Summertime travel, with art packed in the crevices…

It has been a jam-packed month since I last posted.  This is likely to be the summer pattern until I make it through the summer art fair travel season.  On the bright side, my days have been filled with family time, enjoyable workshops, work on commissions and preparations for travel to art fairs.  First came the family time.  At the end of the school year we made our annual trek to Topsail Island in North Carolina.  I thoroughly love people and interacting with them to share ideas, but at some point I just need some down time with my wonderful family.  This year we opted to spend two wonderful weeks relaxing on the beach.  

 It was exactly what I needed to recuperate and regroup before my busy summer schedule begins.  We ate fresh ocean fish (grilled amberjack was a very nice surprise), walked in the surf, collected fossilized shark’s teeth and found seashells. Jim made three glorious pies while we were there.  One was a blueberry-strawberry pie from local fruit and two were peach pies, baked together when Jim realized he had way too much filling for the available pie plates.  The time off was just what I needed.

On the drive home from Topsail the boys dropped me off in Richmond Virginia for my workshop.  One of the organizers is a long-time Facebook friend, Elizabeth Woodford.  She met me in Richmond and brought me to Fredericksburg.  We had a fabulous hour-long drive where we finally got to talk one-on-one and bond.  I think we must have been sisters in a previous life.  She’s an amazing person and I’m so glad to have finally connected with her to share a big hug.  After dropping boxes of workshop supplies at the Artful Dimensions gallery, Elizabeth delivered me to my hosts, Barbara and Bobby Posey.   

What amazing people!  They were gracious, generous, fun and interesting.  I just can’t even come up with enough positive adjectives to describe them.  We had such wonderful conversations.  I’m just delighted to be part of their world. 

I arrived in Fredericksburg early enough to be a tourist for a day.  I had the opportunity to visit some interesting local sites, some historical and some artistic.  I was as struck by the cannonballs embedded in a church since the civil war as I was exploring the local galleries that featured contemporary artists.   

That includes some fiber artists using synthetic felt and heat guns to create sculptures and textures that almost looked aquatic.  I have stored away some ideas that I’m sure will influence future pieces of mine.  We walked and had a wonderful time, but I was jarred into some of the realities of the civil war era.  The slave auction block in downtown Fredericksburg stands in stark contrast to the quaint charm of the historic southern town. 

The next day, Monday, was the beginning of the workshop.  Fifteen participants arrived, bringing a very high level of enthusiasm.  Working with them was somewhat intimidating because most were accomplished artists in their own right.  

 They embraced my ideas of weaving outside of the conventional structured methodologies and incorporating non-conventional materials into the weave structures and the weavings.   

We all had fun pushing the envelope of creating art in unexplored areas.  I truly enjoyed seeing the pieces that were created at the workshop and the sharing of ideas among the participants.  

 I’m looking forward to seeing how their workshop experiences influence their subsequent pieces.

On Wednesday I flew home to Bloomington for a day and a half.  That was just long enough to do laundry and re-pack my suitcase for a trip to Michigan.   

At Grandma’s house in Kawkawlin we overlapped with Martha and Dave from Mississippi and Haley, Kris and Arya from New Mexico.  It was a full house, including one giant family dinner with the Gibsons from next door and Aunt Lois from Essexville.   

Dave and Kris each got to spend a day with Jim and Tommie on Saginaw bay fishing for walleyes.  This was the first venture of the new boat onto Michigan waters.  They were very pleased with the boat and the fishing, resulting in a delightful fish fry and a freezer full of walleyes to bring home. 

During all my early summer adventures I have been working on my commission piece, which involves needle felting of a large number of leaves.  I have a mountain of sweet pea leaves completed as well as leaves for a lily plant and a blueberry bush.  Now that I’m home I can start assembling the pieces I created on my travels.  I can’t rest for too long, though, because I’m scheduled to travel to the Des Moines Art Fair next weekend.  

 I picked up my weavings from my exhibit at the Bloomingon Bagel Company and I’m beginning to pack the rest of my weavings for the trip.  I’m looking forward to my first art fair, but there hasn’t been a pie for breakfast since North Carolina.  On the bright side, we caught the tart cherry pie season yesterday morning at the Farmer’s market and bought enough tart cherries for three pies later in the season.  Tart cherries make my favorite pie, so I know I’m in for some treats.   

When I get home I’m imagining that I might get a blueberry pie as a reward for a successful trip west to Iowa.  Bring on the art fair!   

Until next week, or sometime soon,

Martina Celerin

From summer back to spring!

Last week I packed up my warm weather clothes and hopped on a plane.  I was commissioned to hold a fiber arts workshop in Tuscon, Arizona.  I left a foot of snow on the ground with a hopeful suitcase full of shorts and light clothes to match predicted highs in the mid eighties.  And Tuscon came through!  I had a fabulous time at the workshop, and the beautiful high desert setting didn’t disappoint either.  I’ve never been to a climate like that before—it’s so distinct from anyplace I’ve ever been.  I’ve seen cacti in New Mexico, but never stands of saguaros and dense fields of cacti.  There were even saguaros in the medians of the highways!  I was amazed!

 I found it fascinating that there were no trees or bushes taller than about fifteen feet.  Somehow that makes the sky look even bigger.   The days were wonderfully warm in the mid eighties every day.  Even better, the group of seven people in the workshop were just an enthusiastic bunch, bringing varied backgrounds and experiences. 

  Some had done extensive workshops in tapestry and were used to being very rigid and structured and exacting.  I tried to push them out of their comfort zone and into creating organic shapes with non-conventional materials.  They mixed different weights and types of yarns and it was interesting to watch them evolve and grow into their more relaxed and reflective creations.   

Others had never woven in their lives, so the idea of creating fabric from yarn was novel and exciting.  They were all ready to try new things and take on challenges.  That made it even more rewarding for me.  When I teach workshops I never begin with a preconceived notion of what the art should look like at the end.  I never hold paint by number workshops—I try to be very much open as to how the process develops.  

 Every hour or so I introduce a new technique, approach or combination that people may incorporate or explore as well.  Every couple of hours we have a stretching fest where I get all of the participants to stand up and move their bodies [I’m thinking of you, Darrelyn]!  

 The participants and I then walk around to see how others are interpreting the new techniques.  By the end of the workshop the people are creating their own applications and sharing what they developed with their cohorts.  They all seemed happy with what they accomplished.   

Overall, I’m delighted with how everything turned out. 

I have to thank my hosts for the five days stay, Lura and Jill.  Oh my gosh they were just so perfect!   

We had such a wonderful time.  I’m so incredibly grateful to them for hosting me.  They were everything from tour guides to wine stewards and baristas.  They came with two wonderful dogs, Teddy and Romie, who took me for walks through the neighborhood each evening.  I discovered amazing rock hounding, learned the names of mountains and plants, and was able to pepper them with questions about the flora and fauna.

Lura is a fabulous gardener and she always had a thoughtful answer to my questions about what I observed.  She is also a production weaver and creates baby blankets and chenille scarves and shawls.  Jill spins exceedingly fine yarn.  I think her favorite is silk and wool that she uses to create lacework.  They work with local cotton growers and are a resource for the processed cotton products in a rainbow of natural colors.  They are both retired nurses that saw the light and are now both fiber people, which gave us a lot to talk about.  Plus, they’re just a lot of fun—we laughed a lot. 

There is a funny story about how the workshop came to be.  About two years ago Wendy, one of the workshop participants, saw my work on Pinterest and contacted me about visiting Tuscon to do the workshop.  The cogs turned slowly but effectively.  Roxanne, the workshop coordinator, brought the whole trip together.  I’m very grateful to both of them for making this all work out.  I came home with a brain full of textures, colors and ideas.  I’m not exactly sure how that will translate into my own work but somehow I know it will.  I’ve already been hearing from my friends that I’ll be needle felting cacti and using toothpicks for spines.  Everyone has an idea for me.   

I came home to a wonderful family with open arms and lots of hugs.  Plus the house was clean—OMG!  It was terrific to see my family.  On Friday I launched back into SOS (Sounds of South) costumes and I just about completed the Le Fou jacket.  This is a costume I sketched on a piece of scrap paper as I watched the boys do Taekwondo before I left.  

 It would be done now if the rainy Friday didn’t prevent me from spray painting the buttons I needed.  Oh, and on the way home I did some sketching for still more costumes.  I need to accommodate the new additions to SOS that auditioned into the group while I was gone.  Things are moving along well on the costumes in progress over the past few weeks, such as completing Babette’s feather duster gloves.   

We riveted the napkin ring waistband closures and laced up the last of the village boy’s shirts.  And no blog would be complete without mentioning the pie status, especially on international pie day (3.14.15).  Sadly, the closest I came was cold, leftover pizza pie with my coffee this morning.  Ugh!  The fruit fairy really needs to visit soon. 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin