Peppers, lemons and spring dirt!

My week featured pieces I finished and new projects started.  The pepper commission piece is finally hanging on the wall in its new home, being enjoyed by its new owner.  Commission pieces always have a little higher level of stress associated with their construction, because I’m trying to create a concept for a specific person, not just me.  I was delighted to see the peppers with a smiling owner on Facebook!  It makes the many hours of poking at peppers all the more rewarding.  My needle felting projects haven’t stopped, though.  I’m plugging ahead on the next commission, which features lemons.  

 I calculated that I needed to make two lemons a day to meet my deadline of having the piece done by the end of the month.  Right now I’m on track with thirteen lemons and six slices literally in the bag.  Of course I always need something new and creative going on, so I was inspired to begin weaving a new piece featuring forgotten treasures buried underground.  Perhaps the melting snow and appearing gardens helped prompt the project. 

 The weaving really represents a lot of what my life can be like—it’s pretty chaotic under the surface with lots going on.  On top it all looks calm and serene.  I’ve incorporated a lot of objects into the piece that are emblematic of my life right now, such as an old scrabble tile, a wooden spool, a fishing bobber, wrenches, pulleys, old plastic toys, and old coins. 

  I even have one of the pressed pennies with the Wonderlab logo from an adventure when the boys were younger.  I think the surface will feature three emerging crocuses—something happy and spring-like.  Jim likes to have them in the lawn for the color, but I wonder if he just doesn’t want to cut the grass until Grandma visits in the spring. 

 She just turned eighty, and she seems to delight in cutting the lawn in any season.  When she came for Christmas, she was out mowing leaves and frightening the grass so we’d have a nice spring crocus show.  Of course then we got a foot of snow and she was cabin-bound for the rest of the visit.

Much of the rest of the news is more like that of the underground section of my weaving.  I woke up yesterday morning to drips coming through the living room ceiling and onto the sofa and carpet.  The roof fellow is coming by today to have a look—I hope this won’t be another big repair!  On the other hand, I had a nice drive with Susan Snyder to Indianapolis on Monday last week.   

She drove while I poked at lemons, then she went off to shop for ceramic supplies while I watched three boys at the trampoline park.  I think a good and productive time was had by everyone involved.  That reminds me, Susan made one of the presents I purchased for Jim at Christmas.  Our big serving bowl developed a scary crack, so Susan made us a big and very pretty klusky bowl.  I appreciate the idea of supporting the local artists, and Susan didn’t disappoint us!  We’ll serve many nice meals from that bowl in the years to come. 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Lemons, beaches and family…

It’s been a while since life gave me lemons. The problem is that she didn’t give me enough, so I’ve been poking away at lemons for the past few weeks. I finally have enough for my “When Life gives you Lemons” piece! The last piece of the puzzle was finding just the right fleece for the lemon pith, the white material between the zest and the fruit. Luckily, my friend Ruth gave me some white fleece two weeks ago and it was just what I needed. I also discovered I was short on the yellow I needed for the rind. Unfortunately, my never-ending supply of every possible color failed me this time and I had to resort to web shopping. The problem is that you never know exactly what color you’ll get in the mail because the screen rarely does justice to the color. The fleece I got was a little too bright, but when I carded it with some yellow fleece I created by dyeing with dandelions a couple of years ago I was back in business with two big rolags. It felt great when I was able to lay out the lemons and sections on the background and saw that I had an abundance of my citrusy friends.

This week I drove with my family to Michigan to meet the newest member of the family, my brother-in-law Tim’s new bride Bobi. I don’t mind the drives because I get to poke while Jim drives. That’s how I finished up the lemons. On the way home I started poking on the trunk of a willow tree. I know that’s a bit of a leap, but last week I envisioned a new piece I’ll call “Meet me by the Willow.” The inspiration for the piece flows from all the bike-related things I’ve been doing lately. The boys and I have been biking to destinations when we can, including on geocaching adventures. I’ve also had my eyes peeled for bicycle wheels for the Fourth Street Festival children’s booth this year, which I described in last week’s blog. Bikes on the brain translated into a desire to make a scale model for the ‘Willow’ piece this week when the boys are in school. This year it starts on Tuesday the 16^th! I can’t believe the school year is already here! Anyway, the piece imagines meeting a friend after a bicycle trip, leaning my bike against the willow while we talk. I wove the background between cleaning the house and trips to buy school supplies last week, so that part was ready. It was nice coming home to pieces in progress, which makes me feel all the more productive after slower week in Michigan.

If you’re reading this because you’re interested in family news, you’ll note that I glossed over some big stuff. Jim’s Mom had a big family reception for Tim and Bobi, and it was a big hit with everyone. There was lots of good food and drink. Kathey Gibson made her famous carrot cake, Naomi brought brownies, and lots of people brought different salads. All the cousins, spouses and families came and a good time was had by all. Bobi handled it all well, but she seems more comfortable in intimate settings than big parties. She and Tim Yu-gi-oh dueled the boys several times over the weekend and, I’m somewhat surprised to report, were able to defeat my boys in every duel. They don’t give up easily, however, and will undoubtedly be better prepared, perhaps with more powerful cards, before they meet again. Bobi was graceful in victory, and we’ve decided we’ll keep her.

We had a full visit, as usual, including a delightful trip to the beach at the Tawas Point State Park. We swam in Lake Huron, walked along the beaches to explore and find treasures, and watched the kite boarders do their thing in the wind and waves. It’s definitely a place we have to visit again next year. We went on a fishing trip, which was more of a boat ride, although Tommie caught one walleye and Jim caught a perch with Captain Ryan. I got to sit in the ‘pass me a drink’ chair and try to detect bites that never came. A few might have slipped past, because I put up my feet and enjoyed the blue skies, happy and relaxed. That made it a good trip. Tonight it’s late and time to call it a day, though, because I went back to Zumba this afternoon and made every muscle I own sore. Thanks Trish! But I’ll be back.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Fourth Street approaches…

The Fourth Street Festival is about a month away, and I’m in high gear creating new pieces. The Madison show put a huge (but very welcome!) ding in my inventory, which has left me scrambling. I spent some time bringing along my pea pod piece. I did all the stem work and wrapped some cute little tendrils. Now I’m left with a mountain of needle felting, which means I’ll be sitting and poking at pea leaves and pods at every opportunity this week. I’m pretty happy with the piece so far, because I really like the contrast between the curvy, organic branches and the weaving background. I think it will look great when all the elements come together. I’ve also been poking away at lemons this week and I now have quite a pile, so I think my “When Life Gives you Lemons” piece will come together soon. The third piece I started this week is one I described in my last entry, which is about memories. I did the background weaving this week, and Tommie and I have been on high alert for rusty objects for the garden soil. The background already has a bunch of found objects incorporated into the weft. I love how the weft strings enhance the sense of the objects being trapped in the soil until someone comes along to discover them. The piece will also feature a tulip in the soil, and the bulb for it is now complete. To create it I layered browns and reds and oranges, then more browns on the surface. I feel like I’ve captured the shininess of the bulb. The layering of fleece to create textures as well as colors is a technique I came upon when I was making my abstract felted tiles.

The approach Fourth Street Festival means both work and excitement for me. The yearlong efforts of our working-artist committee will come together on Labor Day weekend, but rarely does it happen without a few surprises. This year we’re introducing a Spoken Word stage. Tony Brewer is bringing this project together in conjunction with the Writer’s Guild, which is part of the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington. A series of local writers will have a chance to present their ideas to a large crowd. I’m excited about it after participating in an Ekphrasis event, which roughly translates to ‘speak out.’ Local girls wrote poems in response to visual art that had been contributed by area artists, then the audience spontaneously repeated phrases that were most meaningful to them. There I saw how the combination of art and the spoken word can create profound new connections, so I’m excited to see how the spoken word stage might affect the Fourth Street event. I also want to invite everyone to come to an opening reception for the festival to be held at the By Hand Gallery. To celebrate the show’s 35th anniversary, each of the committee members will display one piece from five to eight on Friday, August 5. The opening reception is part of this month’s gallery walk, so be sure to get out and enjoy the art our town has to offer! My “Summer Salad” piece will be on display.

On the home front, Saturday morning brought the farmer’s market and another big batch of tomatoes came home with us. That means more bruschetta! Basically one begins with a selection of heirloom tomato varieties and onions from the farmer’s market, adds some basil from the CSA and oregano from the garden, and slips in some balsamic vinegar and wine from the pantry. There’s a lot of peeling and chopping and then: Ta Da!—bruschetta! The onion chopping used to bother my eyes, but I have my tear protection device in place. I can now report that week’s batch is wonderful! I love being able to share it with friends, and there’s plenty in the freezer to share.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Today I gave lemons to life.

It took me a couple of days to re-settle in Bloomington after my supremely successful trip to Madison, but I did get back to creating new art this week. I started working on the piece “When Life Gives You Lemons”. I was poking on lemons all the way to Madison and back, after having carded some beautiful lemony-yellow fleece I dyed. Since then I’ve been poking at lemons everywhere I’ve gone. This week I wove the background for the lemon piece. I incorporated tints of my pure lemon yellow as well as some fresh green that represents the leaves one gets every so often. I laid out all the lemons I have created so far and quickly came to the realization that life needed to give me some more lemons—I’m only about halfway there. I e-mailed my friends at Sheep Street to see if they had some yellow fleece I could use to save me some further dyeing, but I was patiently informed that sheep don’t come in yellow. I don’t think I phrased the question very well! I guess it’s back to the dye pot for me.

Speaking of dyeing, I return to my soak pots. I’m afraid I might have left the materials soaking a little longer than they should have. On the bright side, I did end up with some interesting colors. First, I poured the stink-pot contents into my stainless steel dyeing pots and boiled them for about an hour. I wasn’t popular with my family when that happened because I created a heck of a stink in the kitchen. However, the process did yield a deeply intense liqueur for dyeing. I let the materials steep overnight on the veranda before I poured off the solid material and strained out the goo. I then plunked in some freshly washed white fleece and heated it to boiling again when no one was around. It was just a little stinky the second time, but I didn’t mind because I knew art was happening. The fleece next steeped on the veranda overnight. The maple bark gave me a warm caramel colored fleece. The Osage orange, which I thought was yellow, turned out to yield a more intense taupe. I definitely want to try the Osage orange in a three-day soak instead of three weeks to see what happens. Right now I have no idea what I’ll use it for, but I know that when I use it the color will be exactly what I need! I’m good that way.

I’m excited about a few events coming up in the near future. There will be a show at the By Hand Gallery celebrating thirty-five years of the Fourth Street Festival. Each committee member will contribute one piece to the show. I think it will be nice to see all our work together, which will be a reminder of all the expertise and experiences we bring to the show.

This Saturday will be the Farmer’s Market weekend when the heirloom tomatoes will be ripe for this summer’s bruschetta. We made some awesome batches last year that didn’t survive the winter so we need to replenish on a bigger scale. We did make a few nice finds there this week, including Tommie’s favorite lettuce—baby romaine. The lettuce person also had a few native leaves, including violets. I had no idea that violets were edible and reasonably tasty, but I’m planning on harvesting a few leaves for our next salad. I also bought a big basket of peaches and convinced Jim to make me a celebratory pie. It was the perfect dessert after a flatbread dinner last night! My crew is falling back into its summer routine, with bike rides in the morning and pool time in the afternoon. I’ll get some water time, but I’ll be poking away at lemons too so I can finish my piece and get on to the next one.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin