Martina Celerin is a Bloomington Indiana resident with a long and unusual path to her current art career. She was born in Prague, Czech Republic, and immigrated to Canada as a young girl. After earning a doctoral degree in plant sciences from the University of Western Ontario, she accepted a postdoctoral position in the Biology Department at Indiana University. During that time she met and married her husband, and together they have two delightful boys, Tommie and Jacob. In 2002 she decided to transition from science back to her roots as an artist. In the past she focused on oil pastels and acrylic painting. Work with oil pastels forced her to focus on visual mixing of colors, and their interactions when they are applied proximally compared to when they are physically distant. Acrylic painting allowed for quick mixing of colors both before and after applying it to the canvas, but, as with oil pastels, she became dissatisfied with the flatness of the art. Martina began gluing found objects onto the canvas and then painting over them. Eventually she realized that she needed to create her canvas. Weaving allows her to incorporate objects, textures and shapes, as well as colors and coarsenesses into the canvas. Martina’s art studio is filled with a plethora of odds and ends, new and old. She has yarns of all weights, colors and descriptions, jars of crinoid fossils, shells, weathered rocks and driftwood from local lakes. These sit beside dozens of containers of beads and discarded jewelry, strips of leather, hemp baskets undone, wires disentangled, and yards of lace—bits and pieces of everyday life, waiting to create a specific effect in a weaving. Martina’s inspiration is drawn from both nature and her imagination; some pieces are scenes taken from family walks or borrowed photographs. Others are much more abstract, capturing an idea, a personality or simply reflect the feelings evoked by an event or geographical area. All of the pieces, though, are true weavings, integrating the materials, landscapes or emotions she’s drawn from her travels and experiences..
