Lemons in the Snow

When life gives you lemons, mail them to Massachusetts!  According to the UPS, the lemon piece has touched down in Massachusetts at its new home.  As promised, here’s the image of the final piece.  Every end turns into a new beginning, or at least a reminder that it’s time to get back to the other projects you’ve ignored along the way.  To that end I’ve been chugging away at my Winter Birches commission.  I’m pleased to report that I have all of the tree trunks made for the piece, as well as the branches. 

 If all goes well this coming week I should assemble the piece and send it off to its new home in Chicago.  The caveat stems from fact that my weekly schedule was rather disjointed because Tommie was sick.  I think it’s that stinking flu going around.  He’s much better now and was able to go back to school on Thursday.  Fortunately, the illness was isolated to Tommie, at least so far. 

Unfortunately, it meant that my art making was a little of this and a little of that.  I did launch into another piece for the garden show.  It’s the fifth piece I have in progress at one time, which is a record for me.  The piece will be titled “Washing the Harvest” and will feature an outstretched hand holding a radish under a water faucet emerging from a stone wall.  This week I managed to weave the wall and I got a good start on the hand. 

 I have a thumb and one finger, perfect for picking things up.  My hope is to add more fingers this evening during the IU-Michigan game, but I’m worried that it’s going to be too exciting.  I just can’t safely poke with a needle when I have to keep looking up at the game.  When I transitioned into art, I never imagined that college basketball games would slow down progress. 

 

 My goal for the upcoming week is to keep making progress on weavings, but the following week I will pull out the sewing machine to make Re-Shirts.  They were well received at the Unitarian Universalist Art Fair in December of last year, and I promised people that I would make more for this event.  They were so popular that I sold the one I was wearing three times, so I need to make myself one as well!  The Bloom Artists’ Showcase is coming up on Sunday February 24^th, and will run from noon to 5:30 at the Bloomington Convention Center. I found this pic from last year's event on Bloom's web site.  Fortunately, I spent a little time over the holidays cutting out the actual Re-Shirt fabrics, which come from old clothing, curtains, tablecloths and random fabric scraps.  That means I’m ready to put Grandma’s sewing machine into high gear for about a week.  It’s called the Jeans Machine, and it’s a real workhorse.  On my old machine the zigzags would skip a few stitches when I put the petal to the metal, but this machine just hums along perfectly, even at “Interstate speed.”  I like that.  

 

After a long week of poor sleep and tired days, last night we celebrated with a delightful fish dinner.  Jim prepared his now famous orange-ginger-glazed salmon and jasmine rice.  The dish was accompanied by steamed broccoli, for which Jacob requested a cheese sauce - so out came my trusty old Fanny Farmer.  That sauce increased his broccoli consumption about five-fold, so I plan to make that again.  The adults added a delightful bottle of wine—the tempranillo with the pig on the label.  It’s actually a super inexpensive wine from Trader Joe’s, but when you just need a reliable tipple it does a fine job.  I wonder how it goes with peach pie.  Is anybody listening? 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin