Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog

We are going back in time now to June of 2008.  It’s this time…last year.  The Ohio River had just gone through a cycle of high water and there was lots of junk everywhere.  If one can be inspired by plastic containers and Styrofoam what would you make? 

Here’s one potential response…make the world a “Jug Man”.  This was one of the larger figures I made that year.  Just a little shorter than me, still the body was a large hunk of polystyrene foam.  Talking with other river folk, there is agreement that these larger pieces are broken away from temporary boat docks.  I found all the colorful plastic containers in the immediate area of where this figure was constructed.  The big news going on in the world at this time was the rising cost of gasoline and how everybody was freaking out over it.  We knew it was “bound to happen” sometime soon didn’t we?  This is the figure during Phase I.

I came back a few days later and discovered that “Jug Man” had either fallen over or was knocked over.  I noticed that the shoe prints in the sand didn’t match my own.  Since all the pieces were there, I decided to move the sculpture to another location closer to the river.

I’m guessing that the wooden structure was part of some train trestle, anyway it was left here by the river and I liked its form.  It had a nice way of defining a space that seemed particularly sculptural and graphic enough for a photographic image.  I carried the body of  “Jug Man” across the sand and moved the plastic containers with it.  The yellow barge rope was an added bonus of this site.  I set everything up and walked away…Phase II

A few more days passed and I returned to see if “Jug Man” was still standing.  He was there, but a bit battered.  Granted he wasn’t the most handsome guy, but he was jaunty in his own way.  The clown-like bingo dauber nose was snapped off, an eye was missing, the smile on his face and his blue vest were missing.

As long as most of him was here, I was committed to setting him back up.  I found another fishing bobber as a replacement eye, but the blue vest was gone for good.  The next images are of the last shots I have of him.

Phase III was relatively short lived.  Eventually, everything including the wooden structure was reclaimed by the river.  From beginning to end, the whole process took nine days.  Here’s one last look of last year’s gas-crisis messenger as he faces the river music…gone but not forgottan.