This week was full of weaving like a madwoman, which
resulted in a couple of completed pieces.
I have been juggling five ‘in progress’ pieces.
I didn’t have any evening meetings this
week, which gave me lots of weaving and needle felting time.
Plus, both boys were healthy, so I
really got to focus on my projects in the art studio, pushing projects forward.
I completed the last of my commission
pieces, which was a revisitation of ‘Winter Birches’.
That piece is complete and on its way to Chicago.
I turned my attention to my ‘Spring
Treasures’ piece.
It features a
crocus bulb and a clump of emerging flowers, which are now planted in their new
home.
Buoyed by my successes, I
put the finishing touches on the feature piece for my upcoming garden walk
show.
As I was working on the
piece, I was reminded of some advice I got from Mary Hambly, a local paper
quilter I met when I was starting into my art career.
She wanted me to think carefully about the relevance of
materials that went into the art, choosing fabrics for their relevance to each
piece.
The ‘Garden Walk’ piece
features a flagstone path made from fragments of Grandpa’s army blanket.
I needle felted raw washed wool over
the blanket to create the stones.
This was my first synthetic stone piece, because I usually enlist my
family to find stones for my weavings.
Grandpa’s blanket opened up a whole new path for me, and like so many
other materials in my creations, will always have fond memories for me when I
think of them in my art.
I also
really enjoyed making all the flowers along the path.
I was channeling some of our still-sleeping garden beds,
especially the color combinations.
We have some beautiful tradescantia, with their vibrant purples over
blue-green foliate.
I was
imagining deep red roses, which we don’t have because the Japanese beetles eat
them, over intense, dark, rich green foliage.
Nobody eats that, so I have plenty to channel.
The tree in the piece was actually a leftover
from a previous commission.
It turned
out that I had one too many trunks and it seemed to fit perfectly here.
The whole composition was a very
organic process that just came together beautifully at the end.
I still have some other works that will come along shortly,
but the upcoming week is Re-shirt week.
The Bloom artist showcase is coming up on the twenty-fourth of
February.
I want to have plenty of
shirts for that show, and I promised some new ones to people who said they’d
visit the show.
The Garden Walk
show, which will hang at the Monroe County History Center, will go up on April
first.
That’s my big wall art
push, to have all the garden-themed pieces ready.
I also want to give a shout out to my gallery out in Laramie
Wyoming.
It’s called
JenyOriginals, and they have a new website and will be carrying my Sweater Petals.
The rest of the week’s news is all family-oriented. The boys earned their red-with-a
-white-stripe belt in Tae Kwon Do on Friday. I like to think of it as the Canadian
belt. After illnesses the previous
week, they puffed a little but got through it just fine. Oh, and I must be doing something
right—a peach pie appeared on Monday and I had slices for breakfast all the way
through Friday. Yippee!
Until next week,
Martina Celerin
No comments:
Post a Comment