Welcome to winter…

I see that there’s a sprinkling of snow on the ground over a layer of ice, with little green salt crystals on the road.  Must be winter in Indiana!  We’ve had two nights of freezing rain and entirely unsafe driving, so I spent yesterday inside.  With Christmas only a week away now, the household has been a beehive of activity, even as my art making has been a bit sporadic.  Christmas to me means family—getting ready for visitors and planning holiday foods and activities. Even the weaving I’m currently working on will feature a pond with a willow, which is very special to me because of all of its family connections.  Grandpa was connected to the giant willows in his backyard, and the Czechs have a long history with the willow.  We talk to the willow when we have problems, and those long draping branches just seem magical.  Whenever I have some time, I work a little on my willow piece. 

Even as I focus my activities on the holiday season my art has been on the move.  I have had several exhibits come up and go down since I last wrote.  Currently I have my ‘Nature to Nurture’ show hanging at the Bloomington Bagel Company on the east side of town (in the Shoppes) and a display of my vegetable and fruit felted tiles at By Hand Gallery.  While I haven’t been weaving much, I have filled my creative needs in other ways.  One of my favorite things to do with the boys near Christmas is to bake cookies.  This year we baked eleven different varieties. 

We made several old favorites, including Linecke kolacky, snowballs, Tommie’s spicy chocolate diablos, and frosted lemon cookies.  This year Jacob introduced his ‘party on a stick’ cookie balls and pecan chocolate half moons.  The cookies are wonderful to share, but Christmas at our house would not be complete without Stollen on Christmas morning, at least according to Grandma.  Last year I finally finished off the candied peel that I made years ago, so this week I bought diverse citrus fruits to harvest peel and candy for Stollen this season and over the next few years.  Add into that decorating the house and trimming the Christmas tree and you’ve got a pretty full mix of activities! 

The last big news of the season was the announcement of the musical to be put on by Sounds of South next fall—Hello Dolly.  I’ve already been collecting pre-costumes, i.e. clothing from the Recycle Center, Opportunity House, Cat’s Meow, My Sister’s Closet, the Bloomington Thrift Shop and Goodwill.  I chose the colors for the chorus to be watermelon and lemon (think fuscia, emerald green, light green and a pure yellow, with black and white neutral colors).  I should have about seventy kids to dress in Victorian garb, in the style of 1885.  I’ve been watching Youtube videos to educate myself on the difference between late the Victorian and early Edwardian periods. I’m excited about making big bustles and using lots and lots of feathers and flowers.

  My travel calendar is also starting to fill up for next year, featuring workshops, talks and trunk shows.  I’ll provide more information as the events come closer.  It looks like 2017 is going to be great year—but not until I enjoy holidays!  I’m thinking that something is missing here, though.  Wait—there wasn’t a single pie over the past month!  Surely the planning for a Christmas or birthday pie is in the works. 

Until next week

Martina Celerin

The holiday season is upon us!

Last week included Thanksgiving, which means travel to Michigan to visit Grandma and her kitties.  I came really close to finishing my latest commission piece just before we left, which made me eager to get back at it when we returned.  I’m delighted to report that the weeping willow is now fully leafed out, finished, and en route to it’s new home.  I love the way the branches drape from the tree.  I see an elegance that reminds me of Rapunzel’s hair.  To finalize the piece I added a special bench with an unusual feature—it gives the patron’s initials and anniversary date carved into one of the bench slats. 

The piece is a gift to commemorate their anniversary, so I wanted it to be special.  I did some practice carving and staining to get it right.  I think I came up with a technique that yields writing that is at once legible and cryptic.  You have to know what you’re looking for to recognize the detail.  The piece is finally complete and I’m delighted with how it turned out. 

Since you asked about Re-Shirts, the number of the week is 32!  That’s how many new shirts I’ve made for the Unitarian Universalist art fair.  I probably could have assembled a few more but I ran out of black bias tape.  I finished snipping off all the little strings and my friend Ruth came through on her generous offer to come by and iron the shirts in advance of the fair.  It’s the last art fair of my holiday season before I burrow into my studio to create pieces for the 2014 summer art fair season.  Next week I will also re-stock my local venues, such as The Gathering, which has Re-Shirts and Lion scarves for sale in the holiday season, and By Hand Gallery, Wonderlab, and BloomingfoodsEast, which have felted scarves, sweater petals and cards.  The all make nice holiday gifts!

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we had a delightful visit to Michigan for the holiday.  We visited with Grandma, Lois and family friends the Gibsons and Ms. Millie.  We ate and laughed a lot and just generally hung out.  I’m never good at just sitting still so I did manage to make a nice big bowl of leaf clumps out of the yarn that I dyed last month.  I also came up with an idea for a new piece.  It was inspired by a comment from my patron that I sent the last piece to (Tap Water).  

 She said something about a fruit piece and I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be fun to do a fruit plate similar to my ‘Summer Salad’ piece. In my new vision I want to create clumps of color where similar vegetables are arranged thereby making almost color blocks on the canvas.  I’ve started thinking about and creating lemon slices, orange slices, kiwi slices, blueberries, cherries, apple chunks and watermelon triangles.  

 I’ve already made the lemon slice discs and attached yellow fleece, dyed with turmeric to create the outer edge of the lemon rind.  I’m looking forward to delving into my dandelion-dyed fleece to use as the lemon meat.  I think it will be a fun piece, but don’t ask about cantaloupes because I'm allergic to them. 

Oh, and I did get two small slices of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.  It was good, but not enough.  The pie fairy is going to have to hurry to get one in before we get to the special raspberry pie scheduled for Christmas!  Go pie fairy, go!

Until next week,

Martina Celerin