Heading for Cincinnati

My focus this week was on preparing for a three-day workshop I’m giving in Cincinnati, Ohio. Plus I’m giving a talk the evening I arrive. I’m very excited about the whole prospect as I busily prepare to make it as intense and fulfilling as I’ve envisioned. I have an outline set for the three days that has helped guide me in the preparations. In the past I’ve made cardboard looms with bamboo skewers in the top, but because this is going to be so intense I decided to make a class set of wooden loom with nails to hold the warp for each participant. Tommie has been nailing looms to earn a little extra cash and I’ve done the rest. I’ll bring a set of cardboard looms just in case, though. I spent a little time making a full set of shuttles and batons out of yardsticks that I made into footsticks and cut into the appropriate shapes. You might think it was a lot of work, but I got to use a new belt sander from Grandpa’s garage so I had fun. Thanks Grandpa! You know I love power tools.

In between writing grants and reports this week I’ve also been making felted balls for the inside of ornaments. To do this I consumed my entire bag of wool scraps, including pieces of yarn, remnants of felted wool and cut-off pieces of knitted wool. I vowed that I was done with ornaments, but there is a person from Vincennes starting an art-gift shop over the holidays in the visitors center who asked me if I’d contribute some of my work. I’m always up for helping new arts adventures. I ended up agreeing to supply six ornaments and six scarves by the end of October. I’ve completed three ornaments so far… Basically I just keep plugging away as the boys do their Taekwondo or I just have some quiet time.

Speaking of the boys, they have had their own adventures this week. They started their clay class at the John Waldron arts center downtown. I just love the fact that they’re budding artists who use some of their free time to explore their own ideas and create their own pieces. Our house is just full of art, by the way. I’m also grateful to Ivy Tech and the city for bringing this all together and helping the Waldron prosper—it’s such an important community asset. In addition to Taekwondo, sparring and art projects, both at the Waldron and at home, they had a Yugioh tournament at our house on Sunday. It was a rainy weekend, which only deterred them a little from playing outside on Saturday. Badminton was the popular sport until it finally rained just a little too hard. Saturday morning we did get in a trip to the farmer’s market, which translated into the last raspberry pie of the season—yum! We got the last of the basil, some late corn and watermelons, and a big basket of peaches that are either eaten or frozen away as pie filling. They’ll make a delightful memory of summer on some bitter winter day. Or sooner if I can’t wait that long!

Our trip to the farmer’s market now has a new stop at Le Petit Café on the B-line trail for hot chocolate. It’s incredibly rich and dark, and it’s the perfect start-up for a cold morning at the market. All in all, it has been another wonderful and jam-packed week in Bloomington!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

A quiet week

I’ve had a bag of unused wool in the back of my mind for a while. Actually, it lived in my art studio in a brown bag, and this week it needed some attention. The Spinners and Weaver’s Guild members held a secret fiber exchange at a meeting before summer break. Each recipient was tasked with making something out of their secret material. I received a bag of superwash wool in a beautiful blue color with hints of purple and green. The premise behind superwash wool is that it can be put through the washer and dryer because it doesn’t felt (and therefore won’t shrink). I didn’t know if I could needle felt with it but I wanted to try. I decided to try to make an object I’ve never done before, so I set off to make a bowl. I began with an old blanket and cut it in the shape of a doughnut, two layers thick. If you imagine the doughnut as a pie (I think of everything as pie) and cut out a generous slice, that’s what I did to the material. I stitched the edges back together to create the basic bowl shape and started to needle felt the wool. It worked out surprisingly well. I did the inner surface first, then I needle felted a swirly pattern on the surface using a soft lavender yarn. I’ll be working on coating the outer surface last so that I don’t have the pattern showing through. I’ll see if I can complete it before the first guild meeting of the fall on Monday.

The weather was just gorgeous this week in Bloomington, so I took the opportunity to do a little work outside. That meant puttying, sanding and painting the oak frames that my friend Tom Bertolacini builds for me. It’s nice to be outside when it isn’t too hot (most of the summer), or too cold (a few days the week before), or too wet. Now I have twelve black frames ready to be filled. I know it’s time to start weaving again, but I need a break after a long summer of creating, traveling and selling. My family and I went to the farmer’s market Saturday for our usual stock-up on fruit and veggies, which was also a nice break. It’s a great time for the market with all the late-season goodies. We found watermelon, corn, raspberries, cucumbers, apples and a big bag of peppers for a peppered salmon dish. I also got an inspiration for a new piece when I chatted with Sarah at the volunteer fair. She is involved with the Bloomington orchard project. I thought they had mainly apple trees, but I learned that they have a huge variety of fruits. I’m excited to tour the grove and see what’s going on. I did learn that they’ve been preventing the trees from bearing fruit until they become bigger and well established. The concept of a huge new harvest of all different kind of fruits got me thinking about and sketching a whimsical tree covered with all the fruits in the orchard. I need to think a little about the structure to get the scale right, but now I’m excited again to start a new piece.

I went on lots of little forays this week—I went back to Auto Heaven to forage for rusty car parts and came back with a big bucket of stuff. Tommie and I went to the train racks by the B-line trail and came home with a big bag of treasures, including some old spark plugs, which I think are cool. Everything is carefully washed and dried and waiting in a big plastic jar and so I’m ready to begin a commission similar to my ‘Tread Lightly’ composition that sold quickly at Fourth Street.

On Thursday the boys and I went to an exhibit at the John Waldron arts center to see an exhibit of Turkish textiles put on by George Malacinski. The exhibit, entitled "Woven Treasures: Near- and Middle-Eastern Textiles" was amazing, featuring a combination of interesting techniques, materials, colors and effects. Perhaps the most amazing was a horse bridle that had a felted structure stitched onto a woven fabric with an embroidered surface. I saw a wedding dress that was both beautiful and sad. It featured an extraordinary silk fabric embroidered with silk—you could see that it represented a phenomenal amount of work. The mixed feelings come from the knowledge that the marriage was arranged for a young girl whose body was not allowed to show. Her arms were bound underneath and covered with the beautiful dress, and she was married as a commodity and not a person.

Oh, a couple of quick final notes. My two big commission pieces were shown in Saturday’s Herald Times Homes section when Carol Krause wrote a piece and photographed them for an article about the homeowners renovations. That was nice to see. And even though we got raspberries, there won’t be enough for a pie this week. I’m still optimistic that something with a crust will turn up soon! It’s fall apple time, and there are still plenty of peaches around! Is anybody listening? Jim?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Transition week

Since my last post I’ve been shifting gears. I’m exiting my summer art fair mode, which is built around traveling to fairs in the Midwest to sell my weavings. I have a few administrative projects to take on, such as documenting the success of the Fourth Street Festival and writing grant proposals to help make it a better show next year. I’ll also be giving a talk and putting on a three-day workshop in Cincinnati in a few weeks, and then I’ll focus on making scarves for the local fall shows. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t time for a new art adventure!

Two years ago I participated in the Trashionista fashion show. I had a lot of fun designing two gowns out of reclaimed materials and some ethereal shawls out of used dryer sheets. I’m excited about contributing to this year’s show at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. In addition to the main show, which is a worthy fundraiser for the Center for Sustainable Living, a smaller group interested in making clothes from recyclable materials appeared this year. They’re called Discardia, and this weekend they held their first show. It was held alongside the Simply Living fair in the Third Street Park behind the police station. I wanted to participate, but with all my responsibilities to the Fourth Street festival I didn’t think I’d have time to make any clothes. Then I realized I still had few days to pull something together—and I love a challenge! I leaped into action and created a pattern for a loose-fitting tank top. My thought was to piece together scraps of fabric from clothing that was popular in a previous incarnation. I decided to call my new line ReShirtz, and off I went picking color and pattern combinations I liked from my collection of retired clothing. My son Tommie loves this sort of project so he picked several combinations for me, including the first one to sell at the Discardia show. It’s been a lot of fun cutting apart beautiful silk dresses and batik pants from dated clothing styles. The change of pace from needle felting vegetables has been nothing short of refreshing! I’ll show the clothes at some of my fall shows, including the upcoming Déjà Vu Art Fair in Columbus.

On the family front, today marks my twelfth wedding anniversary. We celebrated last night with a delightful flatbread dinner and a bottle of Mollydooker Shiraz (our current favorite wine). I was surprised with a beautiful bouquet featuring a dozen red roses when I got home from the show takedown. This morning I smelled the crowning celebratory food, a raspberry pie featuring fresh red raspberries from the farmer’s market. I can’t wait to try it! The top crust is a little funky, as usual, but beauty isn’t the hallmark of a good pie. Even if I overdo it a little bit with pie I know that Zumba starts up again tomorrow at Windfall Dancers—hooray! What more could I ask for?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Fourth Street Festival 2011!

The story of my week centered around the Fourth Street Art Fair. During the week leading up to the fair I was racing to get things done to make the show run smoothly. I finished one last weaving that I called ‘Letters from Home’. The story behind the piece comes from the visits of my Grandmother from Czechoslovakia to my childhood home in Canada. She would fly to Ontario every few years and stay three to six months and then fly back. In between she would write long letters on onionskin paper that had a blue tint. In those days you paid for every ounce of weight in airmail letters so the incredibly thin paper was important to save money. Those letters made a strong impression on me. I remember a conversation at last year’s Spinner’s and Weaver’s Guild show discussing the lost art of writing letters. Everything today seems busier and faster; now we communicate more electronically. All my memories of my Grandmother, including the late nights playing canasta late into the evening and exchanging letters on the thin blue paper came flooding back to me last week. I transformed the emotion into a weaving with a blue background to represent the airmail paper and letters pouring out that spelled a memory. On the piece I wrote about remembering the time we danced, but the concept was all about celebrating and exchanging life in an earlier time. I told the story to an IDS (Indiana Daily Student) reporter at the art fair and I was surprised to find the story in the paper and on-line! In a strange twist of fate my Czech relatives today can read and share the story faster than I could ever mail it to them in a letter.

The reality of the approaching show was a little less personal and warm, however. Electronic communications were flying among the show organizers. I checked my e-mail ever few hours to read about the latest complication or fire to stomp out. There are always a few holes in the show layout to fill as late cancellations come in. Friday finally came and the committee assembled to mark the streets and get the show started. After all the illegally parked cars were towed and the streets marked we invited the artist to set up their booths in 95-degree heat. Everything went smoothly, but Saturday turned into another scorcher. We reached a local record with a 102 degree first day of the show and I was worried about the turnout and the patrons. This year we set up free water carboys around the show to make sure everyone stayed hydrated and that was a hit. The crowds came out early, and within the first hour I sold all of my new bicycle pieces. Fortunately, the patrons allowed me to keep the pieces on the walls throughout the first day so I could share my new work with all my local friends. By late in the afternoon the weatherman tripped up and the zero percent chance of rain turned into a brief thunderstorm that cooled off the show around five. The last hour of the show was still quite pleasant, as was the celebratory dinner held this year at the First United Methodist Church on Fourth Street. It was a wonderful setting for the reception. The food was incredibly good this year and the ceremony came off without a hitch. I’m so pleased—and relieved!

On Sunday morning I arrived at the show early with a sense of impending doom, since the weatherman called for a 70 percent chance of thunderstorms throughout the day. When Jim came I asked what the weather map looked like, and he told me I didn’t want to know. It turns out there were bands of rain all around us and for hundreds of miles to the south, all heading our way. In a welcome twist of fate, however, all the rain skirted Bloomington and we had a cool, pleasant, and even awesome day for the fair! People were happy, joking and buying art like the old days. From a sales perspective it turned out to be my best show ever, with nine pieces finding new homes and two more commissions put into motion. I’m so fortunate to be in this business and in this town! We tore down the booth and packed our neighbor Emily’s van, borrowed for the show, in record time. I drove it all home, had a nice chat with Grandma (Jim’s mom) about the show, then headed back to make sure that everything was cleared away and the artists were all safely headed home. I’m sure glad I’m not doing the Penrod show next weekend! When I got home Jim had a nice Kluski dinner with an Amarone opened to celebrate. I feel great about the show and all the hard work of the committee. I’m really proud of us for pulling off such a good show this year despite all the weather surprises. Of course now the planning starts again for next year! Oh and if you are interested, there's a great video of 2011 Fourth Street Festival that an IDS reporter, Margaret Ely has posted.

One last note that needs a mention is that I launched into another new venture last week. With the opening of the B-line trail in town I decided to create T-shirts using my weaving dedicated to the trail. The shirts were well received at the show, and now I’m working hard to market them locally for the opening of the biking and hiking trail. It’s a new venture for me, but I love a new challenge! Who knows what will be next!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Less than a week left till Fourth Street!

As the Fourth Street Festival on Labor Day approaches my days are jam packed. I’m moving art pieces toward completion and stomping out the organizational fires that inevitably arise as the show nears. In the world of art composition, I still have bikes on my mind. Last week it was the “Meet me by the Willow” piece, and that got me thinking about bicycle wheels. I needed some materials, so I took my family to the ‘Junk in the Trunk' community yard sale at Bryan Park. There I found some useful bangles that immediately became bicycle rims. To make wheels of different sizes I used wire I brought home from Grandpa’s pole barn (thanks again, Grandpa!). Wheels of all sizes ended up floating over the B-line trail in my mind, so the background of my latest weaving ended up forming a meandering trail using recycled yarns. I like the idea of the wheels of bikes, unlike cars, treading lightly over the path without leaving a strong impact on the world. All the elements came together in a piece I’m calling “Biking the B-line.” As I finished the piece I couldn’t help thinking that the design would make a really cool T-shirt. That got the ball rolling on a whole new project that I really don’t have the time for right now - but of course I started anyway! I asked my photographer Tom Bertolacini take pictures of all my latest weavings, including the B-line piece. I dropped the image file into Photoshop, played with the filters a little and added some graphics, and out popped a nice T-shirt design. I contacted my friend Janis, a freelancer for a local printing company, X-Printware, who is my contact for printing the T-shirts for the Fourth Street Festival. To make a long story short, I’m on track to make a first run of kiwi-colored T-shirts that I think will appeal to the Bloomington audience on many levels. It’s got art, biking, local design and printing, and it commemorates the opening of the B-line trail. Because the T-shirt is a reproduction of my art I feel justified in selling them at my booth, plus I’ll try to stock them at a few stores in town. I’m really excited about this new art and business venture.

The whole concept of the importance of bikes as a viable transportation alternative in town is big on my brain too. Of course that means I want to make another bike piece. This time I’ll make a bike floating on top of rusted car parts in the soil. I already have a good collection of rusty car scraps from my family trip to Michigan, as well as from a trip with the boys to the local junkyard and of course, I have PLENTY of rust coloured yarn! I’m really hoping the piece comes together by Fourth Street. I’m well on my way, so as long as nothing dramatic pops up that concerns running the show I think I’ll make it. You’ll just have to stop by my booth to see all my latest art - and pick up a T-shirt!

In between art there’s still a ton going on. I put down my needle felting long enough to watch my boys test for their brown belts in Taekwondo on Friday evening. They had a great test along with a bunch of excellent, more senior students. Friday was Tommie’s birthday, too, although we couldn’t celebrate much beyond ice cream after the test. We had flatbread for a birthday dinner Saturday, which followed an absolutely glorious afternoon at the Binford school field. The boys, along with friends Claire and Lara, spent several hours chasing, catching and ultimately releasing butterflies. They caught all the buckeyes they could ever want, plus a few monarchs, swallowtails and a few other species. I needle felted and supplied the water and snacks in between screeches and sprints after butterflies. I also was the beast of burden for the nets and soft cloth containment devices. We passed an older gentleman on the way home who smiled knowingly at me. I told him the pack mule always travels in the back of the caravan. I came home to a delightful dinner with a nice bottle of wine—how could I better spend a Saturday afternoon. Today, both boys team-celebrated summer birthdays by having friends for a movie with kettle corn from the farmer’s market. I had a couple of quiet hours while they watched Pirates of the Caribbean, then I dished out cake and ice cream to wind them back up. They were too full for dinner so they traveled to Bryan Park to play some soccer. That meant a little more evening weaving time for me. I’m telling you, my days are just packed!

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

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