The Keys to My Success

I’m continuing on my new year’s plan to finish pieces.  This week I put the final touches on my piece called ‘The Key’.  I have been collecting brass keys for several years, not knowing what I wanted to do with them.  I’m fascinated by their shape and the powers they possess.  The vintage stylized keys that opened jail cells in old movies are a study in contrast, with the curving head or bow of the key and the stark angles of the shank and bit.  

The visual image of each key is so powerful it can evoke memories as easily as opening a door.  As I was cleaning and sorting keys I picked one up labeled ‘Datsun’, which immediately made me think of driving around with my friend Evelyn in her well well-traveled little car.  I don’t know how it held together, but her husband Karel kept it on the road.  Another key was exactly the same shape as the one that opened my father’s veterinary hospital.  Every third weekend I was responsible for feeding the animals at the clinic and cleaning their cages.  I know that each key in my collection has had a rich history on its journey through time to me, from function to collection.   

Keys are also powerful metaphors for opening new directions in our lives.  I remembered the time when I was at what proved to be a major decision point.  I was coloring with crayons on the kitchen floor with Tommie while I nursed Jacob, wondering if I could transition out of science and back into my roots as an artist.  I had invested years in earning my Ph.D. and I was developing a research project as a post-doc, but at that moment art seemed much more immediate and powerful to me.  While there wasn’t a physical key involved, the support I got from Jim was the emotional key I needed to begin a new direction.  In my piece ‘The Key’, the summer tanager is perched tentatively at the open door of the cage looking out.  I can almost sense that the bird is trying to decide which direction to travel and why.  It’s not aggressively flying away, it’s weighing its choices for the future.  I see the piece as a story of possibilities, the freedom to fly in any direction, rather than signaling escape.   

From a technical standpoint, the cage itself is constructed from reclaimed florist’s wire that I wrapped in black yarn.  I worked from a sketch I made to scale in two dimension where I could predict how much I needed of each component in three dimensions.  I wrapped each individual piece and glued them together to make the cage.   

I kept my other projects moving forward this week, completing the fern pinnae (the leaflets of the fern) I need for one of my felted tiles.  I assembled the fronds and attached them to the black background.  I really like my design that has the pinnae projecting forward to emphasize the dimensional nature of the structure rather than laying flat against the background.  I still need to make the wee frog that will cling to the main vein of one of the fronds, but for now I’m going to enjoy the completed sculpture.    

In Bloomington, the first real snow of the season arrived on Saturday.  I got to test out my new snow boots, and boy are they terrific!  Nancy Riggert and I, my partner in scrounging for costume parts, often score fabulous finds for ourselves.  She spied these barely used boots and knew I was looking for some—thanks Nancy!  The snow shovels came out Saturday morning, and Jacob was off to a shoveling gig, with Tommie as his right-hand shoveler.  

Jim stayed home and cleared the laneway and walk to the door.  I just enjoyed a quiet day in the house.  But the best news about waking up to snow was the smell of espresso and a freshly baked blueberry pie!  Thanks sweetie pie! 

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

And Pippin Continues…

Pippin is still filling my world. Now that I have the vintage circus chorus costumes finished, I’m turning my attention to costumes for the principals.  This week I created the Baron’s outfit.  I began with a black overcoat from the Sounds of South closet and rebuilt it by lining it with the red velour that came from a seventies lounge dress.  I trimmed it with gold Christmas cord and curtain tie-backs.  The coat, now a justacorps, worked perfectly with a quilted red and gold vest I found at the recycle center a couple of months ago.  I had no idea what I needed it for at the time, but it became quite obvious when I started working on the baron.  It just needed to add a few red sparkles as embellishment.  The vest covers a fancy dinner shirt that used to belong to the Beast in Beauty and the Beast last year.  I removed the blue gems from the neck ruffle and replaced them with a red and gold piece of a Christmas ornament that I got from Becky DeLong (thanks, Becky!!)  

 The buttons on the jacket cuffs are old earrings with red jewels glued in the center and the front panels of the justacorps are held open with flattened gold Christmas tree candle holders with a red jewel hot glued in the center.  My baron will sparkle! 

I also worked on Pippin’s ‘Morning Glow’ outfit.  I learned I needed to create this when Chris Miller came into the costume studio and asked me what Pippin was going to wear.  I looked a little saucer eyed at him and asked “what do you mean?”  He explained that traditionally Pippin wears something over the top, something surprising and eye-catching with a little ‘wow’ in it.  I pulled out a black and gold collar/bib that I had cut from a woman’s tunic top.  To that I added reclaimed gold Christmas ribbon.   

I pressed in gold studs on the embroidered lattice work and added gold trim that I bought in Tuscon last year at SAS Fabrics and Trim Surplus Store.  I added golden yellow jewels and I pinned on a gold chain with a tassel that Nancy Riggert will hand sew onto it (thanks, Nancy!)  I counterbalanced Pippin’s heavy front of the bib with three medals that I picked up at the Materials for the Arts - Recycle Center, taken from the Texas Senior Games.  That really tickled my fancy!  I put the studded bib on the chain mail-esque shirt and hoo-doggies—it looks great!  Chris was delighted. 

If that weren’t enough, I’ve been building the ‘Headless’ character.  I started with a damaged backpack from the Recycle Center and added an additional buckle across the chest for stability.  I inserted used pool noodles and scrap Styrofoam into the backpack to give height to the tall headless fellow who would be carrying the actor’s head.  I then took an old jacket worn by Jouvert from ‘Le Mis’ (many, many years ago) and cut a head hole in the chest panel for the actor and installed it on the backpack understructure. I repurposed two gloves from the recycle center and put wire and stuffed fill into each of the fingers so I could position them to look like they are holding a decapitated head.  The build isn’t quite done yet but it’s close. 

The other big news form the past two weeks comes from the Sounds of South trip to New York City.  Sixty-five students and a handful of parent chaperones took the city by storm.  The highlights include seeing the production of Wicked at the Gershwin Theater on the night we arrived.  The costumes were amazing and the singing phenomenal.  I just was completely immersed in the production, even though I was up at 2:15 that morning to make the trip.  Friday night took me to the Franco Zepharelli's staging of La Boheme at the Metropolitan opera, which was awesome—it’s the Met, so what can I say?  

 On Saturday afternoon I took in the off Broadway production of Newsical, which was completely inappropriate for language and content—and I loved every minute of it!  It was hilarious.  I stopped in at the fashion fabric mecca Mood and was just overwhelmed with the number, range, colors, and textures of fabrics.  

 It was astounding, and yes, I met Swatch.  The final evening dinner cruise on the Hudson was gorgeous and delightful, and the perfect end for an amazing three-day visit to New York.  We had a nice dinner when I got home, but I had to wait for the pie until this weekend.   

A blueberry pie for dessert on a beautiful spring summer evening out on the veranda was a fine end to the week.  The sad news was that I have been informed that there are no more fruit pie fillings in the freezer from last year’s farmer’s market.  All I can add is that I hope the rhubarb is ripe!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Lots of irons in the fire…

My blogs often start out with the manageable lamentation that I have a bunch of projects in the works.  It seems that I have too much going on to accomplish it all.  What helps me manage is to stand back and look at the big picture.  I find if keep I moving forward, a little bit on each project each week, my responsibilities don’t feel so overwhelming.  This was one of those weeks!  I stepped back into working on a weaving project I started a while back, which was to work on the background for a birch piece set next to a summer lake.  I’ve made similar pieces, and this composition is especially calming for me.  I pulled the piece off the studio wall and started crocheting some of the foreground land mass to build the piece away from the wall.  

 I’ll plant the birch trees there.  Then I spent some time needle felting the effects of the gentle summer breeze on the water to create the perceived notion of waves.  I’m hoping that the piece should be finished and ready to travel to summer art fairs by this time next week. 

I spent some time this week moving ‘My Roots’ forward as well.  I’m creating this for an exhibition in November, although I’ll travel with this piece to summer art fairs.  I have decided that if it finds a new home this summer, it wasn’t meant to be part of the exhibit.   

My goal was to finish making the turnips that will nicely fill in the green hole still in the piece I shared last week.  I worked on these as the boys did their taekwondo, and the early-stage turnips are usually mistaken for potatoes or some other roots.  As the delicate purples and greens are added the turnips take on their identity.  I can tell they’re exited to join their other root relatives on the weaving. 

April marked my return to the costume studio at Bloomington High School South.  If you haven’t heard, and I can’t imagine that many of you haven’t, I’m currently creating the chorus costumes for a performance of Pippin this fall in a vintage circus motif.  I’ve been collecting all sorts of treasures from various places, both local and on my travels, to fit my color scheme for the performance.  I focus on reclaimed and recycled clothing and materials for the costumes.  Some parents have dropped off materials, but I regularly visit the Recycle Center (especially the Materials for the Arts program), My Sister’s Closet, and the Bloomington Thrift Shop.  I even found some useful costume things at the Re-Store in town!  On my spring break visit to Michigan I brought home a big haul from a store called the Cat’s Meow. 

One of the first new costumes I have laid out for the incoming freshmen includes a peplum I cut from a dress I found at the Cat’s Meow.  The purple skirt was formerly a purple dress, and what will be the black and white skirt was formerly a bed skirt.  I’ll trim the costume with Christmas ribbons and chords made from t-shirts, cut as a continuous strips to make the cordage. 

I am generating lots of projects for my sewing faeries!

While the costumes are my day job, I’ve been moving forward on pulling things together for my workshop in Virginia in June.  I took advantage of the beautiful weather from last week to bring my wide belt sander on the veranda.   

I converted the slats of wooden blinds into batons or pick-up sticks as the boys spent some quality time outside playing with bubbles.  They also decided they needed to try some stained glass work, so they spent a couple of hours on that project.  So yes, I happened to have copper tape and a soldering iron, and yes we have a bunch of beach glass, shells and funky found objects that they could fuse together.  Doesn’t every mom have those things? 

Family life has been about as busy as usual, with the biggest news focused on Jacob.  He had some extra practices this week before his big Hip Hop Connexion performance on Friday night.   

It was terrific!  The Jaywalkerz did a fabulous job, as usual, and brought the house down with their performance amid a dozen other skilled performance groups.  

 On the pie front, I had been scratching days on my calendar to maintain some hope.  Jim hasn’t been 100% and I wasn’t sure I was going to get a pie this week.  But good news!  I woke this morning to the smell of blueberry pie baking, and tonight night was a pie night!  Hooray!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Parsnips, Pie and ISSMA Gold

This week’s vegetable is parsnip.  At least that’s the felted vegetable I’m making for my piece in progress called ‘Fall Stew’.  I grew up with parsnips as a big part of our diet.  It’s a key ingredient in svíčková omáčka.  Every family makes it a little differently.  My father always prepared it with a meat roast surrounded by carrots, onions, parsnips and celeriac.  The key spices are peppercorns, bay leaves and juniper berries.  We used to collect the juniper berries, illegally I’m sure, at the Pinery Provincial Park during summertime visits.  That kept us in dried berries through the year.  After baking, the ingredients were combined with sour cream and milk and pureed.  This was an event where he always wore an apron because he managed to splatter the omáčka everywhere.  The sauce was then poured back over the meat and big knedlicky (big dumplings).  There was lots of sour cream to make it good and a little vinegar for flavor.  The carrots and parsnips were important to add a sweetness.  Many families have different versions, but that’s the basic recipe. 

As I was making the parsnips, which I always tried to sneak into my fall stew, I realized that most people aren’t familiar with the shape.  People around me who watch as I needle felt ask if I’m making albino carrots.  They’re probably the same people who can’t tell a loon from a duck.  It doesn’t matter, though—I know what they are. Next I’ll add to the composition a little garlic as my next ‘vegetable.'  You can’t really have a stew without garlic, can you?

I have a lot of art fairs on my summer schedule that I’m excited about doing.  That means I need to hide away in my studio and weave.  I always forget how much I enjoy weaving!  My frame maker, Tom Bertolacini, has been busy as well. He is a woodworker and photographer who lives out in Greene County and makes my frames from locally sourced oak.  He has been busy making seventeen new frames for me that he delivered on Friday.  I know I’m getting off track a little, but that was an incredibly busy day.  I have been going into South to work on the costumes for Pippin on Mondays and Fridays.  This particular Friday, the 29th, is exactly one month since my birthday.  I had lost track of that, but as it turns out, my husband and the SOS director (Gwen Witten) hadn’t.  As I was coming out of the costume studio into the big choir room to measure one of the girls for a skirt waistband, the spotlight fell on me and Gwen announced that it was my birthday!  Four big boxes of cookies came into the room from Baked in Bloomington, still warm and full of wafty smells to share with the room. It’s pretty amazing to have sixty-five vocally gifted kids singing happy birthday to you in perfect tune, all staring at you and smiling.  It was a little overwhelming.  My son Tommie was among the 65, but my husband and younger son Jacob walked in to be part of the experience.  I even got a present—a Kuerig coffee machine that will stay in the costume studio.  What a perfect gift and a wonderful surprise! It’s almost as good as the Bahamas!  Almost. 

Saturday turned out to be pretty intense too.  Both boys participated in the ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association) voice competition.  Jacob was in Division 2 and Tommie in Division 1, and both received gold medals.  Tommie will be competing in the state competition on February 20th.  I’m so incredibly proud of them!  They are both gifted in many many ways. They sang with confidence and poise and passion.  When I sat in the audience and they opened their mouths and this beautiful sound came out of their mouths I had a moment of ‘who is this kid?’  We went from there to a 60th birthday party for a friend of mine who lives on a beautiful property in Brown County.  I saw an impressive field of turnips planted for ground cover, which got me thinking about Fall Stew again.  Sunday was my actual birthday party, with conch fritters, baked salmon and boca negra, a delightful flourless cake from Julia Childs.  

 Oh, and so much happened that I almost forgot to mention that it was a pie week!  Blueberry, yum!  I still have blueberry pie and chocolate cake in the fridge.  My life is complete.  At least for the moment.  I’ll probably want another pie by Wednesday.  

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Santa makes her deliveries!

My art season ran long last week as I finished up all the scarf commissions I had accumulated from late season art shows. I made quite a few red and purple scarves with black ruffled edges, depleting the southern Indiana stocks of merino in those colors in the process. I felt like the UPS delivery person at Christmas, calling up patrons and arranging for drop-offs. This picture may look like me rollerskating with my family, but I’m sure I was just out on a scarf delivery mission. One person was so delighted when she saw the scarf that it ceased to be a Christmas present for her granddaughter. Another friend picked out a scarf and sent her husband to buy it for her as a Christmas present. He said he’d grown tired of getting a blank look when his wife opened his presents, and he knew this was going to be a success.

I made some giant strides forward on my huge commission piece. It’s a five by 2-and-a-half foot weaving, so this week I hand-made a five by three foot loom. I was just about to hammer in all the nails needed to warp the piece, but then I heard the voice of my sweet husband in my ear: “Drill pilot holes! You’ll be happier if you do!” So I did! All the nails went in nice and straight, just like a row of carrots coming up. With a nail every quarter of an inch, well, you do the math—that’s a lot of holes and nails. But I was glad I did it. And I’m not just saying that so he’ll make me coffee and pie! I then warped the loom and it’s ready to receive the weft. After a quick trip out to Sheep Street to pick up all the dirt brown yarns I could find I feel ready to launch on the weaving. I also picked up all the merino roving I could for scarves next year (be prepared, I say). Oh, and I found some really amazing spun silk, which is the waste from weaving Saris. I’ve seen various examples in different yarn shops, but this was so stunning I couldn’t possibly leave it. I ended up buying a couple of skeins. This too will go into scarves next season.

With the holiday season comes family, and that’s a good thing. The first visit started earlier than I would have chosen, when my thoughtful Czech cousin arranged for a 5 a.m. flight to bring her son into Indianapolis. He’s learning English in Los Angeles, and he’ll spend a couple of weeks with us. I consider this his ‘polishing’ phase, where he learns real Midwestern axioms and pronunciation. Actually, I was really delighted to pick up Vojta and bring him home, even if I had to get up at 3:30 a.m. On the bright side, when I got home there was warm blueberry pie and a batch of homemade Kluski ready for dinner that night. And an espresso! The boys were delighted to meet Vojta and show him around the house. The next day he pushed them around in the shopping cart at the grocery store. They had so much fun I couldn’t tell who was the bigger kid. And...if that wasn't enough, my rusty Czech is getting a welcome workout.

The rest of the news is all about getting ready for the holidays. I’m making marzipan for my holiday Stollen. I’m taking over a tradition from Jim’s grandmother, who bought Stollen from the local grocery store for Christmas morning breakfast. I thought that was just the place to buy into a family institution, but of course I had to make my own. Mine is full of dried currants, dried cherries, dried cranberries, slivered almonds, rum, butter, lots of sugar, and it’s all baked into a yeast-risen dough and covered with buttery icing. Yum! More preparations are underway to prepare the house for Grandma and Aunt Lois’ arrival on Wednesday. I’m converting the art studio into a bedroom for Lois, and I’ve got to turn the jungle room into an extra guest bedroom. A full house at the holidays is a very good thing, though. This is especially true if there are good things to eat and lots of laughter. I’ll do my part!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin