Re-shirt week.

This week I pulled out my trusty Jeans Machine sewing machine that Grandma gave me and spent the whole week sewing!  I first converted the dining room into a sewing room.  After the Unitarian Universalist Art Fair in December I was secure in the knowledge that my new Re-Shirt designs were well-received.  Around that time I had cut out some fabric for the next batch of Re-Shirts.  If you haven’t seen them, they’re artsy tank tops with tuxedo tails made out of fabrics that have had a previous life.  That means that old shirts, skirts, tablecloths and curtains are all fair game.  When I think of curtain fabrics, all I can think of is the great Carol Burnett and her parody of "Gone With the Wind."

My friend Ruth has been wonderful about giving me all kinds of fabric scraps, including batiks and embroidered pieces that I think came out of a jacket.  I even ‘retire’ a few shirts from my husband’s closets that he shouldn’t be wearing any more.  The process of creating shirts itself is a lot like making soup—what goes in depends on what you have on hand and what color palate strikes my fancy.  Just as I was finishing up this week, the tension on the sewing machine went wonky and it got stuck in reverse !?! And so the sewing was over.  ugh.  It now sits at Klaiber’s Sewing Center awaiting some care and attention.   

In hindsight, it probably would have been a good idea to give it a little oil every now and again instead of plowing through several show’s worth of Re-Shirts.  I mentioned to my friend Karen Cherrington that my machine would be down for two weeks, and she generously loaned me her sewing machine as a replacement.  She bought it in 1984 and the machine never made it out of the box.  It looks like a really solid machine, but I’m guessing it’s going to need a little oil.  I should be chugging along again by the beginning of the week.  Basically I’m gearing up for the Bloom show, which will be this coming Sunday, February 24^th from 12 to 5:30 at the Bloomington Convention Center.  

 I’ll be in booth #60 if I’m not talking or laughing loud enough for you to hear me when you come in.  I have seen a lot of advertising for it, including in this morning’s Herald-Times, so I’m expecting a good turnout. 

On the home front, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with special chocolate.  It wasn’t homemade pie, but instead I picked up a mousse cake from Angel B’s bakery in town.  It went nicely with the 2010 Molllydooker shiraz.  Yum!  On Friday night the whole crew went out to see ‘Traces’ at the IU Auditorium.  It was an amazing show!  The upper body strength and athletic ability of the performers was outstanding.  We saw individuals who could hold their rigid bodies at an angle of 90 degrees from a standing pole, or climb a pole while spinning around it without using their feet or bodies.  It’s truly a cross between circus acrobatics and modern dance.  It had a few dramatic choreographed falls and dramatic recoveries that freaked out Jim a little, but otherwise we all had a great time.  On Saturday morning I slipped off to the Bollywood dance class at Panache.  Darrelyn runs the class, and basically it’s a huge sweat fest.  She’s an enthusiastic ball of energy that inspires the thirty or forty participants to dance their hearts out.  I may not be exceptionally coordinated, but I really enjoy the class.  And finally, between everything else, I’ve had a chance to slip into my art studio and do a little weaving.  I have idea for another Garden Walk piece.  It involves a stone path turning thorough a white picket fence that guards the flowers on the inside yard.  I’m hoping to make some good progress on that piece this week.  I’ll just have to see what else life sends my way!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Christmas, my birthday, New Year’s Day and art!

A lot of exciting things happen around the holiday season here in Bloomington Indiana, but that news has to wait.  As I move into 2013 my need to get into full gear making art kicks in.  Sometimes I can’t sleep in the morning and I slip down into my art studio to keep all my projects moving forward.  The holiday’s delayed my completion of a commission piece featuring peppers, but my family and the festivities had to take priority.  Now the ‘Some Like it Hot’ piece that features sixty-six peppers of all shapes and sizes is complete!  The theme of this piece, contained in vertical format, was hot peppers.  I created jalapenos, habaneras, and slightly zingy chili peppers in all shapes and sizes.  I’ll give you a wee sneak peak of the completed piece here, but I really want to show the completed piece to the couple that commissioned the work first.  Next week I promise to show the final image.  With the pepper piece off my priority list, I’m moving on to the next commission.  It’s a version of ‘When Life Gives You Lemons.’  

 For this piece I’ve been creating needle-felted lemons and lemon halves and quarters for sectional views.  I have plenty of lemon skin colored fleece as well as lighter yellow lemon “meat” that I dyed using dandelions the boys and their friends collected on a grand adventure last spring to the big field adjacent to the boys’ elementary school. 

For my piece I estimate that I need about forty lemons and part lemons, and so the poking continues whenever I have any sort of a quiet moment.  I wove the background about a month ago, and it has been keeping me company in the art studio.  It’s bright yellow and acts like a little sun on the wall.  It’s a rectangular sun, but I find the bright glowing yellows to be warm and reassuring. 

In addition to art creation, now is the time of year to apply for summer art fairs.  I have already been admitted to the Des Moines Art Festival, about which I’m really excited.  Here in Bloomington, we’re just now getting the electronic application process available for the Fourth Street Art Fair.  That’s usually my cue to start applying to the other major shows I want participate in this summer, which are in Madison and Minneapolis.  Madison’s Art Fair on the Square has always been very good to me, and it’s a fun time to catch up with our friends Wendy and Duane that live out in Hollandale.  I think I know better what I’m looking for from the Minneapolis shows, so we’ll give that a try again this year.  I did have a brief shock when I opened up the application sites and discovered that the deadline had already passed—it was the third of January!  I leapt into action, hoping to get a late application into the system, even if I had to pay a late fee.  It wasn’t until I sailed through the whole process with no problems did I realize that my Americanization was not yet fully complete.  I remembered that 3-1-2013 was not the third of January, as it is in Canada and most of the civilized world.  I really had until March first!  Now my fingers are crossed that I can get into those shows. 

As we get ready for school to start next week, we’ve been moving out of the holiday season.  The Christmas tree is down and the ornaments are packed away.  On the bright side, we’re still eating the candy from the candy house.  

 The 29^th was my birthday, on which I had a nice dinner and a bottle of wine.  I even got a boca negra cake (straight from the Julia Child’s baking book) that was simply awesome.  You’re probably thinking I would have preferred a pie, but we just had a peach pie when the family was here.  We got to share my birthday with Tim (Jim’s brother) and his wife Bobi from New Mexico.  We had a cheese fondue and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  For my birthday I got a new valve for the shower head.  You might not think that to be a romantic gift, but a quiet night without distracting drips does a lot for me.  I also got a delightful bottle of wine from Grandma and a coupon for a serger of my choice.  Jim was sick with a bad cold for on my birthday and missed the end of the holiday sale at JoAnn’s fabrics, so I had to settle for the coupon.  Of course the clock starts ticking on two events—when do I get the serger, and when is the next pie?

Until next week,

Martina Celerin

Arts Fair on the Square, revitalized.

The big news of the week is that I’m closing in on completing the big commission piece—the last pieces should be in place by the end of the week.  I’m just delighted with how it’s turning out.  On the drive back from Michigan I made a bunch more leaf clumps for the forest canopy.  I was sure I had plenty and a few to spare.  This week I attached them, and lo and behold, I was still shy a few clumps.  Some days my husband thinks I’m a few leaf clumps shy of a canopy, but I still love him.  A few afternoons watching the boys do Taekwondo (actually, not watching) and I had enough clumps.  I completed the canopy, stood back, and thought: “wow!”  The dimensionality and density of the greens is really dramatic in person.  I just need to attach the greenery to create the forest understory, which is in progress, and add some rocks and sticks along the path.  Now I’m mentally in completion mode so it won’t be long now.

Saturday brought Arts Fair on the Square back to Bloomington.  This year I decided to participate again because Chad from the BPP took over advertising and marketing.  Chad is just an awesome, energetic individual, just the right person to be in charge.  The show truly was revitalized, with big steady crowds passing through all day.  Set-up and take-down were smoother, easier and safer this year with the adjacent roads closed off.  Chad just did everything right, except for not having a ‘Best-in-Show’ award.  He set that right by making me a special star for my booth—thanks Chad!  You’ve nicely revitalized a Bloomington tradition. 

At the show itself I ran into a lot of interesting people.  I saw two sets of kids that were classmates of Tommie and Jacob at Hoosier Courts years ago.  They’ve changed so much I wouldn’t have recognized them out of context—wow have they grown!  I guess my boys have changed a little too.  I was thrilled that Tommie volunteered to get up at 5:30 am and help me set up the show.  He turned out to be an amazing assistant.  He lugged the four fifty pound weights up the hill to my booth location, as well as all the really heavy stuff I needed to set up.  He never complained at any point, always asking instead what needed to be done next for both set-up and take-down.  Tommie was just incredibly competent and helpful—thank you so much!  Oh, and I have one more funny story to tell.  I was off on a break and Jim was booth sitting for me when a senior IU official came walking by.  He recognized her but doesn’t know her well.  She walked past, looked right through Jim and pointed out to her friend that Martina had “just finished the turtle piece.”  Sometimes Jim feels like everyone in town knows me and everything I’m doing.  He couldn’t understand how she knew that I was even making a turtle piece, but I’m sure she must have come through on the open studios tour when it was in progress.  It is finished now, and I’m delighted with how it turned out—my little turtle friend has a nice shady home in the garden understory. 

A last good note from the week:  after the fair set up, Jim and the boys ventured to the Farmer’s Market Saturday for their usual treats and vegetable stock-up.  They came home with three quarts of blueberries for a giant pie that I’ve been enjoying all week long.  The berries are a little tart, which makes for a very flavorful pie.  The summer is off to a good start!  Is peach pie next, sweetie pie?

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

A very busy week…

Hooray, a Saturday at home! The last two weekends have been taken over by shows, first in Columbus and last week in Bloomington. This week was devoted to getting the rest of my life back under control. Monday I zipped all over town on errands, went to a BEAD meeting, bought some red velvet muffins from the Bakehouse for the boys and ferried them between school and their clay class at the John Waldron Arts Center. I also stopped in at the Bloomington Bagel Company and thought, hmmm, wouldn’t it look nice to have some of my new scarves hanging on the wall! They are great about hanging the work of local artist so I thought I’d ask. I spoke with Dawn, who’s in charge of the art displays, and she set me up with an immediate show at the Eastside location in The Shoppes on College Mall Road. I hung fifteen scarves on a clothesline, secured by wooden clothes pegs—stop in and check them out if you can. If that goes well I’ll be showing downtown soon as well.

Tuesday brought the celebratory dinner for the Fourth Street Art Fair committee. This year it was a potluck and it was organized by Robin Halpin. It was great to sit around and bask in the glow of another successful show. My personal basking took the form of chatting with my friends while sipping a nice Shiraz that David Goodrum brought. I really enjoyed the kale dish that Dawn Adams made with sesame and ginger, and Robin’s brownies from the original Joy of Cooking were a real treat with the wine. My boys really liked the testing the individual recipes on the dessert table. My husband (as usual) ate all the treats they selected but decided were unworthy of their young palates.

On Wednesday my crew went with other parents from Binford to the IU women’s college basketball game. IU edged out the Cincinnati Bearcats in a close game, three boxes of M&M’s were consumed, the boys got on the court as part of the festivities, and much screaming occurred.

By late in the week I was back in scarf-making mode. I stopped in at Yarns Unlimited and picked up some beautiful cranberry merino roving, as well as two really wonderful rich blues that will work wonderfully in scarves. I went to Opportunity House and I picked up a big bag of novelty yarns that will make their way into scarves. Even now I still have a bunch of ideas for scarf layout, colors and materials dancing around in my head. That’s good, because the Unitarian Universalist Art Fair and Bazaar is coming up on December 4^th and 5^th. The art is great, but even if you just want to buy Christmas cookies by the pound it’s worth coming. As for the scarves, I’m still having a blast making them because they allow me to develop techniques that will eventually be incorporated into weavings. On a similar but sadder note, I’ve given up making ornaments. I feel like I’ve taken that craft as far as I can, and I learned a lot about patterns and color combinations that translate into scarf making strategies. If you had your eye on an ornament, the “UU” show might be one of the last opportunities to find one.

Anyway, I hope you had half as much fun as I did this week. I have a great job! Thank you so much for all the support over the year, and I wish you all a quiet Thanksgiving break with family, friends and good food.

And a pre-PS: Here’s a shout out to the person who wanted me to make the white scarf with red dots and black squiggles—I’m really sorry, but I’ve lost your contact information! If you read this, or you know who this was, please help me close the circle.

Until next week…

My schedule catches up with me.

The weeks leading up to the Fourth Street Festival were unusually hectic for me. I was trying to pull all the pieces together for the Children’s booth project , finish some weavings and helping make sure the show runs smoothly. Last week when my elder son came down with the flu and a respiratory infection I didn’t worry about me beyond, ‘gee, I sure wish he’d be a little better about coughing into his sleeve’. Like the way the picture from the Centers for Disease Control shows at the pharmacy. I know because I was there picking up his antibiotics. Last week the flu visited me, which slowed me down for a day or so. The pneumonia that followed brought me to a full stop, and so my sweet husband got to see the CDC picture at the pharmacy too!

Have I said lately that I love my job? Even when I have no energy and I’m huddled into a tiny corner of the sofa trying to stay warm, I can always work on ornaments! So it’s one more week of ornament blogging. My art studio floor is littered with fleeces of all colors, as if a flock of tie-dyed sheep ran afoul of a frustrated barber. All around my spot on the sofa by a big window are baskets of fleece, needles, scissors and a box of tissues. I’m up to 66 ornaments, with a goal of 100 before the holiday shows come around. Fortunately, ideas for new designs just keep flowing. I’ll finish one with a color or pattern that will remind me of something else, and off I’ll go on that next theme. Sometimes I see a neat design in a magazine or a store flyer and that will spark a new piece. My weavings are just too big a format to allow this kind of stream-of-consciousness piece creation and I really enjoying the process.

My other big art projects are slowly creeping forward. The project to urethane the artwork glued to the BEAD panels slowed down with the heavy rains and cool weather. Two panels are inching toward dryness and two more are waiting their turn for a urethane shower. I also worked on completing the demographic analysis of the fairgoers at this year’s Fourth Street Festival. It’s interesting to see the differences from last year, and I’m heartened again to see how far people came just for the show (one fourth came from more than 50 miles) and how positive the responses were on the surveys. When asked what part about the show they liked best, the participants gave overwhelmingly positive comments about the atmosphere of the fair, the setting in Bloomington, and the terrific artists and the diversity of art. It rained a little on Sunday morning, but we still had more than 42,000 visitors. Just another reason to appreciate the great town we have here in Bloomington.

Until next week…

Mr. Turtle Goes to Indianapolis

I spent last week in serious turtle mode. Where do you find serious turtles? That’s right, I started out at the Monroe County Public Library. I pored over the books with glossy color pictures of Eastern Painted turtles, which I needed to finish my latest weaving (Among the Ferns), but I didn’t meet any really serious turtles. The librarian told me that they’re off at the Library of Congress this time of year. To finish my turtle I needed some specialized fleece, starting with just the right deep olive green. I found some that I bought at the Hoosier Hills Fiber Arts Festival (in Franklin, IN) that worked well. Painted turtles have beautiful, bright red lines, and I matched the color I needed from a lot I picked up at Sheep Street in Morgantown. Last, I needed a natural-looking golden yellow highlight. I was stumped until I remembered my disastrous beet dyeing experience of a few weeks ago (August 15^th blog). Who knew that the perfect soft yellow-brown for turtle stripes was in beets, as soon as you got past that deep red color? So this week I poked and poked (and poked) and out popped the turtle. He slipped right into the fern fronds as his new home, but something was missing on the ground. I needed some rocks, and I decided that slag was perfect for the task. Slag is a glassy leftover from the smelting of iron ore, and I picked up mine in Michigan along the Saginaw River. Recycle everything, I say. I’m always delighted when I can take someone’s cast-offs and make something others think is beautiful.

