Grants, Grandma, pies and bright fall colors

Over the past two weeks I got started on my fall commission pieces.  The first one is a revisitation of my ‘Tap Water’ piece that features a water faucet dripping onto a dandelion with a long taproot.  I began by digging through my earthy browns, which I love to do.  The colors remind me of chocolate, from American milk chocolate to extra dark Swiss delights.  The darkest colors sink to the bottom of the piece in a gradient to the lighter browns at the surface.  I warped the loom and just rocked on the dirt for the piece.  My next project was to create the stone wall that holds the faucet.  For the mortar I use greys with a hint of brown to give the piece a warm feel.  Oh, and the teacup in the picture is from a local artist, Walt Schmidt.  At the Fourth Street Festival he caught me drinking out of a cup made by a Slovak artist, but that wasn’t enough to appease Walt.  He gave me a nice cup from his wares.  It is perfect for tea—thanks Walt! 

To create the stones in my rock wall I like to cluster similarly colored yarns together.  That got me digging through my box of sand yarns.  Unfortunately, I discovered that a rodent was trying to turn my yarn stores into a winter pantry.  I found acorns, allium seeds, and sunflower seeds.  To Mr. Mouse:  sorry, that is SO not happening.  I gave Jim some dark sunglasses, a stern look and orders to solve the problem.  Despite the losses, I was still able to bring together soft grey pinks, stony browns and earthy purples to make the stones I needed.  

 I want them to be slightly colorful, reminiscent of the different granite rocks I found on the beaches of the Pinery in Ontario, where I grew up.  I just love the colors in the water-polished stones!  I even added some yarns with glittery characteristics to match the feel of the rocks when the sun hits them.  The effect needs to be muted so the rocks, which cover a large background surface area, don’t stand forward and fight with the foreground water tap structure. 

Fall marks the time when the boys get seriously into their extracurricular activities.  That gives me lots of time to needle felt objects I need.  Jacob is practicing for a hip-hop showcase in two weeks, and both boys are gearing up for the next belt (red/black) in Taekwondo.  It’s the last stop before black belt!  I have had plenty of time to create the dandelion leaves and root that I need, as well the tree trunk for the next commission piece.  That will feature a willow tree with a nearby park bench. 

The last two weeks also featured all sorts of fun family events.  Grandma came to visit during the boy’s fall break.  The weather was perfect, giving us plenty of outdoor time.  That keeps Grandma happy!  She mowed the lawn twice.  Really!  I think the second pass just scares the grass, but she seems to think the collecting bag fills up again.  We did leave the lawn in pretty bad shape before she arrived.  She bought herself a present that will stay at our house, which is a weed-whipping trimmer.  Jacob has taken to it, and now the lawn looks wonderfully manicured all around.  We also managed to do some shopping for a new sofa after seventeen years of hard use on the last one.  We traveled Bloomington to test every couch in town for bottom-pleasing comfort.   

While we shopped, Jim made a delightful salmon dinner and followed it up with a farmer’s market fresh raspberry pie—yum!  On Saturday, everyone had a nice trip to the farmer’s market.  That means we made a stop at Le Petit Café for hot chocolate, bought lots of fall veggies for the week, and came home a basket of tomatoes for the freezer.   

We even got in a trip out to Brown County to see the fall colors.  The boys and I did some zip-lining, we had lunch at Zaharenkos, and we all took in a round of mini-golf.  ONE of us scored THREE holes in one!  Since you asked, yes, it WAS me!  With the beautiful blue skies on a perfect fall day, everything just came together nicely.  Except that the pie disappeared way too fast.  I think we’ll need another soon, please, pie fairy!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Grants, Pies and Bright Fall Colors

Over the last two weeks I limbered up my fingers and dove into grant-writing mode.  The most important support I apply for is to bolster our marketing efforts for the Fourth Street Festival of Arts and Crafts.  The CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau) has been very helpful in years past by supporting targeted advertising in regional markets such as Cincinnati to the southeast and Indianapolis and beyond to the north.  A large number of people traveling to Bloomington from afar spend money at local motels and restaurants, so they help promote our mutual interests in bringing art patrons to the city.  It’s still a chore to write the proposal because I need to assemble all the details about the show and how we marketed it.  The format changed this year so had a small learning curve to try to get it right. 

In between grant writing I was working on some smaller projects to keep my fingers limber.  It’s sweater petal season, which are felted flower accessories I make and sell locally.  I decided to do some dyeing to get some fresh fall colors into my sweater petals.  I did some dyeing with Kool Aid, which is an amazing starting point because the dyestuff is non-toxic and the colors are vivid.  I did some non-traditional mixes to create new colors, which is a little against my scientific nature.  You might think I would need to follow the same recipe to get a consistent product, but this time of year I just get inspired by different colors.  Every time I drive to a meeting I see new oranges, reds, yellows and deep purples emerging all against a blue fall sky.  I added a few pinks and purples to cover the spectrum and I ended up with some very cheery colors.  Next I need to scale up my efforts to dye the spectrum of green yarns I need for all my winter weaving projects.  I got out my antique skein maker and began cranking to make skeins of yarns to dye or over dye. 

While I was dyeing on the stovetop the oven below decided to follow suit.  The ceramic ignition element gave up the ghost after six years of service.  Fortunately, the helpful folks from Morrison’s popped out in a few days to replace it for me and I’m back in business.  The oven gave out right when Jim was raising dough to bake, so he ended up using the toaster oven. The loaves came out surprisingly well.  Lately I’ve been into baking muffins to put in the boys’ lunches.  They like fresh muffins, and I’ve been sneaking in some healthy ingredients.  I slip in fruits, milk powder, whole grains and more that I can’t mention, along with lots of vanilla to make them flavorful.  I also made a ‘healthy’ caramel pie

this week, which is one that Jacob requests.  It’s actually a recipe for a pureed yellow squash pie that I got from Mary at the Recycle Center.  I cut down on the butter, upped the eggs and replaced the white sugar with brown to make it a little more ‘caramely’.  I like to think of it as a pumpkin pie without the heavy-handed spices.  And yes, I did get a pie since I last wrote.  Jim made nice Mutzu pie with apples from the Farmer’s market.  He actually made two and gave one away, so he was busy.  Tommie even got into the act, making Beignets from a mix that our relatives from Mississippi brought us when they visited MI in June.  

 Beignets come from the café Beignet in New Orleans, and they’re deep fried dough covered in powdered sugar.  They make delightful companions to espresso!

We did manage to get out a little too, attending the Lotus Festival for the first time as a family this year.  The boys’ favorite was De Temps Antan.  Each boy had ended up with a band T-shirt from the band.  After a pre-Lotus trip to the Owlery for dinner and Blu Boy for a "diva brownie" and ice cream for the boys, the evening was full and fun.  This week Grandma comes to visit and the boys have fall break, so I expect a packed few days!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Re-tooling after Fourth Street

I’m finally settling back into a routine after Fourth Street, with a few surprises tossed in.  I put away all of the summer art fair materials—my tent, walls, aluminum poles and everything else.  Even as I’m winding it down, I’m thinking about launching into the fall and holiday art season shows.  I spent a little time this week making a bunch more sweater petals for Bloomingfoods on the east side.  I dropped off forty new ones for a display unit that sits on top of my cards.  I quickly moved into making new Re-Shirts for the holiday shows.  First comes the Spinners and Weaver’s Guild show on the second weekend in November.  The bad news is that as soon as I got a full head of steam assembling Re-Shirts, my wonderful sewing machine from Grandma started to give out again.  It reminded me of the story about Grandma’s lawn mower that was shaken to pieces from all its use—the sewing machine is in the same kind of shape.  

 Happily, Karen Charrington lent me her really-old-but-never-used sewing machine.  It’s a solid metal dinosaur from the sixties and just a fabulous workhorse.  I just put the petal down and the machine flies over the fabric.  I might be setting a bad example for Tommie, who was taught in Home Ec class not to put the pedal down more than half way.  I’ll have him straightened out before you know it!  I now have thirty new Re-shirts.  I would have had more if life had not set me back a bit early Friday last week.  I heard an intense hissing sound coming from the basement and descended to find the hot water heater steam-cleaning the concrete floor.  Fortunately it was warm and clean so it wasn’t too bad to stand in to clean up.  I spent a little time triaging the wet things we had saved in the basement to decide which ones we really needed, which was a good thing.  Of course it happened on our wedding anniversary.  When Jim looked up to see what gift he was supposed to give on the fourteenth anniversary it turned out to be ‘water heater.’  Who knew?

This past week has taken me into my annual paper work period. I have to tie up four proposals related to Fourth Street, take care of some tax things, and resolve some overdue (and very dry) business-related stuff.  I also need to complete a commission sketch that’s long overdue (it’s coming Sonia!).  Pretty soon it’s going to be ‘reward the artist’ week.  I’m hoping to start doing what I like best, which is to make some new art.  I’ll begin with the first of my commissions from the summer art fairs, which is a piece based on ‘Tap Water.’  It features a water tap that sticks out from a house, dripping water on a dandelion with a deep taproot.  I also shipped a weaving to Oregon—‘Beach Dunes’ has a new home.  I built a box for the safe passage west, although I understand it has to wait just a little longer until the house is completed. 

In addition to art, I blended back into my usual exercise routine of Zumba, Dance Fit, Bollywood and Sweaty Monday’s with Jenny.  Jim and I went to the Wonderlab fundraiser as guests of Cindy Creek and her father-in-law Jean Creek, who is a big Wonderlab supporter.  We had a great time, laughed a lot and had fun bidding through the iphone system.  I won a bike helmet that Jacob quickly adopted.  It’s neon green and came with two bike tune-ups, which is really why I was bidding.  We also had some amazing chocolates there from Peachtree Mountain Truffles.  I thought the only good chocolate in town was from Blu Boy.  On Saturday morning we made it to the Farmer’s market for hot chocolate (at Le Petit Café) and lots of produce—we got eggplants, cucumbers, onions, garlic, peaches, apples, sweet potatoes, and watermelon.  The peaches became peach butter, and I’m hoping that the apples become a pie soon!  Oh, and we all went to see the Blue Man Group on Saturday evening.  We all had a good time, and Jacob even got a picture taken with one of the blue guys at the end.  Did I mention I’m ready for a pie?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Another Successful Fourth Street!

It has been an extremely busy two weeks, but Fourth Street Festival 2013 is in the rear view mirror.  Life is slowly returning to normal.  I have learned not to try to make any new art pieces the week before the festival, keeping my week open to deal with the last-minute craziness that always seems to happen for which nobody plans.  I keep busy with some puttery things, like painting frames and updating my bookkeeping.  Then the strangest things come up.  

 This year I needed to find a bullhorn at the last minute, because it was part of the emergency plan to notify artists in case something big and unexpected happened.  After a lot of looking I found one at the IU surplus stores, but it turned out to be a piece of junk.  Even though they explicitly say they won’t take refunds, I’m the person who put the ‘fun’ back in refund.  I ended up with an awesome replacement (actually, big thanks to the IU surplus store fellow who gave me his to replace the battery holder shaped like a dented horn). 

My security police friend said it was even better than his!  With the weather extremes of the past two years, I tended to check in to see the forecast every fifteen minutes or so.  Boy, did that ever drive Jim crazy!  He says I shouldn’t worry about weather that’s days away, but I checked anyway.  The first day turned out to be very hot and sticky, but the accompanying thunderstorms held off until after the show and the banquet dinner.  By morning the storms were gone and neither the art nor the artists were any worse for the weather.  Sunday was considerably cooler and a better sales day. 

All tolled, 36,000 people came to the event this year.   Despite running all over Fourth Street (and beyond), the show treated me very well.  I sold several pieces and had a few commissions.  I was also honored with the Best in Show award this year!  For as good as it was, I’m relieved and happy to have it all behind me for another year.  Now I’m working on commissions and taking care of the little business things that come up, like re-stocking my cards and T-shirts around town.  I’ve been making more sweater petals to sell at Bloomingfoods this year, which were very popular in the fall and winter months last season. 

In other fair news, Jacob and Tommie spent a lot of time caring for my booth and talking to patrons when I was off stomping out fires.  When I asked Jacob what his favorite part of the show was, he said it was using the credit card reader!  Many people told me what a wonderful salesman he was for my work, and some of my artist friends want me to rent him out to sell for them.  He does tell good stories about the work and makes a very personal connection to the art, so it’s good to have him in the booth.  I wanted to mention that the first piece to sell this year was my new willow piece called Sitting with Grandpa.  It was kind of hard to part with because I was still pretty emotionally attached to it.  The piece had some of Grandpa’s old army blankets in it, so there was a real connection to him.  In Czech, when you have problems you go and talk to the old willow.  I think Grandpa did that too, since he grew up around some giant willows in his backyard that were a big part of his life.  They were great climbing trees and just good places to hang out.  He liked to be near water, which is where the willows lived. 

When the show was over, I was treated to a delightful celebratory dinner.  After takedown we had Jim’s orange glazed salmon, rice, peaches and a bottle of wine.  For dessert, Jim baked a fresh apple pie using transparent apples from Grandma.  Boy, were they ever flavorful!  Jim, you can make another one any time now!  I know you have more in the freezer!  Which reminds me that I also started back on my Zumba routine.  I’m pretty achy and a little sore, but it feels good to be active again.  Oh, and I also went out on closing night to see “Urinetown” at the Bloomington Playwright’s Project theatre, a play directed by Eric Anderson.  After a delightful dinner at Samira with the boys home playing Minecraft, it turned into a fine evening.  What more could I ask for?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Fourth Street Festival approaches!

Each year, Labor Day brings the busiest weekend of my world, the annual Fourth Street Festival of Arts and Crafts.  I’ve been sitting in my art studio over the past two weeks feverishly turning out a few more new pieces for my booth.  I’m pleased that I’ll have several fresh pieces that have all come together after my last summer show in Madison.  My inspiration largely came from thinking about all the summer road trips this year.  We saw lots of water, birch trees, and a very lush, green landscape.  The cool wet spring was certainly embraced by the plant life this year.  At some point I realized I needed to make a Summer Birches piece, after all the highly successful Winter Birches pieces I’ve done in the past.  I used some of the birch leaf clumps I made on my last trip to Michigan.  I wanted to create a deep birch forest with a cool feel.  The background has some darkness but both the canopy and the understory are light and cheery.  The colors and the trees really make me feel happy!  

 Next I wanted to finish the Cattail Marsh piece that I wrote about two weeks ago.  I initially wanted lots of cattails in the foreground, but for me it’s an internal struggle to get the balance between too many and not enough.  I certainly didn’t want the water to get lost in the background and I think I achieved that.  I also find the photograph of the piece interesting.  The image flattens the piece out considerably.  The foreground itself extends forward close to six inches.  It’s common for my pieces to look either more or less dimensional when captured in a photograph, and this is a good example of the latter. 

In my push to finish pieces in progress for Fourth Street, I finished a piece that also features birches, this time by a stream.  I incorporated rocks from both North Carolina’s Topsail Island beach and Katy Abramson’s driveway on Jordan Avenue in Bloomington.  I was just matching rocks based on color and size and the two sources turned out to be a good match.  About the time I finished that piece, my boys reported that they were having a laundry crisis.  Tommie announced that none of his favorite four shirts were clean (yes, he’s in full teenager mode, turning thirteen on Monday).  When I get focused on art I just try to keep on top of household stuff, which is in reasonable shape.  We do have dinner every night, often thanks to Jim last week.  Along the way I’ve had plenty of meetings and the boys have had many taekwondo classes.  That gives me plenty of time for needle felting tomatoes.  

 I recently finished the last tomato for a piece, which includes lots of tomato varieties.  There are heirlooms with yellow shoulders that never ripen, classic red tomatoes and even little cherry tomato clumps.  I really miss having the little cherry tomato volunteer plants in the garden, which came from Jim distributing compost around the flowerbeds full of rich soil and tomato seeds.  It took a few years but Jim slowly evicted them in favor of flowers—I’m not sure that was a good trade!   At least I get to have lots of them in my weaving.  The final component of the tomato piece was the stems and calyxes.  That’s a lot of detail work, but I did manage to finish them this week as well.  With the piece assembled, I’m really delighted with how it all turned out!  When we went as a family to the Farmer’s market this morning and saw all the tomatoes for sale it reminded me of my piece. 

This week has been filled with furious art making, since I set a deadline of today to finish art and put on my show director’s hat.  I had an idea for a willow piece by a pond that came together over the past few days.  It features willows, made out of Grandpa’s old army blanket, that stand next to a bench overlooking a pond.  The willows and the army blanket remind me of Grandpa, who loved the old willow trees around his back yard.  The piece is going to be called Sitting with Grandpa, which seems appropriate as you look out over the water from the bench.  Grandpa loved to fish, but he enjoyed thinking about fishing and planning new trips at least as much.  

There were a lot of family things happening too, but I can’t remember too much from the past two weeks.  I do remember going to the pool last Sunday evening with Jacob and his friend Lara.  The water was a little too cool for my tastes.  Jim and Tommie made a trip to Lake Erie and brought home lots of perch, so we feasted over a fish fry with my Zumba instructor Liz.   

She’s leaving town to start her career as a dietician in Cincinnati, and I’ll miss her a lot.  The boys probably did something to earn a Nobel prize in some category, but I was too busy weaving to notice.  I’m sure they’ll tell me soon!  I did notice that there was another pie, this time a peach pie, which was a delightful breakfast treat with coffee over several days.  What more could I ask for?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin 

Pie in the art studio!

Yes, I enjoyed a beautiful slice of warm blackberry pie with my family in my usual working space.  Tom Bertolacini, my frame maker and photographer, dropped off fourteen oak frames, including one for my next piece of a non-traditional size.  It will be a re-interpretation of my ‘Tap Water” piece for a patron in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Tom also left behind some giant cucumbers, zucchini, squash, two generous quarts of blackberries, and one tomato that Patty was willing to part with.  

 Jim transformed the berries into an awesome pie.  On Monday evening the boys brought the creation down to the art studio and we all feasted before dinner.  I was on my way to the annual BloomMagazine reception, and although there was food I couldn’t possible go without trying the pie!  Dawn Adams and I had a wonderful time.  I got to see the most recent issue of Bloom and I was delighted to see a large photo of me from the local artist showcase event that Bloom puts on in the winter.  If that wasn’t enough, the ad for the Fourth Street Festival also features a giant image of one of my pieces, Summer Salad.  It was a good evening for me!

With the annual Fourth Street event coming up over the Labor Day weekend, I’ve been trying to spend as much time in the art studio as humanly possible.  I even make the sacrifice of eating pie for breakfast (with espresso) in my art studio!  

 I’m currently working on a northern pond piece, which is really the home for my loon.  I have completed the background, the cattails and the accompanying leaves.  I made them out of used paperclips that I straightened out and wrapped with yarn.  I found a nice brown chenille to make the actual cattail heads.   

They recall a warm, fuzzy memory for me, since in Czech the word for cattail is ‘cigar’.  I remember as a child trying unsuccessfully to light them.  I’m also working on tomatoes for a piece, and I am eight tomatoes shy of the completed work.  I still have to make some of the stems and leaves, but I have several meetings ahead of me.  That translates into plenty of tomato poking time.  I hope to have the piece completed by Labor Day.

I got to work on the components of the Tomato piece because we made one last trip to Grandma’s before school began on Wednesday.  We had a delightful trip, and in addition to making tomatoes on the drive, I made progress on a number of other fronts.  I had been thinking about making more underground pieces.  I was looking for memorable and rusted objects that evoke an emotional response.  Pieces that trigger a memory of something forgotten that used to be a regular part of your life.  While Jim and Tommie were off fishing, Grandma, Jacob and I went off to an antique mall across the street from our lunch spot.  I found a tintype photograph of two army officers that I knew I wanted to incorporate into a weaving.  I also found rusted old metal cars and a rusty fishing lure, among other treasures.  Grandma said she had plenty of those old rusty lures out in Grandpa’s pole barn.  Sure enough I found plenty of those, as well as a trove of other rusted treasures.  While I was there, Grandma’s neighbor Kathey Gibson came over and saw what I was doing.  That brought on an invitation from Ben Gibson to dig through his garage.  He had years of rusty history in his garage!  I found old keys, antique welding goggles, rusted tools, and treasures of all sorts.  I have two big bags to sort through some quiet day this winter. 

As I sit to recount my memories of the past few weeks, I realize how jam packed the whole time has been.  We brought back two big bags of transparent apples from Grandma’s prized tree.  They became three freezer pies, uncounted tupperwares of frozen chunks for muffins, and a big bowl of applesauce.   

The boys wanted to go on one last kayaking adventure, so we went to find the place Cindy Creek, the boy’s first grade teacher who got us started on kayaking, called Crinoid Beach.  We paddled across the lake to find the ‘beach’ – they are really more of limestone outcroppings.  I’m not sure that we landed on Crinoid Beach but we landed on a beach with lots of rocks with holes in them – perfect for incorporating into weavings, so for me it’s now the Rocks-with-Holes-in-them Beach.   

The boys got to swim and we all had lots of fun splashing around and having our lunch.    

And on Friday night, Jim tested (and passed!) his test for half-red, half-black belt in Taekwondo.  We’re so proud of him! 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Weave, weave weave...

I think I have finally settled into a routine back at home.  I get to weave every day!  It feels nice to return to a regular rhythm in my art studio and at home with my family.  The only other big project from the week was to wash a pail full of rusty things.  Jim says I’m the only person he knows that washes rusty stuff.  I found some of my treasures in Champaign, Illinois, on our trip home from the Madison show.  Champaign isn’t as meticulous at keeping all their roads as spotless as Bloomington does.   

We discovered a secret gravel alleyway close to Papa Del’s where we found some great rusty things all over the road, including a rusty caster from a chair.  When I got home, I also discovered a use for the boys’ jeans that are blown out at the knees and are no longer wearable (that’s my opinion, anyway).  They make great drying pads for clean, rusty things!  Who knew!  Anyway, the rusty pieces will be for a new piece that features a crocus emerging from the rusty ground.  I have an orange, needle-felted crocus in hand from an earlier project, so I’m hoping I can bring a piece similar to ‘Spring Treasures’ together pretty quickly.

As I described last week, I had a terrific summer season that depleted me of my finished weavings.  That translates into a need to make new pieces for the upcoming Fourth Street Festival.  That’s my last summer art fair of the season, held over the Labor Day weekend.  I felt very comfortable making some new birch pieces that feature water as I worked in the cool July air.  How often do I ever get to report that!  I found several yarns that are really good for making sparkly water, which is a nice shade of blue with sparkly material incorporated into it.  I found it on our trip to Madison at the Knitting Tree.  The owner saw my work at the show and offered for me to come in to scour her place for yarns that might work in my pieces.  The previous owner had purchased a lot of novelty yarns, so there was quite a selection to look through.  While I mostly use reclaimed and recycled materials and dye and overdye a lot of my own yarns, sometimes I need small amounts of materials to create a specific effect, like sun on the water.  

 I’m really pleased with how the water on my latest piece turned out.  The whole thing came together came together pretty quickly because I had some birch trunks left over from a day-long birch wrapping fest earlier in the year. 

My family life has been pretty full too, since the boys don’t go back to school until next Wednesday, August 7^th.  Last night we went to the Monroe County Fair to see the pigs and rabbits, and I got my annual elephant ear.  I had to go through several rounds of “No, we are not getting a pet bunny!” and “Yes, they are very cute!”  Not always in that order, but you get the idea.  It has been a week of birthday parties, trips to the pool, and zip lining at eXplore Brown County.   

We had an amazing day in the park, with 75 degree weather and sunny, with a gentle breeze to keep it perfect.   We had the option to do one run backwards, free-falling off into oblivion.  That was quite a rush.  We zipped over lakes and threw in stones.  The people who ran the lines were friendly and fun, making it a very pleasant day.   

We went to the farmer’s market before going to Bollywood at Panache Dance Studio on Saturday morning, and I got pretty excited when Jim bought a big batch (three quarts) of perfectly ripe blackberries.  Unfortunately, he put them in the freezer for a winter pie.  Ouch!  Oh, and the last big news—I bought a trailer to haul my stuff to art fairs each year.  Grandma snooped it out for us in Bay City, and it’s just what I need.  We were planning on buying a used trailer in rough shape so we could personalize it with our own graffiti, but this one is very classy.  Hmmm.  Did I say I didn’t get a pie?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin