Heading for Cincinnati

My focus this week was on preparing for a three-day workshop I’m giving in Cincinnati, Ohio. Plus I’m giving a talk the evening I arrive. I’m very excited about the whole prospect as I busily prepare to make it as intense and fulfilling as I’ve envisioned. I have an outline set for the three days that has helped guide me in the preparations. In the past I’ve made cardboard looms with bamboo skewers in the top, but because this is going to be so intense I decided to make a class set of wooden loom with nails to hold the warp for each participant. Tommie has been nailing looms to earn a little extra cash and I’ve done the rest. I’ll bring a set of cardboard looms just in case, though. I spent a little time making a full set of shuttles and batons out of yardsticks that I made into footsticks and cut into the appropriate shapes. You might think it was a lot of work, but I got to use a new belt sander from Grandpa’s garage so I had fun. Thanks Grandpa! You know I love power tools.

In between writing grants and reports this week I’ve also been making felted balls for the inside of ornaments. To do this I consumed my entire bag of wool scraps, including pieces of yarn, remnants of felted wool and cut-off pieces of knitted wool. I vowed that I was done with ornaments, but there is a person from Vincennes starting an art-gift shop over the holidays in the visitors center who asked me if I’d contribute some of my work. I’m always up for helping new arts adventures. I ended up agreeing to supply six ornaments and six scarves by the end of October. I’ve completed three ornaments so far… Basically I just keep plugging away as the boys do their Taekwondo or I just have some quiet time.

Speaking of the boys, they have had their own adventures this week. They started their clay class at the John Waldron arts center downtown. I just love the fact that they’re budding artists who use some of their free time to explore their own ideas and create their own pieces. Our house is just full of art, by the way. I’m also grateful to Ivy Tech and the city for bringing this all together and helping the Waldron prosper—it’s such an important community asset. In addition to Taekwondo, sparring and art projects, both at the Waldron and at home, they had a Yugioh tournament at our house on Sunday. It was a rainy weekend, which only deterred them a little from playing outside on Saturday. Badminton was the popular sport until it finally rained just a little too hard. Saturday morning we did get in a trip to the farmer’s market, which translated into the last raspberry pie of the season—yum! We got the last of the basil, some late corn and watermelons, and a big basket of peaches that are either eaten or frozen away as pie filling. They’ll make a delightful memory of summer on some bitter winter day. Or sooner if I can’t wait that long!

Our trip to the farmer’s market now has a new stop at Le Petit Café on the B-line trail for hot chocolate. It’s incredibly rich and dark, and it’s the perfect start-up for a cold morning at the market. All in all, it has been another wonderful and jam-packed week in Bloomington!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin

Baby Carrots Find a Home

My maternal instinct kicked in this week. I wanted to finish the background for the ‘Baby Carrots’ commissioned piece I’ve been working on so my little friends could have a home. Not only did I finish the weaving, I even stretched it out and stitched it on the frame. After the frantic scarf-making and shows over the last few weeks I decided this was just the right thing to do—get in my art studio and weave! Now I just need to create the carrot tops. The cold weather is upon us, and babies lose most of their heat through their heads, you know. Oh, and I also cleaned up the back of the weaving. That process always brings back warm memories for me. My grandmother always said that a piece of art should look as good from the back as it does from the front. I’ve kept that idea to myself for years. When I first started having my work photographed by Tom Bertolacini, though, I had to laugh out loud at his first effort. He actually photographed the back of one of my abstract pieces, thinking it was the front! In his defense he said that it looked good—how could I be upset?

The events from last weekend spilled over into this week in some unexpected and funny ways. At the Fiber Arts Show I met a delightful woman, originally from Argentina, who was very kind and complimentary toward my work. She asked me if I taught what I do, and I said I really didn’t. I basked in the glow of many similar kindnesses from last weekend as I prepared to do a long-planned workshop in Danville, Indiana. Anyway, I had a beautiful drive through rural Indiana along highway 39. Full disclosure—it isn’t much of a highway. It has wonderful switchbacks through southern Indiana limestone country and lots of cornfields farther north at the southern end of the glacier track. The towns were tiny and quaint and a lot of the barns were leaning to embrace mother earth. I was richly and repeatedly reminded that Bloomington, my little oasis, does not represent Indiana. When I arrived at the highschool in Danville I was greeted by an enthusiastic bunch of people, including—you guessed it—my new friend from Argentina. It turns out she’s a teacher at the school. We laughed and laughed, and I guess I was busted for saying I didn’t teach my craft. The group was delightful and we had fun creating needle felted ornaments. This was actually a repeat visit for me, and Tiffany (the organizer) and her friend (another workshop repeater) had created some truly beautiful patterns on their ornaments. I’m scheduled to go back in the spring to run yet another workshop on whimsical felted turtles. That should be a lot of fun!

This week some of my summer veggies showed their displeasure with being ignored over the summer. In the bottom of the crisper I found half a cabbage from July and couple of old squash that were starting to get a little moldy. I just handed the whole drawer to my husband Jim for a trip to the compost pile. I did feel a little badly about my best-laid (but failed) plans to cook with the squash into soup. To atone for my errant ways, I whipped up some ‘Lois soup’ using kale that came to me from a generous neighbor, Nicola. The soup is named after the boy’s fairy godmother, Lois Graham. She lives an active life of retirement, split between Cross Village Michigan and somewhere in southern Texas, depending on the season. Her soup (in my hands) has greens, black-eyed peas and veggie sausages, plus a little spice to warm it up. It’s tasty and the perfect cold-weather soup. We had some the night I made it, along with fresh focaccia. Yum! The timing was good, because the rosemary plant that lives on my kitchen counter needed a trim.

Now it’s time to get ready for Thanksgiving. I’m planning on doing a little sketching to get some fresh ideas down, and the boys are looking forward to getting some time off from school. The only dark moment from the week came in Jim’s Tae kwon do class Wednesday, when he separated his shoulder on an ill-timed fall. He kept on going until the X-rays Saturday showed what happened, and now he’s a little disappointed about having to cut back his activities for a while. He does look cute in the sling, though!

Until next week…

Martina Celerin