Yesterday the turtle and I headed off to Indianapolis to the Penrod Art Fair. It was a great show—beautiful weather, lots of people, a helpful staff and an elegant garden setting. My booth was set up so the back of the booth was in the shade and the front in the sun, so I get the best of both worlds. The turtle prefers the shade this time of year. A lot of people remembered the frog I had last year and were pleased to meet the turtle (Ms. Frog lives in Wisconsin now). It was nice to meet patrons from previous shows and hear that the pieces they bought are still appreciated. I get pretty attached to my critters and flowers and everything else. It’s good to know they have good homes. Indianapolis shows are also a good chance to catch up with friends and acquaintances that live in that part of Indiana. When the show was over, take down went smoothly this year—no pouring rain, and we got a lot of help from the guys in the golf carts. They zip your stuff to the road when you’re ready to pack up, so we got in and out in just a few minutes when the van got through the queue (definitely not a Czech word—too many vowels). Thanks to all the Penrod Society folks who helped to make it a great show and the IMA for keeping the grounds so beautiful.

Now I just have to figure out what to do this week.

Until next week…

Reach for the sky...

At long last she’s finished—and I’m delighted! I completed my ‘Tree Woman’ piece this week, although I’m still trying to come up with a more fitting title for her. It’s been a hectic week with the boys in the art camp at the John Waldron Arts Center in the afternoons and the HoA (Husband of Artist) visiting the GPUs (grandparental units) in Michigan for a few days. I’ve been running around like crazy this week, but I just decided it was time to start attaching the branches. Then came the leaves, which was exactly what I needed to bring a measure of control and completion into my life. I’ve been scavenging little windows of time to get things done—a little poking here, a little grass-making there—until things came to a head Friday afternoon. Jacob had his friend Claire over and I convinced all the kids to come into my art studio and work on projects. That let me focus on my piece at the expense of the art studio floor turning into a disaster zone. I gleefully finished the grass and flowers at her feet. These were a composite of linen yarn, jute, cotton, fake evergreen boughs from a Christmas wreath and latch hook rug remnants. Everything finds its own niche around this place. When I called it done I showed it to the kids for an opinion. After a brief refocusing of three engrossed children (what—you mean you were working on something too Mom?) the consensus response was ‘wow!’ I’m really savoring having her hanging on the wall, and I’m patiently waiting for her to tell me her name. Every time I look at her I’m reminded that my favorite feature is her belly button, even if she does have a little wool in there.

It’s good to have the HoA home again. The boys have been a little sad, especially at bedtime. The world is set straight again, though, as the HoA triumphantly returned with cheese from ‘The Cow’ in Linwood, Kluski from Kryziaks, walleyes from Saginaw Bay, and Spatz’s hot bread from the bakery in Bay City. He even brought a few Tim Horton’s doughnuts home for his Canadian expatriate spouse. We’ll eat well this week!

The experience without the HoA in the house gave me a newfound respect for the trials of single parents. Life was full and boisterous, and herding 2 to 3 kids for meals, cleaning up, art class and bed is quite an adventure without any help. The week did have its highlights, though. At the boy’s art camp, one of the teachers was Rob of Bloomingfoods fame. He brought a wonderful fresh outlook on art to the camp. Rob introduced them to many new artists, techniques, and ways to think about creating art. He inspired Jacob to write a book entitled ‘How to Draw Aliens’, who told Rob he’d be willing to sell him the book. Always the entrepreneur, that boy. Jacob also made a beautiful vase, although the fact that it isn’t watertight will limit its applications. Tommie made a very nice dragon sculpture in the section with Jan Arbogast. It was a great two weeks, capped with an art reception to which we brought many brownies and brought home none.

My last big discovery of the week was the Monroe County Historical Society ‘garage sale’. I called my friend Cappi Phillips to ask her if it was worth going as she trundled off to the Talbot Street Art Fair. She recommended it as huge, fun and loaded with treasures. She didn’t need to tell me that twice! It is held in the old RCA storage building behind Cook Pharmaceuticals, and it was indeed huge, fun and loaded with treasures. I brought home a new dye pot, a basket for my cards and some very useful wire. I also just had to bring home a little nutmeg grater with a storage space on top and a cute little lid. It even had a hole on top to hang it on the wall! How could I ever leave such a special little thing at a big, impersonal place!

Until next week…

Back to Work!

This week it's back to work. My focus has been on my "Tree Woman" commission piece. The trunk is filling in nicely, the arms and legs are in place, and the branches are now wrapped. I struggled a bit with matching the trunk color, which is a rich warm brown, with the branch color. I was sure I'd have a good brown yarn to match for wrapping the baling wire branches, but digging through my stash of yarns convinced me that I had a problem. I did come up with four close colors, and close counts in fiber art if they combine effectively. So the branches are wrapped with four different browns, and I find that the subtle color differences bring out elements of the trunk and earth. The remaining parts of the weaving, such as the green foliage and the dimensional crocheted background, are in place. Next week the Tree Woman will emerge!

I also had a great time this week at the Indiana Recycling Coalition's annual conference at the Bloomington Convention Center. Marilyn Brackney put together a show of recycled art to go along with it, and I'm grateful to her for all the work she did in bringing the show together. I know firsthand what a chore it is to orchestrate an event involving artists. I met a lot of interesting people from all over Indiana, including the fellow who runs the company that makes the baling wire I often use for structural support in my needle felting creations that reside in my weavings. You can bet I'll pay him a visit to collect more scraps! I sold one piece to Therese from Valparaiso (The Offering–see the March 21st and 28th posts). They're big on composting, and I know the piece will have a good home. That makes me feel good. It was also fun to hang a show with my friend Cappi Phillips, who's always a stitch to hang out with. I did have to give her my angry face when she tried to use her big, rusty upholstery hooks that would have ripped big holes in my nice new fabric display panels. Grrrr--rufff! I loaned her some of my shiny thin hooks and peace was restored.

This week Franklin Indiana hosted the Fiber Art Fair. Last year the severe flooding in central Indiana literally washed it out, but this year I made it back to pick up supplies. I dropped the boys off at the summer art camp at the John Waldron Arts Center, picked up a wallet full of cash from the HoA (husband of Artist), and got his agreement to pick up the boys at four. I headed for Franklin and didn't look back! I found beautiful Mohair, dyed to vibrant purple, deep sea blue and electric lime colors. The intensity of the colors is amazing. I also snagged some nice rayon dyed purple from Robin Edmunsen. I have a great idea for that as part of a wet-felting project I want to do this fall to make another scarf. I was also shocked to see how much her girls have grown up–they were off demonstrating spinning (one-dimensional weaving) while Robin was teaching a workshop. Time flies when you work with fiber, I guess.

Until next week…

Felted Hearts

I’ve always liked a challenge. When the Bloomington Area Arts Council assembled ‘Small’, showing pieces of less than a square foot, I had to try. As you likely know, most of my pieces are three-dimensional wall hangings, but in the last two years I started making Christmas ornaments. I’ve also made a number of needle felted-creatures to live in my weavings so I set out to try something new and make small pieces. The theme was ‘Shhh… the trees are sleeping’, and I tried to imagine what trees were thinking in the long winter months. The frames and the background are needle-felted and the trees that emerge are wool wrapped around flexible copper wire from the Recycle Center. The show is up at the Bloomington Bagel Company through January if you’d like to see the collection on display.

This week a new challenge crept onto my schedule. Gladys Newsom, an art teacher at University Elementary School, contacted me and asked me about teaching a felting workshop at the end of January for the District 5 art teachers. I met Gladys at a recycled materials weaving workshop I taught at the Teacher’s Warehouse in Bloomington and I was eager to help. As a theme she suggested making hearts, with Valentine’s Day coming up. My first response, though, could be best summarized as ‘eeyewww’. This sounded too cutesy and I started thinking about alternatives. Then the side of me that likes a challenge set in and I set off to try to make a nice heart.

Perhaps unsurprisingly I came up with idea of making a three dimensional heart. I started with two walnut-sized wet felted balls and joined them by needle felting with raw wool to create the heart shapes. I coated these with bright red and very soft Merino wool from Sheep Street in Morgantown. I embellished my hearts with scroll patterns, swirls and polka dots and I was pleased with how they turned out! I scanned one to post that gives you an idea of what they look like.

Until next week…