Finding stars on the beach

We’re just back from an amazing trip to the outer banks in North Carolina—what a wonderful week we had!  We stayed in Ocean Sands, which is just south of Corolla.  The house we rented had beautiful views of the ocean, with decks that let us sit outside and sip coffee or wine.   

Depending on where you looked, you could watch pelicans cruise the ocean swells or fly over the beach, dolphins patrolling the surf’s edge, or people collecting shells up and down the beach.  I didn’t take any art projects to work on, but I did have lots of time for relaxing and developing ideas for art pieces.  I even did a little sketching on the beach.  As usual, I spent a lot of time beach combing and collecting.  This year as different in that we found lots of horseshoe crab shells on the beach, including a few enormous ones, our first-ever sea stars, and a huge amount of driftwood.   

I also came home with a delightful collection of shells with holes worn in them for weavings.  Sadly, the sea stars didn’t travel as nicely, so don’t look for them in my pieces.  

On our drive from Norfolk to Corolla, we usually stop in at one of the farmer’s markets along the way to stock up on some fruit and veggies for the week.  We decided to visit Miller’s this year, identified by its ice cream churned with a tractor engine.  The ice cream was OK, but the produce was exceptionally fresh.  We ended up with a watermelon (crisp and tasty), a big bag of peaches (eaten within the first day or so), blueberries (which became a breakfast pie on the third and fourth days), 

new potatoes (great boiled with fresh fish), and a bunch of vegetables and lettuce for a salad.  I knew then we were off to a good start.  We stopped in at Carawan’s for seafood and headed home with two pounds of fresh tilefish for dinner.  What a treat!  Even Jacob really liked it, which is saying something.  We also bought black sea bass and sea trout from Carawan’s on this trip, which was also excellent.   

Tommie wanted to try the soft shell crabs this year, which we did.  One has to be pretty trusting to believe that the whole body is edible, but it turns out to be true.  We deep fried them and ate them all.  Jacob preferred the legs while Tommie liked the bodies.  That turned out to be a good trade.  Everybody got something they liked, and we all enjoyed the crabs.  

We spend a lot of time on the beach on our vacation, but we also go off on other adventures.  The boys have been asking to try go-karting for some time, and this year was the first that Jacob was tall enough to go.  Jacob decided at the end that he’d prefer to drive Miss Daisy (Grandma’s golf cart that she uses for watering flowers). 

 We got in a few rounds of mini golf, where the winner buys the ice cream.  Tommie won one day and Jacob and Jim tied the other.  Jim still bought the ice cream, though.  Oh, and we also finally got to try the Titanic at Logan’s.  You get to choose six scoops of ice cream and four toppings.  With hot fudge, peanuts, marshmallow sauce and the chocolate that solidifies on the ice cream it was an ice cream and chocolate lover’s dream.  Four spoons and five minutes later we had sunk the Titanic.  

 On Thursday, Jim and Tommie went thirty miles out on the ocean aboard the Country Girl and fished the reefs for tilefish and black sea bass.  Luckily, the weather cooperated and they came home with a big mess of fish for more lunches and dinners.  We even slipped about seven pounds of filets into our carry-on cooler.  Our first dinner home was fresh tilefish and another big batch went into the freezer. 

The big event in the surf was boogie boarding, followed by racing back to the house to warm up in the hot tub.  The Atlantic in May isn’t exactly a bath, but it was warm enough for all of us to spend some time frolicking in the surf.  Jacob was the real leader on that adventure, going every chance he could.  He can pick the good waves to ride, and with his small frame he can get right on the board and ride it all the way on to the beach.  When Jim and Tommie were off fishing, I even spent an afternoon boarding with Jacob until I was cold all the way through.  The hot tub fixed me right up, though. 

 

The big project awaiting me upon our return was to clean up my art studio for the Open Studios Tour next weekend.  I want to send out a big thanks to Sarah Pierce, my neighbor, and Marcy Neiditz for organizing the inaugural event.  The event runs from 10 am to 4 pm Saturday and Sunday, June 2nd and 3rd.  I’m studio number 4 on the tour.  I’ll have all my art on display, from my weavings to Giclee prints to my Re-shirts.  We’ll have cookies and lemonade for weary travelers.  Jacob is keen to start a project that kids can do when they visit, which will involve creating a version of survival bracelets.  I’m hoping to get a good turnout this year, and I’d like to see it become an annual event.  On the home front, I think Jim is just happy that we don’t have to drive somewhere to set it up! 

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Ocean Sands on Dwellable

Beach Week 2010

What an awesome adventure! I just got back from a week with my family in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The highlights were fresh fish, good wine, exploring the area and splashing around in the surf. I even got some work done in quiet moments, although that qualifies as fun for me. With such a full week it’s hard to know where to begin!

I guess I’ll start with the art and fill in the rest. I made the conscious decision not to take my needle felting along. That spared me the suspicious looks I get at security checkpoints at the airport. I took pencil crayons and charcoal pencils, and I picked up rice paper at a local art supply shop. The felt tiles I’ve been working on were calling to me, so I took the chance to do some small studies in composition and color to decide which elements I want to commit to art pieces.
I practiced positioning colors in different sectors of the pieces to try to draw my eye in different ways. I was very much influenced by the nature scenes around me, so you’ll see a lot of sandy, grassy or wavy motifs. There are also a lot of seashell shapes, and even a wine bottle or two. Hmm, I wonder how that got in there? I’ll sift through what I have for use as templates for future tiles.

The weather this year was a little cooler and cloudier than past trips we’ve made. That sent us off to new adventures, such as a drive to Jockey’s Ridge State Park. This is the largest sand dune on the outer banks and a great place to climb. Actually, it’s a great place to climb up once, and an even better place for the kids to roll or run down the dunes. Everyone sleeps better at night when that happens! We also did a couple of trips to mini-golf courses. This year I came out with the lowest scores on both trips! The bad news is that the winner has to buy ice cream for the family, so I’m on notice until I pay off one more debt. Later in the week we had a couple of sunny, warm days where we drove to the beach by the Currituck lighthouse. There’s a great beach beyond the dunes for kid-friendly swimming. The boys spent most of their time body surfing or riding a boogie board we found at our rental house, while I guarded the blanket and kept the ghost crabs at bay. They’re fun to watch emerge when things quiet down around you to clear the sand out of their hole. That’s a heroic task on a windy, sandy beach, but they seem up to it. I managed to do some shell collecting too. Mostly I collected small, polished fragments that might well become fish skeletons. And to cap off each long day of exploring, a trip to the hot tub on the back deck was a great way to unwind.

When vacationing on the outer banks, eating fresh seafood is part of the equation for us. This year we discovered Carawan’s seafood market and got fresh tuna, redfish and flounder. Each ended up as a delightful meal, culminating with a pan-seared tuna with toasty garlic, onion and lime in the mix. We ate it with fresh bread and a nice Ganache, based on the advice of our new best friend Chip at Chip’s Wine and Beer Market in Kill Devil Hills. Chip taught us about matching different kinds of food with wine based on which part of the palate you taste the wine, and he taught us to value growing climate over grape varietal when making a selection. We learned a lot and had a lot of fun chatting with Chip. He has a tremendous selection and his shop is a must-stop site for wine drinkers on the outer banks.

Well, all good things must come to an end, and our week on the sand and in the surf is no exception. On our drive back to Norfolk we did stop in at the Botanical Gardens next to the airport. It’s well worth the trip, with hundreds of rose varieties in bloom, a native garden, flowering trees, a kids garden, a butterfly enclosure, a coniferous garden, a half-hour tram ride—it’s just a great place to spend the day. But now that I’m back I have to shift my artist persona into high gear. I’ll be hanging a show Wednesday in the Phi Gallery at the Hotel Indigo in Columbus, Indiana (the reception is June 10 from 5:30-7:00 pm.). Then later this week I head for Ohio to participate in the Columbus Arts Festival this weekend. It’s my first time in the show so I’m excited to see how it plays out. If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Beach week!

I’m a little late in posting this week, but yesterday was a travel day. We spent a wonderful week on the beach in Corolla, North Carolina, at the north end of the outer banks. Normally I would have spent the transit time needle-felting ornaments for the holiday season, but the airlines frown on traveling with sharp objects. I have learned to pack my faithful Swiss Army Knife in the checked bags, but they still enjoyed running my purse through the X-ray machine multiple times. I think the culprit was the drill bits I bought in Michigan and forgot about, but who knows. I like to be prepared, so you never know what you’ll find in my purse.

This year we flew into Norfolk, Virginia, which shortened the drive to Corolla considerably. We arrived in time to catch some beach time, although high tide limited the shell collecting efforts. That wouldn’t be a problem for most people, but I’m always on the lookout for weaving materials and high tide doesn’t leave much room for collecting on the beach. We quickly settled into a routine of beach time in the morning, back to the house for lunch, off for an adventure like golfing or hiking, an ice cream stop, and then back to the beach either before or after dinner. Fresh fish shops abound, and you can’t beat fresh flounder. The HOA (Husband of Artist) and eSOA (elder Son of Artist) went on a fishing adventure on the sound and came back with Bluefish and Spanish mackerel. These were good, but not as good as the flounder. A week on the coast does highlight the one and only failing of our fair town, Bloomington Indiana—there’s just no great seafood to be found. We’re still glad to be back.

It’s hard to pick highlights from a trip with many. I love watching the lines of pelicans skim effortlessly over the surf and the dolphins popping in and out. Low tide brings all kinds of interesting critters, such as puffer fish, sea cucumbers, Jellyfish, sand dollars (OK, really sand quarters or so) and the very cool devil’s purses. They’re the egg casings from the manta rays that cruise the coast. Shells are everywhere, and of course they get picked over for compatibility with weavings. The sand crabs pop in and out of the sand to keep an eye on us, and the little birds that run in and out of the surf set a good example for the kids. Everybody is on board to make it a good trip.

On our last day we drove south to Hatteras Island. The Pea Island national wildlife refuge is home to an amazing collection of birds, and we even saw a banded water snake on the way. We ran into two very gracious volunteer bird watchers there, Pat and Neal Moore. Neal set up a telescope at Cubbie height, and he spent some quality time looking out over the wetlands and sketching in his new sketchbook. I was very proud. The Moores recommended the Dolphin Den restaurant, which served up some great tuna steak sandwiches. Next stop was the old Cape Hatteras lighthouse, which we checked out but declined to climb. We reached the top of the Currituck lighthouse last year, and the creaky open staircase wasn’t a good match for the HOA. It’s amazing to read that they moved the Hatteras lighthouse a half mile inland when the ocean threatened to eat the adjacent shoreline, then moved it back to the original site years later. That must have been quite a feat and something to witness.
All good things must end, and now we’re firmly back on Southern Indiana clay. The anti-deer spray seems to have discouraged our primary local nemeses from eating the remaining lilies that are about to bloom. That was a real bonus when we pulled in the driveway. The Tradescantia is also coming into bloom, but the peonies and irises are fading. I’m hoping that there are still a few strawberries around, and that a blueberry pie is in my near future. Let the summer begin!

Until next week…