Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean

It’s finished! “Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean” is at Wonderlab to hang for the rest of May and the month of June. It has been a long swim (see the April 25, March 2 and March 16 entries), but the school of gold fish has been united. The fish really are gold, with every last scale a piece of jewelry, beads, button or coin—some are real and some are pirate booty that washed ashore. They’re attached with white glue, which is kid friendly, and the final fishes are coated with two thick layers of polyurethane to help hold it all together. The can says ‘fast drying’, but that was just to get me to buy it. So even though the piece was scheduled to arrive at Wonderlab on the 20th it took an extra day.

The piece itself is quite a mosaic. The weaving is built from ties, socks, lanyards, and cords in a pattern that only a kid could create. The gold fish protrude mightily from the piece, with big eyes built from a small black bead on a big white button. I struggled with how I was going to attach the two, wondering what kind of glue might be best, when I realized that, well, they’re buttons, and I can sew them! I grow as a fiber artist every week. The other big structural issue was the problem of gluing the stretcher frame that holds the woven background to the seashell-encrusted frame that Tom Berolaccini made and the kids decorated. All the wood screws I had were too big or too small, so off to Bloomington Hardware I went early one morning. I had to get to the store, find the right screws, and drive to the Creek-Love classroom (where the weaving was made) in time for their musical performance day. My younger star performer, who is a teacher at heart, demonstrated and explained his Tae Kwon Do forms to the class in lieu of a musical performance. Others did amazing things on the piano, violin, harmonica, drums and guitars, among other instruments. We celebrated with ice cream after school that day, just as we celebrated the performance of the ‘six of spades’ in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in the Binford music room the day before. I recommend investing in Jiffy Treet and the Chocolate Moose as my kids get older.

This was also a full week on the working artist front. Last weekend was the Broadripple art fair, which started out rainy and cold on Saturday. The people were damp and grumbly and it wasn’t much of a day to sell art. Sunday’s weather was just the opposite, with sunny, warmer weather bringing out the beaming art fair participants. I always have delightful and unexpected conversations, such as one with a man who used to work beside felting machines. The temperature around the machines was 106° and he lasted one week. It’s amazing to me to think about the thousands of needles at work on the wool, in contrast to me with a single needle working on art projects. My dandelion piece sold on Sunday (see the March 7 post). Many admired the piece, but some offered me a trowel. I’m sure they’re the people with the monoculture lawns that get watered every night.

The Spinners and Weaver’s guild art auction was this week too. I came home with a huge box of yarn for not a lot of money. I mercilessly put all the yarns in the freezer to kill off any unwanted little bugs that might try to invade my art studio. I also ended up bidding against Ulla for an enormous kit to create a Rya weaving. We sat on opposite sides of the room and kept bidding up the price. Finally I hollered her that I just wanted the yarn! She said she just wanted the fabrics, so a bargain was struck. We split the bid and the materials and everyone was happy. Now I have a box full of fabulous wool in a rainbow of colors. She got an enormous box of materials I would have recycled. But that’s how the world works, isn’t it!


Until next week…

Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean

The fish are swimming through my head this week. I’ve been working on a weaving project in the Creek-Love multiage classroom at Roger’s school this week. We recently completed a huge blue weaving of the ocean using recycled materials. I scoured the Recycle Center and Opportunity House for all things blue, black and weavable, and what I came up with were ties, socks, lanyards, and cords. Perfect! The kids, a little at a time, created the ocean. Then I made a compatible frame out of the recovered stretcher frames from Pygmalion’s. Of course we jazzed it up a little by gluing seashells on the face of the frame, another good class project. The kids also sketched the fish they wanted for their weaving. This meant that not only did I have to create fish out of recycled stuff, I had to meet the demanding specifications of six to eight year olds. Did I say I love a challenge?

Luckily, a school of fish appeared in my kitchen this week. I started out with soft foam from the recycle center and a pair of scissors. I’m sure this is how all the great master sculptors got their start—limestone is way overrated. Then I took thin blue Styrofoam trays—the kind that fish really come on from the store—and cut those into tails and fins that could be glued on to the fish. The whole thing turned out to be a little too soft and absorbent to paint, but the art teacher at Rogers—Jan Barnes—really helped me out. She suggested that I try using celluclay, which is finely ground paper and water. It filled in the crevices and dried to a rock-hard surface and my fish were swimming again. They’ll soon be painted and ready for release into the ocean. It’s kind of like the animal rescue missions that take in wounded animals, nurse them back to health and then release them into the wild.

If you think you’d like to see the piece when it’s done, it scheduled for display at Wonderlab from May 20 to June 30th, planned to coincide with the new water table opening. ‘Gold Fish in a Blue Ocean’ will then swim over to the John Waldron Arts Center to hang for July and August before taking up a more permanent residence in the Creek-Love classroom, the first grade home of my son Cubbie.

In other news, I dragged my scientist husband out of the lab for lunch on Friday. It was going on 80 degrees and we ate at the picnic table in the Third Street Park. It turns out we couldn’t park in our usual secret spot behind the police station and had to settle for a street spot almost a block away. Oh the horrors of the city! In any case the afternoon was the setting for an artistic epiphany (aka piffy). I’ve been trying to come up with a design for a commission piece that fuses a woman and a tree. Nothing worked for me—the face always detracts from the design. Then I was looking up at the trees as the started to bud out and realized my tree woman should be looking up! Her arms grow into the branches, her elegant neck is exposed and she reaches for the skies. It empowers her and has a feel that I really like. I’ll start that soon, but tomorrow (Sunday the 26th of April) is the Luna festival in the Showers building. I’ll be showing some of my work (and more is along the staircase leading upstairs). My friend Bonnie Gordon-Lucas will be there too, so we’ll have fun no matter what.


Until next week…

One more week of winter!

This week was a transition week. I finished writing a grant proposal to BEAD (the Bloomington Entertaining and Arts District) to expand advertising for the Fourth Street Festival into larger markets. The goal is to bring more people to Bloomington to the Festival, which translates into more hotel occupancy, restaurant business and other sales for the community. I also finished my monthly quota for holiday ornaments (10 for April). Those are handy to work on anywhere, so I'm usually poking (needle felting) while the boys are doing their Tae Kwon Do practice under the watchful eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Scott at Monroe County Martial Arts. From there I transitioned back into making a commissioned piece called Winter Birches. This has been an extraordinarily popular piece, with strong card sales and interest since it was first made three years ago. I still make similar pieces on commission, so that was the goal for this week. The unseasonably cold weather provided just the right backdrop for the transition from winter to spring. That meant I didn't feel badly about working on a snowy piece this week.

The construction of Winter Birches is always an event. First I lay out the fifty or so required yarns as a gradient of color.
The feel of the piece is a cold serenity comprising black and white, but it really has a range of purples, greens, browns and grays. I've posted a picture so you can get an idea about what this means. Construction of the birches themselves is an adventure in recycled art itself. I wrap shoelaces, cord and old packing string in a special white yarn that has brown and beige strings hanging out. There are a few secret finishing touches, but well, they're secret! It gives me an inner pride to look at it, knowing all that's inside--kind of like watching your child at play.

The last transition for the week was unexpected and less welcome. I developed a kidney infection, which I first tried to overcome by drinking lots of water. I drank so much that the city people came by to see if we had a broken line in the house. OK, I'm kidding about that one, but my skin did start to dry out from all the hand washing. The situation got worse and worse until I got to the doctor and onto antibiotics. The good news is that I'm feeling better. The bad news is that I'll miss the Fleece Fair in Greencastle this weekend. That's very sad. I'll save some money, but I'll miss out on all the cool things I didn't know that I needed.

In the yard I'm still waiting for the newly planted cherry and peach trees to pop out of the bud stage. C'mon, c'mon! The tulips that are closest to the house are opening into purple, yellow, and red displays. The antlered grounds crew neatly cuts the rest back to the ground. On the road my show at the Shower's building looks lovely. Stop in and see 'Inch by Inch and Row by Row' while you're at the Farmer's Market this month!


Until next week…