Yellow

If you’ve ever driven through a neighborhood where the lawn was a solid, lush monoculture of well-bred grass seeds, well, that wasn’t our neighborhood, and it certainly wasn’t our lawn. I sometimes wonder if the lush lawn society harbors a certain paranoia that the weeds are watching them. The dandelions would take the lead in filling yards with yellow monitoring devices. After a while they turn into communications devices, spreading seeds to all the neighbor yards. It’s especially hard to infiltrate lawns laced with pesticides and patrolled by curmudgeons with bludgeons, but dandelions are fearless. I’ll admit it—they’ve won me over. I love to see them in lawns. They’re such a pretty yellow, and spring is such a yellow flower season. And they really are determined and fearless, ready to establish and prosper anywhere. Those are admirable qualities in anyone. I took a few pictures this week to show some of my favorite yellow friends to show what I mean.

Of course if you know me at all, you know that what captures my imagination in life ends up in my work. I decided this week to work on a piece called ‘Lawn Flowers’. I’ve done a similar piece that was popular and the composition made me happy, so I decided it was time to re-imagine the dandelion as beauty in the lawn. I pulled out my wonderful crunchy spring green yarns to start. For a moment I wasn’t sure if I should weave or make a salad. I’m envisioning a thick green base, as if you’re looking at the lawn from an angle, with three clumps of dandelions flowering. In a perfect coincidence, I ran into my friend Bonnie Gordon-Lucas at Bloomingfoods this week and had a spontaneous lunch date. The lunch was good, but she was concerned that I should be incorporating some reds and yellows into my green grass. We also bonded on the wonderful spring green colors that you can only see this time of year. If you look closely at the emerging foliage you can see the rich, iridescent greens that seem to darken as the summer goes on. We science geeks know that the leaves start to produce anthocyanin pigments to absorb the intense sunlight of summer, and those “non-green” pigments mask the spring beauty. Enjoy it while you can!

Speaking of yellow, I’ve been working on the fourth salamander for my ‘Salamander Salsa’ piece. Perhaps it’s subconscious, but I decided to make a Barred Tiger Salamander. He’s bright yellow with a black barring pattern, kind of like a tiger, only less orange and feline and more yellow and amphibian. So far I’ve only made the body, so he isn’t much of a threat to run away until I can add his legs. The ones I’ve made are more mobile, so I have to keep a closer eye on them. I don’t dare take them anywhere any more. So now I’m sitting at four-salamander salsa and waiting for two more guests.

The last big news is that this week was the Fiber Event in Greencastle. I carpooled there with Ruth Rives, a sweet friend with firm opinions. She recently started weaving and is really enjoying it. Overall, we had a delightful drive through the country on a warm and sunny spring day. We ended up spending several hours at the fair, longer than we expected, poking around in all the piles of fleece and yarns. I couldn’t wait to get home to start mixing green fleece with the drum carder I borrowed from the Spinners and Weaver’s guild. I’m trying to get just the right dark green for the dandelion foliage. And speaking of pleasant drives through the country, I also went to a reception for the recycled art show hanging the new Hotel Indigo in Columbus Indiana. The show looks great (stop by if your in the neighborhood!) and the reception was nice…thanks, Marilyn. It was followed by a fun visit to the recently re-opened ice cream parlor, Zaharakos. I got to see the massive musical instrument, the Welte orchestrion and sit at the marble bar. It felt like you were in a 1950s movie to see all the little spigots for soda. I had some nice conversations over a grilled cheese sandwich and a fruit cup. I forced myself to try and ignore the most amazing banana split walking past me, as well as all the other old fashioned ice cream treats. The good news is that I have two boys who will accompany me there in the summer to help me decide which to try first.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

In they go!

My elder has a joke this week that goes: “Do you know what I do when I’m feeling blue?” The answer is: “I stop holding my breath!” My plan for turning blue was to connect with Mary Pendergrass in Nashville last week. Mary was running a workshop on indigo dyeing from Thursday through Saturday that I really wanted to attend. So of course on Friday evening I was thinking there was something I should be doing but I couldn’t think what. Arrghhh! Indigo dyeing! So I called up Mary to ask what was happening on Saturday. It turned out to be a ‘mini workshop’ for anyone who wanted to come. She told me I could bring all the skeins I wanted and to show up at 9:30. I didn’t need to be told twice and I was there with bright eyes and bells on. I also had lots of white fleece, wool skeins and a blank pad of paper. Was it ever worth it! I was the only person who turned up, and Mary was an incredibly good teacher and very helpful. I got to ask all the questions I wanted (which means a lot). Mary was very generous with her time, advice and materials, and we talked about colors, techniques and sources. Armed with new materials and ideas I’m already plotting uses for my new indigo materials in holiday ornaments and other projects.

The first thing I learned was that indigo dyeing is a little stinky. On came the long gloves, in went the yarn and I learned that rapid immersion is crucial to the process. It’s important to exclude air from the process, so you don’t want to froth around in the pot as the yarn goes in. In the dye pot the color is an exquisite deep teal color—I’d like to be able to capture that color! Once in the pot you work the yarns to get the dye throughout the skein, under any ties and deep into the fabric. When the yarn comes out of the pot the color transforms into the deep indigo hue characteristic of the process. The whole thing is really cool to watch, and now I’m excited to try this at home. Thanks Mary! The process was punctuated by periodic calls from Mary’s husband. He was watching the weather on radar, and he’d call us with warnings about heavy rain on the way and sent us inside on a couple of occasions in anticipation of impending doom. I guess Mary has an HoA (husband of artist) kind of like mine!

The rest of the week was hectic as I prepared for a new show at the By Hand gallery. I’ll be on hand for the reception from 5-7 this Friday so be sure to stop in when you’re on the Gallery Walk. Later in the week I put together a weaving and a stack of cards to mail to a gallery in Madison, Wisconsin. The owner saw my work during the Madison Art Fair and asked if she could hang some pieces in her gallery. Hmmmm, let me see. OK, YES! That was very flattering, and my web check of the place shows that my work will have a good home. That’s good to know. Last, my personal achievement of the week was when I got green beans on Wednesday from the CSA and had to slip them past my green-bean-hating-HoA. Well, I did it! I have a special dish I make where the beans are chopped up fine, lightly cooked and carefully disguised in a flavorful sauce that is put over rice. And…he liked it!

Until next week,

Green Grapes and Soup

What a pleasant Saturday this is! Normally I’d be showing at Art Fair on the Square today (here in Bloomington), but this year I decided to take the day off. I’ll replace the show with an adventure to Madison for their version of Art Fair on the Square, which is downtown in the Capitol of Wisconsin in early July. So instead of getting up early and getting set up I got to sleep in a little and begin my relaxed Saturday at the farmer’s market. We traditionally have part of our breakfast there. That usually means scones, muffins, cookies or croissants. It also means cheese curds, the freshest cucumbers of the season and whatever else we happen to find that fits the taste of the family. This week it was blueberries for a pie (yum!), peaches, and some flowers that needed a home. From the market we strolled over to the Square to inspect the art and engage in a little friendly artist-chat. The rest of the family played games on the cannon and the big grate on the northwest corner of the Square. The highlight, though, was finding Eleanor Broaded. She’s a jeweler based in Indianapolis and I love her work. For some reason, though, her elegant earrings somehow get caught in my clothes and fall off without me noticing. This year I got a nice brown ceramic pair of earrings that I really like. That made the whole walk worthwhile.

In the art world, I’m beginning a new project. I’m starting a still life intended to go above a mantelpiece over a fire. To begin I made a series of sketches, and the one that started to take shape in my mind is shown. I fleshed out the thumbnail layout to come up with a working composition that includes three candles, apples, grapes, cherries and lots of juicy colors. I began by creating the grapes, and of course that means a trip to Bloomingfoods to get the green, organic grapes for a model. The setback in this part of this story is that the grapes sat in the car next to the eSoA (elder son of artist) on the way home. He scarfed them down, leaving me with a good model for the stems but no grapes. So I scampered off to O’Malias, got more grapes that stayed in the front seat, and quickly got them down to my art studio. I pulled out three different green fleece to create the grape green, two of which I dyed myself last year. I carded them together and needle felted them into grape shapes. The process is very time consuming but I think they’re cute. Next I’ll create the stem parts (I’m all set on models there).

My other activity over the past two days has been converting our CSA (community supported agriculture) harvest into something compatible with freezer storage and quick dinners. On Friday I made a big batch of a soup I really like –Hungarian cabbage and dumpling soup. The HoA (husband of artist) really likes this soup too, but he doesn’t know about the secret ingredient that he would never eat (sauerkraut). Today I also made ‘Lois Soup’, named after a friend of the family (Lois Graham) who introduced it to us as a non-vegetarian friendly recipe. I made a few changes here and there, and voila! A hearty kale-based vegetarian soup. It had fresh garlic and onions from the farmer’s market, a little bay and rosemary from my kitchen plants, and a few secret ingredients I’d never put into writing. A cook has to have a few secrets!

One last bit of news—I have a new bike. At least it’s a new-to-me bike. I used to have a 1960s era English-made bike that was a hand-me-down from Grandpa. He demanded a big, comfy seat in his bikes, and that was its best feature. But after a 10-mile bike ride with the eSoA last week it was clear I needed something more than the clunky old one-speed I had. So I hopped over to the Bicycle Garage and found a used bike that needed a good home. It was hard to give up my big cushy seat, but the fellow there assured me that the seat would be equally comfy. Hmmm…we’ll just see!

Until next week…

Back to Work!

This week it's back to work. My focus has been on my "Tree Woman" commission piece. The trunk is filling in nicely, the arms and legs are in place, and the branches are now wrapped. I struggled a bit with matching the trunk color, which is a rich warm brown, with the branch color. I was sure I'd have a good brown yarn to match for wrapping the baling wire branches, but digging through my stash of yarns convinced me that I had a problem. I did come up with four close colors, and close counts in fiber art if they combine effectively. So the branches are wrapped with four different browns, and I find that the subtle color differences bring out elements of the trunk and earth. The remaining parts of the weaving, such as the green foliage and the dimensional crocheted background, are in place. Next week the Tree Woman will emerge!

I also had a great time this week at the Indiana Recycling Coalition's annual conference at the Bloomington Convention Center. Marilyn Brackney put together a show of recycled art to go along with it, and I'm grateful to her for all the work she did in bringing the show together. I know firsthand what a chore it is to orchestrate an event involving artists. I met a lot of interesting people from all over Indiana, including the fellow who runs the company that makes the baling wire I often use for structural support in my needle felting creations that reside in my weavings. You can bet I'll pay him a visit to collect more scraps! I sold one piece to Therese from Valparaiso (The Offering–see the March 21st and 28th posts). They're big on composting, and I know the piece will have a good home. That makes me feel good. It was also fun to hang a show with my friend Cappi Phillips, who's always a stitch to hang out with. I did have to give her my angry face when she tried to use her big, rusty upholstery hooks that would have ripped big holes in my nice new fabric display panels. Grrrr--rufff! I loaned her some of my shiny thin hooks and peace was restored.

This week Franklin Indiana hosted the Fiber Art Fair. Last year the severe flooding in central Indiana literally washed it out, but this year I made it back to pick up supplies. I dropped the boys off at the summer art camp at the John Waldron Arts Center, picked up a wallet full of cash from the HoA (husband of Artist), and got his agreement to pick up the boys at four. I headed for Franklin and didn't look back! I found beautiful Mohair, dyed to vibrant purple, deep sea blue and electric lime colors. The intensity of the colors is amazing. I also snagged some nice rayon dyed purple from Robin Edmunsen. I have a great idea for that as part of a wet-felting project I want to do this fall to make another scarf. I was also shocked to see how much her girls have grown up–they were off demonstrating spinning (one-dimensional weaving) while Robin was teaching a workshop. Time flies when you work with fiber, I guess.

Until next week…