The tomatoes are done!
I had a wonderful trip out to Iowa, which gave me lots of time to needle
felt the rest of the tomatoes I needed for the piece I’ve been
envisioning. I’m in a hurry to
finish up pieces because I had such a great art fair in Des Moines. Now I need to replace pieces and expand
with some new pieces for an exhibition that I’ll describe in a minute. In Iowa, the weather didn’t cooperate as
well as I hoped, punctuating the show with some pop-up thunderstorms.
The patrons still came out to support
the artists, though, which I appreciate and respect. Our visit to Iowa began in Iowa City to see friends we
haven’t seen in sixteen years. We
stayed with Ute and David, Jim’s friends from a previous life. Their two boys are the same age as
ours, and we all just clicked beautifully as if we’d been visiting for
years. After a delightful dinner,
a good night’s sleep, and a wonderful breakfast we were ready to set out for
Des Moines. Setting up the booth
took us longer than usual due to frequent interruptions from the rain. On the bright side, that gave us plenty
of chances to stop into our favorite vegetarian coffee shop, the RitualCafé.
In spite of the weather, or
perhaps highlighted by it, it’s clear that the show is extremely well organized
and administered. It ran like a
well-oiled machine with lots of happy volunteers. There were always people
ready to help, from directing us through set-up to squeegeeing the streets to
help keep a dry surface between rains. What impressed me most, however, was the reliability of the
patrons. When the rains came they
scattered, but they popped right back into place when the skies cleared. I really like the feeling that my art
is well appreciated; I certainly feel that way in Des Moines.
In the end, seven pieces found new
homes. I also managed to break
into the local television and print media, appearing in three videos that you can access online. Click here,
here, or here for the links! My sons Jacob and Tommie appeared in
some of the videos and were terrific in the booth with explaining my techniques
and materials to patrons. I just
love sitting back and listening to Jacob expound on my work, and he seems to
love doing it. We also managed to
find some time to walk through the Pappajohn sculpture park, which was the
backdrop for the show and very close to my booth.
My favorite piece there is an amazing sculpture by Spanish
artist Jaume Plensa. It is built
from fused metal letters that you may walk into and experience from the inside
or outside. We also experienced
the newest sculpture, which looks like a rainbow of panels built into a
circle. I took a nice family
portrait from the center of the piece.
While I was busy, my family managed to sneak off to do some sailing on
Grays lake close to Des Moines and hit the local water park. Unfortunately, heavy downpours cut
short their adventures.
The show
ended early when the organizers watched severe storms developing in the
area. My crew broke all of our
records for both take down and packing the trailer, which was all completed in
an hour. Certain my art was safe,
dry and protected for the drive home, I completed my tomato felting project as
we drove through the hills of Iowa and the fields of Illinois.
Now I'm nestled back in my studio
thinking about my upcoming exhibit, “Looking at Water”. One of the pieces I’m envisioning is a
large format beach piece where the sand and shells lie in the foreground, the
water and waves fill the mid-ground, and the sky is in the background. One truth that everyone who has visited
the beach knows is that one invariably brings home sand. To capture that concept in my piece, I’ve
spent some time coating the frame for my beach piece in sand.
We got home from Des Moines on Monday evening,
which was just in time for me to slip off to the Tuesday Farmer’s market while
the boys did TKD. I brought home
some red raspberries, hoping against hope that they might be transformed into a
victory pie. And sure enough, a
pie appeared! It must have been a
good show!
Until next week,
Martina Celerin
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My goodness, your work is outstanding. Wish I could see, in person, all the lovelies in your booth. The tomatoes are clever.
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