Lotus tables. I intend to make a barren tree in the fog using my latest favorite material, depleted dryer sheets. That means I’m still collecting if you have any extras. When my husband wanted to know how that was going to look, I just gave him my most mysterious look and told him: “Be surprised”. He had just made me a nice dinner with pan-seared tuna and a spinach salad, so maybe I should have been a little more forthcoming, but I was enjoying the moment.

After a few days of snow, the week turned bright and sunny. We’re back into the deep freeze, but at least it’s going to warm up during the daytime and the days are getting longer. On Thursday it was clearly a day to dye yarn (don’t ask me how I know these things). I got out my very old Nilus leClerc metal swift, appropriately made in Quebec. It’s still totally functional, built from iron and as solid as the Banque du Canada, but it’s also a great antique. It came up for auction at the Spinners and Weaver’s guild annual event and I got into a bidding war over it. It was worth every penny I spent and it’s a treasure in my art studio. Anyway, I pulled out the yarns that King Moonracer couldn’t find a home for (the winged lion that rules the island of misfit toys).

I had some pale mossy greens that weren’t working for me, plus some grey-blues, sandy browns and multicolored greens that had a lot of grey in them that I didn’t appreciate. So out came my green and yellow dyes and now, 13 skeins later, I have a new collection of vibrant greens for my spring green projects. This includes a mint green project that must have been inspired by the crisp air (or maybe it’s just Girl Scout cookie time and the Thin Mints are here). I made the minty green background gradient for a piece that will feature salamanders, skinks and lizards, each featuring those unnaturally vibrant colors and beautiful patterns that tell predators: ‘try having me for lunch and you’ll be very sorry, buddy.’ I know because that’s how I dress sometimes. That also means that if you see me around town this week, at a meeting or waiting for my kids at their Tae Kwon Do class, you’ll probably see me poking away at some amphibians. Don’t be alarmed—no amphibians will be harmed, and it keeps me from starting still more new projects.

Until next week...



Martina Celerin

In they go!

My elder has a joke this week that goes: “Do you know what I do when I’m feeling blue?” The answer is: “I stop holding my breath!” My plan for turning blue was to connect with Mary Pendergrass in Nashville last week. Mary was running a workshop on indigo dyeing from Thursday through Saturday that I really wanted to attend. So of course on Friday evening I was thinking there was something I should be doing but I couldn’t think what. Arrghhh! Indigo dyeing! So I called up Mary to ask what was happening on Saturday. It turned out to be a ‘mini workshop’ for anyone who wanted to come. She told me I could bring all the skeins I wanted and to show up at 9:30. I didn’t need to be told twice and I was there with bright eyes and bells on. I also had lots of white fleece, wool skeins and a blank pad of paper. Was it ever worth it! I was the only person who turned up, and Mary was an incredibly good teacher and very helpful. I got to ask all the questions I wanted (which means a lot). Mary was very generous with her time, advice and materials, and we talked about colors, techniques and sources. Armed with new materials and ideas I’m already plotting uses for my new indigo materials in holiday ornaments and other projects.

The first thing I learned was that indigo dyeing is a little stinky. On came the long gloves, in went the yarn and I learned that rapid immersion is crucial to the process. It’s important to exclude air from the process, so you don’t want to froth around in the pot as the yarn goes in. In the dye pot the color is an exquisite deep teal color—I’d like to be able to capture that color! Once in the pot you work the yarns to get the dye throughout the skein, under any ties and deep into the fabric. When the yarn comes out of the pot the color transforms into the deep indigo hue characteristic of the process. The whole thing is really cool to watch, and now I’m excited to try this at home. Thanks Mary! The process was punctuated by periodic calls from Mary’s husband. He was watching the weather on radar, and he’d call us with warnings about heavy rain on the way and sent us inside on a couple of occasions in anticipation of impending doom. I guess Mary has an HoA (husband of artist) kind of like mine!

The rest of the week was hectic as I prepared for a new show at the By Hand gallery. I’ll be on hand for the reception from 5-7 this Friday so be sure to stop in when you’re on the Gallery Walk. Later in the week I put together a weaving and a stack of cards to mail to a gallery in Madison, Wisconsin. The owner saw my work during the Madison Art Fair and asked if she could hang some pieces in her gallery. Hmmmm, let me see. OK, YES! That was very flattering, and my web check of the place shows that my work will have a good home. That’s good to know. Last, my personal achievement of the week was when I got green beans on Wednesday from the CSA and had to slip them past my green-bean-hating-HoA. Well, I did it! I have a special dish I make where the beans are chopped up fine, lightly cooked and carefully disguised in a flavorful sauce that is put over rice. And…he liked it!

Until next week,

The Greens of Summer...

This week I’m back in the art studio and weaving like an artist who sold all the pieces she intended for a gallery show in two weeks. I’m still excited about finishing the ‘river’ piece I wrote about in last week’s blog, but I was short on the right green materials. So out came the dye pots, including the new ones I bought at the Monroe County Historical Society garage sale. Out came the RIT dye (from Indianapolis!) and a pile of materials that I brought home from the Spinners and Weavers Guild auction. Sometimes the wools call out to me, like a high-pitched sound only a dog can hear. Other times the Guild members taunt me when a lot comes up that nobody wants. Martinnnnaaaaa—don’t you need this pretty blue yarn? So of course I buy them all. I pulled out deep blue cottons, golden corn silk and teal boucle wool, some green and yellow dye, my dye pots and I leaped right in! OK, not into the dye pots, but 14 skeins of yarns went into the pots. The process is long and involved, so life went on in between. I got started dyeing, and then the boys and I went to the library to claim their prize for completing 25 books this summer (insert proud mom smile here in your imagination). They each brought home a nice chapter book, which hopefully will be #26. We came home to move the yarns along in the process, then off to Bloomingfoods. We bulked up on fresh fruits and vegetables, and Tommie had to bring home the gnarly carrots he found. We were then off for a bike ride to burn off some summer energy, then on to pick up the CSA vegetables for the week. The greens from the CSA went into chowder that was mostly corn, kale and sweet potatoes, but it also had the vegetable stock I made from the freezer-burned green beans, turnips and other unused delicacies from last summer. I can only slip so many green beans past the HoA (Husband of Artist) before he gets suspicious.
The hectic-running-around pretty much sums up the events of the short week after our return from Madison. I’m still basking in the afterglow of my successes. We drove in to the driveway to see some beautiful flaming orange, yellow and red glads that had just opened, along with a few unopened burgundy racemes that were on the verge of opening. I planned to cut them for a nice welcome-home bouquet the next morning. But during the night the terrors of the town struck. No, it’s not adolescents out of control with scissors, it’s just deer fattened up on flowers. Those rascals mowed the glads down to the quick! If only the HoA were so good with the lawn! Only one bud of burgundy glad survived the nocturnal carnage, and that’s in a vase in the kitchen with a few zinnias. I guess our garden is just a nice buffet, timed to keep the deer happy all summer. Sometimes karma just spills out into the yard.

Until next week…

Dyeing to be Blue

This week my Great Blue Heron raised his elegant head for a few appearances. I had constructed the body a few weeks back (see the January 24th post) and it was time to start fleshing him out. Well, feathering him out, I suppose. I started off by dyeing a range of blues and grays for the feathers. With little pots of blue water on the stove, my heron had to peek in to see if there were any little fish for lunch. He stared for quite a while before giving it up to chase dust bunnies in the jungle room. As for the dyes, I often use natural materials or Kool-aid for subtle colors. This time I needed more robust RIT dyes, which are relatively non-toxic and the company is located in Indiana (hooray!). The colors weren't exactly right to suit my heron, but I assured him that I could card colors together and make them just so. With a little smoothing, physical and emotional, he was ready for his first public
appearance: an in-progress avian sculpture for Wonderlab's "Science of Sculpture" program.


On Friday evening I carded wool and poked my heron along the path to biological accuracy with a few dozen new friends. I talked to a lot of adults and children about how the barbed needle I used to felt wool combines the fibers into the shapes I want. I also showed how the carders can be used to combine the raw dyed wool into organized fiber bundles of the colors I need. It's hard work but it's fun to try. To get the heron colors right I checked out books from the Children's section of the Monroe County Public Library. They have books with better pictures than can be found the adult section, and they don't charge late fees when I forget that a book is due. More kids need to check out those books, I decided, since many thought my heron was a stork or an ostrich. Knowing the sensitive nature of my long-legged friend I quickly dissuaded them of that notion. Besides, the stork won't be visiting our house any more. My two boys spent the evening climbing, inventing and eating with friends, while the HoA (husband of artist) patrolled the grounds to keep an eye on things. It was nice to have the family together as I worked.
I should also mention the other projects that were ongoing as I poked and chatted. The terrific Wonderlab group ran a wet felting workshop using wool they dyed with Kool-aid. Kids and adults used soapy water and a lot of hand rolling action to make colorful balls that they carried off in little paper towel coverlets for drying. I saw some beautiful color combinations, and I sensed that a lot of people had fun in what was truly a hands-on learning project. I felt right at home with all the fiber work going on. The "Science of Sculpture" exhibit will go on for a few more weeks with projects such as glass blowing and stone carving on display. If you look carefully you can see one of my fish sculptures hanging from the ceiling, and you can also see my "Shh… the trees are sleeping" show on the wall as you go up the stairs. Stop in if you can! And thanks to everyone who participated and made it a fun event for me.



Until next week…