Walking Through Gardens…

I’m really excited about the piece I just finished.  I’m calling it “The Visit,” and it’s another piece in the series I’m creating for the Monroe County History Center’s Garden Walk Show.  I think that it’s a piece that nicely conveys the inspiration for the piece, so I’m really pleased with how it turned out.  I had been thinking a lot about two ideas that fit together in my mind. 

One aspect is the effort to see things that are slightly hidden, obscured by something in the foreground, looking through a mesh or partly closed curtains. My mind’s eye is trying to build a picture of what’s on the other side from the bits and pieces I can see.  The fence blocking the path and some of the flowers captures that essential part of ‘The Visit” for me.  The other aspect is the feeling you get when you visit a friend and leave pieces of yourself outside and step into their world.  

I tried to capture that with the abandoned bicycle at the fence, leading you to the conclusion that you’ve stepped through the gateway and into the yard beyond, something you couldn’t see clearly from outside the fence.  I really enjoy visiting with my friends, both in the physical sense of being with them and because I can step out of my world to get an idea about how they experience life. 

I had two wonderful experiences this week that helped me bring those ideas together.  Early in the week I went with my friend Dawn Adams to the SOFA gallery at IU to see the current BFA show.  It’s a completely different experience from my usual routine, and I learn a lot by paying close attention to the art – what works and what doesn’t.  One of our memorable conversations was about the concept of large areas of open space in artwork, really pushing the amount of negative space in a piece.  I tried to incorporated that concept in ‘The Visit’ through the amount of green space off in the distance and balance it with an abundance of information in the foreground.   

The other terrific experience I had this week was a visit to Jill Bolte-Taylor’s studio.  She invited me to play in her sandbox, working with stained glass, which is a medium I’ve never explored.  Her studio is a welcoming place—it’s well organized and brightly lit and she has power tools!  My standard choice for composition when I’m exploring a new medium is to create a tree.  Jill is going to fuse it for me, but for now it’s already laid out, foil wrapped and ready to assemble.  She’s really an amazing person—caring and generous, and just fun to sit and chitty-chat with.  I’m glad she makes Bloomington her home. 

This week we had what I expect is our last snow day of the year.  I could tell you we had lots of snow, but the reality is that two inches of wet snow closes the schools in Bloomington.  It was very pretty to see.  The wet, sticky snow attached to all the branches and gave a nice patina to my yin-yang piece hanging at the carport.  I made it as an installation piece, where the yin and yang are the arts and sciences.  I thought it was pretty with the branches covered in snow.  I was ready to take it down earlier this year, but now I think it’s OK to stay up a little longer.  And the really big news of the week—I got a raspberry pie!  Jim ‘discovered’  frozen farmer’s market raspberryies he had squirreled away in the freezer and forgot about.  It was under the frozen Girl Scout cookies.  Anyway, the flavor was awesome!  And spring is almost here!  The birds building nests and chirping happily outside, so I know it must be true.

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

When I give life some lemons!

I finished my lemon piece!  I’m very excited about it, and I’m ready to contact the person who commissioned me to make it.  I hope that soon it will be traveling to its new home in Massachusetts.  I’ll post a picture of the finished piece after the new owner has had a chance to see it, which will probably be next week.  There’s just no time to rest, so I launched into my next commission.  The person who bought the original ‘Winter Birches’ asked me to create a similar piece as a graduation present for her daughter.  With the cold snap bearing down on us, this somehow feels like the right piece to focus on right now.  I was delighted to have the original piece hanging on my wall again after many years.  It reminds me of how much I like that original piece, and how much my style has evolved.  

 My first color gradient background was based on over fifty different yarns to create the horizon effect I wanted.  It’s really a mixed gradient of browns, grays and greens to achieve the misty, serene, cold, late afternoon feel in winter.  This original “Winter Birches” is also much flatter than my current tree pieces.  It predates my dimensional crochet tactic for bringing a base away from the background to plant the trees in.  I’m excited that this is my last commission piece for a while because I need to launch into creating pieces for an upcoming show at the History Center.  The plan is to hang it on April first, and it will stay on the walls through the Garden Walk event in late June.  I’ve been thinking a lot about garden-themed compositions that would be appropriate for the show.  I’m envisioning a garden path with felted flagstones, and I have a sketch I’m happy with.   

This morning I came up with another that I’ll call ‘We Three Kings’, which will feature three fat onions (yellow, white and red) growing in the dirt.  I’m also currently working on a piece that features three crocuses I’m calling ‘The Three Sisters’.  I finished the soil background, which is full of treasures long lost in the garden soil.  I’ll add the crocuses shortly.  I cut the flattened crocus petals shapes from commercial felt and stitched wire around each of them.  I’ll needle felt wool onto the petals to create the lenticular shape.  

 I’ve already dug through my boxes of roving to find the colors I want to use.  One of the joys of searching my stores is that I always seem to find just the perfect color.  This time I found a dark purple roving I dyed years ago for a long-forgotten project.  It’s just perfect for one of my crocuses.  It’s fun to be creating something new!

Of course life is never all about art.  We got a rude shock when water started leaking through the roof last Sunday.  We called up the roofing fellow, who diagnosed the problem as failed flashing around the chimney.  This has been a problem before, and the chimney fellow supposedly sealed it up for us.  This is getting really old!  

 I really want to get the ceiling fixed, but I can’t do it until I’m sure we’ve got the water problem sorted out.  I’ve also spent the week trying to dry out the storage areas that got wet to avoid any unwanted molds growing in the bedroom areas.  Of course there’s always a silver lining when problems enter my life.  On Monday I came back from Zumba to find an apple pie on the cutting board and two loaves of bread in the oven!  The pie lasted until breakfast on Thursday.  Is it too early to wonder when the next one will appear?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin