My month of adventure and travel!

The last time I blogged it was the week prior to the Fourth Street Festival of the Arts.  I’m tugged in so many different directions once the fair starts that I can’t focus on much else.  This year’s show turned out to be perfect in so many ways.  The weather responded beautifully to my demands and the weekend was sunny and pleasant.  The crowds responded by packing the streets, looking as happy as I’ve ever seen them flowing by my booth.  The show was the perfect capstone to a wonderful summer of art.  After take down Sunday, my life took a few days to return to something close to normal.  I had to get everything put away and re-enter the family routine.  I was welcomed home with a delightful dinner and raspberry pie so I knew everything was OK. 

About that time, though, I had to begin preparing for a workshop I was planning to do at the Artful Dimensions gallery in Fredericksburg Virginia.  I was so excited to participate instead of coordinate a workshop! Having the amazing Pamela MacGregor teach us about dimensional wet felting was an incredible prospect.  Except for one small problem.  The workshop was scheduled for Friday through Sunday, and my flight touched down on Saturday night.  Our organizational wires got crossed somewhere and it look like I was not going to be able to attend.  The husband of my host Elizabeth Woodford, Tom, came up with a great solution, though.   

He said I should just come to Virginia for an art-cation!  Both Elizabeth and Barbara Posey, my host from my last trip to the gallery, both urged me to come in such welcoming tones that I felt good about traveling.  On the trip east I made lemon slices for a new art piece idea I’m going to try out at the holiday markets—I’m going to create some much smaller compositions at a lower price point.  Somehow the idea of making lemons on the trip was my way to turn the trip into spiritual lemonade.   

The bonus for me was that they worked it out with Pam that I could participate on the final day of the workshop.  I do have some experience with wet felting, which meshed with the call for intermediate to advanced felters at the course.  She guided me through techniques I had read about but hadn’t tried myself.  I ended up with a fabulous tea pot, wet fingers and a lot of great new ideas to try back in Bloomington.  I’m inspired to create more 3D pieces after completing the entire teapot project on the last day.  Pamela is such an amazing teacher and a fountain of knowledge and techniques that traveling to Virginia was definitely the right decision. 

The trip wasn’t all hands-on art exploration, though.  Elizabeth and Tom are regular commuters to Washington DC, which makes them familiar with the best times, routes, lanes and strategies for efficient travel through a gridlock-prone highway system.  Elizabeth concocted a plan for us to visit DC the day after the workshop to visit museums. 

 I did spend a couple of weeks in DC during my Ph.D. training, but I was tethered to the NIH complex doing research and never got a chance to be a tourist.  Elizabeth more than made up for that.  We visited the Textile Museum and saw some historic kimonos and surface design techniques that survived centuries.  I was constantly doing my visual dance where I take off my glasses and stare very closely at the interstitial textile framework before stepping back to get the big picture view.  Unfortunately, most of the rest of the gallery was between exhibits.  Other trip highlights included the Vietnam veterans memorial, the Vietnam nurses memorial, lunch in a fabulous Mediterranean restaurant and walking along the mall.  That afternoon we visited the Hirschhorn museum.  It’s a place I’ve  read about many times in ArtNews, but to actually be there in the space to experience the outdoor sculpture garden and the exhibits was wonderful.  

 I enjoyed the video art there, which is a form that I have tried hard to appreciate and understand without complete satisfaction on my part.  I also got a chance to see some of the gallery’s own collection, including a huge Helen Frankenthaler, several Calder pieces and at least a dozen Willem De Koonings.  It’s wonderful to see images of pieces, but seeing them live—enjoying the colors and the textures and the face-to-face experience—is so much more powerful than viewing reproductions in a book or on a screen.  It was a fabulous cultural and personal experience, but oh my gosh, the traffic!  The number of people and congestion is just overwhelming.

I spent my final two days in Fredericksburg playing in Elizabeth’s sandbox, which was a lot of fun.  We explored techniques and tried a few experiments to see what we could come up with.  Overall it was a wonderful art-cation, but by the time I was flying home my mind was flying back to the reality of Pippin costuming.  When I had my feet in the costuming studio I launched the final push to create the last of the props and costumes for the production.   

As of today I’m official declaring myself finished!  Of course there are still a few costume tweaks in store.  I’m expecting a few broken elastics to appear and a snap to add or repair.  But all in all, with safety pins and duct tape they could go on stage tomorrow.  The best part of coming home, though, was that my family was so glad to see me that I got another peach pie!  The second pie lasted the past week, with the final slice accompanying coffee Friday morning.  My wonderful family was super excited to see me and I was thrilled to be back home again.  Next up is getting ready for family visits for the Pippin performances, and to take on all the art projects I’ve lined up in my home studio.  Now I need to get back to the enjoyable task of being a working fiber artist!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Weaving blue skies…

This week I spent time in my studio working on my next commissioned piece.  After the long, wonderfully busy summer, I needed to take myself back to the beginning of the summer.  We spent two weeks on the beach in North Carolina looking at water and blue skies, and I’m delighted to report that the background of my commission captures those elements.  The foreground will feature a willow with its long branches swaying over the water.  I have started working on the tree as a traveling project to poke at while I wait for the boys at their activities.  I have been using army blankets to create the inside of the tree trunk and I still have one more blanket piece left.  Those of you who are regular blog readers will recall that I began using army blankets when Grandma gave me Grandpa’s old army blanket.   

She didn’t know what to do with it and didn’t want to throw it away.  I discovered that it was perfect for the core of trees I make.  It’s basically a felted, solid wool base that I can build on to form the trunk.  Over the surface I needle felted fleece that came to me by chance from a young woman raising Shetland sheep.  She approached me at Fourth Street a few years ago and I bought some fleece from her and I’m just now using up the last of it.  It’s the perfect color for willow bark. 

The Fourth Street Festival, my next big event, is rapidly approaching.  The image that I've posted is of this year's T-shirt design - a tribute to Jerry Farnsworth and his amazing kaleidoscopes.  Coordinating all the small tasks and making sure they’re completed commands a lot of my attention these days, but only for another month.  I made the difficult decision in late spring to step down as president of the Fourth Street festival committee.  I’ve been with the group for over twelve years, and I’ve learned an enormous amount from them.  

 I’m grateful for the experience and the friendships I’ve made.  Still, it’s time to move on after this fortieth anniversary art fair.  I’m excited about all of the artists that will participate this year—120 come from all over the U.S. to descend on the art-loving community of Bloomington.  I’m very proud to be associated with the event that is such an integral part of the Bloomington arts scene.  I do need to keep my nose to the grindstone and create a few new pieces for the Labor Day event.  I have had a very successful summer art fair season already, which means that I will need more work to fill my booth with a fresh display of my pieces. 

On the family front we are approaching the beginning of the school year.  Wednesday will find both of my boys in high school!  Amazing!  I will have to split my time between my studio and the costume studio at Bloomington High School South to complete thecostumes for Pippin.  One of the last elements of costume design that I’m contemplating is providing headdresses for circus performers.  I found a used copy of the “The American Circus:  An Illustrated History” online and it has plenty of inspiration. 

Yesterday morning Jim and Tommie went off fishing and Jacob and I headed for the farmer’s market.  We slept in a little longer than the fishermen and we found the market packed and rocking—it was full of people!  We scampered around to get the produce we wanted.  We got watermelon, corn, cucumbers, basil, plums and peaches.  We dropped our treasures off at the car and sauntered back to get delightful dainties from Maria at Piccoli Dolci.  Jacob and I relaxed on the grass and watched the world go by on a pleasant Saturday morning.   

Oh, and the best news of the week!  All is right with the world.  I found a warm peach pie after the last market that went delightfully well with decaf espresso in the morning for breakfast.  If that weren’t enough, Gwen Witten dropped off a warm Derby Pie yesterday evening for dessert! It was AMAZING!!  Life is very good.

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Fourth Street Festival is on the horizon…

I did a lot of driving to art fairs this summer.  During my most recent trip to Minneapolis I had some fond memories of the geology I grew up with in northern Ontario.  We drove through some beautiful granite formations, and I even got to see some cool hoodoos.  If you don’t know, these are striking rock spires that improbably narrow and widen as they rise.  Usually the top part is made of more durable rock, standing on a softer rock layers that were eroded.  I had gotten so used to southern Indiana’s limestone structures that it was striking to see the scraped granite outcroppings I remember from northern Ontario, especially on the Bruce Peninsula.  

 I also saw the familiar sycamores of Indiana replaced by the birches of the north.  I found myself missing the birch trees of my youth.  Of course I had to make more birch pieces!  This decision was reinforced by the fact that these pieces have been popular at art fairs this summer.  I have now finished two of these pieces, which will be on display at the Fourth Street Festival.

Another art project that I’m looking forward to seeing in action is the yarn bombing of some local trees.  This is a fundraising project for Middleway House, organized by Mary Ann Gingels of Yarns Unlimited.  There’s a nice story describing the project in Bloom Magazine  if you’d like to read more about it.  I’m sorry I couldn’t be part of it, but my plate is overflowing with preparations for the Fourth Street Festival.  Somewhere in Bloomington there’s probably a tree that’s grateful.  I did donate a bunch of yarn from my stock for the project, so I feel like I’ll be there in spirit. 

When it rains it pours, and this week was the start of school for my boys.  Tommie is starting middle school at Jackson Creek, so he has to be up at 6:30 to get ready and catch the bus.  He comes home exhausted every day.  Jacob is still cruising at Binford.  He’s Mr. Confident and is mature beyond his ten years.  And for those of you keeping track, yes, hubby Jim did make me a peach pie this week. Mmmmm. 

Close to the front door, my squash is thriving.  It has three babies, which I’m starting to suspect are either acorn squash or pumpkins, based on the shape.  I’m still watering the plant regularly with my dehumidifier water.  As it grew, it decided to crawl over the sidewalk, so I had to redirect it.  I love all my boys, but it takes a constant effort to keep them all in line! 

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Home from Minnesota…

Today I’m happy to be home from all of my summer travels.  This past week I was hurriedly weaving new pieces featuring birches and water, a genre that has been well received.  I’ve been improving my technique for making the water more realistic and the foreground elements more elaborate and dimensional.  I’m really pleased with all my latest pieces.  I also completed my ‘Eat Your Veggies’ composition.  This is the one that features tomato slices, onions, peas and other vegetables.  The components have been my travel companions as I completed each of the foreground vegetables on my summer travels.  The good news is that all my most recent pieces sold at the Loring Park Art Festival in Minneapolis over the weekend.  The even better news is that I’m safely back home with my family after a very long drive. 

The Loring Park fair itself was a lot of fun to do.  The fair itself is organized around a very pretty lake.  Nearby are fountains, trails, a pool, flower gardens, basketball hoops and more attractions that help bring in people.  From the moment I got there the organizers impressed me as welcoming and efficient.  I (OK, Jim) was able to drive the car and trailer around the pond right to my spot Friday afternoon.  We set up on a beautiful summer afternoon and prepared for the show over the weekend.  A weather front that produced heavy rains and winds moved through the area Friday night, but fortunately my booth and art survived the storm without any problems.  Saturday and Sunday morning the organizers drove around with juice, water, fruit and treats.  

 I liked the fact that they came to me to check in and see how things were going.  I had two beautiful days with sunny skies in the upper seventies, which brought out the friendly art appreciators of Minneapolis.  Takedown was just as easy, and within an hour and a half we were on the road out of town toward Tomah Wisconsin, our waypoint on the long drive home. 

When I got home I stepped back into the home stretch of the Fourth Street Festival here in Bloomington.  A lot still has to happen for the show to come together, but I feel good about the efforts of the organizing committee.  It’s going to be another good year.  This year we’re going to have something new on Dunn Street.  We’re hosting Art Cars, which is really Dawn Adam’s brainchild.  Laura Lane, a writer for the Herald Times, put out the call for the cars.  I don’t know exactly what to expect, but there are likely to be mosaics, painted cars, and other embellishments on vehicles.  I’m looking forward to seeing some fun and funky cars.  These aren’t cars you’ll see at the dealership or the NASCAR track, so plan to be in town Labor Day weekend. 

Did I say I was glad to be home?  I sure am!  I spent the drive crocheting leaf clumps, so I know there’ll be a bunch of trees in my future.  I’m still channeling more birches and lakes, thinking about how we need more rain.  The corn was really painful to see along the expressway all the way to Minnesota.  I do have my own little bright spot in the gardening world, though, which features a volunteer squash in the garden by the front door.   

This is where the hamster bedding and uneaten seeds were used as mulch over the winter, and one little squash plant germinated this summer.  I run a dehumidifier in my art studio, and that leaves me a bucket of water to empty every morning.  My little squash gets all she needs.  I don’t know what kind of a squash it will yield, but I do know I’m planning on eating them!  Maybe if I get a lot I can make a squash pie.  Hmmm, that just gave me an idea, now that peach season is in full swing!  And we’ll get to the farmer’s market on Saturday!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

The turtles and ponds on the road to citizenship…

Last week I spent as much time in my art studio making art as I could. A few times my mind jumped back to the brain project and what I had to complete that day, only to remember quickly that I was done! As I mentioned last week, I first had to reclaim my space. My boys and their friends do a lot of projects in my studio. Their materials had spilled way over into my usual space. Things just got dumped and dumped again. When my space was organized I first wove the background to a turtle piece that I’ve been envisioning. It speaks to how I’ve been feeling as the seasons change—I’m ready to stick my head out from inside my shell. All around me the spring creatures are crawling, flying and hopping, making the world seem more alive. I did a dimensional crochet to build up the ground so that it now sticks forward about six inches. That’s the surface upon which the turtle will eventually sit, peeking out from under a canopy of ash leaves. I have a soft spot for ash trees right now because of the damage they are suffering across the Midwest at the teeth of the emerald ash borer. I will eventually attach the compound leaves to the weaving to shelter my turtle, which I’ve decided will be an ornate box turtle. The pattern on their shells is quite variable, which gives me a lot of flexibility to create a design that is both satisfying to me and true to nature. Fortunately for me, the boys have had several basketball adventures to local parks to play, in between taekwondo and hip-hop classes, so I’ve had plenty of time to sit and poke at my turtle.

Working on my turtle also led me into thoughts about ponds and the life that springs up around them in the spring. I pulled out my spring yellow yarns and started working on the background for a piece I want to call Sunrise at Goose pond. I don’t know why, exactly, it just felt like the right name. I want to capture the marshy wetness, the vibrant green colors and the deep, rich almost black mud with grasses growing out of it. In the distance will be the beginnings of a sunrise, with a bright yellowness cracking open the dark night sky.

Friday was a big day for me. I went to bed early to get a good night’s sleep, skipped my Zumba class to feel well rested, and drove north to Indianapolis with Jim. I had my official interview for citizenship, complete with a US civics test. I was armed with all sorts of useful knowledge about the US government, my state representatives, the Supreme Court and the Constitution. I’m delighted to report that not only did I get a perfect score on the test, my friendly examiner just stopped asking questions when I had enough to pass the test and thanked me for studying! He recommended me for approval after about fifteen minutes. All that stands between me and voting is final approval and taking the oath in a month or two. I just can’t wear jeans or flip-flops—I think I can manage that. I also learned this morning that when you pass your citizenship test you get a pie! It’s peach! If I had known that I would have applied years ago!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Only two weeks till Fourth Street!

My artistic trajectory has been a mad dash to complete a set of new pieces for the Fourth Street Festival on Labor Day weekend. I had the good fortune to sell a lot of my big pieces at the Madison show, but that meant my booth was pretty empty. This week I brought three new pieces close to completion.

One piece that I’m really excited about is my ‘Meet me by the Willow’ piece. I was channeling all the great bike trips the boys and I had this summer. I just had a great time discovering how to make a bicycle out of yarn, thread, wire and shoelaces. For the ‘Willow’ piece I created the bike wheels and frame out of used baling wire. At the last Spinners and Weaver’s Guild auction I bought some shiny silvery string that’s a little hard to describe. I wrapped it around the inside of the spokes and gears to get the metallic look I wanted. For the rubber tires I used some puffy black shoelaces, washed of course, that turned out to be perfect. The bike seat and pedals needed to be comfy, so I needle felted those into existence out of soft fleece. I’m just delighted with how the bike turned out!

My ‘Willow’ piece also needed some green, flexible hanging branches. I began with the tree trunk I made on the trip back from Michigan and felted branch extensions onto the main trunk to support the green hanging shoots. I made use of some thin wire from a recycled spiral notebook to make the actual branches, then added some raggy looking green chenille that was perfect for the hanging branches. I just wrapped and felted everything until I was happy with it. When I added the bike it looks like a beautiful miniature scene. I even angled the front bike wheel forward a little, because when you lean your bike against something it never lays perfectly flat. I also like the feel of the piece because it tells a story. It makes you wonder about where the rider is and whom she’s talking to. To me it’s like opening a book in the middle of the chapter to read a passage without knowing what comes before or after.

If that weren’t enough, still more art is racing toward completion in my studio. The lemon piece was officially declared finished this week. While watching the boys do Taekwondo I’ve been needle felting pea pods. I have the set I need finished, so I’ll be attaching pieces this week to the now-completed completed pea plant. I’m hoping I can finish the projects in time to have my photographer, Tom Bertolacini, come to town nearer the weekend to take pictures of everything for my portfolio. It always bugs me when I sell a piece before I have it photographed, and I now have a bunch of pieces ready to go into the booth so I have to get cracking.

With so much art happening I have to think a little about what went on with my family this week. Friday will be the big Taekwondo test when the boys test for their brown belt. Then Jim (and others) will officially have to address them as ‘sir’ when they’re on the floor, something they’re excited about. I’m really proud of the years of work they’ve put in to reach this point, and I’m pleased they’re still going strong with TKD and sparring. We did also get to the farmer’s market on Saturday as a family. I put ten pounds of tomatoes in the freezer for wintertime sauces and cooking projects. We got fresh corn and a watermelon. Best of all, we got a big basket of peaches and I got—you guessed it—a peach pie! Yummm! Now that the boys like pie I don’t get as much, but I think I’ll manage at least one more breakfast pie with espresso.

Life is good, if busy!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin