Shifting gears, again…

I’ll share the fabulous conclusion of this year’s Pippin saga below, but my mind is already re-focused on the first of the holiday shows.  The Artisan Guild show at the Convention Center sets up Friday morning.  The fiber, glass and clay guilds come together under one roof, and I’m very excited about participating.  I’ve been working feverishly at advancing two huge new bodies of work that I’ll show this season.  First, I’m pretty excited about the felted tiles I’ve been working on.  

The inspiration for the tiles really comes from visiting the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.  In my family I’m the really big tomato fan, so fall is the conclusion to my season of my tomato sandwiches.  When I arrive at the farmer’s market I casually conduct a surveillance loop around the market to pick out my one perfect tomato for the week.  My selection has to big, red, ripe and juicy, but not especially pretty.  I love the idea of having one big fat slice of tomato in my sandwich - as thick as the bread slices.  The reality of my weekly search explains the inspiration for the new felted pieces.  I’m trying to capture the essence of that one, big special thing recognized as essential to your life.  For my family, the week the first ripe snap peas appear in boxes on tables is a good example.   

At the Farmer’s Market you suddenly see the rich, green color and the memory about how much you love them kicks in.  We buy a box and eat them raw at the market.  Then we usually buy a couple more boxes and put them in a big bowl at the center of the table to munch on.  Taking an important part of your life and framing it for the wall to help you remember it is important to me.  Of course as soon as I start making one type of vegetable I’m inspired to begin making another.  I have a few big pieces where comfortable combinations of vegetables come together to shape the whole.  I also love the idea of being able to piece together a favorite dish by combining tiles.  You might create a salsa art piece combining tomato, onion and jalapeno tiles.  Or you might think of borscht by mixing beets, onion slices and garlic.  The tiles are like a visual recipe.  Of course some of the tiles do speak volumes standing alone.  There is something seductive about a pile of cherries, which my brain would immediately commit to inclusion in a pie. 

My second new body of work is the collection of felted vessels I’ve been making.  The genesis of these vessels, along with pictures of my first attempts, are featured in earlier blogs.  I now have a collection of felted vessels that I have begun to package to display at the show.  It has been a lot of fun to explore how different materials behave and combine to create new surface textures.  Merino noils, the very short waste merino I picked up several years ago from Sheep Street felts incredibly quickly, but the short fibers result in a bumpy texture.  What I like about the merino is that the finished product is very rigid.  The merino top, which is the longest merino fibers, felts quickly but results in a softer vessel.  If the vessel were created on a larger scale I can imagine that it might collapse in on itself.  I also did some experimenting with some spun horsetail hair.  It has a fascinating texture that I incorporated into one of the vessels.  The contrast of the coarseness of horsetail hair with the soft, fine merino is striking in both texture and color.  I’ve done some additional embellishing on a few of the vessels, adding cute little felted balls to supply even more character and make them more whimsical. 

Another chapter of my life closed this week to make room for my holiday art fair season.  The final production of Pippin was presented on Saturday night and yesterday morning we did the set teardown.  The costumes were divvied up for washing and the parents hauled them away.  The armor and the props were collected, organized and put to bed for now.  Monday morning it all seemed like a dream.  For now, I’m delighted with the amazing number of parents and SOS kids that came together to deconstruct the show—the stage and costume studio were beehives of activity.  The entire set was broken down and put away within three hours.  Thank you again to Gwen, Chris and Nancy and all of the parents and students that made this an amazing experience.  I will forever cherish the memories.   

Right now, though, my calendar shows me that I have a workshop in Crawfordsville on Saturday, November 12 to teach about weaving with reclaimed and recycled materials--please do sign up!  You may contact Jessica Madsen for more details.  The workshops will be capped at 10 people, so signing up sooner is better.  At last check we were at five participants.

And finally, the last Pippin performance also coincided with the end of the first trimester of high school for Jacob, who came through stressed but successful.  Tommie is on autopilot, carving through his curriculum as junior.  Coming up sometime in the near future will be a second degree black belt test for the two boys, who have just about completed their weapons training for their cross-training requirement.  We’ve managed to stay on track with Taekwondo training, voice lessons and hip-hop dance training, but we’re now transitioning into the late fall schedule of boy activities.  This week Jacob and I are looking forward to seeing Sweeney Todd at Ivy Tech, while Tommie and I are excited to be at the home opener for IU men's basketball.  Basically, we just buckling our seat belts until Thanksgiving vacation, because it will be a crazy, busy ride with lots of laughs and pie along the way. Oh, and Jim tried to hide it between loaves of bread, but an apple pie emerged from the oven yesterday morning while I was away breaking down the show!  Best.dessert.this.week!!

Until next week

Martina Celerin

The last enchanted rose petal fell…

I am settling back into my writer’s chair, having just rediscovered my art studio and finding just enough time to write about my life again.  I delighted in an extraordinarily packed summer wherein I traveled to art fairs, fulfilled commissions, and created the costumes for Sounds of South’s Beauty and theBeast.  I had a wonderfully successful art fair season, including winning a ‘Best in Show’ award in Madison, Wisconsin’s Art Fair on the Square.  It’s a huge honor, and it includes an automatic invitation to participate in the 2016 event.  I’m already looking forward to traveling back to Madison!  The real elephant in the room, though, which kept me away from blogging, was my role in creating costumes for Beauty and the Beast.  The whole project came together wonderfully as the summer wound down.  The culmination of the process was opening night, October 17^th, when I got to sit in the audience with my hubby and watch the spectacle unfold.  The extraordinarily talented kids, including my son Tommie, really brought the costumes to life and the performance was simply amazing.  I couldn’t help but cry as the story unfolded.  All through the show’s run and beyond the response of the audience has been beyond words.  The entire process, from conceptual design of the costumes to putting the costumes into storage has been incredibly gratifying and unforgettable. 

The end of the run of Beauty and the Beast coincided with the beginning of my fall holiday show season.  That meant that there was little time to regroup before showing my art at the Convention Center.  Now I’m done with shows for the season and I can focus my December on my family and new art creation.  I can re-enter my own little nest, surrounded by boxes and boxes of yarns and collected materials.  I see myself as ‘not too busy’, but my loving spouse might disagree.  I currently have two exhibits hanging and I’m delivering pieces for the third on Monday.  The Bloomington Bagel Company in the Shoppes has ‘Changing Seasons’ and the Convention Center has the group exhibit ‘A Celebration of the Arts’.  The new exhibit will be the Member’s Exhibit of the SDA, the Surface Design Association, at the Blue Line Gallery.  Finally, in mid-December I’ll be sharing my adventures into a different medium by hanging a series of my colored pencil sketches at the Bagel Company on Dunn Street.  The series is called ‘My Summer Vacation’ and features drawings from a trip to Topsail Island in North Carolina this past May.  There will be opening receptions on December 4th for two of the exhibits, so it’s party time!  I’ll give more information in the next blog if you’re interested in attending. 

My major project for November and December is to catch up on all of my business accounting and apply for the next round of summer art fairs.  It’s not very glamorous work, but it’s a necessary task if I want to travel next summer.  I’ll also keep busy doing art during my waiting times when the boys are doing Taekwondo, Brazilian Jiu jitsu, Hip Hop and voice lessons.  I have to keep my hands occupied, so I’ve been needle felting small fruit slices for a new composition.  This past summer I created a piece, ‘Fruit Platter’, that I completed the day before we left for Madison Wisconsin.  We set up the booth and hung the piece, and the very first piece that sold was Fruit Platter.  I feel like I never got to enjoy it, and I never got a quality image of the piece.  I’ve been working on Fruit Platter II, which is now finished and I love this one too!  It is appearing in the Convention Center exhibit and in my application portfolio for summer art fairs. 

The arrival of cooler weather means its time to hunker down and cook chili, soup and lasagna for the freezer.  Everything I do, though, takes me back to art.  I began to recall years passed when we made ‘Fall Stew’ every year by collecting roots from the farmer’s market and cooking them into family dinners.  It sounds very romantic and fulfilling, and it was for a few years.  We made so much of it that it became a bit of a family joke that no one looked forward to.  I missed the nostalgia of it, so to celebrate the memory I’m creating a weaving called ‘Fall Stew’.  It will feature sliced tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, carrots, onions and other roots.  The vegetables will undoubtedly be my handwork project to pass the time during boy activities over the next month or so. 

For those of you who might be concerned that I didn’t get enough pies over the summer break in the blog, rest assured.  I paused during cherry pie season, about the time that Jim put a special pie filling in the freezer for our Mississippi relatives when they came for the Beauty and the Beast performance.  Since then we’ve had tart and sweet cherry, blueberry, peach, rhubarb, rhubarb blueberry, and persimmon pies.  The persimmon version was just a little too intense gastrically, so we won’t be making it again.  My last pie, sadly, was October 24^th when we pulled the tart cherry pie filling from the freezer for our guests.  Martha had never had a real cherry pie—I’m sorry, the canned stuff just doesn’t count.  The pie was awesome, but now it’s time for more!  I’m just going to have to suffer through pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving until I can get back on track with the freezer full of fruit pie filling, just waiting to have their pie dreams fulfilled!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Summer Fruit

It has been a crazy summer already and we’re just a couple of weeks into it.  The thread that has followed me throughout this year is costume design and creation for Beauty and the Beast.  The Sounds of South group at Bloomington High School South will bring this to the stage this coming October.  During the school year I went into the high school every day to create costumes.  Now I manage to get in once a week or so to keep the process moving forward.  I feel like I’m well beyond the halfway point with many of the tricky costumes done, but there are still plenty to make.  Lately I have been focusing on the ball gowns for the last scene.  I finished pinning together the sixth and final gown just this week.  My sewing faeries have been very busy translating my creations connected by safety pins into gowns held together by stitches and hot glue.  

 I just can’t imagine taking on this humongous project without them—I’m incredibly grateful for every last stitch and connection they have put in place.  Plus, they’re a lot of fun to work with!  This is Alice seam ripping gold trim for the beast’s dinner jacket, which is my next big project. 

My art focus of late has been preparing for the Des Moines Art Festival coming up at the end of June.  We’ve been doing a lot of driving, first to North Carolina and most recently to Michigan.  That means that I have been sitting and needle felting as Jim watches the road and keeps an eye out for hawks.  One of the pieces that I’m working toward completing before the show is a piece that will be entitled ‘Fruit Plate.’   

On the drive to Michigan I completed the kiwis, watermelon, lemons, oranges and cherries.  I have still to make apple slices, grapes, and blueberries.  That translates into a lot more dyeing, felting and assembly.  It is a timely piece for me because it reminds me of the bountiful times at farmer’s markets.  On our trips to North Carolina we stopped in at Farmer’s markets along the way to stock up, and our Bloomington Farmer’s market is still rich with strawberries, lots of cherries, greens and more.   

We bought eight pints of tart cherries for two big pies.  Fire up the oven, Jim!  And we can get more cherries next week!!  

I've also completed a large format commission piece for a hospital in Iowa.  They asked me to create a piece that featured a covered bridge over a river in the forest.  I’m happy to say that this year I’ll be bringing that piece along to deliver it to its happy home. This has taken a lot of my time over the past few months to bring together, which makes completion and delivery even more rewarding.  I’m also working hard to make a few new booth pieces for Des Moines, including three that will feature willows.  Last year was the first time I showed a piece with a willow in an outdoor setting.   I just love the way that hanging branches move when a gentle breeze comes into my booth—it makes them look alive. 

On the family front, we recently returned from the second of our summer vacation trips.  The first is our trip to Topsail Island, NC to celebrate the end of the school year.  The four of us rent a house on the beach for a week where it’s wonderful to have quiet time for all of us together.  We search for fossilized shark’s teeth and ray mouth plates, play in the surf and eat fresh fish.  I don’t take any work with me, but I do permit myself to take some colored pencils and paper.

That way if I have an urge to create I have some materials.  This year the urge was strong!   

I just really enjoyed myself sketching on the beach and the walkway over the dunes to the beach.  This past week we returned from the second trip, this time to Michigan.  Grandma hosted Dave and Martha from Mississippi, Haley and Arya from New Mexico and the four of us, spread throughout her house.  It was a fun time, packed with family adventures.  Nothing too exciting—we went on shopping trips to Wilson’s cheese shop in Linwood, Northwoods Outlet for art supplies in Pinconning, and over to the Oasis in Bay City for the classic perch fry dinner.   

There was a lot of sitting around the kitchen table and sharing stories and laughing.  I do vaguely remember having a few pies along the way, but I’ve forgotten the details.  I do know that there is a bowl of pitted tart cherries in the fridge waiting for a cool morning to turn into a pie.  Please let it be cool tomorrow morning!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin