Looking back at a crazy fall…

Last week I dropped off several of my latest art pieces at By Hand Gallery, closing the door on my frenetic efforts to build an inventory for fall shows and holiday events.  Two weeks ago I was still preparing for the Artisan’s Guild show at the Convention Center while I was organizing my exhibit in the Roger’s Room titled ‘Nature to Nurture.’  The events were a lot of fun, as usual.  It gives me the opportunity to chat with people that I don’t normally connect with during the year.  My newest tiles were well received by the passers by, and I think that people were happy to see the smaller format.  We chatted about the concept behind them, which is valuing the smaller things in life.  

 In the end, they’re what really matters.  The Rogers Room lies across the hall from my booth, so I very much enjoyed participating in the opening reception for my exhibit.  A special thanks to Patty Russo for all she did to make it successful and her ongoing support.  The exhibit’s title, 'Nature to Nature,' really tells the story of the exhibit.  The layout begins with sky and water themes and moves to pieces that feature landscapes and trees.  It transitions into compositions that imagine how we interact with agriculture and gardening, ending with a bounty of fruits and vegetables. 

 I added a tiled display of individual vegetables that I’m thinking of as visual recipes, but focusing on the individual vegetable on its own highlights how each plant is important and contributes to greater things.  It speaks to the bounty that we really have in this community. 

Closing the door on my shows brought me back to the reality of my last workshop for the year.  I spend months organizing and collecting materials for each workshop, but there’s always a last minute push to be sure I have enough looms and unique materials for each exploration of weaving techniques.   

I had an enthusiastic group of weavers on Saturday that were energized and ready to create!  It’s funny because it is always a challenge when I have weavers as participants.  Asking them to break from the rules and move away from straight lines and strict edges brings out a saucer eyed look.  I ask them to trust me—we’ll all hold hands and jump off the bridge together.  You might scrape your knees, and the cold water is a shock, but it will be worth it!  I was delighted to see them experimenting by combining different weights of yarn, weaving structures and throwing the concept of straight lines to the wind. 

 I feel like I can offer them a bunch of new tools for their artistic toolboxes and I can’t wait to see what comes from their experience.  As always, however, the best part of my adventures is coming home.  Saturday night night was no exception.  My family delayed dinner to surprise me with a delightful feast of ginger glazed salmon, fresh salad, rice and a still warm apple pie made from local golden delicious apples that Jim bought at the farmer’s market. 

Now I can rest!  OK, maybe not.  I need to put the Pippin costumes to bed and begin organizing fabrics, trim, props and everything else for next year’s adventure.  One of the participants at the workshop asked me what I do in my spare time—what’s my hobby?  Creating art is my career and my hobby.  It just fills my life.  It’s what I love to do.  And I have such a wonderful family to support me in all my adventures! 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

The felting continues!

I have been trying to balance my art creation time between wet and needle felting projects.  After the boys are off to school each morning I transform the kitchen into a wet felting studio.  The height of the central island is perfect for keeping my back happy as I work.  I have been playing more with colors as I create vessels that are dimensional and textured.  It has been a lot of fun to explore little experiments using merino top with different colors and exterior patterns.  I’m learning about how the wet felting technique itself affects the outcome.

For example, if I do the entire felting and fulling process on the resist (a balloon), I can encourage the fibers closest to the balloon to migrate to the surface.  I realized this because when I use two colors of fleece I can get the lower fleece to peek through the upper layer.  If I do the fulling without the resist, the process happens more quickly but I don’t get as many inner fibers peeking through the surface layer.  I have some more ideas on how to create new textures on the surface and I’ll experiment with those this week.  I feel like I’m on a fun working vacation by taking a break from my weaving. 

I have spent a lot of time creating tiles that will act as backdrops for my new my individual felted fruits and vegetables tiles.  In this project I have benefitted from the fabulous advertising job that Cardinal Stage Company does in town.  They use corrugated plastic yard signs to get the word out about their shows, but unfortunately the material is not recyclable.   

I have found lots of uses for them in costume and prop creation for Pippin, but now I’m using them as a rigid support for the black felt background for my small tile pieces.  This week I focused on creating turnips, oranges, and jalapenos to feature on the tiles.  My collection of felted pieces is steadily growing, so I should a nice collection by November 4^th.  That’s the opening date for the Artisan’s Guild show at the Convention Center, which runs Friday from 5 to 9 and Saturday from 9 to 5 on November 4^th and 5^th. 

Saturday proved to be a wonderful day for a morning visit to the farmer’s market.  The weather was cool, crisp and amazing.  Marina at le Petit Café served us hot cocoa and mocha to warm us up until we got into the sun, but soon we were focused on the abundance of fall vegetables.  We will have family visiting each of the next two weekends for Pippin and I’m planning to make a big pot of vegetarian chili and freeze it in meal size units.  I’ll be sneaking in a lot of yummy vegetables—red peppers, onions, eggplant, zucchini, summer squash—and may be even sweet potatoes.  I love to have meals in the freezer!  They are also perfect for family evenings when everyone is exhausted and no one is excited about making dinner.  It is good to have something ready to pull out.  The last word of the week goes for a pie report.  I finished the last slice of the apple pie on Friday and no replacement appeared on Saturday!  I didn’t see any raspberries Saturday at the market, and I guess it’s too soon for another apple pie.  Grandma and Tim are visiting this weekend and I’m sure they’re going to want a pie.  I can’t wait to see what happens!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Making mini Martinas…

I’m wearing three hats this week!  The first is my needle felting hat.  I had so much fun last fall creating the needle felted vegetable and fruit collage pieces that I decided to scale down to make individual felted pieces.  Each fruit and vegetable really is its own mini artwork full of visual information, detail and interest.  Some are symmetrical, others are not, and often the subject brings vibrant colors.  I’m now thinking about my fruits and vegetables as small tiles that can be combined for display.   

The project fits with my fall life because Saturday mornings revolve around trips to the farmer’s market—yesterday was a three-bag haul, with lettuce, apples, garlic, peppers and more.  There is such a bounty of the harvest on display in rich, warm fall colors.  The vegetable haul mirrors the social experience, seeing lots of friends and regulars.  Marina at Le Petit Café becomes a regular fall connection with special hot chocolate and coffees for the family, and Maria from Piccoli Dolci often provides a special treat.  The man who sells us jam and jellies knows that our teenage boys eat through whatever we buy (and hence will be back).  The farmer who saved a huge bag of onion skins for me thought I was a little crazy, but they proved to be the perfect source for the dye to create an accurate onion skin color.  The whole Saturday morning adventure just fits so well with my art. 

My second hat is a wet felting hat. Not that I’m felting hats!  I had a fabulous experience a couple of weeks ago in Fredericksburg, starting with a workshop by Pamela MacGregor and continuing with Elizabeth Woodford, that started me thinking about wet felting vessels.  I’m now playing with different fibers and experimenting with new techniques.  I really want to be able to create textures and then embed objects into my vessels, much like my weavings where I create underground scenes. That way you’re encasing memories and stories in the vessels.  At this point, though, I need to sort out the techniques first.  That’s about the time when my science background kicks in.  I started by creating flat felt circles and embedded various yarns (synthetics, wools, sisal and felt balls).  I learned a lot from my first piece and launched into creating a few simple vessels.

My third hat is maintaining and tweaking costumes for Pippin costumes and props.  The big performance at Bloomington High School South starting October 15^th and running for two more weeks on Saturday nights.  You can order tickets here. The costumes themselves are finished, but those darn kids keep growing!  Final adjustments are in order so the costumes fit perfectly on the night of the performance.  Watching the rehearsals over the summer has been revealing, because socks slowly appear as legs grow longer while the pants do not.  Come see Tommie, who is Charlemagne in the first two performances (October 15 and 22), while Jacob is a magician in all of the shows.  I’m looking forward to seeing the visual spectacle as my art pieces dance around the stage!  Oh, and I’ve heard that the kids might sing too :)

The big news in my workshop world is that I'll be doing another workshop - next month - in Crawfordsville, IN.  If you are interested in participating, please contact the event organizer, Jessica Madsen at jdpmadsen@gmail.com  It will be a one day workshop on Saturday November 12, from 9:30am - 5:50pm.

 And on the family front, we’ve been taking in some theater of late. Last Friday we saw BPP’s ‘30 Days of Mourning’ that featured Steve Scott (aka the boy’s taekwondo instructor) Paul Kuhne (an amazing actor and friend) and Aubrey Seader (a fabulous actress and Sounds of South alumna).  It was amazing!  The interactions were believable, intense, and powerful.  The actors embraced the roles such that you were immersed in the situation and rooting for the characters.  On Friday night we saw Cardinal’s performance of Baskerville.  What a fun production!  The staging was phenomenal.  They brought the Hound to life, even if it didn’t end well for the sheep in the performance or the spectral hound who attacked the Baskerville clan.  The pacing was fast and the costume changes constant, which made for a very entertaining evening.  I love having two such strong theater companies in our town.  As I started to write this on Saturday, I wasn’t sure there was going to be a pie for the report.  Fortunately, Jim found some gold rush apples at the farmer’s market.  He got up early to make a pie this morning!  It looks great, but I won’t know for sure until dinner tonight.  I’ll provide a report when I can.

Until next week

Martina Celerin