Mixed Fresh Greens on Mother’s Day.

This week was such a mixed bag—a little of this and a little of that. I was tying up loose ends on a bunch of art projects, not all of which were expected. The most exciting news on the art front was that I was able to re-launch on a weaving I started last fall. It requires beautiful red gum leaves with a deep wine-red color. I had needle felted the leaves months ago, but this week I found just the right yarn and some nice thin steel wire to create the stems. I think they look delightful! Months ago I began to create a toad to live in the piece, but I never gave him any skin. This week I’ll focus on toad skin, trying to resist the temptation to lick it. And even though I spent huge blocks of time and energy on commissions this winter, I still managed to launch on the next request on my list. It’s based on an early piece I did called ‘A Walk in the Woods’. I began a search of my cord boxes to find just the right material. I was looking for some specific thrums that I know work well for the tree trunks, and luckily I found enough of the material. Trunk creation involves twisting one really interesting cord to give the look of bark I want. If you’re a regular blog reader, it may seem as if I always have just the right material for a project. My husband Jim can’t decide whether I’m great at choosing which materials to save (everything) or whether I decide that what I find is just what I needed. The answer is—both! To create my path through the woods I did some digging to find just the right copper and light brown yarns. And yes, I had just the right colors! This week I’ll start the actual weaving, a phase of each project that I really love to do. Because this piece lacks needle felting, I needed something to keep my hands busy while I watch my boys during their Taekwondo and sparring classes. I decided to begin yet another project that does involve a lot of felting. It’s based on a photograph I saw in a Turkish cookbook. The picture shows grouping of vegetables that are being prepared for a salad. Everything looks so crisp and fresh that it makes my mouth water. My version will involve sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, whole carrots and radishes, and chopped broccoli. And whatever else occurs to me that I think would look good! I invested a little time this week putting the outer skins on my cucumbers and tomatoes as the boys trained under the watchful eye of Mr. Scott at Monroe County Martial Arts. This Friday will be a big day for all my boys there as they test to advance in rank. The younger boys will be blue belts with a black stripe, the last belt before brown and Jim will advance to blue belt.

The diversity of my art projects was matched by the diversity of other family events that culminated in a special Mother’s Day. Sunday afternoon was our spring egg hunt, which brought bunch of kids to the house to search for eggs and screech happily as they ran around the back yard. Dinner was Atlantic salmon with a ginger-orange glaze. It has a little balsamic vinegar and a touch of honey and I really like it. We opened a nice bottle of wine, had some red new potatoes boiled to perfection, and topped it off with a rhubarb pie still warm from the oven. I received an elegant watch from Jim and two sweet handmade cards from the boys. It’s good to be a mom!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Ratatouille is the first to leave the sinking ship

I began this week reveling in the late stages of completing my major art pieces, "Summer Harvest" and "Ratatouille." My photographer, Tom Bertolacini, came over to take photographs for my portfolio. He sets up all his fancy lights and gets out his fancy camera and takes some really nice pictures. Even better, though, is the fact that I brought the pieces upstairs when he was done! That’s important because two major storms passed through Bloomington on Friday. The second one woke us up around midnight when the tornado sirens went off. We trundled two sleepy boys into the basement studio, with blankets and pillows, and they lay down there. Fortunately, we got to see the window well filled up with water and watch the water start to pour in. By that time the tornado sirens were off and Jim ran out to scoop water out of the well. Then he used the push broom to sweep water out of the veranda and direct it into Celerin Pond which drains into Drummond Creek. That kept a lot of water out of the house, but enough came in to the storage room that I had to jump into defense mode. I cleared the wall storage units and rolled up the carpets in my art studio to let everything dry out. Nothing was damaged, but it kept us up until 3:30. Saturday we did a little drainage remodeling around the veranda and resolved to remove the stone patio that channels the water toward the house. Ah, spring in Indiana—I love it! I just love some parts more than others. A post script here—I could do without the ant invasions too.

This week I began weaving away on my BPP (Bloomington Playwrights Project) commission piece. The structural challenge was incorporating one key aspect of their logo, which is the “turning pages” at the bottom right hand corner on all their promotional stuff. Chad asked if I could somehow incorporate that feature into the piece. I imagined a strategy that I thought might work, but this week I did the experiment. Basically I wove three weavings, and into each of the first wefts I incorporated some used baling wire wrapped with yarn which also continued up the right side of the weaving. I then wove the rest of the weaving. I was able to create a tiered set of weavings and stretched them out on the frame. I snipped away the support strings on the corners and molded the wires outward to create the turning pages. During my travels I’ve been poking at the BPP logo letters. I’ve enjoyed working on crisp edges that don’t have the organic feel that my felted vegetables had. While I like doing natural things, the freshness of doing something new is welcome. To make the letters I used an old wool army blanket that belonged to Jim’s father. I cut six layers out for each letter and stitched them together. I needle felted my tumeric-dyed fleece on top of the blanket letters. Because I want to the letters appear to be suspended in front of the weaving I also incorporated baling wire into the back of the letters to create the look of floating letters. Overall, I feel really good about the progress I made on the piece, and next week I’ll should launch on to the cursive text of their logo, ‘Where theatre is born’. The piece will feature a hand holding a pen, which I’ve already completed and think it looks really good.

I’m sure I did other things this week—I’m a little short on sleep, which doesn’t help my memory. I do remember lunch with my sweetie this Thursday at Malibu Grill. I had the farmed perch from Bell’s in Muncie Indiana, which were really tasty. I had no idea that there were perch in Indiana—I’ve only enjoyed the perch from the great lakes. Jim made kluski for dinner last night, and it was especially good. Even so, after all the wetness and woe I had this week you’d think I might deserve another pie! My friend Wendy got one…but I think that she made that one herself...

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Thyme for Tomatoes

I had my felting needles flying this week as I worked toward completing my two big commission pieces. I continued on my herb mission by creating small thyme leaves, using the fleece I carded together last week. I’m always really busy, but this week I had to make a little thyme for myself. When I had the leaves made, I snipped little 2-4 inch lengths of thin wire that I wrapped with yarn to make the veins for the leaves. When it came to making the stems, I panicked a little when I discovered that I lacked just the right yellowy green yarn. I looked through all my light spring greens, olives and medium green boxes with no success. I was humming and hawing about what to do because I knew thyme was running out. Then the angelic choir sang when I walked around the art studio and saw just the right color material sitting atop my giant pile of yet-to-be-sorted yarns. I guess I need a brief bit of background here (no thyme like the present). When new yarns come into the house they first spend at least two days in the freezer to kill any potential pests or eggs. Then to go into a big pile in the art studio to be sorted into my rows of plastic storage bins. That happens when the pile reaches a critical height and spills over into the walkway, or when the boys need money for the latest toy and they offer to sort yarns for money. Anyway, I finished the three thyme sprigs this week and launched on the tomatoes. I carded together the fleece I need for the fleshy parts of the tomatoes and the seeds. That’s next week’s project, along with doing my business taxes. I’ll hand off the forms to my turbo-taxin’ husband who will put it all together.

The rest of the week mostly involved the usual running around town to support my family. But everywhere I went I was on thyme! I have a piece (Birch at Rocky Point) hanging in Columbus, Indiana at the recycled art show to celebrate Earth Day. Marilyn Brackney organizes the show, and the opening reception is this Thursday from 5 – 7 pm at the Hotel Indigo. I look forward hanging out and chitty-chattying with my recycled artist friends like Cappi Phillips and Chris Gustin.

On the home front, this morning Jacob decided to make scones for breakfast, which I encouraged. He served them in the lovely platter Tommie made in clay class at the Ivy Tech-John Walron Arts Center. Jacob also participated in Crazy Day at his school. He wore his pants inside out (the zipper was a special challenge) and gelled his hair. Actually, his personal stylist Tommie did most of the coiffing. The whole thing was for a fundraiser for Riley Children’s hospital. Now it’s Saturday afternoon but I feel like I’m ahead of the curve. The laundry is done and carried upstairs, two loaves of bread are baked for the week, and a new batch of tomato sauce is ready for pizzas and other Italian dishes.

Whew!

Until next, uhm, thyme…

Martina Celerin

Anybody need a hand?

It’s time for my annual big push in preparation the Fourth Street Festival here in Bloomington. Thankfully, this year I’m not trying to deal with the children’s booth project. That ate up a huge amount of my time the past few years, and I still have the unfinished project from last year sitting in my living room. This year’s challenge was filling my booth with fresh art for my discriminating local clientele. That became even more of an issue than usual when the fine folks at the Madison Art Fair just about cleaned out my booth. Rain or shine, the set up is this Friday for the weekend show, so I only have a few days to bring things together. That includes helping stomp out all the little fires associated with the show’s production that pop up every year.

On the bright side, I just finished a big piece called ‘The Harvest’. It has a hand that’s pulling a carrot out of the earth, which means I’ve been needle felting a hand and a forearm for the last few weeks. I’m really pleased with how it turned out, but the disembodied arm has freaked out more than a few people. I’m sure it looks a little creepy to watch someone poke needles at high speed into a realistic looking arm. I took it to the farmer’s market yesterday, and while we picked up some corn, peaches and tomatoes, we hung the hand-in-progress from the steering wheel. As we walked away we all marveled at how realistic it looked. In hindsight, in today’s world it might not have been so smart to have a realistic arm hanging free of a body in your car. At least it wasn’t dripping blood. On the bright side, now the arm is securely fastened in its permanent location, pulling a carrot out of the earth. I’ll be in trouble though, if the police come for the arm —it will tell them it was framed!

I did do a little dyeing this week too. I pulled my frozen harvest of yellow goldenrod flowers out of the freezer and threw them into my dye pot. I first tried my stock protocol, which is to boil the flowers for an hour in water and let them steep overnight. Then I filter the brew and throw in my washed wool. I boil it again for an hour and let it steep overnight again. My first effort wasn’t too spectacular—the wool came out a pretty but rather drab yellow. There was still quite a bit of yellow in the dye pot, so I threw in some alum and some fresh wool to see what would happen. Out came a brilliant yellow that I thought was amazing. Next time I’ll start with alum see how it turns out. I may be an artist now, but still love doing experiments!

On other fronts, I finished my whimsical yellow bird and perched her in the framed tree I created for her. I've named it "Out on a Limb" and I’m very pleased with how that one turned out too, so I’m looking forward to debuting my newest pieces for my peeps here in town. That reminds me of waking up in the hotel room during the Columbus Ohio art fair next to my then seven-year-old son. He woke up with a smile, looked up at me, and said: “if your friends are your ‘peeps’, I think your best friend must be your ‘perp’!” Why that was the first waking thought in his head is beyond my understanding—weird stuff like that comes from Jim’s side of the family. That was the good old days, though. Now Jacob is eight, and Tommie just turned ten. We’ve been feasting on an excellent chocolate birthday cake this week. The intrepid boys, along with their friend Lara, chased butterflies in an open field until they collected 51 today, including a bunch of new species that were photographed, identified and released. I sat and sketched with my new wood-less coloured pencils while they ran around, so all was well in my world!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Holey Nylons!

OK! I’ve had enough with the peppers! With a lot of my pieces, I start off really excited about an idea. It doesn’t always sink in how much work it’s really going to be, even if I’ve done a version of the piece before. It’s a lot like childbirth. When you’re right in the middle of the pushing and the cursing, you swear that’s something you’ll never do again. Then, when you see your little angel sleeping with an expression of the utmost inner peace and security, you think it wasn’t so bad. This week was the childbirth phase of my pepper piece. I was bearing down, pushing them through, doing my best to finish! I put the tops and stems on the last batch last night as the family watched a movie. DVDs haven’t been big in our house lately, which is good, but we needed a quiet evening. Home Alone 3 was the perfect medicine—a little more mature than the first two, but still really funny if you’re a kid. Monday afternoon I plan to attach them to the weaving I created a while ago. Did I say I was delighted to be finished?!

My current project is getting ready for a workshop on Monday. I’m heading over to Stonebelt, where we’ll be wet felting ornaments. I’ve been making the centers this week that my group will be embellishing as their part of the project. The ornaments are all wool, although the centers are wool melting pots. It’s like soup—the kind you make depends on what you happen to have. Some of it is wool fiber that’s been sheared and washed, but has fibers that are too short for spinning. My latest batch of ornament cores is made of chunks of old wool sweaters. Some are scraps that my friend Ruth Rives collected for me, and some are old sweaters that my dear husband unwittingly sent into the dryer. He’s trainable but forgetful, unfortunately. Anyway, I chop them into one-inch squares and pack them into my mother-in-law’s old holey nylons that she saves for me. One trip through the hot cycle in the washer and high heat in the dyer and voila! Felted ball stock. They look good and they’re ready to go into ornaments. Or tomatoes—maybe I could make another tomato piece!

My social calendar has been full this weekend too, which has slowed writing of this week’s essay. We started off at the Edible Lotus fundraiser Friday evening where my jeweled tree on dryer sheets was elegantly twisting above a dinner table. I really love the moment of recognition and disbelief when people realize what they’re looking at. Many thanks to Lee of the Lotus World Music and Art Festival for saving dryer sheets for me! It’s hard to collect enough for a big piece, even if you have a family of four with two (really three) rather messy eaters who inspire lots of laundry. The food was really excellent, and the ability to try all the donated foods was exciting. I loved the spinach paneer from Shanti. The dish can taste like bad seaweed when it isn’t prepared well, but this was great. I came as close as I’ve been to restaurant Tallent when I got to try their feta and red pepper (arrrggghhh, peppers!) creampuffs. They were smooth and delectable. I’ve got to get Jim to open up the wallet and take me there. Oh, and the mousse from Le Petit Café was wonderful, too. We’ll need to stop in for a bit more of that soon!

Saturday started out with the boys at their clay class while Jim and I headed to the Farmer’s Market. Then the boys organized a big Pokemon sale in the front yard that turned into a block party. We had eleven kids ‘running’ the sale at one time or another. That translated into a lot of running around, screaming, lemonade-drinking and fresh-baked cookie consumption. The rascals ate around six dozen cookies. By last night we were ready for the movie, since they had a sleepover at a neighbor’s house the night before and stayed up until eleven talking and poking each other. Today we all dressed up and went to see ‘Little Shop of Horrors’, the Cardinal Stage production at the John Waldron Arts Center. Audrey was ferocious, the dentist was appropriately self-centered and evil, and the performance was excellent. Dinner is about to come out of the oven, so it’s time to reclaim the boys from the neighbor’s yard and sit down to dinner!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Salamander Chili?

This week has been a needle-felting fiesta. I created enough felted peppers to make a fine chili, and my ‘Salamander Salsa’ is coming together nicely. The pepper piece needs about fifty peppers of all colors—reds, greens, yellows, and oranges. For the composition, I’m channeling a late-summer basket of peppers from our local CSA. I just have to remember not to rub my eyes after I cut them up. To make the basic pepper shape I’ve been wet-felting merino noils, the same technique I used with the kids in the Creek-Love classroom to create felt balls. I’m using a bamboo mat that I picked up at the recycle center to do the rolling, and the soap is an environmentally friendly dish soap that my thoughtful husband picked up for me. I haven’t checked, but I’m sure the seeds are in there! Anyway, to introduce the color I add roving or fleece onto the surface by needle felting. To get the perfect pepper green I use the amazing green fibers that I bought at the Fiber Event in Greencastle—I especially love the mohair that I found because it’s a rich green and very shiny. I use the drum carder borrowed from the Spinners and Weaver’s guild to get just the right color blend. It’s a fun tool to use, but it looks like an instrument of great pain if some part of you got caught in it. The ability to mix and create specific colors lets me create the perfect green for different types of peppers at different stages of development. I’m up to 34, so I’ve still got a few more to go. This is about the stage where I start wondering what in the world I was thinking when I started this project!

My other major project has involves birthing a few more salamanders. I finished my yellow barred salamander and I set off on making the body of a red striped salamander. He’s waiting for me to add his arms and legs, which is the tedious part. You know, when it comes right down to it, salamander bodies look a lot like peppers! I need to start a new project. The only thing that made the poking palatable on Thursday, which was a big needle felting day, was the fact that there was a marathon of ‘Project Runway’ episodes. I just love the creativity that goes into the compositions. I like the fact that the fashion designs incorporate colors, textures, dimensionality movement and personality. I get great ideas for my own art pieces, and they inspire me to greater heights for next year’s Trashionista fashion show. I can’t wait!

On the home front, the boy’s tested for the purple belt with a black stripe. It’s their seventh belt (ten more to go to black belt!). They’re jumping around like frogs in the spring, spinning like tops, and kicking like, well, like they did when they were in the womb. Now I know what they were practicing for! Afterwards we headed down the sidewalk to Jiffy Treet for a little cool and refreshing reward. Jacob and his dad shared the chocolate lovers sundae, a decadent treat with chocolate ice cream, brownies, hot fudge sauce, whipping cream and nuts. I did get the cherry on top. Tommie and I were much more reserved, each getting a small dish of ice cream. At least half of us show some restraint. It was a delightful end to another fine week.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Thoughts of warmer weather…

We’re back in the icebox in southern Indiana after a nice warm-up last week. While my frozen toes understand reality, my mind is off in warmer places. I finished my seashell piece, but with a twist that took even me by surprise. I had very carefully laid out a pattern for the large shells, designed to create clear movement as you visually took in the piece. Then my inner child quickly surveyed the piece and clearly demanded: MORE SHELLS! I watched as she grabbed a handful from my ‘shells with holes’ bag and proceeded to dump them on the piece. I gave her a healthy snack to settle her down a little, and while she was eating I arranged the shells a little. I loved the idea of having a little chaos in the front, and yet if you look carefully you can still see the underlying pattern and flow. Now there’s a metaphor for my life with kids! Or maybe the feel of the piece just captures that little depression in the beach you find where all the shells collect at low tide. There’s usually a cute little beat-up seastar that didn’t handle the surf well. That’s the metaphor for my husband.

A lot of other new or commissioned art is also coming together in my studio, and some of it will unexpectedly be on display around town this month. I got word from Jean Kautt at Bloomingfoods (she organizes the Blooming Arts Series) that the February artist had a family emergency and couldn’t hang a show. I have a few new birch pieces (birches, beaches—I’ve got to branch out), plus a few ‘previously shown’ pieces that I’ll hang at both Bloomingfoods locations. The show will be called “Thoughts of Warmer Weather: Water and Sunshine”. The east side store will feature ‘Water’ and the west side will be ‘Sunshine’ in case you’re wondering. I won’t show my new ‘Home Grown Tomatoes’ commission piece, but after adding the last little cluster of tomatoes it looks warm, happy and yummy. This weekend I’ll complete the attaching and call it done. I’ll also be at Wonderlab this Friday as part of their “The Science of Color Series”, doing a kid- and adult-friendly community art project. We’re going to build a large Eastern Tiger Swallowtail mosaic out of wine corks that volunteers have been painting for the project. Stop on by and share in the fun!

Finishing pieces also means new beginnings, and at the moment I’m struggling to decide which piece to launch into next. I have several ideas swirling around in my head, and basically I’ll just wait to see what the weather is like Monday to decide which color palate I need to work with. The first piece will present a chameleon, sitting on a fernlike compound leaf. The second will feature a sand crab on a beach pocked with crab holes. Keeping the sand out of their living room carpets must be quite a task—I’m sure there’s a great market for rugged sand crab vacuum cleaners. The third piece hits a little closer to home, to be called something like ‘The Transplant’. It will show a section of earth with a freshly dug hole, ready to receive a geranium with a severely overgrown root ball. If you’ve ever bought a flower that’s spent a little too much time at the greenhouse with abundant light and fertilizer you know what I mean. It’s going to be a little painful (for everyone involved) to break up the root ball and get started in a new environment, but you know it’s both necessary and the right thing to do. I think about my own transplantations that way, whether it was my move from Ontario to Bloomington, or whether it was my move from world of science into the art community. I owe a lot to the gardeners along the way, and I know that with a little light, water and fertile ground, anyone can blossom!

Until next week…

The November Whirlwind

The last two weeks have been an amazing blur of shows, scarves and weaving. I had dropped into one of those wonderful life patterns where I was discovering and developing my own wet felting style by making scarves. It’s really an exploration of a new technique for me that I’ll use in future weaving projects. ‘Creating my own canvas’ has always been a major feature of my work, and I feel like I’m enhancing my repertoire of skills that will make their way into my dimensional weavings. Bluebell (the family car) was packed with 19 new scarves, twelve new wreaths for the season, and all the new ornaments I made over the year. I made the early morning trek over to Columbus Indiana last Saturday to show everything at the Déjà vu recycled art fair. It’s always a little stressful when you put your heart and soul into some technique, then put it on display for everyone to see. Fortunately, I came home with a lighter load and a warm feeling inside. I can do this!

Success, of course, breeds new problems. I didn’t have enough scarves to show at the Spinner’s and Weaver’s guild show this weekend. So I re-converted the dining room table to Scarf Central and geared up to make some more. I had one scarf that was a whole bunch of ribbons and strings and just enough just enough felted wool to hold it all together. It reminded me of my youthful days in a bikini, but that’s another story. It was a glorious week because I got to sift through my thirty or so 20-gallon plastic tubs of yarns and pull out the most delightful colors and textures to incorporate into the scarves. I also had to scamper over to Sheep Street in Morgantown to pick up several more pounds of merino. Of course I couldn’t resist picking up a bunch of new yarns to use, including some delicious jewel tones that I knew I wanted to work with. I especially worked on layering different colors of roving to achieve the depth and color gradients I wanted. The only downside is that my shoulder and arm muscles haven’t quite forgiven me for all the rolling I did to felt the materials.

I did launch into another project on a whim recently. I had collected a bunch of wool sweaters, including some in delightful greens that I knew weren’t going to fit into the color schemes I was using in the scarves. I decided to cut them up to make Christmassy fir trees. Of course it isn’t a tree until it is trimmed, so I used the tiny red felted balls that I had created using the new secret technique I learned. I trimmed them with gold rickrack and set the whole thing on beige fabrics with different textures. I glued them on to a pretty mottled beige card stock and inserted into each a piece of white cotton rag with the texture of vellum. I think they’re fun and perfect for the holidays—check them out at the Wandering Turtle gallery in Bloomington, or stop in and see them at the Unitarian Universalist show this December.

Finally, I put away my scarf-making materials and reclaimed my basement art studio. I picked up all the yellow yarns I had out for making my Autumn Aspens commission piece. I also had to clear away the remnants of my boys’ giant art project. I can’t really describe it except to say that it involves small pieces of electronics, popsicle sticks, fabric scraps and a glue gun. I’m so proud of my creative boys! Anyway, I herded their project into a corner and blocked it off visually with a tower of easels and tools. Out came the vacuum cleaner and once again I had a functional workspace. It’s really great to be back in my weaving space, and this week I’ll finish the autumn aspens piece. After I get some sleep. I’m still recovering from two shows in two weeks. Tonight I sleep; tomorrow I weave!

Until next week…

It’s Déjà Vu all over again!

Saturday is the big Déjà Vu show in Columbus Indiana. It celebrates recycled materials in art and features area artists that use reclaimed and recycled materials. You’ll find me there from 10-4 at the Yes Cinema at the corner of Fourth and Jackson. I even worked up the courage to call in to ‘Ask the Mayor’ on WFIU and invite Columbus Mayor Fred Armstrong to visit the show—it’s about ten minutes in on this recording. The show’s organizer, Marilyn Brackney, has done a bunch to promote the show so it should be a fun and busy event. Buy local and recycled, I say. And it’s a good excuse to come and see my new scarves and wreaths for the season!

Speaking of scarves, last December I participated in a workshop organized by Pam Kinnaman of Wee Sheep and run by Patti Hodge. They’re both winners in the 2009 Hoosier Hills Fiber arts contest and good people to know. Patti taught me to make lattice felted scarves, and of course I got into the wet felting process—it’s fun. I made a bright red scarf with black silk and hand dyed nylon fibers that I bought at the Fiber Event in Greencastle. It’s really soft and pretty and happy, and I ended up wearing it all last winter. I decided I’d like to try to make my own scarves, but sometimes it takes a while to get started on a project. I carry it around in my head and eventually it comes out! Last summer, on one of my treks to Sheep Street in Morgantown, I bought several pounds of merino wool roving in black, white, red and periwinkle. I tucked it away, but I’ve been collecting funky remnant yarns for the project, which is waaaay different than my usual yarn collection for weavings. OK, not so much. But I still have fun doing it! I finally decided that this week was the time to launch my scarf project. I got my hands on an old pool noodle and cut it to wrap the wet roving. Don’t tell my kids I cut it! Last spring I ordered a bunch of mosquito netting on-line, and even though I didn’t know I’d need it for scarves I knew I’d need it. I installed both extra leaves into the dining room table and made it the design and wet felting area. I cleared off the kitchen island and that became my wet felting studio. Then I laid out some complicated designs, applied my wet-felting knowledge from last year (and added a few tricks and shortcuts of my own, and started rolling. And rolled and rolled and rolled! I used this wonderful olive oil glycerin soap so the skin on my hands is soft and smooth. Oh, and it worked beautifully on the wool too.

To summarize my weeklong adventure, some of my designs turned out really well (come to the show!), while others were just part of the learning process. Some of the materials I experimented with didn’t felt well. I tried incorporating my felted balls (link), which didn’t stick very well, and various fabric scraps, which sometimes really enhanced the design. All in all I have nineteen new scarves. I was a little concerned about whether or not I could show them at the recycled art show, since some of the wool was new. So I asked the sheep, who assured me it was recycled.

Until next week…

Oh and one more big event coming up next weekend...the Fiber Art Show...Nov 13, 5pm - 9pm & Nov 14, 10am - 5 pm at the First United Church, 2420 E. 3rd Street Bloomington, IN. If you don't make it to Columbus, I hope to see you in Bloomington. I'm sure Mayor Kruzan will be there!

Happy Halloween, Trees and Treats!

As anyone who lives in southern Indiana knows, this is a beautiful time of year. The reds, yellows, and oranges compete for our attention with the holdover greens of summer and the coming browns of winter. As every artist knows, no matter what the medium, you really have to become one with the part you’re playing to make it real. Since I’m working on an Autumn Aspens piece, among other fall projects, I decided that I had to become an autumn goddess, or perhaps a lesser wood nymph or sprite. You just don’t know until you get out your box of felt, which I did. I solicited the aid of my family to cut out leaves of every shape and color. They helped, but I ended up doing most of the cutting. Out came my old brown oversized mock turtleneck, two glue guns, and enthusiastic gluers. The felt leaves ranged from plums through reds and oranges to some yellows and even a few tasteful browns. I couldn’t have done a better job if I’d rolled in some Elmer’s glue and then rolled in the backyard carpet of leaves. For my crown I got out my straw sun hat and glued on the branches my son collected from the backyard. A few leaves went on the hat too, plus the acorns that Tommie decided should be on there too. I let the glue set, pulled on some old brown pants, and voila! I’m a formidable tree creature from the forest!

Tonight is Halloween, and I’m really looking forward to the festivities. My boys, at ages 7 and 9, are at the prime trick-or-treating ages. I have one red ninja and one fearsome phantom with a featureless face. Don’t be frightened if they come to your house! They’re polite, and they’re good at heart. I’m sending them out with the HoA (husband of artist) to keep them on the sidewalk and away from the curmudgeon’s house. Now he can be scary. I’ll be home in my leafy costume handing out the treeeets. Sorry! I couldn’t resist.

On other fronts, I’ve been diligently working in the art studio to finish my ‘Autumn Aspens’ commission. I had brought out all the grays, browns and purple yarns to create the background gradient. There are hints of green and yellow throughout to give the piece depth and continuity with the foreground trees, but the darker colors create the sense of the forest mystery under the bright yellow canopy. I then topped the weaving with some dense yellow foliage, mostly because I couldn’t resist getting out my bright yellows for some color at the top. I stretched out the piece in an oak frame that I stained to have a hint of yellow. I stitched the piece onto the frame using reeled silk, which I love to work with because it just kind of glides along your fingers when you work with it. It glides along your toes, too, if you don’t have enough hands for the job. The next step is to start embroidering the piece with all my different yellow yarns. My art studio will be glowing this week, and so will I. Plus, there should be enough leftover Halloween candy to keep everyone in the family buzzing all week long.

Until next week…

Cool mornings and hot cooking!

Can you feel the seasons change? There’s something about the cool, dry mornings, the last flowers in the garden and the first bright red leaves in the trees that gives it away. The calendar gives it away too: I wrapped up my final summer art show last week at Penrods. I dried out all my outdoor booth materials in the living room and carefully packed them away until the Broadripple show in the spring. The boys and I picked up the last CSA vegetables this Wednesday too. We’ll miss seeing Amy, Andy, Grace and Willa at Musgrave Orchards every week.

Every ending has a new beginning, and it’s time to get ready for the upcoming holiday art fairs. For me, that means the Holiday Market at the Shower’s building, the Fiber Arts show, the recycled art show (Déjà vu, in Columbus, IN) and the Unitarian Universalist art fair (Holiday Art Fair and Bazaar, with the great cookies!). I was wondering what I could make that was new for me to sell at those shows when my eyes fell on my giant pile of waste yarn. I decided to launch into a project I’ve been thinking about for a while, but one that I have resisted to keep focused on finishing weaving for the summer shows. Have I said I liked finding uses for everything? But what could I do with leftover yarn scraps of all colors? You guessed it—holiday wreaths! So with great enthusiasm I went through my sewing basket of thread and pulled out my spools of green, red and white. I used the thread to wrap yarn balls. This is a technique I picked up from Sue Westhues last year. She saw my ornaments from a distance and thought they looked like Temari balls. I had never heard of them so I started looking in books and on the web. It turns out that Temari describes an ancient Japanese craft of wrapping remnants with fine thread, then stitching onto the product. How perfect: pretty thread, meet yarn remnants! I even found a use for the leftover quilt batting Aunt Lois saves for me. She belongs to a quilting bee in Michigan and the batting scraps they generate would otherwise end up in the trash. I make her save them for me, and it gives me a connection to my slightly quirky aunt.

So now I have a bunch of Temari balls in search of a home. Hmmm. I built a wire frame and covered it with remnant cotton cording to make the backbone of a wreath. Then I wrapped the frame with strips of remnant commercial felt. I decided I need 106 Temari balls for each large wreath—wow, that’s a lot! Life would be easier if I wasn’t so good at math. So I made the first 106 and attached them to the frame. I hung it on the front door to get an idea about how it would look, and to me it looks just delightful. The eSoA (elder son of artist) thinks he’d like one in autumn colors—that’s my boy! So soon I’ll pull out the orange, yellow and plum threads from my collection for the fall color wreath.

The new fall wreaths are fun, but of course it’s also time to get back to finishing the projects I’ve put off doing to focus on the summer art fairs. That means putting together an analysis of the Fourth Street Fair from the surveys and writing the final reports. Important, yes; informative, yes; exciting, well, hmmm. I do like statistics! I also have to assemble a grant proposal to the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to help support the Fourth Street next year. Another deadline to meet. Arrrghhh.

So what’s been fun this week? When the world starts to descend on me I launch into cooking mode. The CSA has cleverly and deliberately filled my refrigerator with everything from eggplants to zucchini to cabbages to tomatoes, to, well, you get the idea. I cooked ratatouille, Mexican pepper casserole, Bulgarian pepper pot casserole, Chinese green beans and peanuts, and Garbanzo pepper curry. I’m still planning to make Gujarat baked cabbage, a cool looking Indian dish that I’m hoping will provide a tasty use for the cabbage. I’m also going to make Zucchini Parmesean and caramel pie for the kids. At least they call it caramel pie—I make with my blender and a huge zucchini. Despite the ingredients (not knowing helps) the boys like it and that’s the important thing. I even get help from the HoA, who makes the crust. He seems to like doing that, and me…did I say I like pie?

Until next week…