I Must be Finnish!

The news this week is all about finishing projects. I’ve been making the salamanders for ‘Six Salamander Salsa’ for several months now, and this week they put their feet on the bright green woven background. When I first set my colorful amphibian friends onto the minty surface, I was a little concerned that the contrast might be too stark. I was thinking up ways to help break up the background as I added the salamander legs and feet to connect the bodies to the weaving. As soon as the feet touched down, though, I realized that was just what I needed. The twenty four legs and twenty four feet really brought together foreground and background. I like how the salamanders are partying.

I was also into finishing frames this week. The oppressive humidity relented for a couple of days, so out came my unfinished frames. I broke open a jar of gel stain that I picked up from the Re-store to try. I’m all for trying to re-use and re-purpose materials when I can. The bad news is that it wasn’t very nice to work with. Either I don’t know how to use it, or the gel has lost some solvents along the way, but the stain turned into a sticky mess when I tried to wipe it off. I guess I know why it was at the re-store! I figured that the solvents in my usual stain would dissolve the sticky stuff on my frame, so I just gave it a second coat with my fruitwood stain. To my great delight, it turned out perfectly! I had been slightly unhappy with the fruitwood stain, because the color, a dull brown, wasn’t just what I was looking for. I ended up with a subtle brown with just a hint of a brighter yellow. Plus, the frame dried beautifully. The days are still quite humid, but I got into a routine of sealing frames outside at 11:30, zipping off to pick up my boys from their art camp at noon, then putting the mostly-dry frames into the basement with the dehumidifier to complete the process. Just three days and they were done!

I did have several other irons in the fire, or maybe shuttles in the weave this week. I started working on a three-dimensional forest scene. One of my early popular pieces was ‘A Walk in the Woods’, which had some dimensionality from the trees and canopy that surrounded a path into the woods. I now have a few new techniques, like projecting the ground forward and crocheting leaf clumps that increase the volume of the canopy. I’m going to try to bring these elements together in a more elaborate composition . I realize that isn’t really finishing a piece, which is this week’s theme, but I’ve finished deciding how I’m going to do it!

We did have a little extra drama in our lives this week. My son Tommie broke his wrist this week and will be in a cast for three weeks. The good news is that the bone stayed in alignment—it’s a fairly common torus fracture—and he should pop back into action without a lot of complications. He’s had the cast for a week now and it doesn’t seem to hold him back too much. But he is finished with the pool, water, the beach and fishing for the summer. The cast comes off the day before school starts. Snap! We thought he should keep it on for a few extra days to get the sympathy factor working for him at school but he refuses.

Here’s hoping that everyone stays cool and comfortable this week through the heat wave that’s settling over the Midwest. This is the one time of the year I’m really lucky to have a basement art studio that’s cool and filled with all the best toys!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

How to turn oak into fruitwood...

The weather this week in Bloomington was glorious: the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the bulbs were bursting. We even topped 80 degrees at the end of the week, warm enough to open doors and windows to let in the spring. After a long, cold winter, what does spring mean around here? Yes, it’s time to start staining frames! I always have a few projects that need temperatures over fifty for paints, sealants or other finishes to work properly. I’m starting to back up on weavings and need frame homes for them. So first I dusted off my power tools and did a little spot sanding. My friend and photographer Tom Bertolocini makes oak frames to my specifications and I stain them to match my weavings. This week I got out a dark oak, a colonial maple and a lighter fruitwood stain. Don’t ask me what fruitwood is. I just know that when I put it on oak frame I get a range of light finishes that work with a lot of my pieces. I can finish a frame and hold it to the piece and decide exactly which finish I like best. It’s sort of like holding up my socks against a pair of pants to see how I like the match. If a certain frame finish really doesn’t work, back out to the veranda it goes and out comes the black spray paint!

I also have some big electronic news from the week. I joined the twenty-first century, aka Facebook. I was amazed at how easy it is to get connected and start talking to people. It’s been good to connect with a lot of people I’ve lost touch with over the years. I must seem to be getting older, because some of my local art buds were shocked that I did it. While it’s great to know what everyone is doing, I can see how someone could spend a lot of time keeping up with her friends, new and old. There’s also kind of a weird voyeuristic aspect to it all. You get to read about things that a person might not tell you, based on your own sensibilities, but they might tell another friend. You’re going where? Are you sure that’s a good idea?

In the salamander world, we now have a party. You can almost see them together in the waiting area at Red Lobster: ‘Salamanders, party of three—your table’s ready’. My latest creation is a cave salamander. It isn’t white, like you might expect from a dweller in the back of the cave. It lives at the openings and it’s a lovely papaya color with tiny black spots. She joins her friends the black spotted and mud salamander. I’m planning on having six salamanders for a salsa, but the weaving might take seven. Six is my favorite number, and six is a lot less salamander creation than seven, so I’m rooting for six but then seven is a better number artistically. They should be ready for the summer art tour, which is going to be a college town circuit. So far I’ll be in Columbus, OH in June, Madison, WI in July and here in Bloomington in September. I hope to see you somewhere this year!

Finally, this is a major flowering season in the yard. My first Facebook post reported the first tulip that burst into color in the yard. It just made me so happy to see it. It was red, of course, and it came up right in the middle of the herb garden. The herbs get their chance to shine later in the year. We’ve got deer candy—oops, I mean tulip buds—appearing all over the yard. The best part is that I’ve forgotten what colors I bought last year. Sometimes I’m like Dory in Finding Nemo for stuff like that. I find that life’s a lot more fun when it’s generally good and you get to keep reliving the best episodes! I’ve also got my bulldog husband out spraying the emerging tender greenery with his own anti-deer blend spray. So far so good! And I’ve done my part, although it isn’t for the flowers. I still hear our local raccoon climbing on the roof in the middle of the night, but now he’s clearly on the outside looking in. I just curl up, my eyes still closed, and smile a big warm smile.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Chameleon Conga and Salamander Salsa

My life and art seem to revolve around my friends in Bloomington, Indiana. I live in a community rich in resources of all kinds that help me flourish, and I’ve come to deeply appreciate what I have. For example, this was ‘chameleon week’ for me, courtesy of one of my benefactors, the Monroe County Public Library. I went to the kids section to find picture books with big, brightly colored images of my quarry. I found a treasure trove of books to help me on my way, including a picture of a nice pardalis chameleon. To create its body, I searched through my materials only to find that some evil spell-casting wood sprite had transformed a ball of my fleece into a parsnip. Oh wait—that was me! The parsnip didn’t fit into my veggie piece, so I transformed the parsnip into the body of a chameleon. I keep everything I make, since you never know when something important will turnip. Sorry, my kids are into bad jokes right now and I couldn’t resist. I also pulled out all my green fleeces that I dyed last year and a dark brown natural fleece that fit in nicely and set to work. I put the last touches on it while listening to the proceedings of the Fourth Street Art Festival committee meeting, surrounded by local artists and craftspeople who are all committed to the success of the local art scene. As you can see in the picture, I then let the chameleon run around my art studio and inspect my yarns before she settled down among her home ferns. I hope somebody likes her as much as I do.

Well, I figure that if I can make chameleons out of turnips, I can turn amphibians into salsa. More precisely, I’m now off making six salamanders to dance together in my next piece, ‘Salamander Salsa’. I picked up a few colorful books from, you guessed it, the Monroe County Public Library. The variety of colors palates for salamanders is truly amazing. I’ve completed the first dancer, a spotted salamander, which is a rich, rich black color with yellow spots. Now I’m working on a mud salamander, whose name fails to capture its beautiful bright red color with tiny black spots. They always seem to be standing on sphagnum moss beds so I’ll have to whip up some moss for this piece too. This project will take a little time to bring together, since my three-dimensional animals always take more effort than I imagined.

The other big event on my calendar this week was the DBI (Downtown Bloomington Inc) annual awards ceremony. It was well attended, and I got to chitty chatty with lots of downtown business people. It’s so nice to see how cohesive and well-supported the downtown community is. This is a community that wisely values the vitality of its downtown, which is succeeding where other downtowns are failing in this tough economic market. I’ve benefitted from a number of downtown businesses showing my art over the years, with big thanks to places such as the Wandering Turtle, By Hand Gallery, Bloomingfoods and the Bloomington Bagel Company. I feel like I’m part of a vibrant community, and I like that feeling. Bloomington feels like home.

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