Seventy Degrees and Summer Beckons!

After a heavy focus on making costumes, this week I launched back into making pieces for the summer art fair circuit.  Yesterday the thermometer reached seventy and the day was sunny.  Eranthis, snowdrops and crocuses started flowering across the yard, filling it up with fresh colors.  The weather seduced my mind with thoughts of summer, so off I went to make some summer birches by a stony lake shore.  I picked up some florist wire remnants and have been wrapping them with yarn from alpacas that I buy at the summer farmer’s market.   

My friend Cathy Crosson of RedRosa farm raises alpacas and sells a yarn, spun from a particular color of charcoal grey alpaca that work well for me.  The wrapped wires contribute the narrow diameter branches of the birches, and I can bend them as I like to make natural tree pieces that hold their shape.  I wove the background for the piece about a month ago, but other responsibilities prevented me from advancing the piece.  I stretched out the weaving in one of the oak frames that Thom Bertolacini builds for me, so now I’m ready to build forward the background using a dimensional crochet technique.  When everything is in place I’ll attach the birch trees and start listening for the waves splashing up on the rocky shore. 

Friday marked a milestone in my other major focus, making circus costumes for the current Sounds of South members in the upcoming production of ‘Pippin’.  I’ll share a few individual pictures, but I think the image I like best shows the two racks jam packed and bursting with purples, blues and greens.  I even threw in some black, silver and white for good measure.  That was a good stopping point for my costuming, which allowed me to go back to creating weavings.  I’ll use the next month to focus on making art to travel to summer fairs.  

 I also need to develop pieces for a fall exhibit I’m working on titled ‘Treasures from the Earth’.  In April I’ll go back to Bloomington South and making circus costumes after the freshmen class has been selected and measured.  I’ll continue collecting used clothing in the color palette for the show until then to draw on for the new costumes. 

Speaking of costumes, yesterday I delivered twelve mannequins (a big thank you to Deb Christiansen from IU!) to the Blue LineGallery.  These will support my costumes from last fall’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ production.  

 The gallery will host a joint exhibit with a fashion designer that will take you behind the scenes a little bit.  I’ll share my rough sketches for the costumes so people can see the thought process that connects the conception with costume building and leads to the final, wearable product.  Jim Andrews is curating the exhibit so I’m looking forward to getting a list from him describing which characters he would like to include.  I know he’s partial to the grater, the whisk and the potato mashers.  Mark your calendars and come out on March 4^th for the opening reception, although the show will be up for a couple of months. 

In travel news, I’m packing for a workshop in Memphis,Tennessee next weekend.  I do know that my three big boxes with fifteen looms and mountains of colorful yarn have arrived.  That helps give me confidence that everything will go smoothly when I get there.  I’m looking forward to the explosion of color when they come out.  I just need to remember to pack my Swiss army knife in my suitcase and not my carry on when I travel!  

 I probably won’t be able to write a blog next weekend, but I should have lots of news and pictures when I write again on March 5^th.   On the home front, Jim surprised me with a cherry pie on Saturday morning.  Hooray, my favorite!  I think he knew that.  We definitely need to pack more fresh farmer’s market cherries into the freezer for the cold months.  I’m going to have to muddle through on blueberry and raspberry pies until May.  

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Fall Stew is Finished!

It feels great when I can bring a piece to completion, especially when I have been plugging away for so long to make each of the components.  My vegetable piece has finally come together and I love-love-love how it looks!  The warm wool evokes comforting feelings that mirror the intent of the composition—a fall stew as warm comfort food.  As I look at all the vegetables I’m still trying to decide which is my favorite.  I’m sure when the piece hangs on the wall in my booth I’ll hear lots of personal stories about vegetables and cooking that will just add to my delight in the final composition. 

Finishing one piece built around needle felting means that I need to start another to fill my sit-and-wait times between the boys’ activities.  Now I’m crocheting leaf clumps to fill a forest canopy.  I combine a lot of the crispy bright green yarns I dyed last summer with some commercial yarns that fill out the color story I want to create.  I typically crochet six or eight strands of yarn together into random clumps.  I find it amusing when people sitting near me key in on what I’m doing.  The furrowed brows and puzzled looks precede the first questions, which boil down to “What are you doing”?  My words rarely dispel the puzzled looks, so I whip out my phone and show a weaving with a fully leafed out tree.  Then they connect to the activity and I get the drawn out “Oohhhhh”! 

Thinking of tree pieces with leaf clumps, I made a video a couple of months ago showing my current exhibit hanging at the Bloomington Bagel Company at the Shoppes.  I posted it on Facebook and got a lot of interest.  I recently checked back in because a lot of people were sharing the video.  I was pleasantly shocked to see that I have over forty thousand views!  Here is a link if you haven’t seen it yet and want to contribute to my swelling pride.  People all over the world have been viewing it, which leaves me amazed by the technology that connects us.  I can imagine someone in their jammies and fuzzy bunny slippers, sipping a coffee in Bulgaria checking out my weavings in the bagel shop here in Bloomington, Indiana. 

Right now my main focus is on two upcoming events that needed timely intervention.  First, my fiber world primarily involves costume design and creation for next year’s performance of Pippin by Sounds of South.  I’m focusing on the chorus costumes and the theme is vintage circus.  My color palate is purple, blue and green, not tints or shades, just the pure colors.  I’m being a little fussy on that because I want the colors to be strong but tight.  The neutrals are black and silver.  They will contrast with the principals, whom I’ll dress in strong bright reds so they pop out against the sixty-five or so kids in the chorus.  In my mind the design is perfect—I just hope it will translate to the stage!   

Anyway, the project is coming along beautifully.  I have all of the costumes for boys who are current members and all of the girl’s costumes up through “L” in the alphabet.  My sewing and sounding board faeries, mainly Nancy Riggert and Misty Hayes, have been terrific and fun to work with.  Of course the spring auditions for next year’s members haven’t taken place, though, so Gwen is likely to bring along another fifteen or so kids who’ll need chorus costumes.  I’m setting that thought aside and trying to focus on my accomplishments.  To give you an idea what I’m doing, here are a few pictures of the completed costumes for the female members.

The wild card in my work schedule is travel to put on workshops.  I have two finalized events this year and two more in the works.  Next up is Memphis in about ten days, which means I need to construct some new looms for the participants.  Last summer we cleaned out the shed and I rediscovered wood that had been stored there.  I found tomato plant stakes, wood from the huppah when my friend Sonia got married in the back yard, and slats from the walk-in cellar door cover that Grandpa assembled to keep water out of the basement.  I’m all about recycling materials, and each of those pieces have good karma.  The same holds for the 1x2s I picked up from the Re-store to support Habitat for Humanity in town.  I chopped them all up and sanded the wood to make looms that I’ll ship to Memphis on Monday.  The screws that hold the L-brackets together are all recycled so it’s a mismatch of colors that’s fun to look at—it reminds me of a crazy quilt.

There’s not much more to add, other than the fact that there’s still no pie.  I think Jim knows I bought a bunch of Valentine’s day chocolate and didn’t want to have a sugar overload today.  Sometimes I just can’t fathom what he’s thinking, but if makes a nice dinner I suppose I can wait another few days for a pie.  Not silently, mind you, but I’ll pull through.

Until next week,

Martina Celerin