Looking at Water

My exhibition is up!  The primary focus of the past two months has been creating pieces for my “Looking at Water” exhibition.  Its first exposure will be at the Bloomington/Monroe County Convention Center, 103 S. College Road, in the newly remodeled Rogers room.  The room is a little secluded, but you’re welcome to stop in to see it.  The pieces will hang there until mid-November, and on December 1st it will move to the Bloomington Bagel Company on North Dunn for two months. 

One feature of the exhibition that I consciously worked toward was to incorporate some design or conceptual element that allows each piece to transition into the next.  I hung the exhibition with the thought of going from a small droplet of water to a small stream of water and on through rivers and ponds and ending in vast body of water—a scene where you don’t see anything but water around you.  One recent notable addition to the exhibition features a bluegill in a pond.  I spent a little time with fish images to ensure that the colors and subtleties were accurate. 

I’m also pleased with “Heading for Open Water”, which was inspired by boating trips to Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron.  We loaded Grandpa’s boat at Gambil’s Landing and drove through the seemingly endless rushes and cattails heading for walleye fishing on Saginaw bay of Lake Huron.  We passed by numerous turtles sunning themselves, dragonflies flitting around, and egrets scanning the shallow water for small fish.  As we broke into the open water of the bay we headed for deeper water, scanning the horizon for packs of boats that often gave away the places where fish were biting.  Far out on the bay you can see the towers at the mouth of the Saginaw River, the shore along Pinconning and Linwood, and the line where water meets sky to the east.  I know Canada is out there, even if I can’t see it. 

Another piece that I’m proud of features single droplets of water and is called “Water Sprout.”  When I water the garden I’m fascinated by watching the water come streaming out of the sprayer head on the hose or watering can.  I feel a certain satisfaction when I give small plants something they need to survive and grow.  The piece I created celebrates that water spout as it nurtures a little bean sprout.  It contains some stainless steel wire wrapped on an old wooden spool that Grandpa gave me at least ten years ago.  I’ve been saving it for a special occasion, because he handed it me accompanied with that serious look that meant ‘stainless steel wire’ was something special that needed just the occasion for use.  My “Water Sprout” features droplets of water created from blobs of hot glue extended from pieces of stainless steel wire from the special spool.  The wire that I used to create the roots of the bean sprout came from recycled spiral notebooks.  The math problems on the pages of the binder may be long forgotten and the paper recycled, but the spiral binder lives on in the weaving. 

I hope you’ll come join me for the opening reception of the show on Friday, October 3^rd from 5-8 p.m. during Gallery Walk.  There will be a harpist from IU playing to add atmosphere.  If you live too far away to come, I made a short movie to capture the room and the feel of the pieces in the exhibit.  With the show hung, I feel as if a huge weight has been removed from my shoulders.  Luckily, the weather is warm enough to sit outside on the veranda and have dinner again.  Two nights ago we had pesto with some grilled butternut squash and a delightful bottle of wine, with some shared brownie treats from BluBoy for dessert.  We lit the candles to remember spring and early summer dinners enjoyed on the veranda.  I intend to have a little pause from art creation for a few days to catch up on other things I’ve neglected.  This morning I fixed the vacuum cleaner, and I woke to the smell of baking raspberry pie from berries that Jim secretly bought at the farmer’s market.  I’d say things are looking up!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Weaving an Exhibition!

This is has been an intense week of artwork for me.  I’ve been getting up at six a.m. each morning and going straight into the art studio to weave.  I’m steaming along on pieces for my exhibition titled “Looking at Water.”  My goal is to have sixteen new pieces, and I feel like I’m on track to reach my goal.  I have eleven completed, but I have four more in progress and a sketch for the last piece.  In some cases I have the weaving largely assembled but I’m still lacking a featured animal or physical structure, such as a fish, turtle or a dock.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so many open books!  My attention is now is focused on a second weaving featuring a dock that I’m pretty excited about.  

 The inside of the weathered dock boards are felt from army blankets that came to me in my treasure hunts.  That continues the strong connection to my father-in-law’s old army blankets that supported so many pieces, but the wool from them is mostly gone.  As each piece comes closer to completion I feel better about the show.

My desire to do this exhibition came in part from a very successful exhibit I did early in the year at City Hall and Meadowood, "Portraits of Trees."  The show featured trees and lots of fresh spring green.  It felt great to see the pieces together on the wall after a long, cold winter.  Around that time I decided I wanted to assemble pieces for another exhibit built on a theme.  The idea transformed into the “Looking at Water” themed exhibit scheduled for October at the Convention Center.  Thinking about the shows reminds me that while I lack formal training as an artist, I seem to learn about the art world from unexpected places.  I’m not a television watcher, although I do watch Project Runway religiously.   

At the end of each season the surviving artists create collections that determine the winner.  I love the continuity in the collections the designers create, where theme elements connect the pieces—it might be a style, a fabric or a color.  One piece speaks to the next, not as a reiteration of the composition, but as a spark to begin the conversation on the next design.  I’m consciously trying to replicate that concept in my exhibition.  I’m looking forward to hanging the show as a linear story of “Looking at Water”, with design ideas and materials that flow through the exhibition.  The broader concept is still solidifying in my head, even as I have now mentally created all the pieces.  Come and see the exhibition and we can see how the story unfolds!

My other big art news is the completion of the bigheaded ants last month, which were finally delivered to Wonderlab.  This past week they invited me to participate in laying out the ants in their new home.  They are going to be crawling over the wall up to the sign that introduces the bigheaded ant exhibit.  After laying it out it became clear that they needed one more ant on the back of the sign.  As soon as my water exhibit is complete I’ll create one more worker ant.  Then I’ll re-launch on all my commissions in progress to bring everything together.  I have the large “Garden Path” piece to complete, and that’s my top priority.  

 I also finished weaving and stretching out the background for the “Summer Salad”commission.  That means I’ll be felting lots of vegetables for the foreground.  Sliced tomatoes, here we go!

On the family front, Jim and I celebrated fifteen wonderful years of marriage together.  It’s hard to imagine a life before marriage and my family.  Jacob grilled salmon for the celebratory dinner, which came out beautifully.  

 There was also a new peach pie, but the boys (and I) again made short work of that.  Then, somehow we managed to walk right past the raspberries at the farmer’s market on Saturday!  With the peach pies so fleeting, shouldn’t another pie appear very soon?  I know there’s fruit in the freezer!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Weaving Water and Reclaiming Re-Shirts

I’m working on an exhibition in October called ‘Looking at Water.’  I have been distracted by family projects, such as our trip to North Carolina and a family gathering in Michigan, so the weaving sat unfinished for some time.  I was so excited to get back into my studio earlier this week and start work on it that I released the piece from the loom before I finished weaving the sky.  Argh!  I hate that sinking feeling in your stomach when you know you’ve done something silly that can’t easily be fixed.  When life gives you lemons you have to do something.  Jim has been bugging me to try a wall piece where the background is needle felted instead of woven, and this seems like the perfect compromise.  I’m actually getting excited about it!  The woven part has a lot of movement that really is consistent with water.  The sky will be felted, allowing it to be smooth and softer by contrast.  I’m hoping to add some felted and dimensional clouds to the piece.  I’m excited about trying to pull it all together. 

The new piece will feature a dock.  I’ve stretched the woven part into the frame and I’ve layered on to a mock-up of the wooden structure.  This helps me get the scale right and the paper pieces are a good template for cutting the boards.  

 I’m creating the wooden parts out of the last of Grandpa’s army blanket pieces.  To make them look like sun-bleached wood I’ve been needle felting grey-white wool onto the shaped blanket pieces.  I was pleasantly surprised during the process as the olive green blanket crept through to the surface to make kind of a greeny-brown color.  The color just clicks for me as a good dock material.

And so to back up a little and share some family stories - we spent a few wonderful days visiting with family in Michigan.  Scott and Cathy Drummond flew in from California, Tim and Bobi Drummond came in from New Mexico, and Haley and the new baby Arya from New Mexico were there when we arrived.  Arya is walking with confidence and quite an independent thinker.  Scott introduced the boys to a new game called Boxcars.  They’ve been enjoying that ever since.   

We enjoyed a nice walk through the Bay City craft fair with Aunt Lois, and the boys enjoyed archery and badminton.  They also drove around on Miss Daisy, Grandma’s golf cart, which Arya found very entertaining.  Meal times were big and busy, especially the night we had pizza on the patio with family friends the Gibsons (Ben and Kathey) from next door.  The weather was beautiful—cool with low humidity and very few bugs. 

The drive back from Michigan was a great time for me to felt some tomatoes.  I’m going to revisit a piece I made a few years back called ‘Homegrown Tomatoes’.  It featured sixty-seven individual tomatoes of all varieties, shapes and sizes.  I really liked that piece, and while sixty-seven sounds overwhelming, it isn’t so bad if they’re done a few at a time every few weeks.  I giggled as I placed some of my felted tomatoes on the garden tomato plants in the back yard.  I took a picture and posted it on Facebook.  It seems that I have both skeptical and gullible friends!

Yesterday I did Art Fair on the Square here in Bloomington, which is a delightful regional show.  I decided to do it with my Re-Shirts rather than my large-woven wall pieces.  My shirts were very well received, with lots of people excited about the style and the fact that they were made from reclaimed and recycled fabrics.  I’m pleased to report that many of them went off to new homes.  I also enjoyed watching people’s faces when they realized that I do the three dimensional wall pieces they’ve seen elsewhere.  “Oh, that’s you!” was a phrase I heard many times.  I also had to assure many people that I was not moving away from doing wall pieces, and that making my art clothing was my hobby.   

From a practical artist perspective, I was thrilled that we were packed up and driving home within a half an hour of the show ending.  That’s an absolute, all time record that will never happen with the wall pieces!  At home I was treated to a celebratory dinner of flatbread.  We had cheese treasures from Williams cheese factory in Pinconning Michigan, including beer cheddar spread, along with Bruschetta and aged Gouda from Trader Joe’s that we picked up on the drive home from Michigan.  A bottle of Red Silk shiraz from Australia topped it all off.  This morning I woke up to the smell of baking pie.  It made for a very decadent Sunday lunch with a second cup of coffee!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin