The city Blooms…

Last week featured a lot of preparation for the Bloom Artists Showcase this past Sunday.  I pressed and tagged all my new Re-shirts, including my latest style.  My first style I called  ‘Art Tanks’, but the new ones feature a flap in the back.  My friend David Goodrum suggested I call these ‘Art Tails’ - he’s such a creative fellow!  In the wake of my sewing machine breakdown, I also had plenty of time to start more pieces that I’ll feature in the ‘Garden Walk’ show at the History Center starting April first.

  My latest piece will feature three white lilies, inspired by some of my older friends.  Lilies take a long time to develop and flower, then they burst into display mode late in their lives.  I’m a very detail oriented person, so when I started on the project I needed to have some models in the house.  The pictures from the web just didn’t give me the level of detail I needed.  Jim answered the call and picked up some lily buds, but then he left them in the car in an attempt to surprise me.   

It turns out that the lilies didn’t like the freezing temperatures and came in as little green rocks.  The plant tissue just started decomposing in the warm temperatures and I never got to see my lilies!  Fortunately, I found some post-Valentine day lilies that needed to be adopted for a very reasonable price.  My art studio smelled great for a couple of days, and I got to look carefully at the shape of the stamens.  It didn’t take long to get the hang of making them, and so I plowed forward and wove the green background for the piece as well! 

Sunday brought the Bloom "Local Artists Showcase", and I was up early and set up by 10:30 for the noon start.  Even though about one thousand people came, it still wasn’t as well attended as last year, when the show was held on a Saturday.  The artists were an enthusiastic bunch, and everyone had a good time.  My Re-shirts proved to be a big hit.  At one point there was a real feeding frenzy, with people swapping shirts and trying them on in a round robin fashion fest!  I had a great time and did a lot of laughing with my customers.  The best news was that it was a lot lighter to pack them up to bring home after selling a bunch of them!  I did have half a booth full of my wall art pieces to complement the Re-Shirt half, but I think fewer people noticed my wall art.  I think the Re-Shirts were just so bright and colorful and vibrant that my wall pieces played second fiddle.   

There were even a couple of humorous moments when people were drawn in to the colorful Re-Shirts before connecting me to the wall art.  I got the “Oh!  I know you!” response a few times.  I did also get several generous offers from people who have clothing and fabric scraps willing to donate them to my stock, something I’m delighted about.  I’ll start block printing next week for my next round of Re-Shirts.  And before you ask, no, I don’t sleep. 

On the family front, the boys went over to a friend’s house to have a multi-holiday celebration.  How do you celebrate Lincoln’s birthday, Valentine’s day, the Chinese New Year (the year of the Snake), and Darwin’s birthday?  By making a chocolate stovepipe hat and decorating it with Gummi snakes!  Of course!  Everyone had fun, and we came home with more chocolate than we needed.  In between everything else there was lots of eScrabble, a beautiful day on Sunday after Friday’s ice storm, but alas, no pie.  Very sad.  I did hear that Jim discovered a bag of frozen Farmer’s Market raspberries hidden in the freezer!  I’m going to start thinking really loudly about what I want now, OK? 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin