Looking at more water than I’d care to!

I moved my latest exhibition, entitled “Looking at Water”, to the Bloomington Bagel Company last Monday.  I think it looks wonderful!  There was a nice blurb in the Herald Times over the weekend mentioning the show, so I’m hoping a different set of people will see it during its run to the end of January.  That’s the good news from the past week.  Unfortunately, after I reconstituted my art studio following the Thanksgiving flood, disaster struck again.  Two more inches of rain fell on Friday night into Saturday morning.  Just before bedtime Friday I decided to pop into the studio to check on things.  Lo and behold, the water level was halfway up my window and hissing in through the cracks around the frame.   

I leapt into action moving materials and rolling the carpet back, while Jim jumped into action outside.  He kept baling the window well while intermittently clearing a path for the water to flow around the house.  Fortunately, the rain let up around midnight and we both got to bed around one a.m.  As in the first flood of 2014, no art was damaged in the process, but now I’m back to drying carpet pads outside and the studio is a mess.  The low winter humidity in the house is finally a blessing. 

My life had a few more unexpected twists last weekend.  I was scheduled to do a workshop to create needle felted ornaments on Saturday at Gather, but too few people officially signed up to make it run and we canceled.  I think that the busy Holiday shopping, concerts and family schedules just made the timing too busy for most people.   

I thought by scheduling it early in December we could work around busy schedules, but apparently not.  I made several demonstration ornaments for the workshop and was ready to go, and I feel very badly for those who did sign up and really wanted to participate.   We will try to pick a date in late January or early February to hold a workshop to make felted heart shaped ornaments for Valentine’s Day.  If anyone wants to get a head start on next year’s Christmas ornaments I’ll bring those supplies as well.  It’s really all about the technique, so both will work.  I promise to let everyone know well in advance so you can mark your calendars.  Learning how to successfully coordinate a local workshop is new for me, so next time we’ll do better.  I really hate to disappoint people.

The rest of my news is piecemeal.  I did finish my ‘Summer Salad’ commission, and that will ship today to its new home in New Hampshire.  I'm delighted with how it turned out.  I’ll post pictures after the new owner has a chance to see it in place.  I’ll then launch on my next commission, which involves a river running through a forest of trees.  I have already completed the base structure for the tree trunks out of old wool army blankets.   

I don’t yet have a final sketch for the composition, but I know the trees are a necessary part of it.  You likely didn’t know that December first was also national cake day.  Tommie took it upon himself to make an amazing vanilla cake with butter cream rum frosting.  It really tasted like a traditional European cake that was heavy and not too sweet.   

This weekend the boys and I moved holiday baking into high gear, making several batches of cookies.  I even created a new cookie I’m calling boysenberry moons—they are delightful!    It’s a sandwich cookie featuring toasted pecans and boysenberry jam filling that I decided just needed to be tried.  We also created this year’s version of our annual candy house.  The rule is that no one gets to eat anything off of it until Boxing Day.   

Finally, there has been no pie in my house since well before Thanksgiving, which is very sad.  Even pumpkin pies at the holiday dinner did not satisfy my need for the berry-filled treat.  Helloooo… is anybody listening?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Weave and ye shall receive!

I spent a delightful evening Friday at the reception for my ‘Looking at Water’ exhibition.  The Convention Center set out an amazing display of hors d’oeuvres to snack on, including butternut soup, gouda mac and cheese, and pumpkin tartlets.  Elegant servers whisked through the well-attended show with glasses of red and white wine on platters.  There was even a harpist, which provided a beautiful complement to my visual art.  We decided that the harp was perfect because of the connection between the strings in the instrument, the warps in the weavings, and the collection of yarns and wires comprising the pieces.  The subtle intonations of the harp are reminiscent of rippling water, creating a beautiful atmosphere.  I’m very grateful for how much effort that Patti Russo, Talisha Coppock and the Convention Center personnel invested in making the reception and show a wonderful event! 

The show itself marks another turning point for me.  It felt great to have all the water pieces completed and hanging.  It gave me closure to that body of work.  The highlight was all the delightful conversations I was able to have with people at the reception.  Many were new to my work, but it was great to bond with long-term supporters I have in the town.  Many picked up on the new techniques and subtleties in composition that were developed for the water-based exhibition.  It was heartwarming to share my sense of pride in accomplishment as we talked about the cohesiveness in the show and distinctive features in each piece. 

The life of an artist, sadly, isn’t all receptions and celebration.  With so much time invested in creating pieces for the exhibit, much that is mundane was pushed to the back burner.  I spent most of this week trying to restore some order in my life.  I fixed the vacuum cleaner and ran it over much of the house.  I processed a mountain of laundry and generally cleaned the rest of the house.  I even devoted some time to creating the last of the props for the Sounds of South performance of ‘Phantom of the Opera.’  

 I created an elaborate jewelry box for Carlotta and trays of beer steins for the cast members in the ‘Don Juan’ scene.  I made it out to Long’s Landing, and the supportive crew there donated large foam pieces for the phantom’s armchair.  I did just dip my toes back into the art world at the end of the week by adding colorful flowers along the walkway of my large-format commissioned piece.  I need some green yarn for a third commission in my cue, which will require dyeing various textured yarns.  

 I wound skeins of yarns in preparation for the big dyeing project.  I even did a little needle felting for a second commission in the cue, creating mushrooms and olives for the piece.  Last, I’m gearing up to make some more sweater petals for the holiday season at By Hand Gallery, as well as the upcoming Artisan Guilds ofBloomington show this fall.   

This year the three Guilds (Spinners and Weavers, Glass, and Pottery) will combine to show at the Convention Center on November 14^th and 15^th.  My ‘Looking at Water’ exhibit will still be there in the Rogers room, so stop in to visit both!

Of course family events are still proceeding at full steam.  The boys are both heavy into rehearsals (two nights a week) for Phantom of the Opera.  Tommie will be on stage, while Jacob was tapped to handle the lighting for the show.  It’s amazing to see how far they have come since the first rehearsals I saw in late summer, so now I’m looking forward to seeing the final, polished version on October 18^th.  Parents have been charged with ramping up advertising, meaning putting out yard signs, posters, magnets for cars, and anything else we can come up with.  Tickets are available on line, and we hope to see you there!   

Still, the best part of the week might have been the raspberry pie that appeared last Sunday morning after Saturday’s farmer’s market.  I had a slice each morning this past week, finishing the last one this morning with espresso.  The weather turned cold, but I’m looking forward to the first fire in the fireplace of the season tonight!  I hope you stay warm too!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Looking at Water

My exhibition is up!  The primary focus of the past two months has been creating pieces for my “Looking at Water” exhibition.  Its first exposure will be at the Bloomington/Monroe County Convention Center, 103 S. College Road, in the newly remodeled Rogers room.  The room is a little secluded, but you’re welcome to stop in to see it.  The pieces will hang there until mid-November, and on December 1st it will move to the Bloomington Bagel Company on North Dunn for two months. 

One feature of the exhibition that I consciously worked toward was to incorporate some design or conceptual element that allows each piece to transition into the next.  I hung the exhibition with the thought of going from a small droplet of water to a small stream of water and on through rivers and ponds and ending in vast body of water—a scene where you don’t see anything but water around you.  One recent notable addition to the exhibition features a bluegill in a pond.  I spent a little time with fish images to ensure that the colors and subtleties were accurate. 

I’m also pleased with “Heading for Open Water”, which was inspired by boating trips to Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron.  We loaded Grandpa’s boat at Gambil’s Landing and drove through the seemingly endless rushes and cattails heading for walleye fishing on Saginaw bay of Lake Huron.  We passed by numerous turtles sunning themselves, dragonflies flitting around, and egrets scanning the shallow water for small fish.  As we broke into the open water of the bay we headed for deeper water, scanning the horizon for packs of boats that often gave away the places where fish were biting.  Far out on the bay you can see the towers at the mouth of the Saginaw River, the shore along Pinconning and Linwood, and the line where water meets sky to the east.  I know Canada is out there, even if I can’t see it. 

Another piece that I’m proud of features single droplets of water and is called “Water Sprout.”  When I water the garden I’m fascinated by watching the water come streaming out of the sprayer head on the hose or watering can.  I feel a certain satisfaction when I give small plants something they need to survive and grow.  The piece I created celebrates that water spout as it nurtures a little bean sprout.  It contains some stainless steel wire wrapped on an old wooden spool that Grandpa gave me at least ten years ago.  I’ve been saving it for a special occasion, because he handed it me accompanied with that serious look that meant ‘stainless steel wire’ was something special that needed just the occasion for use.  My “Water Sprout” features droplets of water created from blobs of hot glue extended from pieces of stainless steel wire from the special spool.  The wire that I used to create the roots of the bean sprout came from recycled spiral notebooks.  The math problems on the pages of the binder may be long forgotten and the paper recycled, but the spiral binder lives on in the weaving. 

I hope you’ll come join me for the opening reception of the show on Friday, October 3^rd from 5-8 p.m. during Gallery Walk.  There will be a harpist from IU playing to add atmosphere.  If you live too far away to come, I made a short movie to capture the room and the feel of the pieces in the exhibit.  With the show hung, I feel as if a huge weight has been removed from my shoulders.  Luckily, the weather is warm enough to sit outside on the veranda and have dinner again.  Two nights ago we had pesto with some grilled butternut squash and a delightful bottle of wine, with some shared brownie treats from BluBoy for dessert.  We lit the candles to remember spring and early summer dinners enjoyed on the veranda.  I intend to have a little pause from art creation for a few days to catch up on other things I’ve neglected.  This morning I fixed the vacuum cleaner, and I woke to the smell of baking raspberry pie from berries that Jim secretly bought at the farmer’s market.  I’d say things are looking up!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Weaving an Exhibition!

This is has been an intense week of artwork for me.  I’ve been getting up at six a.m. each morning and going straight into the art studio to weave.  I’m steaming along on pieces for my exhibition titled “Looking at Water.”  My goal is to have sixteen new pieces, and I feel like I’m on track to reach my goal.  I have eleven completed, but I have four more in progress and a sketch for the last piece.  In some cases I have the weaving largely assembled but I’m still lacking a featured animal or physical structure, such as a fish, turtle or a dock.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so many open books!  My attention is now is focused on a second weaving featuring a dock that I’m pretty excited about.  

 The inside of the weathered dock boards are felt from army blankets that came to me in my treasure hunts.  That continues the strong connection to my father-in-law’s old army blankets that supported so many pieces, but the wool from them is mostly gone.  As each piece comes closer to completion I feel better about the show.

My desire to do this exhibition came in part from a very successful exhibit I did early in the year at City Hall and Meadowood, "Portraits of Trees."  The show featured trees and lots of fresh spring green.  It felt great to see the pieces together on the wall after a long, cold winter.  Around that time I decided I wanted to assemble pieces for another exhibit built on a theme.  The idea transformed into the “Looking at Water” themed exhibit scheduled for October at the Convention Center.  Thinking about the shows reminds me that while I lack formal training as an artist, I seem to learn about the art world from unexpected places.  I’m not a television watcher, although I do watch Project Runway religiously.   

At the end of each season the surviving artists create collections that determine the winner.  I love the continuity in the collections the designers create, where theme elements connect the pieces—it might be a style, a fabric or a color.  One piece speaks to the next, not as a reiteration of the composition, but as a spark to begin the conversation on the next design.  I’m consciously trying to replicate that concept in my exhibition.  I’m looking forward to hanging the show as a linear story of “Looking at Water”, with design ideas and materials that flow through the exhibition.  The broader concept is still solidifying in my head, even as I have now mentally created all the pieces.  Come and see the exhibition and we can see how the story unfolds!

My other big art news is the completion of the bigheaded ants last month, which were finally delivered to Wonderlab.  This past week they invited me to participate in laying out the ants in their new home.  They are going to be crawling over the wall up to the sign that introduces the bigheaded ant exhibit.  After laying it out it became clear that they needed one more ant on the back of the sign.  As soon as my water exhibit is complete I’ll create one more worker ant.  Then I’ll re-launch on all my commissions in progress to bring everything together.  I have the large “Garden Path” piece to complete, and that’s my top priority.  

 I also finished weaving and stretching out the background for the “Summer Salad”commission.  That means I’ll be felting lots of vegetables for the foreground.  Sliced tomatoes, here we go!

On the family front, Jim and I celebrated fifteen wonderful years of marriage together.  It’s hard to imagine a life before marriage and my family.  Jacob grilled salmon for the celebratory dinner, which came out beautifully.  

 There was also a new peach pie, but the boys (and I) again made short work of that.  Then, somehow we managed to walk right past the raspberries at the farmer’s market on Saturday!  With the peach pies so fleeting, shouldn’t another pie appear very soon?  I know there’s fruit in the freezer!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

My world of water comes back into focus!

I was awake at 3:30 yesterday morning, unable to sleep as I mentally went over my inventory for my upcoming ‘Looking at Water’ exhibition at the Convention Center in October.  I spent a big chunk of my day locked in my art studio weaving water and creating cattails.  The only thing that brought me back to the computer to produce a long overdue blog post was the dire threat made by Jim that I couldn’t have more than one pie per post.  I enjoyed the first peach pie of the season two weeks ago, so I knew I better start writing!  Now I'm getting way ahead of myself.  I’ll try to catch you up on what’s been happening. 

My ants are finally done!  I delivered the colony to Wonderlab this past Thursday.  We’ll have a meeting this week to discuss the display, which might involve making one more ant.  Along the way, I feel like I learned a lot about the anatomy of ants, what distinguishes the species and which morphologies are shared.   

I came to love my ants, but I’m glad they’re out of the studio.  At Wonderlab they’re talking about painting or stenciling ants along the wall that leads to the exhibition, which sounds fun.  If they do that, I really think the last stenciled ant should be an intermediate between the stenciled ants and the first three-dimensional creation.  That would make it look like the last ant was crawling out of the wall.  I think that would be interesting, but it would mean making one more half-ant.  I invite everyone to the opening reception on the first Friday in November.  There will be a fun kids project to create ant parts by wet felting fleece into balls to produce the body segments.  These will be connected with pipe cleaners.  I have just the most perfect brown noils from Sheep Street that I will donate to the project.  This is just the ideal material to learn how to felt color-appropriate ant body parts.  Come and see!

Of course Labor Day means the Fourth Street Festival.  It was a very successful show from my perspective, with no major incidents.  The weather wasn’t ideal when the show opened Saturday in steady rain, but Sunday turned into an absolutely beautiful sunny day.  The humidity was low with some clouds, and over 33 thousand fair attendees came out for the two-day event.  Happily/sadly I sold one of my water-themed pieces I intended to show at my upcoming Convention center exhibition that I described above.  I think I’ll be able to replace the piece and come up with a full complement of sixteen pieces for the exhibition by the end of this month.  

 The ‘Looking at Water’ concept means that you’ll see any and all forms of water, from a drop falling from a faucet to small ponds with aquatic life and on to vast lakes.  So much of our lives revolves around water that I just had to think about water and express it in my art.  I’ll hang the show in late September and the opening reception will coincide with the first Friday’s gallery walk from 5-8 p.m.  Please stop by and say hello at that reception too!

My life is never so simple as to allow me to focus solely on my own art.  I’ve been dividing my time to help with the Sounds of South group’s ginormous production of Phantom of the Opera in late October and early November.  I have always possessed a passion for the theater, having regularly attended theatrical productions, opera and plays with my father.  I fondly remember having season tickets to the Stratford Festival performances in Stratford, Ontario.  When Tommie auditioned into Sounds of South it opened the door a crack for me to get involved.   

Earlier this summer I made a set ofskirts for the performance, and last month I finished repurposing an evil monkey on an ornate music box that is central to the performance.  I made an ornate hat for the diva in the performance, Carlotta, and it matches her extravagant gown and personality.  I added a reticule to her outfit, which is now also a new word in my vocabulary (thanks David Wade!).  I was also charged with making the body of Buquet that is hung from the rafters by the phantom.  I’ve never made a dead body before.  Heck, I’ve never made an alive body – well, except for my sons! 

My life was also filled with big personal events.  Jim and the boys tested for their black belts in Taekwondo on the 16^th of August.  His brother Tim was the ‘bad guy’ for self-defense and got thrown around a bit, and Grandma came down to see the performance too.  It was a very emotional test all around.  Jacob was praised for his power and precision in his forms, Tommie for his flexibility and graceful high kicks, and Jim for just making it through the whole process.  We had a big reception at our house after the party where it was nice to just sit and relax in peace and quiet with food from the Owlery, cakes and cupcakes from Blu Boy, and a beautiful personalized cake from Esperanza Hogan.  

 Oh, and I did get a peach pie, a rare treat this summer with so few peaches, as a reward for finished my ants.  I know as soon as I get this posted I’ll get another pie.  Type, type, type!  Start rolling the crust, Jim!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Weaving Water and Reclaiming Re-Shirts

I’m working on an exhibition in October called ‘Looking at Water.’  I have been distracted by family projects, such as our trip to North Carolina and a family gathering in Michigan, so the weaving sat unfinished for some time.  I was so excited to get back into my studio earlier this week and start work on it that I released the piece from the loom before I finished weaving the sky.  Argh!  I hate that sinking feeling in your stomach when you know you’ve done something silly that can’t easily be fixed.  When life gives you lemons you have to do something.  Jim has been bugging me to try a wall piece where the background is needle felted instead of woven, and this seems like the perfect compromise.  I’m actually getting excited about it!  The woven part has a lot of movement that really is consistent with water.  The sky will be felted, allowing it to be smooth and softer by contrast.  I’m hoping to add some felted and dimensional clouds to the piece.  I’m excited about trying to pull it all together. 

The new piece will feature a dock.  I’ve stretched the woven part into the frame and I’ve layered on to a mock-up of the wooden structure.  This helps me get the scale right and the paper pieces are a good template for cutting the boards.  

 I’m creating the wooden parts out of the last of Grandpa’s army blanket pieces.  To make them look like sun-bleached wood I’ve been needle felting grey-white wool onto the shaped blanket pieces.  I was pleasantly surprised during the process as the olive green blanket crept through to the surface to make kind of a greeny-brown color.  The color just clicks for me as a good dock material.

And so to back up a little and share some family stories - we spent a few wonderful days visiting with family in Michigan.  Scott and Cathy Drummond flew in from California, Tim and Bobi Drummond came in from New Mexico, and Haley and the new baby Arya from New Mexico were there when we arrived.  Arya is walking with confidence and quite an independent thinker.  Scott introduced the boys to a new game called Boxcars.  They’ve been enjoying that ever since.   

We enjoyed a nice walk through the Bay City craft fair with Aunt Lois, and the boys enjoyed archery and badminton.  They also drove around on Miss Daisy, Grandma’s golf cart, which Arya found very entertaining.  Meal times were big and busy, especially the night we had pizza on the patio with family friends the Gibsons (Ben and Kathey) from next door.  The weather was beautiful—cool with low humidity and very few bugs. 

The drive back from Michigan was a great time for me to felt some tomatoes.  I’m going to revisit a piece I made a few years back called ‘Homegrown Tomatoes’.  It featured sixty-seven individual tomatoes of all varieties, shapes and sizes.  I really liked that piece, and while sixty-seven sounds overwhelming, it isn’t so bad if they’re done a few at a time every few weeks.  I giggled as I placed some of my felted tomatoes on the garden tomato plants in the back yard.  I took a picture and posted it on Facebook.  It seems that I have both skeptical and gullible friends!

Yesterday I did Art Fair on the Square here in Bloomington, which is a delightful regional show.  I decided to do it with my Re-Shirts rather than my large-woven wall pieces.  My shirts were very well received, with lots of people excited about the style and the fact that they were made from reclaimed and recycled fabrics.  I’m pleased to report that many of them went off to new homes.  I also enjoyed watching people’s faces when they realized that I do the three dimensional wall pieces they’ve seen elsewhere.  “Oh, that’s you!” was a phrase I heard many times.  I also had to assure many people that I was not moving away from doing wall pieces, and that making my art clothing was my hobby.   

From a practical artist perspective, I was thrilled that we were packed up and driving home within a half an hour of the show ending.  That’s an absolute, all time record that will never happen with the wall pieces!  At home I was treated to a celebratory dinner of flatbread.  We had cheese treasures from Williams cheese factory in Pinconning Michigan, including beer cheddar spread, along with Bruschetta and aged Gouda from Trader Joe’s that we picked up on the drive home from Michigan.  A bottle of Red Silk shiraz from Australia topped it all off.  This morning I woke up to the smell of baking pie.  It made for a very decadent Sunday lunch with a second cup of coffee!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin