Fashioning a new world for me…

My really big news this week is that I will take my oath on Thursday to become a United States Citizen.  My life guides my art, which means I’ve been working on a piece that tells the story of my path to citizenship.  It features a hand and a trowel digging a hole into the earth.  A seedling waits nearby to be planted, and the piece will be called ‘A Home of my Own’. 

This week I completed needle felting the hand and the handle for the trowel, as well as the background weaving for the piece.  As I work, I feel like I’m celebrating the process that will culminate with my whole family together at the swearing in ceremony.  I can’t wait!

I’m late in writing the blog this week because my weekend was jam-packed.

 Sunday evening brought the 2012 Trashion-Refashion show.  Jacob and I participated as both designers and models this year.  Tommie handed out programs and Jim was a ticket taker, so the whole family contributed to the show.  The event began at noon when Jacob and I went to the Hair Academy to have them make our hair as stylish as our outfits.  Jacob got a fauxhawk and mine was transformed into an ocean creature/goddess.  I didn’t have as much hair to work with as I used to, but the stylist brought together some interesting effects to complement my outfit.  I was sworn to secrecy on the designs we created so it would be a surprise for everyone, but now I can reveal that Jacob’s outfit was called Dragon Master and mine was Seafoam. 
My top was one of my Re-Shirts that I’d made partially out of one of Jim’s old dress shirts that didn’t find it’s way back to the closet one day.  He didn’t miss it so it became mine!  The front features one of my block print pieces I made last fall.

 The pants were a pair of jeans I cut holes in and then spray-painted to seal the fabric and prevent fraying.  I got a lot of compliments on them, and I could have sold them off my body that night.  I bought a pair of crazy high-heeled pumps with glitter heels from Opportunity House for the event.  When it was my turn on stage I worked the runway—Heidi Klum would have been delighted!
 Overall, the show was a big hit with the large, enthusiastic crowd. 

All the outfits were awesome.  The evening featured a ‘Trashionoff’, which might sound like a dingy Russian diplomat, but it just described a competition between Town versus Gown artists.  The Townies had Miah Michaelson as their model, while the Academics had Sylvia McNair.  They were really dressed up to the max from a pile of, literally, junk and a few repurposed bits of fabric and materials.  Miah and Sylvia were such good sports about the whole thing. I was volunteered to create a trophy for the winner - another secret revealed!

The next two big events on my calendar are the Brain Extravaganza launch party and Jacob’s Hip-hop Showcase at Panache Dance Studio, both on Saturday.  The Brain event will bring together all the finished brain pieces in one place for a brief public showing from 12 to 2 p.m. on Saturday.  My brain will make its way to the Wells Library for an extended period beginning early next week.  Before the public Brain display there will be a photo shoot with artists and brains with an eye toward the possibility of a book about the project.  I won’t have much time to revel in the completion of the project, though - Jacob’s hip-hop showcase begins at 2 at Panache, with an encore Sunday afternoon.  

Finally, we’re getting in to planting and Farmer’s market season.  We made a trip to Mays Greenhouse to find some flowers to spruce up our gardens for summer.  I buy them, Jim plants them.  What a great deal!  On the way to the Farmer’s market we found hot chocolate at Le Petit Café (truly excellent!) and breakfast at Sweet Claire’s booth.  At the Farmer’s market we found lettuce, strawberries, asparagus, cucumbers, onions and rhubarb.  Hmmm, rhubarb.  Is it time for a pie yet?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Newsflash: Moss grows on wheelbarrow!

OK, so maybe it's not actually moss...This week I decided it was time to start working on some of my commissions. One features a three-dimensional path through the woods on a large-scale format. The tree branches will need leaf clumps to project out of the piece, so a couple of weeks ago I started crocheting some yarns together to see if I could produce the effect I wanted. The initial result was disappointing, which convinced me I needed to dye some mohair boucle a deeper shade of green for the leaves. Around a month ago I ordered some big loop mohair boucle from Sheep Street in Morgantown for the project. A few weeks ago I picked it up, but I’ve been waiting for a block of time in my schedule to pull out my dye pots and experiment with it. Fortunately, I have several big stainless steel dye pots in storage. My father-in-law envisioned them for traditional salmon boil dinners, but they never got much use. They’re perfect for me—thanks Grandpa! The day’s success was some gorgeous greens that will be perfect for the commission piece. I was also feeling very experimental, so I decided to try dyeing with some fur scraps and old fur clothing I got from Marilyn Brackney a couple of weeks ago to share with Cappi Phillips. I took what I thought was a reasonable amount, throwing in the white and light brown fur pieces into the dye pot to fulfill my grand vision of fluffy green fur pieces to use in the ground cover adjacent to the trail. Unfortunately, I learned that when you boil animal skin it turns into a globby mess. Only a few small pieces survived the process. My inner scientist reminded me that every experiment is useful, even the failures. She thinks that will help rationalize having to clean up the mess, but she’s wrong. I just focus on the intense green boucles and some other wool that I threw in as a ‘what the heck’ kind of test. I always find a use for everything.

My other major art project involved an intense effort on completing the grassy blades for my ‘Sunrise over Goose Pond’ piece. I attached them to the background and I’m close to calling the piece done – I think that a wandering, half awake salamander looking for his “morning joe,” unaware of the distant hooded crane, will be the finishing touch.

The mail carrier has been my friend this week. When I think of our mail carriers, I fondly remember a family story involving a very young Jacob. We were sitting at the dinner table having an animated conversation about something. We asked him, with enthusiasm, “What do birds eat?” He shouted out “mail carriers!” Of course we all broke up laughing. Anyway, the mail carriers escaped the birds of prey to bring me a letter from Homeland Security inviting me to take my citizenship oath in about two weeks. As soon as I finished my citizenship test (did I mention I got a perfect score?!) I decided on a vision for a weaving I wanted to make. The piece will be called ‘A Home of my Own’. It’s really about my journey toward citizenship in this country with my wonderful extended family and the loving community I live in. It will feature a hand holding a trowel, digging a hole in a patch of garden soil. Adjacent to the hole will be a small seedling, ready to be transplanted.

The snail mail carriers weren’t the only ones on my side this week. My e-mail brought me the news that the Loring Park Art Fair in Minneapolis had chosen me to be a featured artist this year! I had to scramble to put together some text describing my work and my history, but that’s all in place. I’m really honored to be selected, and I’m looking forward to the trip out there this August.

The big local event on my horizon is the Trashion-Refashion show this Sunday at the Buskirk-Chumley theater. It is presented by the Center for Sustainable Living and Discardia, and it starts at 7 p.m. It’s all very hush-hush, but I’ll let you in on a secret—I’ve created a trophy for the show. I’ve been sworn to secrecy about the design, but next week I’ll post a picture. I also created some fashion for the show, which I will model this year. My son Jacob has an outfit that he designed and will model, and Tommie has volunteered to hand out programs at the event. Jim will chauffeur and applaud, and so it will be a family event. We had our first rehearsals this week and I know it’s going to be a lot of fun. I hope to see you there!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

The turtles and ponds on the road to citizenship…

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

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

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

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

My BRAIN is done—it’s time to weave!

I’m done! I’m done! The BRAIN is finally finished! By Friday afternoon there was nothing left to do but pack up my art toys and go home. I glued, attached, tweaked and finally vacuumed, but only on the euphoric side. I intentionally left all the dust, glue strings and webbiness on the depressive side. I think of it as artistic patina. The emotions associated with completion are truly mixed. Packed in with all my other responsibilities, the brain project made for an intense and enjoyable few months. I feel like I’ve made some new friends and spent quality time with old ones. The most important thing for me was the experience itself, which changed my perspective on life. You become a product of your sum total of experiences, whatever they are, and I plan to translate some of the ideas that grew out of the conversations into new art pieces.

At the end of the project I cleaned up my bench and brought my toys home. I was very pleased with how the brain turned out, but cleaning up for me is always connected with starting something new. I guess that’s just part of my upbringing. Friday night I disappeared into my art studio, warped a loom and started a new weaving. That felt great after months away from my art studio. Part of my enthusiasm came from the good news that I had been accepted into two big summer art fairs: The Art Fair on the Square in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Loring Park show in Minneapolis Minnesota. The Madison show is truly one of my favorites, right up there with Fourth Street. I have a fantastic time in Madison, where the patrons are wonderful and enthusiastic. We even get to stay with our friends Wendy and Duane in their remote country retreat near Hollandale. After a long day at the fair Jim whisks me away to their house, past the two ferocious guard dogs. They take great care of me with nice dinners at the end of the day and coffee in the morning, but I suspect they might be playing during the day while I’m working. Loring Park will be new for me this year. It will be a little farther than we’ve traveled for a show, but the whole family stays together and we have a good time.

Every big celebration needs a pie.

On Saturday morning, Jim put together a pie from the last frozen apples from the fall season. Yum! The pie is great (it’s my breakfast, with espresso, for a few days), but the best news is that we’re eating the last freezer fruit means we’re ready to enter the spring rhubarb and berry season. More pies are in my future!

All is well.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

The brain project comes to a head…

I was completely immersed in my Brain project this week. The good news is that I can see the end approaching! Early in the week I attached all of the butterflies on to the brain and secured the vines. With help from Joe LaMantia, I created an elaborate mechanism to anchor the vine’s main stem through a hole I drilled in the brain. Connection points for the branches and the brain were made with hot glue, and the overall structure is very robust and almost ready for travel and display. My work on the euphoric side gave me the mental fix I needed to move over to the dark side. I have been working on creating three lithium citrate structures to suspend over the depressive side, much like the butterflies float over the euphoric side. I got some excellent support from the Poynter Sheet Metal Center to bend metal rods to create the citric acid molecule. I can’t say enough about how helpful and constructive they have been in helping me on the project. I discussed my metalworking needs with them before I left for Michigan, and when I returned to Stone Belt on Monday the structure sat gleaming on my workbench. It was like Spring Break Santa made a delivery. I was envisioning using tennis balls as some of the atoms in the structure, which was another suggestion from Joe. Between my own supplies, and scouring Opportunity House, I managed to find all but a few of the balls I needed. In fact, the majority of my Brain is made with reclaimed and recycled materials, a fact that I feel very good about. I had been humming and hawing over how to paint the tennis balls white, and I ultimately decided to drill a hole in them and insert a brazing rod from Grandpa’s welding supplies. I used a two-part epoxy to glue the metal rod to the ball, then I dipped the balls in some old sealing paint that we had in storage. I took two coats, but even the blue balls looked white. I needed red paint for the Lithium, which burns red in a flame, so I went to Kleindorfer’s hardware. I figure that’s as close to reclaimed and recycled as you can get if you have to buy new stuff in Bloomington. I was trying to decide between Massey Ferguson Red and Pioneer Red (you’ve got to love the old red tractor colors!). After they were coated with pain, I let them dry like chocolate dipped lollipops on the veranda. When they were dry I spent a few days wrapping yarn around the brazing rod and the carbon backbone to get the color and feel I wanted, and now all three structures are attached. I just love the symmetry that is created between the floating lithium citrate structures on the dark side and the growing vines and floating butterflies on the green side. Many thanks to Robin Ripley, another Brain artist, for so many of the great pics!!

One of the great bits of fun at the end of my week was the Bloom Magazine photo shoot at Stone Belt on Friday. I was delighted to see Steve the photographer again, who did my photo shoot in the last issue of Bloom. He staged the brains to create the compositions he wanted for pictures. The three fiber artists were clustered together, but comically he wanted us to pick up paintbrushes and pretend to be discussing paint colours for the brains! That bit of silliness got us all going on a beautiful, sunny Friday afternoon. The atmosphere bordered on giddy as we all laughed and talked, to the point where we were reprimanded for not staying on task. Everyone just had a good time. I shot a short movie of people milling about to give you a sense of what it was like. It reminded me of my days as a grad student when we’d all go to the Grad Club on Friday afternoons after an intense week of research to laugh, have a beer and just chill.

