Arts Fair on the Square, revitalized.

The big news of the week is that I’m closing in on completing the big commission piece—the last pieces should be in place by the end of the week.  I’m just delighted with how it’s turning out.  On the drive back from Michigan I made a bunch more leaf clumps for the forest canopy.  I was sure I had plenty and a few to spare.  This week I attached them, and lo and behold, I was still shy a few clumps.  Some days my husband thinks I’m a few leaf clumps shy of a canopy, but I still love him.  A few afternoons watching the boys do Taekwondo (actually, not watching) and I had enough clumps.  I completed the canopy, stood back, and thought: “wow!”  The dimensionality and density of the greens is really dramatic in person.  I just need to attach the greenery to create the forest understory, which is in progress, and add some rocks and sticks along the path.  Now I’m mentally in completion mode so it won’t be long now.

Saturday brought Arts Fair on the Square back to Bloomington.  This year I decided to participate again because Chad from the BPP took over advertising and marketing.  Chad is just an awesome, energetic individual, just the right person to be in charge.  The show truly was revitalized, with big steady crowds passing through all day.  Set-up and take-down were smoother, easier and safer this year with the adjacent roads closed off.  Chad just did everything right, except for not having a ‘Best-in-Show’ award.  He set that right by making me a special star for my booth—thanks Chad!  You’ve nicely revitalized a Bloomington tradition. 

At the show itself I ran into a lot of interesting people.  I saw two sets of kids that were classmates of Tommie and Jacob at Hoosier Courts years ago.  They’ve changed so much I wouldn’t have recognized them out of context—wow have they grown!  I guess my boys have changed a little too.  I was thrilled that Tommie volunteered to get up at 5:30 am and help me set up the show.  He turned out to be an amazing assistant.  He lugged the four fifty pound weights up the hill to my booth location, as well as all the really heavy stuff I needed to set up.  He never complained at any point, always asking instead what needed to be done next for both set-up and take-down.  Tommie was just incredibly competent and helpful—thank you so much!  Oh, and I have one more funny story to tell.  I was off on a break and Jim was booth sitting for me when a senior IU official came walking by.  He recognized her but doesn’t know her well.  She walked past, looked right through Jim and pointed out to her friend that Martina had “just finished the turtle piece.”  Sometimes Jim feels like everyone in town knows me and everything I’m doing.  He couldn’t understand how she knew that I was even making a turtle piece, but I’m sure she must have come through on the open studios tour when it was in progress.  It is finished now, and I’m delighted with how it turned out—my little turtle friend has a nice shady home in the garden understory. 

A last good note from the week:  after the fair set up, Jim and the boys ventured to the Farmer’s Market Saturday for their usual treats and vegetable stock-up.  They came home with three quarts of blueberries for a giant pie that I’ve been enjoying all week long.  The berries are a little tart, which makes for a very flavorful pie.  The summer is off to a good start!  Is peach pie next, sweetie pie?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

The turtles and ponds on the road to citizenship…

Last week I spent as much time in my art studio making art as I could. A few times my mind jumped back to the brain project and what I had to complete that day, only to remember quickly that I was done! As I mentioned last week, I first had to reclaim my space. My boys and their friends do a lot of projects in my studio. Their materials had spilled way over into my usual space. Things just got dumped and dumped again. When my space was organized I first wove the background to a turtle piece that I’ve been envisioning. It speaks to how I’ve been feeling as the seasons change—I’m ready to stick my head out from inside my shell. All around me the spring creatures are crawling, flying and hopping, making the world seem more alive. I did a dimensional crochet to build up the ground so that it now sticks forward about six inches. That’s the surface upon which the turtle will eventually sit, peeking out from under a canopy of ash leaves. I have a soft spot for ash trees right now because of the damage they are suffering across the Midwest at the teeth of the emerald ash borer. I will eventually attach the compound leaves to the weaving to shelter my turtle, which I’ve decided will be an ornate box turtle. The pattern on their shells is quite variable, which gives me a lot of flexibility to create a design that is both satisfying to me and true to nature. Fortunately for me, the boys have had several basketball adventures to local parks to play, in between taekwondo and hip-hop classes, so I’ve had plenty of time to sit and poke at my turtle.

Working on my turtle also led me into thoughts about ponds and the life that springs up around them in the spring. I pulled out my spring yellow yarns and started working on the background for a piece I want to call Sunrise at Goose pond. I don’t know why, exactly, it just felt like the right name. I want to capture the marshy wetness, the vibrant green colors and the deep, rich almost black mud with grasses growing out of it. In the distance will be the beginnings of a sunrise, with a bright yellowness cracking open the dark night sky.

Friday was a big day for me. I went to bed early to get a good night’s sleep, skipped my Zumba class to feel well rested, and drove north to Indianapolis with Jim. I had my official interview for citizenship, complete with a US civics test. I was armed with all sorts of useful knowledge about the US government, my state representatives, the Supreme Court and the Constitution. I’m delighted to report that not only did I get a perfect score on the test, my friendly examiner just stopped asking questions when I had enough to pass the test and thanked me for studying! He recommended me for approval after about fifteen minutes. All that stands between me and voting is final approval and taking the oath in a month or two. I just can’t wear jeans or flip-flops—I think I can manage that. I also learned this morning that when you pass your citizenship test you get a pie! It’s peach! If I had known that I would have applied years ago!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

French Onion Soup and Blackberry Pie

I had a big landmark in my art career this week: my boys went back to school! First there was the mad rush to get all the school supplies together. Then I thought I was going to have big blocks of time to get things done, but somehow a lot of time was consumed doing paperwork. Somewhere in the middle Tommie’s cast came off, his broken arm mended. This week I’m going to park my bottom in my cool art studio and get weaving! Yippee!

I guess I did get a lot of art done this week too. Mostly I worked on my whimsical bird piece. I had been struggling with how to translate my tree sketch into a wire and felt object. The big issue was creating tapered tree branches that were thin at the ends of the curly branches and thick at the base near the trunk. I started with a thin wire core that I bent and wrapped for the curly ends. As I moved from the curly ends to the stout base, I increased the thickness by incorporating some really nice felt wool fabric that I got from Kathey Gibson on a trip to Michigan. I cut it into triangles, pointy ends facing the thin tips, and kept wrapping the branches with these filler pieces to bulk them up. I then used thick strips of the felt to wrap the tree trunk and create the general tree shape I wanted. Finally, I just needle felted on top of the crude trunk to smooth it into the shape and color I wanted. I’m delighted with how it turned out! I’ve propped it together to see how it looks, and next week I’ll “nail” it all down on the woven background.

With all my successes on the stove last week, starting with fresh yummy bruschetta and ending with sumac dyeing, I decided to continue the trend. This week I had tomatoes, tomatillos and cilantro, so of course it was time to make salsa. I also decided it was time to bring out my collection of frozen onion skins. I collect the brown outer layers every time I break into an onion for cooking and store them in a bag in the freezer. This week I got frustrated with the disordered state of the freezer and decided to organize it a bit. I came across the onion skins and decided there were enough for the dye pot, so out they came to make a little space. I cooked them for an hour, steeped them over night, strained the skins the next day, then warmed it back up so it would be cozy for my fleece. Every project is an experiment for me, so I threw in three different kinds of fleece, all white, to see what would happen. I left the fleece in the pot overnight and was surprised and pleased when I saw the three very different caramel colors. I also saw that there was enough color in the pot to try again, so I threw in some more fleece. The materials that spent two nights in the pot were darker still—what a surprise! Next time I need to work with ‘time in the dye pot’ as a variable. This is obvious in hindsight but it never occurred to me until I saw the results of the experiment.

I have a lot on my plate these days, such as the Fourth Street Art Fair coming up on Labor Day weekend. I’m also doing a workshop for teachers in Danville, Indiana, in early October. Last time we made ornaments, but not everyone who wanted to come could make it so we scheduled a second session in October. I proposed that we could make felted hearts or turtles, and we’re likely going with the turtles. I’ve been making demonstration turtles parts so that I can show the pieces in stages—kind of like a cooking show where they have the beautiful torte already baked to pull out at the end. This turtle is more whimsical than my previous ones, when I was trying for accuracy. I like how my prototype came together, and I like his tilted head and the quizzical look that gives him. It’s kind of like the look I get from Jim when I ask him when he’s going to clean the bathroom.

And speaking of my sweet husband, this week’s pie was made from the last of the season blackberries. Mmmmmm…

Until next week…

Martina Celerin