I promised last time to provide information about the brain project as it moves forward. I learned that all twenty-two brains will be together for one time only in the White Auditorium at Bloomington South High School on the 28^th of April. More details will follow, but I can’t wait to see all the pieces together. It’s just an amazing project. I had a chance to chat with Jill Bolte-Taylor, the person who conceived and organized the project, and we both marveled at the diversity of the brains. They’re all identical in size, but they’re as distinctive as the artist that created each one. The overall effect is otherworldly. I was also very pleased to see Malcolm Abrams, the editor of Bloom, enthusiastically participate in the shoot.

My other big project from the week involved the Girl Scouts. I had a dozen girls from a local troupe, plus a few siblings and a half-dozen parents or so, all jam-packed in my kitchen. The event had a lot of energy and it was such fun. It felt great (no pun intended) to be able to introduce them to a completely different medium that none of them had played with before. They made wet felted balls to begin with and transitioned into other shapes. They just ran with the idea, making cats and other creatures. I got my bead collection out along with some silk thread so they could embellish their creations. Along the way I had them dyeing with Kool-Aid. They were amazed by how effectively the wool exhausts the color in the dye pot. There was some concern about the dyes transferring to clothes, but once it’s in the wool it isn’t going anywhere. At the end of the day everyone went home happy with a bag of merino noils to make more art. It took a while, but when things got quiet again my two boys slowly emerged from some corner of the house where they were hiding and things returned to normal.

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Giant butterflies in the garden…

This week carried me away from my brain and my weekly routine. My family and I spent a delightful week in Michigan, complete with a rhubarb pie (sorry, no picture—the camera was on holiday as well). The weather was unusually warm in Michigan so we got to do plenty of outdoor activities without ever needing our snow boots. Jacob did some archery and worked on training with his three-sectioned staff, while Tommie and Jim went fishing off the pier at Tawas. They came home with a cooler full of small perch that made a very tasty fish fry. Jacob, Gramma and I had a delightful afternoon scouring the local consignment shops for wool sweaters. I’m stocking up now for making sweater petals and other fall season art pieces, and I was fortunate enough to come home with eighteen sweaters over a range of colors. I felted them in the washing machine and put them into storage to discover again in the fall. We also got to do a plenty of family things, like bowling, ping pong and a nice dinner with the Gibsons and Aunt Lois.

While it’s true that I spent a week apart from my brain, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t still chipping away at my art projects. If you’re not up to speed, I’m working on one of the 22 giant brains that will be part of the brain extravaganza project, spearheaded by Jill Bolte-Taylor. They will be on display around town before going on tour next year. I learned that mine, which depicts bipolarism, will be on display at the Herman Wells library on campus sometime after April 7^th. There will first be a big extravaganza where all the brains come together for a conference before splitting up. I don’t know where that will be, but I’ll post any new information on my blog and on Facebook when I know more. My brain is coming together nicely, and on the trip to Michigan I completed all the artwork for the euphoric side. On Monday I’ll head to Stone Belt and attach the new butterflies.

The drive home from Michigan was really amazing this year. With a week of unseasonably warm weather, we left winter behind and drove into spring. When we got to southern Indiana we started to see forsythia and magnolia trees in full blossom. Magnolias remind me of my father, who liked to say that they always bloomed (in the Czech Republic) on his birthday, which is April 30^th . The magnolias do have a certain flair for the dramatic and colorful, which fit his personality very well. While Jim drove us home I started working on couple of turtle shells that will find their way into my next weaving. I’m not sure if it will have a painted or a box turtle, so I made one shell of each shape. I’m planning on having elm branches hanging over the turtle, which might be because when we were in Michigan I was thinking about the emerald elm borer. I’ve also been thinking about mushrooms, which will make it into a weaving, but might not make it into the turtle piece. I do know it’s time to let go of the brain project and start making art pieces for the summer shows. With a week of eighty degree days ahead it should be easy to get into the spirit!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

My Bipolar Brain Project…

I spent a lot of quality time with my Brain last week. I have been gluing and gluing and gluing objects onto the “depression” side of my brain. The best news is that I can finally see the light at the end of the very black tunnel. That’s important when you spend hours upon hours gluing black painted objects into a sea of black felt. Now I finally have everything affixed to a first approximation on the depressive side. And so on Friday I did a little victory dance at Stone Belt. I still have to make another pass with my fine-tip glue gun to tighten all the connections and test that everything is securely attached, but oh does it feel good to be approaching done on that part of the Brain project!

The most exciting (and somewhat concerning!) aspect of my efforts this week involved crawling inside my brain. I need to attach some 18” butterflies and the structure of lithium citrate to the surface in a way that lets them float above the brain. That involved projecting rods (maybe picture bolts) from the surface. To secure them I needed to be inside the brain to add the washers and nuts and secure everything with epoxy. That’s when I called upon my two Joes (usually it’s Toms in my life). Joe from Stone Belt drove the forklift to pick up the brain, while Joe LaMantia, public artist extraordinaire, helped me position the brain to raise it safely. It’s hard to watch the art piece you’ve invested hours and hours into creating being picked up by two big metal tines that don’t have much respect for felted flowers. When it was safely lifted onto a raised shelf I crawled inside and held the bolts in place while Joe LaMantia added the washers and nuts on the outside to secure them. I have uploaded a short movie to load so you can live the moment with me, thanks to my iPhone.

Once inside the brain I realized how interesting it was, mostly because of the textures. It was too dark to get good pictures, but the fiberglass material has kind of a cotton candy look and feel to it. Of course one dares not touch it for fear of picking up glass splinters. I certainly loaded up on personal protection, donning glasses, a mask, a balaclava, and full artist body armor (OK, a turtleneck). Bonnie Gordon-Lucas was there to snap a picture of me for posterity as I entered. Once inside, I found surface features of mountain rows opposite the furrows on the outside, so it has a silent landscape all its own.

Back on the surface of the brain, I created a second vine and attached both of my vines this week. I really like the effect it gives. I feel like it adds more dimension to the piece, with more visual interest. It accentuates different parts of the piece that I’ve already created. One of the interesting aspects of building up the surface features of the brain has been working in the community of brain artists at Stone Belt. I was getting pretty wrapped up in my own thoughts because I work with the brain so intimately, trying to develop my original vision. It can be hard to pull yourself back and look at the composition critically. I’m fortunate to have friends like Bonnie, who gave me some important advice about not overworking the piece. It’s easy to get so physically and emotionally close to the piece, especially as you work on a deadline, that you forget to step back to look at the whole of the creation. Bonnie and Robyn helped me decide that my plan to put three vines on the brain would have been too much. With two vines you get to have a little peaceful meadow on the green side. That brought back a conversation I had with Dawn Adams recently about incorporating regions of calmness in art pieces as you fill up the space. You just need to have some mental breathing room in some areas. I’m just really happy with how it’s turning out! Next week I should be able to complete the butterflies and chemical formulas to complete the floating elements. I’m really happy to have the support and help of the Poynter Sheet Metal Center in town for creating several of the steel structures I’m using—they are an unexpected and very helpful support group. Now I finally feel like I’m on the other side of the process, where I’m beyond the creation stage and the feeling of being overwhelmed - that it will never come together—it definitely will. I’m in the home stretch, and it feels great!!

In family news, it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who had big projects coming due. Jacob participated in his classroom’s county fair project. He studied Lake County, Indiana. He created an elaborate, three-dimensional sculpture of the county courthouse. That went along with his poster and write-up about county features. We even baked a recipe for ‘plain cake’ that he got from the county historian of Lake County. We baked three big, BIG loaves, which I cut up into small pieces and brought in on a big serving dish. They were very popular in the class. It’s cool to bring in cake! The only leftovers were a set of handmade bookmarks that he printed in color, cut and decorated with a ribbon to be used as prizes. If you have use for some nice bookmarks let me know! Tommie had his own big project as part of the sixth grade class studying aspects of World War II. It’s a huge event where they all make posters and projects, and they bring in veterans who served in the war to tell about their experiences. Tommie studied the Manhattan project, learning all about the development and use of the atomic weapons used at the end of the war. He made and painted elaborate sculptures of the two bombs, which drew in a lot of students to ask questions about the project. I’m just super proud of both of them for carrying themselves so well during the expositions of their work, and for putting so much effort and dedication into their projects! Good job, boys!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin